Harlan Ellison: Star Trek Was Just "A Cop Show"

[yotsuya]

Harlan Ellison was a brilliant writer, but the number one rule of writing for someone else is that you have to expect it to be rewritten. That he could not comprehend that when that is the industry practice, especially for television, has always baffled me. His vemon at Roddenberry and Star Trek because of that was undeserved. Television shows wanted talent and great scripts, but even the best writer did not always understand the series and what the audience was expecting so the producers and staff writers would massage all the scripts to fit with the show. We see that in TOS seasons 1 & 2 which are pretty even and maintain a high quality. With season 3 we see what happens when they don't do that. The season was up and down and some stories are way off. Harlan was always entertaining, but some of the things he chose to get on a high horse about were absurd and made him look bad. How he did it was entertaining, but not very professional.

 

[drt]

Harlan Ellison was a brilliant writer, but the number one rule of writing for someone else is that you have to expect it to be rewritten. That he could not comprehend that when that is the industry practice, especially for television, has always baffled me. His vemon at Roddenberry and Star Trek because of that was undeserved.

He had written maybe a dozen scripts prior to "City", so one would think he was aware of industry practice - I think his vemon was more towards Roddenberry taking more credit for the final version than perhaps Ellison felt he deserved, particularly by badmouthing aspects of the original script that were untrue (like Scotty being a drug dealer).

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

He had written maybe a dozen scripts prior to "City", so one would think he was aware of industry practice - I think his vemon was more towards Roddenberry taking more credit for the final version than perhaps Ellison felt he deserved, particularly by badmouthing aspects of the original script that were untrue (like Scotty being a drug dealer).

Ellison always came across with a firm belief in writing as a higher calling. That it was a solitary act rather than a collaborative one. His words were his words and only he could change them. Not the director, not the executive producer, not the actors... not anyone.

JMS has a similar view.

That being said, COTEOF may have been a mismanagement issue. Gene Roddenberry approved the initial outline that had all the elements (drug dealing, Kirk hesitating, etc.) he later objected to. If he didn't like those, why didn't he kill those ideas at the early stage.

Of course, getting filmable scripts was an issue for Star Trek. And Ellison was famous for not delivering on a deadline. But to his credit, Ellison did address some of those issues with his rewrite, as seen in his COTEOF book. Hell he even added the ridiculous space pirate sequence in the first draft because Roddenberry insisted the ship be in danger. So he was willing to collaborate to a point.

But the production ran up against the wall and couldn't wait for Ellison, so they brought the rewrites internally.

While "City" was a great episode, it was a clusterfuck to get onto the air.

 

[yotsuya]

Harlan's original is a great story, but the episode as filmed is a great Star Trek story. The way it was edited turned it from something that didn't fit the series into something that is considered the series at its pinnacle.

 

[Kor]

Star Trek (TOS) was expensive and lavish?!
...

It was one of the most expensive shows on television.... one of the things that led to its demise, as the execs of the day weren't seeing the returns they expected according to the metrics of the era. So the budget kept getting slashed each season until it petered out.

Just as an example of the show's expenses, TOS kept the visual effects houses very busy, as they needed new optical effects just about every single episode, whereas other TV shows would have them maybe once per season.

Kor

 

[FormerLurker]

Harlan's original is a great story, but the episode as filmed is a great Star Trek story. The way it was edited turned it from something that didn't fit the series into something that is considered the series at its pinnacle.

This.

And yet, even this is something Ellison complained about. He didn't care that his story had both Kirk and Spock acting out of character. He didn't care just how easily a simple name change could have put Scotty in the role of the bad guy, not only dealing drugs but committing murder, and writing him out of the show, instead of his villain of the week. What he cared about was that his script be used, unedited, unrevised, as if he had written it for the Twilight Zone or the Outer Limits. And it pissed him off that a show with a continuing main cast changed his script to fit their needs.

 

[Kor]

This.

And yet, even this is something Ellison complained about. He didn't care that his story had both Kirk and Spock acting out of character. He didn't care just how easily a simple name change could have put Scotty in the role of the bad guy, not only dealing drugs but committing murder, and writing him out of the show, instead of his villain of the week. What he cared about was that his script be used, unedited, unrevised, as if he had written it for the Twilight Zone or the Outer Limits. And it pissed him off that a show with a continuing main cast changed his script to fit their needs.

Actually, Scotty wasn't the drug dealer in Ellison's script; that was one of Roddenberry's misrememberings that got repeated again and again over the years. It was to be some guest redshirt of the week, a certain Lieutenant Beckwith.

Kor

 

[FormerLurker]

Actually, Scotty wasn't the drug dealer in Ellison's script; that was one of Roddenberry's misrememberings that got repeated again and again over the years. It was to be some guest redshirt of the week, a certain Lieutenant Beckwith.

Kor

I know that. My point was that forces beyond Ellison's control could have made the villain Scotty with a stroke of a pen, and there was nothing Ellison could do about it. He just didn't care. GR wasn't about to let those forces have the opportunity, and that's the main reason the drug-dealing was dropped. The 'misremembering' amounted to GR discussing the situation and taking that next step without acknowledging he was doing so. That he eventually believed Ellison was responsible can be attributed to his not reading the script since 1967.

 

[XCV330]

Ellison was at his best in screen writing when he didn't have to be part of a greater whole (Starlost). The thing you hear over and over again from people who worked with him wasn't "He worked well with others" or "Thank you for stuffing that dead gopher in my mailbox, Harlan"

I mean.. for crissakes he called Mel Brooks an asshole director just because he didn't like Spaceballs because it was a crass intentionally dumb parody of Star Wars, which I am pretty sure was another movie he hated. Who really was the asshole? Brooks making people laugh, or Ellison already a curmudgeony self-parody writing a pointless column for F&SF in the 1980's when it MAYBE was selling 30k copies a month.

I love Harlan Ellison's short fiction. Shatterday still raises the hair on my neck and Angry Candy still puts a dent somewhere in my gut, but i dont think I would never have wanted to know the guy, or be on the wrong side of his ire. Not unless I was Sinatra, anyway. Actually.. that's not a bad comparison. In any overly long winded intro to some book or other Ellison had no problem letting YOU the reader know he spent time in a cell for marching for civil rights an was so good about it he shared food with a lesser soul also in the slammer that night. Sinatra, on the other hand, quietly used his influence to integrate entertainment in Vegas and open up the hotels and never said a word about it on his own.

On the other hand when Ellison was left to his own devices he could turn out something beautiful. His Twilight Zone episode "Paladin of the Lost Hour" is possibly the best TZ ever got, and that was the 80's revival. Some people could just never take the win and be happy.

 

[Maurice]

He didn't care just how easily a simple name change could have put Scotty in the role of the bad guy, not only dealing drugs but committing murder, and writing him out of the show, instead of his villain of the week.

That's about the most nonsensical comment about "City" that I've ever seen, and that's saying something. And your clarification post... didn't.

I've actually read many drafts of the script and I know who changed and contributed what. I've see the writer's reports and the memos and I can tell you most people haven't a clue what actually happened with that script and just parrot whatever tall tale they've heard that support their personal pro- or anti-Ellison opinion.

 

[FormerLurker]

That's about the most nonsensical comment about "City" that I've ever seen, and that's saying something. And your clarification post... didn't.

I've actually read many drafts of the script and I know who changed and contributed what. I've see the writer's reports and the memos and I can tell you most people haven't a clue what actually happened with that script and just parrot whatever tall tale they've heard that support their personal pro- or anti-Ellison opinion.

All right, try this on for size:

Reread Ellison's first draft. Just that, no rewrites. Ignore mischaracterization and substitute Scotty for Beckwith every time. That's all a studio or network exec had to demand of the writers, and suddenly, Scotty is not only the drug-dealing murderer, but the bad end Beckwith got at the end is now Scotty's bad end, complete with his never being seen again.

I'll bet money that GR's first thought was to look out for his cast member, and demand the rewrites that eliminated the drug-dealing, the murder, and the bad end. I don't know about you, but it seems obvious to me that a competent and critical-thinking producer would demand that to keep his higher-ups, both studio and network, from being able to make the change seen above.

Does that make sense, or do you still subscribe to the idea that I'm some kind of moron, who can't think critically, which is why you respond to me so often with some variation of "You posted, therefore you are wrong."?

 

[Maurice]

Re recasting Beckwith as Scotty:

It violates the whole premise of the show's format. To wit, the show was sold as "Wagon Train to the Stars", but what most people today don't get is that to TV types in the 60's Wagon Train was a specific thing: a show which brought in special guest characters in major roles every week and did stories about them and the regulars' interactions with them. NBC was not about to force a show to turn a regular character into a monster. In fact, reading the memos, it's pretty much the opposite of what they typically asked for. You might as well argue that they could've insisted they substitute Scotty for FInney because that's just about as likely.

Also, the network many times asked for stuff Roddenberry dug his heels in on and won, like a request of have more "monsters" on the show, to which he replied with a big handwritten "NO!" on the memo. Even if the impossible happened and they asked he would and could have resisted it.

What I find preposterous is the argument you presented. Not you. Post not poster.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Does that make sense, or do you still subscribe to the idea that I'm some kind of moron, who can't think critically, which is why you respond to me so often with some variation of "You posted, therefore you are wrong."?

 

[Kor]

Yeah, TV just didn't work like that in the sixties. If the execs didn't like a character (or if an actor quit, etc.), it was more likely that the character just wouldn't appear anymore without any further mention, not that the character would have some contrived big dramatic exit from the show. Unless maybe it was some cheap soap opera.

Kor

 

[drt]

Yeah, TV just didn't work like that in the sixties. If the execs didn't like a character (or if an actor quit, etc.), it was more likely that the character just wouldn't appear anymore without any further mention, not that the character would have some contrived big dramatic exit from the show.

That’s what happened to Rand, she just disappeared.

 

[XCV330]

That’s what happened to Rand, she just disappeared.

There was a terrible malfunction with the beehive-a-tron hair machine. It took a few years to recover by which time she was a transporter chief. The hair itself was caught in a timewarp and may have landed in a night club in Athens GA sometime in the late 1970's, changing history.

 

[cooleddie74]

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[Ricky]

For all the talk about Uhura being fourth or fifth in line for command, her role still basically boils down to answering and making phone calls. Either she's there to say someone is hailing or she's there to hail. A secretary by any other name.

 

[thribs]

That’s what happened to Rand, she just disappeared.

They let her go because of budget reasons. That and they didn’t think the Kirk romance plot was working.

 

[thribs]

For all the talk about Uhura being fourth or fifth in line for command, her role still basically boils down to answering and making phone calls. Either she's there to say someone is hailing or she's there to hail. A secretary by any other name.

They did give her command in TAS. She was also quite capable at repairing the communication systems.