So why did suggested sequels to it get the axe?
Episode follow up stories
- Thread starter Laura Cynthia Chambers
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Reread my previous post. The key word is "unpopular." Why would you want to give people more of something they didn't like the first time?
To be clear, there's no official list of taboo episodes, but, as explained, a sequel to a famously unpopular episode is probably going to be harder to sell than any number of other ideas or proposals. Because, one might reasonably ask, how many fans are going to buy a sequel to an episode that most of them dislike?
Better, perhaps, to publish a book that isn't already guilty by association.
The thing to remember, when it comes to editing, is that's not just about rejecting stuff; it's more about picking one idea over another. And you can't say "yes" to every idea.
So if you're an editor and you've got a slew of STAR TREK pitches to choose from, is a sequel to "Spock's Brain" really going to be your first choice? When there's no shortage of better ideas out there?
Again, stuff getting rejected is not strange or exceptional. It's just a normal part of the process. Nobody expects every pitch to be automatically accepted. That's not how publishing works.
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It's just that the way this particular rejection is stated gives the impression that (maybe it's just me) 1) the episode in question is a definite "no" because of which episode it is, and 2) each idea is considered in a vacuum, with no other potentially, likely better choice held up in comparison.
Maybe it's because people so frequently deride the episode that I automatically assume this.
Maybe it's because people so frequently deride the episode that I automatically assume this.
Off the top of my head, the first run of DC Comics had follow ups to "Errand of Mercy", "The Savage Curtain", " Mirror, Mirror" and "The Apple".
The question of which TOS episodes potentially lend themselves to a follow-up is an fun one to consider, but for me the more interesting thought experiment is which 'bad' episodes could be retroactively 'fixed' with a follow-up without completely retconning the episode. I think it's a far harder task and would yield a much smaller group of candidates. You would need to have an episode that had intriguing ideas/themes/personal angles in play, but left them underexplored or muddled the execution somewhat. In essence, you would retroactively give a depth to an episode that was not there (but could have been, with just a little work).Some of the less-loved episodes don't qualify because they were just monster of the week outings that don't really have larger themes or concepts to revisit (e.g., "And the Children Shall Lead," "Lights of Zetar," "That Which Survives"; also the latter two apparently have sequels anyway). "For the World..." has the generational ship concept and the mccoy illness angle, but I gather that these have been explored in various sequels and prequels (and there is an entire separate bantam book about a generational ship).
To me, "Spock's Brain" is easily "fixed" just by watching it in the right frame of mind-- just treat it as one of the comedy episodes, but done entirely deadpan; in this light, it's immensely enjoyable. (How can anyone hate an episode in which DeForest Kelley breaks on camera?) "The Alternative Factor" is fixable, too, if you pretend that just like the original Lazarus actor, the scriptwriter failed to show up, and the cast and crew tried to improvise a star trek episode on the spot. (There is an awful lot of william shatner and leonard nimoy sitting around in conference rooms in that episode, seemingly waiting for star trek to happen).
"Charlie X" begs for a follow-up to "fix" the inhumane ending, but the rest of the episode is quite good and not in any need of fixing.
To my way of thinking, "Plato's Stepchildren" and the "Way to Eden" meet the above conditions. I know there are working writers in this forum, so I won't specify what ideas and themes I think could be expanded upon to retroactively give depth/heft to the episodes (but it's nothing that isn't already obvious when you re-watch them).
But the most obvious candidate of all is "Turnabout Intruder." The most justifiably reviled aspects of the episode turn on statements in the script that are ambiguous and could easily be "fixed" without whitewashing anything. So fixed, the episode/any follow up has some potentially very interesting things to say about ambition, abandonment, curdling of love into hate, gender roles (perceived and real) even in a supposedly idyllic future, etc. And with its sour sexist overtones muted, the episode is actually fairly enjoyable. (I'm not saying the episode wasn't intended to be sexist; I'm just saying it's ambiguous enough to be fixed without retconning).
To me, "Spock's Brain" is easily "fixed" just by watching it in the right frame of mind-- just treat it as one of the comedy episodes, but done entirely deadpan; in this light, it's immensely enjoyable. (How can anyone hate an episode in which DeForest Kelley breaks on camera?) "The Alternative Factor" is fixable, too, if you pretend that just like the original Lazarus actor, the scriptwriter failed to show up, and the cast and crew tried to improvise a star trek episode on the spot. (There is an awful lot of william shatner and leonard nimoy sitting around in conference rooms in that episode, seemingly waiting for star trek to happen).
"Charlie X" begs for a follow-up to "fix" the inhumane ending, but the rest of the episode is quite good and not in any need of fixing.
To my way of thinking, "Plato's Stepchildren" and the "Way to Eden" meet the above conditions. I know there are working writers in this forum, so I won't specify what ideas and themes I think could be expanded upon to retroactively give depth/heft to the episodes (but it's nothing that isn't already obvious when you re-watch them).
But the most obvious candidate of all is "Turnabout Intruder." The most justifiably reviled aspects of the episode turn on statements in the script that are ambiguous and could easily be "fixed" without whitewashing anything. So fixed, the episode/any follow up has some potentially very interesting things to say about ambition, abandonment, curdling of love into hate, gender roles (perceived and real) even in a supposedly idyllic future, etc. And with its sour sexist overtones muted, the episode is actually fairly enjoyable. (I'm not saying the episode wasn't intended to be sexist; I'm just saying it's ambiguous enough to be fixed without retconning).
Two, actually -- an alien one in World Without End by Joe Haldeman, and a human one in The Galactic Whirlpool by David Gerrold.
Nice turn of phrase.It was a tragic ending, yes, but "inhumane?" I don't see that. There was no cruelty to the Thasians' intentions, only regrettable necessity. They would have cared for him as well as they could, while knowing it wouldn't be enough.
Just yesterday on Facebook, author Adam-Troy Castro mentioned his epiphany that it wouldn't have been as bad an episode if the bitter failed captain had been a man. Although that would never have happened, since the episode was a riff on Turnabout, the Thorne Smith novel and its 1940 movie adaptation about a bickering husband and wife switching bodies and seeing how the other half lives. That's why it has that cumbersome title -- it's an allusion that 1960s audiences would've recognized. (In the same way that the title "Spock's Brain" is probably an homage to the novel Donovan's Brain and its film adaptations.)
Since you're not a Trek writer, I assume, here's my thoughts on what could be explored about the episode (re-posted in case you didn't see it)
For what it’s worth, during Marvel’s Starfleet Academy series, they did a direct sequel to Charlie X. This was also right before their big crossover event of the 24th century Trek in the Telepathy War, which also followed up on The Cage/The Menagerie, and included a flashback story featuring Cadets Picard, Zweller, and Batanadies, so a spiritual prequel to Tapestry.
Bingo. I don't think that tragic endings necessarily need to be "fixed" because they're heart-breaking. You wouldn't want to fix "Romeo & Juliet" by doing a sequel in which they come back to life and live happily ever after. Or do a sequel to a certain classic Twilight Zone ep in which, surprise, Burgess Meredith finds an unbroken pair of glasses!
Or a Star Trek story where Edith Keeler comes back to life?
Bingo. I don't think that tragic endings necessarily need to be "fixed" because they're heart-breaking. You wouldn't want to fix "Romeo & Juliet" by doing a sequel in which they come back to life and live happily ever after. Or do a sequel to a certain classic Twilight Zone ep in which, surprise, Burgess Meredith finds an unbroken pair of glasses!
Or a Star Trek story where Edith Keeler comes back to life?
Absolutely. If the stories were meant to turn out happily, they would have. Undoing a tragic ending isn't "fixing" the story, it's breaking it.
I think there actually has been a follow-up involving an alternate reality in which Edith Keeler survived by being pulled out of time (maybe in the Crucible trilogy?), and while it didn't end up with Hitler developing nuclear weapons, there were other "don't cross the streams bad" things.
I'm almost 61 years old, and never heard of it. And I wouldn't be terribly surprised if my 88-year-old father hadn't, either.
And of course, now there's "Spock Amok."
Thorne Smith was a big deal back in the day, particularly with regards to "Topper," but seems to be fading into obscurity.
He was known for writing racy (for the time) light-hearted comic fantasies. Beside Turnabout, his books also inspired such vintage films as Topper (which was also a hit TV series) and I Married a Witch, one of the obvious inspirations for Bewitched.
He was known for writing racy (for the time) light-hearted comic fantasies. Beside Turnabout, his books also inspired such vintage films as Topper (which was also a hit TV series) and I Married a Witch, one of the obvious inspirations for Bewitched.
There's a fair number of Trek episodes by now that are titled in reference to other TV shows or movies, as opposed to the classic practice of alluding to poetry, plays, songs, etc.:
- "The Galileo Seven": Borderline case, as the title and plot were inspired by the 1939 plane-crash film Five Came Back (which Lucille Ball appeared in).
- "The Trouble with Tribbles": Could be inspired by Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry or Ida Lupino's The Trouble with Angels (from 1966).
- "Spock's Brain": Probably Donovan's Brain.
- "Turnabout Intruder": Turnabout.
- "One of Our Planets is Missing": The 1942 British WWII film One of Our Aircraft is Missing.
- "More Tribbles, More Troubles": The first Trek title referencing a previous Trek episode.
- "We'll Always Have Paris": A quote from Casablanca.
- "The Schizoid Man": Named after an episode of The Prisoner.
- "A Fistful of Datas": A Fistful of Dollars.
- "The Magnificent Ferengi": The Magnificent Seven.
- "Who Mourns for Morn?": TOS: "Who Mourns for Adonais?"
- "Profit and Lace": A pun on the earlier DS9: "Profit and Loss."
- Lower Decks: TNG: "Lower Decks."
- "We'll Always Have Tom Paris": TNG: "We'll Always Have Paris" (so it's a nested reference).
- "The Least Dangerous Game": The 1933 movie The Most Dangerous Game (which was based on a prose story, but the movie's more famous).
- "Time Amok": TOS: "Amok Time."
- "Spock Amok": Both "Amok Time" and Duck Amuck, the first Trek title referencing a cartoon short.
Gerrold's own "making-of" book on "The Trouble with Tribbles" tells the whole story of the name.
It was originally to be "A Fuzzy Thing Happened . . ." (an obvious play on A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum; the Tribbles were originally to be called "Fuzzies"), but legal research found a potential lawsuit over the book, Little Fuzzy; Gerrold protested that his creatures were nothing like H. Beam Piper's creatures, but to no avail. So the title and the species nomenclature both had to change. Gerrold relates how he typed out a whole bunch of nonsense words, rejecting most of them out of hand ("'shagbies' and 'gollawogs' were too cute; 'triblets' sounded like triplets with a post-nasal problem"), and ended up with "tribbles." He wasn't in love with the name, but he could see a clever title: "You Think You've Got Tribbles." He goes on to say that Gene Coon liked the species name, but hated the episode title. He makes no mention of "The Trouble With Harry." But TV Guide's blurb, for at least one airing in the first KCOP strip syndication era, was "Kirk has troubles with tribbles."
Not the whole story. I skimmed through the relevant chapters a couple of times to see if he addressed how he came up with the final title, but he skips right from Coon saying they need to think of something else to the point where the final title was already in use. There isn't a word about how he or Coon came up with the final title, only the rejection of the alternatives.
He makes no mention of any inspiration, so that doesn't rule it out. Although Wikipedia says The Trouble with Harry was rarely shown between 1955 and 1983, so it might not have been as well-known at the time as I thought. The Trouble with Angels was just the year before, but then again, the very fact that "The Trouble with..." was used in multiple movie titles suggests it's just a common phrase. There was also the Ray Milland film The Trouble with Women in 1947, and Elvis Presley's The Trouble with Girls in 1969. So I'm probably reading too much into it.
Well, it is a word that sounds similar. Could've been as simple as thinking of words that mean "problem/difficulty" etc
Quite so. So it could be any of the possibilities you or LCC mentioned, more than one of them, or none of them.
Oh, and Ms. Chambers: your suggestion reminds me of the fact that some 20-odd years ago (and they've been very odd years), when I started writing my novel, I made a conscious decision that chapters would have titles, and the chapter titles would (1) alliterate, and (2) include at least one musical term (the protagonist is, after all, a child prodigy organist). Hence, "Prelude to a Prodigy"; "Summer Sinfonietta"; &c.
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If my searching failed me and I'm repeating, forgive me.
Dyson Sphere is a sequel to "Relics."
Dyson Sphere is a sequel to "Relics."
Sometimes a character is anticipated to have a followup in a novel that gets nixed at manuscript stage. For example, Pike's Number One was supposed to appear, sitting with Admiral Robert April, in "A Flag Full of Stars", but the author was asked to revise his story so that the woman became Admiral Timothea Rogers instead. (Still Number One, if you were in the know. In emails we exchanged, Brad Ferguson was thrilled that I managed to identity her despite the name change!) Although, even with Number One, you wouldn't call "A Flag Full of Stars" a sequel to "The Cage" or "The Menagerie".
Chris Claremont's "Debt of Honor" graphic novel had lots of elements eliminated before its script was approved. Arex and M'Ress from TAS, and Naraht the Horta (from Diane Duane's novels), plus characters who were to be named for Peter David, John M Ford and other authors, had to be dropped. The major guest character, named for Diane Duane, was "safe" because Chris had called her Diane Morewood (after her husband's surname). Also the family connection between the young female character, T'Kir, and Jim Kirk, was going to be way more explicit.
And "The Devil in the Dark", I guess, since there is a Starfleet starship crewed entirely by Horta, all offspring of the guest star of that TOS episode.
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