GFR: "The Man Who Saved Star Trek Hated The Episode That Got Him Hired: Michael Piller might not have been the biggest fan of “Evolution,” but this opinion was not shared by TNG producer Rick Berman. Piller’s script (complete with a baseball speech that impressed Berman) helped him land the job"
Giant Freakin Robot:
https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/scifi/star-trek-writer-hated-episode.html
By Chris Snellgrove
>"His primary concern (one shared by Michael Wagner, who helped develop the overall story) was that “I didn’t have an ending for it.” While there were “some character scenes” he was “very proud of,” he ultimately worried that the episode “didn’t quite come off.”
>Interestingly, episode director Winrich Kolbe shared some of Piller’s concerns with “Evolution.” The director enjoyed the plot about a scientist “who tried to push an issue and then suddenly found out there were ramifications he hadn’t thought of, which is the lack of control of the nanites.” He felt that this was “a very serious issue” that “wasn’t dealt with properly” because it was a Wesley-centric episode and “everyone considered it a child’s show, even the writers.”
>That last bit was directed at Piller, who primarily saw the episode as a chance to (ahem) evolve Wesley Crusher’s character. He intended cranky visiting scientist Paul Stubbs to be a cautionary vision of what Wesley could grow up to be if he continued to focus only on his studies. “Evolution” is very successful in that regard, and it’s the perfect episode to show friends who hate Star Trek’s resident teen genius. But Kolbe felt the episode spent too much time on Wesley and not enough on the nanites, who were at the heart of the episode’s moral dilemma: namely, whether to put them down as dangerous pests or acknowledge them as a new (albeit unconventional) form of life. ..."
Link:
https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/scifi/star-trek-writer-hated-episode.html