Star Trek: TNG's Identity Crisis Started As A Fan-Submitted Mess Of A Script

In the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "Identity Crisis" (March 25, 1991), Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) discovers from an old friend named Lieutenant Commander Susanna Leijten (Maryann Plunkett) that they are the only two people still alive and accounted for from a mysterious away mission on the planet Tarchannen III, conducted years before. The other members of the team have all mysteriously fled to Tarchannen III — sometimes stealing shuttlecrafts to do so — and vanished without a trace. It won't be long before Leijten begins exhibiting strange, nervous symptoms of an unknown disease, causing her to become fearful and twitchy. She, too, it seems, is being irresistibly drawn back to Tarchannan III. Is Geordi next? Not to spoil anything, but yes he is.

It's eventually revealed that an undetectable spore on Tarchannen III infected the members of Geordi's old away mission, causing them to mutate. It seems the spores are a reproductive element of the local species that merely transforms other life forms into itself. Geordi mutates into a semi-invisible creature with yellow cat eyes, unusual hands and feet, a strange alien nose, and glowing blue veins all over his body.

"Identity Crisis" began its life as a spec script submitted to Paramount by a fan named Tim de Haas. In the 1990s, "Star Trek" had an open-door policy when it came to scripts and would accept submissions from anyone. If used, the fan scripts were often heavily reworked to match the proper "Next Generation" parameters, but the original authors always got a "story by" credit. In the oral history book "Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages," edited by Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross, producer Michael Piller recalled the original script for "Identity Crisis" was a total mess that required extensive tinkering.

It seems that de Haas' original script contained the base idea for "Identity Crisis" — Enterprise crew members slowly mutating into another species — but that the structure was wildly different. Brannon Braga was credited as the episode's writer, and he excised a subplot about Geordi and Leijten having a stalled romance. Braga removed the romantic subplot when he realized how many stalled romances Geordi had already gone through.

According to Piller, Geordi wasn't even the original protagonist. De Haas' had envisioned the mutations happening to several entirely new characters. Piller clearly liked de Haas' ideas but needed to re-shape the teleplay into something more in-keeping with the traditional style of the show. Piller explained:

"It was a very tough script to solve. [...] The script was originally bought as a spec script submitted by a fan, It was very heavy on point of view and [contained] stylistic devices we didn't want to do. The original script had two non-'Star Trek' characters going through what Geordi and [Leijten] eventually went through. It was a very complicated, complex production that the director did a terrific job on. It had scenes within scenes and I was very happy with the show."

The "scenes within scenes" refers to a sequence wherein Geordi recreates an old video log on the holodeck, allowing him to interact with a holographic version of his slightly younger self.

When Braga re-wrote de Haas' script, he also made the story way darker, implying that the mutating aliens had taken over more human bodies than previously assumed. Braga rethought that idea and turned in a final draft with only a few mutating aliens. He also finally made Geordi the protagonist of the story. "Those guys in production can really turn out a helluva product," Piller added.