The 1991 TV series that wrote a role for Robin Williams and didn’t even cast him in it: “He wanted to be on the show”
Not to state the obvious, but surely the entire point of writing a part specifically for an actor to play is to have them play that part? It’s not the sort of thing you should leave to the fates to decide, especially when it robs your TV show of a Robin Williams appearance.
As one of the most in-demand actors of his generation, Williams’ time was supremely limited. He bounced from one role to the next, often appearing in multiple movies in the same year, so trying to tie him down for anything, whether it was film or television, wasn’t the easiest thing in the world.
On the other hand, if he was a fan of a TV series, there was always a chance he could pop up. He didn’t get that chance with The X-Files, which was one of his favourites, so he did the next best thing and crashed the set to see what misadventures Mulder and Scully had found themselves caught up in.
Williams did find the space to make one-shot appearances in Homicide: Life on the Street, Friends, LA Doctors, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and even SpongeBob SquarePants, though, so he had a habit of finding the time in the midst of a busy big-screen shooting schedule to bring his talents to TV.
However, the stars didn’t align for Star Trek: The Next Generation. Williams had been a fan of Gene Rodenberry’s sci-fi saga since the beginning, and when word of his admiration for exploring strange new worlds reached writer and executive producer Rick Berman, he penned a whole episode for him.
‘A Matter of Time’, the ninth episode of the fifth season, aired in November 1991, follows the Enterprise crew as they try to save a planet from impending annihilation via asteroid. Along the way, they encounter Berlinghoff Rasmussen, a self-proclaimed time traveller whose inquisitive nature arouses suspicion.
Robert Duncan McNeill, who played Tom Paris in The Next Generation, had a memorable encounter with Williams when he swung by the set one day. “Robin came by, and he loved the show,” the actor recalled. “He was like, ‘Oh, I loved your show’. He really knew the show. Robin Williams was a fan, and I remember him expressing that he wanted to be on the show.”
He did, and that’s why ‘A Matter of Time’ was penned, to give the legendary stand-up and Academy Award-winning performer the chance to indulge a long-held dream and play a major role on a Star Trek show. Unfortunately, those dreaded scheduling conflicts reared their head and he couldn’t commit.
The episode was filmed over ten days between September and October of 1991, and with Williams having only wrapped Steven Spielberg’s Hook in August, Barry Levinson’s Toys beginning in February 1992, FernGully and Aladdin committing him to the recording booth, and his wife eight months pregnant with their son, Cody, he couldn’t squeeze it in, with Matt Frewer stepping in as Rasmussen instead.
