Star Trek: The next generation changed character because of the actor’s race

By Chris Snellgrove
| Announce 19 seconds ago

The topic of changing character race is very controversial among genre fans. For example, many Harry Potter fans in a fully blown wizard in the news that a black actor (Paapa Essiedu) could play Professor Snape (a character originally portrayed on screen by Alan Rickman) at the upcoming Harry Potter TV show. It is easy to think about this as a modern phenomenon, but changing characters due to racial concerns goes back to the golden age of a television. Point case: producers of the Star Trek: Next Generation The “Booby Trap” chapter changed the character of Navid Daystrom to Leah Brahms because the actor was white.

Navid Daystrom came in Leah Brahms

If you are a big TNG fan, then Leah Brahms doesn’t need much presentation. She is the core genius that Geordi La Forge begins to fall for after re -creation on the Holodeck, and when they later meet in a meat space, poor Geordi comes across as the greatest Incel in the Cosmos. However, what most fans do not know is that Brahms’ character was originally conceived as Navid Daystrom, one of the descendants of the black character Doctor Richard Daystrom, but these plans had to be changed because the show had already cast actor Gwyn Susan Gibney for the part.

In order for you to fully understand this we will have to maintain a brief Trek Star History Lesson: In The original series Episode “The Ultimate Computer,” we are introduced to Doctor Richard Daystrom, who uses the initiative to test its fully automated M-5 multitronic system. Because this was’ 60s sci-fiNevertheless, the new computer that can run the ship on its own finishes taking over the ship and even destroyed several Starfleet ships in the area for war games. Kirk saves the day, but not before we find out that this play caused by Daytrom puts human engrams in the circuit boards of its shiny new toy.

The appearance of one and the only Doctor Daystrom in Tos was a neurotic and short -sighted man whose technological shortcuts received dozens of Starfleet personnel killed. Despite this, however, a prestigious Daystrom organization was named after him, probably because of his earlier work on duotronic computers and not all or crazy. And the Tng Producers originally wanted to confirm their new spinoff connection to the earlier show by including a holographic version of Navid Daystrom, a descendant of Richard Daystrom, at “Booby Trap.”

It’s a good idea on paper. Star Trek fans were generally happy with the different ways TNG linked to TOS, which eventually included Cameos by Dr. McCoy, Pigand Scotty. Therefore, “Booby Trap” writers felt that having a new genius engineer character was one of the descendants of the once and for all of Kirk’s age creating a fun Easter egg. Unfortunately, the Department did not cast clocking the connection to the original episode, so they did not realize that having Navid Daystrom as a descendant of Richard Daystrom would mean casting a black actor.

They had already cast actor white Susan Gibney in the role, so “Navid Daystrom” became Leah Brahms. Fortunately, the show retained its connection to the TOS character by making Brahms himself graduated at the Daystrom Foundation. She never created a murderer or anything but she make Transforming the loving Geordi La Forge into one of the eerie men in the galaxy for a couple of chapters.

Unfortunately, Brahms never introduced a technology toolkit after Geordi broke so much. If so, they may have asked her a very useful question: “Have you tried to turn off your inkel off and then back on?”