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Balance of Terror/Wrath of Khan Connection?

albion432

Lieutenant Commander
Red Shirt
I never realized how many similarities there were between Balance of Terror and The Wrath of Khan until I saw this new youtube video from a channel called "Meta Trek":
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I know that Harve Bennett screened all 78 TOS episodes as part of his research before starting on Star Trek II, and that's when he discovered Khan from "Space Seed." Could he have been influenced by some of the other episodes as well? I don't want to give it away, but the creator of this video claims there's another episode that heavily influenced The Wrath of Khan too, which is revealed at the end of the video. Once the episode was named, I can see that there are some connections there.
 
Having read the various scripts that led up to the final TWOK, I can tell you that not all of these things came out of Bennett. Sure, some throwaways like the Gamma Hydra were clearly continuity references, but other similarities, like a character dying at the climax, were late decisions (Spock originally croaked near the middle of the film).

The ship to ship communication without the two without a face to face meeting between protagonist and antagonist was also a very late decision as even Meyer’s early scripts had Khan beam down to the Genesis Cave to confront Kirk, an aspect we suspect was dropped in part because Montalban’s back problems and constant pain probably probably made such a scene hard to pull off.

etc.

So more coincidence than plan.
 
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