happened aboard Gomtuu. When Data discusses the events with Troi, Data comes to realize that like Elbrun with Gomtuu, the Enterprise is where he belongs. Production "Tin Man" was based on a 1976 short story Tin Woodman by Dennis Russell Bailey and David Bischoff, which had been originally published in Amazing Science Fiction Stories and later expanded into a novel in 1979. The short story had been nominated for a Nebula Award in 1977. The name of the story and of the episode were both references to the Tin Woodman from L. Frank Baum's Oz books. Bailey and Bischoff had been inspired to pitch for The Next Generation due to their combined dislike of the first five minutes of the second season episode "Samaritan Snare". When uncredited co-writer Lisa Putman White spoke to the crew of the series during the second season, she was told by Eric A. Stillwell that the show only wanted bottle episodes. So together with Bischoff and Bailey, the short story was redeveloped into a spec script following Bischoff's suggestion. The script was received by script editor Melinda M. Snodgrass at a fortunate time. The crew were looking for a script which could go immediately into production in order to free up time to work on other scripts which needed more work. She handed it to executive producer Michael Piller, who thought it didn't need much work. He passed it onto fellow executive producer Rick Berman, who held onto it for a week while the writers chased the production crew for updates. The script was then purchased, and Bailey, Bischoff and White were informed that it was due to go into production a week later. Harry Groener made his first appearance in Star Trek as the Betazoid Tam Elbrun, the first male of the species seen on screen. Michael Cavanaugh also appeared as Captain Robert DeSoto of the USS Hood. DeSoto had first been mentioned in the pilot of The Next Generation, "Encounter at Farpoint", as Commander William Riker's former commanding officer. In a deleted scene, it would have been mentioned that DeSoto and Picard had served together as lieutenants previously. The character would go on to be mentioned later in the series in "The Pegasus", and in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Treachery, Faith, and the Great River" as well as in several non-canon books. "Tin Man" was directed by Robert Sheerer, who