Shades of Gray

This Story: Season 2 Episode 22 (production code 148)
TNG Overall: Episode 48
Trek Overall: Story 148, Episode 150
Airdate: 17 Jul 1989
Written by Maurice Hurley, Richard Hamming, & Hans Beimler
Directed by Rob Bowman

Notes

• The first (and last) full on clip show done in Star Trek.
• The working title for this episode was “Riker’s Brain”, a nod to the TOS episode “Spock’s Brain“.
• The last episode for Diana Muldaur’s Katherine Pulaski.  After this episode she is never seen again, nor even mentioned once (if memory serves).
• Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar), Gates McFadden (Dr Crusher), & Whoopi Goldberg (Guinan) all appear via archive footage.  Goldberg was the only current cast member at the time, but did not film any new scenes.  Likewise Worf & Wesley do not appear in newly filmed footage, only in the clips used.
• The total number of other episodes that clips were pulled from was 17.  A brief clip of project Genesis from “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” was also used.
• The last episode to use the original title sequence from Farpoint.  It’s modified slightly in the forthcoming third season.
• This episode is widely believed to be if not THE worst, awfully close to the worst episode TNG (or possibly any version of Trek) ever did.  Even the writer (Maurice Hurley) called it “a piece of shit”.

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