Last month, TrekCore was happy to share an exclusive look at production-era copies of “The Child” and “The Wounded“, featuring several minutes of scenes cut from the finished episodes – and today we’re continuing our exclusive workprint series with “The Bonding“, the Season Three episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation which brought writer Ronald D. Moore to the series!

The original VHS tapes, generously shared with TrekCore by Cyril “Patchou” Paciullo

This tape of “The Bonding” is dated September 15, 1989, and like the other VHS recordings in this series, it contains an early, unfinished copy of the episode, with missing visual effects, music, and voice-over audio.

Workprint vs. Finished Episode

In addition to several scenes featuring slightly different camera angles, this “Cut #4” also includes almost six minutes of additional scenes cut from the broadcast version of the episode! We’ve been provided a copy of the original VHS transfer, and we’re happy to share an exclusive cut-down package highlighting the six most prominent deleted scenes – in proper context with the finished episode – along with a scene-by-scene breakdown!

ACT ONE, SCENE 6 Our take: These two bits of dialogue set in sickbay only serve to slow down the pacing of the overall scene, and they add nothing to the narrative. Once removed, the sequence runs much more smoothly. ACT ONE, SCENE 12 Our take: “The Bonding” gives the impression that Jeremy doesn’t even know any other kids. This scene, had it remained, may have reduced some of the isolation depicted in Jeremy’s shipboard life, considering he only interacts with adults (and Wesley Crusher, briefly) in the final cut of the episode – which may have worked against the episode’s message. Removing Troi and Picard’s entrance into the classroom does fix one thing, though: it eliminates another emotionless scene with Gabriel Damon, playing Jeremy. Like us, Ron Moore wasn’t a fan of the actor – so it’s not too disappointing to see this bit cut out. Actor Raymond D. Turner plays Jeremy’s teacher in the Enterprise classroom; his appearance is completely removed from the broadcast version of the episode, along with all of the other children in Jeremy’s class. ACT TWO, SCENE 16 Our take: Aside from the alien impersonation of Marla Aster – based upon Jeremy’s memories – we have almost no idea what the real lieutenant was like; even Riker admits that he barely knew the officer. This sequence sheds light on just who the “ship’s archaeologist” was – her history, her motivations for joining Starfleet, and her interactions with Jeremy… it gives depth to a character that we only see through Jeremy’s home video recordings. It’s really too bad that this lengthy scene featuring Troi actually being a counselor had to be removed from the final cut of the episode. Running nearly three-and-a-half minutes long, it’s clear that it must have only been cut for time, because it’s one of the rare scenes we get to see Troi doing her job! It also gives us some new insight into what being half-human meant when growing up on Betazed. At this point in the series, we saw Deanna and her mother communicate telepathically several times, always with obvious resistance from the ship’s counselor – this piece of character background shows that it was a battle fought since childhood. ACT TWO, SCENE 18 Our take: As with the sickbay edits in the beginning of the episode, this introduction to the long Worf/Troi conversation set in the Enterprise computer access room just gets in the way. Removing it paves a much cleaner path to the important scene it precedes. ACT TWO, SCENE 22A Our take: Worf offers Jeremy the chance to “bring meaning to [his] mother’s death” at the end of this scene, which is a much more reasonable approach to take with the boy after they’ve had a chance to at least talk about the situation. This line’s removal gives a much more graceful presentation to Worf’s entrance. ACT THREE, SCENE 31A Our take: This part of the conversation between Jeremy and the Marla impersonator was simply a bit of continuity cleanup. Once the big Troi/Jeremy scene in Act Two was removed, the reference to the “broken terminal” doesn’t make sense – so this had to go.

Keep checking back with TrekCore, as we still several more Next Generation workprint analyses on the way – along with the next entry in our series looking back at TNG’s visual effects! We’re eager to hear your feedback about this newly-recovered footage cut from “The Bonding”, so tell us your thoughts in the comments below!