Movies - TV
Famke Janssen’s Star Trek Episode Had Three Never-Seen Alternate Endings
By WITNEY SEIBOLD
In the "Star Trek: TNG" episode "The Perfect Mate," the crew is transporting a Kriosian ambassador (Tim O'Conner) to an arranged peace ceremony with a species called the Valtians.
As a peace offering, the Kriosians are bringing a mysterious pod. It's revealed that Kamala (Famke Janssen) is inside, part of an arranged marriage with a Valtian ambassador.
In the book "Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages," writer Michael Piller shared that the episode had four endings, two of which were shot.
Executive producer Rick Berman said it was an episode that "went through a lot of changes with a lot of heated discussions" and many things could have happened.
In the final cut, Picard merely watches in wistfulness as Kamala, a woman he knows is in love with him, leaves his side to marry an ambassador for the sake of interplanetary peace.
Piller recalled that everyone except Patrick Stewart and him hated the original ending. Piller wanted Picard to stop the wedding and say he wanted Kamala to stay with him.
When that idea was shot down, Piller wrote a fantasy ending in which Picard only imagines stopping the wedding. The last option ended tragically for Picard but not for Kamala.
Piller suggested that in the end, Kamala tells both men she isn't staying for either of them and leaves to go off on her own adventure without them. "I was overruled," he added.