Famke Janssen’s Star Trek Episode Had Three Alternate Endings Fans Never Got To See

Executive producer Rick Berman chimed in to say that “The Perfect Mate” was a great episode, but it was “an episode which, during the final stages of writing by Michael, went through a lot of changes with a lot of heated discussions that went on, and a lot of different things that could have happened to this woman.” In the final ending, 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 the original ending was hated by just about everyone except him and Patrick Stewart. As Piller described it:

“I felt at the end of the show Picard has to deliver this woman into the hands of her arranged mate. By this time in the picture, he has become very close to her and I wanted to do an ending which, in fact, had three endings. I wanted to do an ending where he stopped the ceremony and said, ‘No, she’s staying with me.’ The way that it was written was [Ferengi] Par Lenor [played by Max Grodénchik] delivers her, Picard cringes as she kisses this man she doesn’t love.”

When that ending was shot down, Piller wrote a “fantasy” ending wherein Picard only imagines himself stopping the wedding. Piller recalled:

“The second ending was he interrupts and says, I’m sorry, I can’t allow this to continue,’ and so while they were walking down the aisle and it seems each time it’s the end of the show, we in fact cut back to them walking down the aisle so it’s continuing and we understand these are things happening in Picard’s mind.”

That ending feels noncommittal. I like the first better with its grimmer sexual politics.