Star Trek: The Next Generation (TV) - When Riker Was Going To Be Killed Off

Ain't It Cool News brings us lots of factoids from the extras in the Season 3 Bluray package for TNG. And one of those ideas was to kill off Riker, and replace him with a duplicate.

No, not like in "Secret Invasion".

One storyline that was much fought for before Piller shot it down was to kill Will Riker and replace him permanently with his transporter-mishap doppleganger Tom Riker. “It was a chance to reinvent the character,” explains Moore.

 If you remember, in episode 624, called "Second Chances", the Enterprise discovers a copy of then-Lieutenant Riker trapped below the surface of Nervala IV. The result of a mirroring effect of the transporters, this version of Riker thought all this time that he was the real Riker.

Or was the one who escaped the planet the copy?

Either way, Ronald D. Moore had wanted to kill off William Riker (the one who escaped) and replace him with Thomas RIker (the one who was trapped for eight years) in order to "reinvent the character". But, instead, that path was never taken and Thomas Riker went on his own way, eventually showing up on DS9 for an episode.