“Script Treatment” • by Bruce Bethke

FAX TRANSMITTAL

TO: Gene Roddenberry, Paramount Studios

FROM: Bruce Bethke, Auteurs Sans Fierté

DATE: 12 October 1988

RE: ST:TNG Season 3 Script Treatment

WORKING TITLE:

“Wesley Crusher Returns Again for the Last Time, No Kidding!”

Okay Gene, here’s the outline. Returning from a mission dirtside, the Away Team discovers that a freak malfunction of the transporter contrast control has turned them all black. Picard retires to the executive conference room (I understand we’re contractually obligated to use the conference room set for at least five minutes in each show, right?), opens the executive safe, and reads the Enterprise warranty, only to discover that the transporter is covered by a carry-in service contract and the nearest XEROX service center is 200 light-years away.

Troi gets a “bad feeling” about this.

In the meantime, Wesley, bored out of his mind now that he no longer gets to save the ship each week, programs the holodeck to simulate the Enterprise. He enters the holodeck and goes down to the holographic holodeck, where he meets a holographic simulation of himself. Together the two of them program the simulated holodeck to simulate the Enterprise, whereupon they enter the simulated simulation, go down to the holographic holograph of the holodeck, and meet Wesleys #3 and #4…

Troi feels “confused.”

Ryker barricades himself in the lunchroom and demands that the replicators be reprogrammed to produce soul food, so that he can prove how macho he is by eating chitlins and collard greens. Data desperately and unsuccessfully attempts to learn to break dance to Michael Jackson, there apparently being no developments in popular culture after the end of the 20th Century. Geordi, watching Data, laughs himself comatose. The ship’s chief medical officer “has never seen anything like it before.” (Seriously, where does Star Fleet keep finding these ignorant medical officers, anyway? Draftees? Med school “C” students doing a hitch in Star Fleet to pay off their student loans?)

Troi feel “nauseous.” (Not nauseated, nauseous. There is a difference. Look it up.)

Suddenly, the Enterprise is stricken by a massive power outage caused by Wesley’s recursive adventures on the holodeck! The ship comes to a screaming stop in mid-space (obviously Newton’s Laws have been repealed by the 23rd Century) just as the Tholians, Malcots, and Gorns join forces with an ancient pre-warp-drive Romulan battle fleet that’s still alive due to relativistic time dilation! Picard, after being reminded by Worf that Romulans never take prisoners unless it’s essential to the story line, realizes he must restore power to the phaser banks and start shooting things if he is to save the series! But Geordi is still unconscious, and the rest of the engineering officers have been spirited away by an assortment of omnipotent alien life entities! Decisively taking action, Picard boldly calls an emergency meeting in the executive conference room, and all the senior staff members leave the actual running of the ship to the redshirts while they assertively discuss options right up until the commercial break.

Troi is feeling, “Not bad. How are you?”

At last, Picard realizes there is no alternative except direct action. Setting the transporter controls for both “duplicate” and “enlarge 125%,” he beams a few dozen Worfs directly onto the holodeck, with orders to kill all the Wesleys they can find. There follows a cheerful slaughter of Wesleys…

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So whadaya think, Gene? Have we got a deal? Fax me your okay tonight and we can have a shooting script banged out by Wednesday. My best to Majel.

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Bruce Bethke adds: It is perhaps worth noting that I wrote this piece during the second season of ST:TNG and actually sold it to a pro magazine, which actually paid me cash money for it, before someone in the magazine’s upper management decided (probably wisely) that the value of running this piece was peanuts compared to the possibility of offending either Paramount or Pocket Books, both of whom bought a lot of ad space in that magazine. The piece was spiked, but I received a kill fee. This therefore became the first time I was paid more not to publish something than to publish it. It’s nice work, if you can get it.

Over the years I’ve written a lot of these weird little metafictional pieces, some of which were published in various venues while others ended up just laying around here, cluttering up the place. If you’d like to see more like this one, let me know. 

P.S. “Auteurs Sans Fierté” is French for “Authors Without Pride.” ASF is the imaginary Hollywood agency to which I attributed a lot of these ghastly little things; for example, The Towering Poseidon Adventure and Snakes and Ladders: The Movie. ASF has been dormant for a few years, but lately I’ve been feeling the itch to reactivate it.