Interview: Jonathan Del Arco Talks “Borg Spin-Off” That Became ‘Star Trek: Picard’ And Hugh’s Surprise Death
Del Arco also talks about filming with Whoopi Goldberg for TNG's "I, Borg."
I'm starting to see a pattern in modern Trek here. We're used to seeing shows made by committee, but the rate that key creative people are being swapped out and their ideas corrupted as they're passed on is just disconcerting:
Alex Kurtzman, James Duff, and I believe maybe one other writer was involved at the time, and James really wanted it to be a Borg spin-off. […] But had Patrick not done it, some kind of show about the Borg would have happened. It would not have been Picard, it would have been a show about the Borg. […] And James left the show before they began filming. He had a creative differences and left, I think, weeks before I even began. I’d signed my contract, and the people that were left, I think, then made that decision [that Hugh was getting killed off] without my being told or even knowing about it through gossip.
Never mind that actors aren't told in advance what will happen to their characters, I get a feeling that writers make things up on the fly while actually shooting fairly serialised seasons. We see Bryan Fuller being removed from Disco while it's in preproduction, then Berg and Harberts being fired mid-season two.
As somebody who loved early Discovery and only hate watches the kitschy car crash of Strange new worlds, that sort of subtext gives me really bad vibes off the current Trek productions.
And who is left once the dust settles. Too often we see Akiva Goldsman getting pulled in to "save" shows and,for all his Academy Award winning "A beautiful mind" glory, he seems to mostly play fantasy football with Star Trek.
Goldsman's Star trek tributes were cutesy when he did them on Fringe, but now that he's a mover on the actual franchise, fucking up continuities of the TOS roster and every bit of canon about the Gorn? Not so much.
Here’s another take.
We know that everything was reshaped to flatter and entice Patrick Stewart to come back and play Picard.
He kept refusing and keep on insisting on Picard’s life should be a reflection of his own.
But the suits at ViacomCBS (and later Paramount) put priority on greenlighting anything they could get with Picard as a character.
So, whatever initial concepts with and without Picard were all sacrificed in the end in order to indulge Stewart enough to play the role.
Heh, I don't think I agree with either of these takes.
It seems to me like season 1 was very much Michael Chabon's vision - indeed, they've said in interviews that it didn't bear much resemblance to the original pitch that sold Stewart on the series.
I've always felt that Chabon had a lot of great ideas (and to be frank, I still think that first season is the best "Picard" season), but was perhaps too inexperienced to get those ideas implemented in a timely and affordable fashion.
Del Arco not being informed of Hugh's death is a bit of a non-issue, I think - the guy was a guest star, so it wouldn't be right to expect them to treat him like a principal cast member.
TFW trek fans see a scene they dont like
Ugh. Another sour bit of Picard trivia for the pile. Del Arco comes across as a decent fellow. I remember spending all season wondering where the hell this was all going and hoping his character's death -- in the full context -- would make more narrative sense. How blissfully naive I was. :P
It's crazy that the show I was most hyped for ended up being the one I'd erase from the timeline if I could. Visually gorgeous, with a great cast... but, IMHO, it was far too 'grimdark' for it's own good. That and it's shattershot kitchen-sink approach to storytelling makes it all feel like some fan fiction wet dream in retrospect. Anything positive I could take away from the series is almost completely lost in the noise.
(Keeping in mind that I keep S1/S2 distinct from S3, which while an improvement, has it's own things going on. 😏)
hoping his character’s death – in the full context – would make more narrative sense.
Chabon had some lovely and interesting things to say about self-sacrifice being the ultimate expression of the individuality Hugh spent his life working toward, but unfortunately I didn't think any of that came through in the final product.