Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Lal"
I wrote “Lal” for Brent Spiner as a one month old writer. Can order teleplay “Lal” from amazon.com for $2.99 on Kindle. Audio book will be available at my Patreon page. But I have fine tuned it somewhat over the years. I had a fellow ST:TNG fan critique it and told them to rip it apart, to help me as a new writer. They did GREAT and helped me as a new writer to write something that seemed like the work of a more experienced writer. Visit my writer page to hear the soundtrack I created to go with this audio book.
Check out the soundtrack for “Lal” at https://gabriellechana.blog/2017/04/01/1992-lal-star-trek-the-next-generation-teleplay/
The character Lal comes from “The Offspring” (may need to view this at the rediff.com site away from this website to see it all). “Lal” is a sequel to the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode called “The Offspring”, which aired for the first time on March 12, 1990. Star Trek: The Next Generation fans have considered “The Offspring” and “The Measure of a Man” to be among the top ten Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes. http://www.denofgeek.com/tv/star-trek/38697/star-trek-the-next-generation-s-25-must-watch-episodes
I have to admit that reading the teleplay is not too exciting, but I know if I perform it, I can make this teleplay COME ALIVE and can show I did a respectable job on this teleplay! I think if it was produced, Brent Spiner’s performance would have made it one of the most popular Star Trek episodes. I will try to replicate that performance in my audio book to show the fans what they were missing by NOT being able to see this episode produced! I am turning into a respectable voice actor.
My teleplay is a sequel to both “The Measure of a Man” and “The Offspring” and even a bit to “The Drumhead” (another very highly rated episode with fans). I personally think that Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Measure of a Man” was their best episode in terms of writing. I would not say that my teleplay “Lal” measures up to “The Measure of a Man” in the writing department, but I wrote it to give Brent Spiner a means to land an Emmy, and if I do an audio book of that episode and pull off the acting like I wanted Brent to pull it off, you may see that this would have made a riveting episode. As far as writing quality, it is somewhat lacking in originality (in my opinion), BUT making Lore insane is somewhat original for an android. Also, portraying Data as a Jesus Christ type of character, is an interesting take on Data. Those who have criticized this story accuse it of being a Mary Sue type of story, because I always found the Data character attractive because of his innocence, which is a trait he still had in the third and fourth seasons when I wrote the script. The writers took him in a more jaded direction, and, in my opinion, made the character a lot less interesting! As a character story, it is very good. Character stories are good means to help actors showcase their talents, which is why I made it a character story (a story about a character unhappy in his current role and seeking a new one). I think if this was produced, it would have been a hit with the fans and the Jesuits at Paramount KNEW THIS and absolutely could not allow this to happen as their goal was to destroy my long distance relationship with Brent at the time.
I will make a playlist of my Star Trek teleplay “Lal” as I work on it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3luTJGAa9sM&list=PLpPlAPvPFCLHM6wnCieAgEA4Ogjiznst4
To view it in its totality, you will have to visit my Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/GailChordSchuler. Plan on working on Part One today.
Brent had stated at a Star Trek convention that he’d like to bring the Lal character back, so I tried to do this for him. Unfortunately, due to Jesuit obsession over Brent’s love for me, and Jesuit takeover of Paramount Studios around 1992, this submission to Paramount went nowhere.
I still feel that around 1992 this would have made a great episode. Data went in a darker direction after 1992, and lost a lot of the innocence that I felt made him such an attractive character to me up until 1992. I capture in this teleplay the Data I loved from Melinda Snodgrass’s episode called “Pen Pals”. I believe that Melinda Snodgrass was the best writer Star Trek had.
Unfortunately, once Brent fell in love with me, Paramount Studios was so focused on destroying his love for me, they didn’t mind losing great writers and compromising writing quality in Star Trek episodes after 1992. I realized at the time I wrote this, that my technical details may be slightly off, but the Star Trek writers told their spec script writers (like me) to mainly focus on writing character stories, which I did, and to not be obsessed with the technical details–that if they got a great story, they could fix up the technical aspects.
