While Gene Roddenberry would not have approved of interpersonal conflicts and romances among the Starfleet crew, Star Trek: The Next Generation and its subsequent films did have these ideas and plots. Apart from Jonathan Frakes’ William Riker and Deanna Troi sparking a romance, Patrick Stewart and Beverley Crusher too were often implied to have feelings.
However, Stewart seemed to have one issue with romance on screen, as three of his kiss scenes were cut. One of the most disappointing cuts reportedly occurred in the film Star Trek: Insurrection, causing actress Donna Murphy to be annoyed at the deletion.
Patrick Stewart’s Kiss Scene From Star Trek Film Being Cut Annoyed His Co-Star
Despite being the pinnacle of diplomacy and discipline, Patrick Stewart’s Captain Jean-Luc Picard was but a human with feelings, and he has been shipped with multiple people in Star Trek: The Next Generation. While Dr. Beverley Crusher seemed to be the One for the captain, he still courted multiple other characters.
However, Stewart’s kiss scenes seemed to be cut from the films featuring the TNG cast. One scene in particular reportedly irked actress Donna Murphy, who played Anij, the Ba’ku female in Star Trek: Insurrection. Two kiss scenes from the film were cut, annoying Murphy who mentioned that some performance decisions were made with those scenes in mind.
Murphy reportedly felt extremely connected to the kiss as the scene involved a long-fantasy sequence which ended in the two becoming intimate. She said in the book The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years (via Looper),
It was more kind of a sensual exploration, a heightened sensory response to different ways of touching each other, and that led into this kiss… I initially had a negative response to that, because you shape performance by thinking that there are certain pieces of the puzzle that are a given, and if you take those pieces out you might have chosen to shape the performance differently if you knew that those pieces were not going to be there.
Patrick Stewart too reportedly mentioned that he was irritated by the deletion and said that the crew likely had an issue with his kissing sequences. However, producer Rick Berman cited pacing issues for the scene to be cut.
Captain Picard’s Romance From Star Trek: The Next Generation Returned In Picard
While Patrick Stewart’s kiss with Donna Murphy did not make the cut, his on-and-off romance finally had a happy ending in Star Trek: Picard. One of the most shipped romances in The Next Generation was Captain Picard and Dr. Beverley Crusher. Though they never got together in TNG, they reportedly, after the events, even had a child.
The two even share their feelings and a kiss in the TNG episode ‘Attached’. Actress Gates McFadden, who played Dr. Crusher, mentioned that the episode might have led to them giving up on the relationship as they became clearer on what they wanted. She told Variety,
I think if we hadn’t had the episode ‘Attached’ I would have had more of a problem [with Picard’s events]. We had this episode where we were totally connected with each other’s deepest thoughts. I feel that’s why they basically broke up, or it never really went anywhere. Because she didn’t want this on-and-off relationship; she wanted a family. And he very clearly from the deepest instincts did not.
The actress mentioned that she was also disappointed with how her character and their romance were ignored in the four films with the TNG cast.
Star Trek: Insurrection is available to stream on Paramount+.
