Harlan Elison's City on the Edge of Forever screenplay

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Roddenberry had to have done a draft because no one else in that list could have produced anything as dementedly off-key and implausible as the final version of the speech Keeler delivers to the dinner crowd at the mission - really the only bad part of the episode.

 

[ancient]

The Roddenberry touch. I've seen the episode dozens of times, yet I've only watched the speech part once, and all I remember of it is that it was painful to listen to. Like Pavlov's dog, my hand jumps to the FF button...

 

[The Nth Doctor]

You said:

You said he wrote Babylon 5. Otherwise, why would you have "heard he was the same on Babylon 5"? And why could he not accept rewriting, editing, etc., on Babylon 5, if he hadn't written for it?

Look, you said something stupid and you're being called on it. "Jumping" indeed.

I never said Ellison wrote anything for Babylon 5.

Pull your head out of your ass already. You said something stupid and it was pointed out (repeatedly). You're just digging a bigger hole for yourself.

Both of you can knock it off now.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

^^Sorry, OmahaStar, but you're out of line. Dayton3 did not actually say that Ellison wrote a script for B5; you're just inferring that from what he did say. You're also mistaken in assuming that just because Ellison never got a script credit, that means he never even attempted to write for the show. He did work as a "creative consultant" on the show from the beginning, and there were definitely plans announced for him to write episodes. It's possible those plans fell through for the same reason Ellison's "City" drafts didn't work -- because he was unable to write an affordable script in a timely fashion.

At SDCC, the year B5's first season went into production, Ellison and JMS said that he was working on a sequel to his Outer Limits episode, "Demon with a Glass Hand." According to a Cinefantastique article on the same season, the sequel was going to be titled "Demon on the Run." Another first season script said to have been in the works was called "Midnight in a Sunken Cathedral." Supposedly, the former was a inside joke between Ellison and JMS. Although, it was also said by JMS, iirc, that he didn't think the Kyban timeline would fit into the B5 'verse. The latter, however, was said to have been delayed because of Ellison's heart attack. Ellison later used the title "Midnight in a Sunken Cathedral" for a short story that appeared in his Dark Horse comic book series Harlan Ellison's Dream Corridor.

Ellison did, however, contribute the story elements in the fifth season episodes "A View From the Gallery" and "Objects in Motion." He received a shared story credit with JMS, who wrote the teleplays, on both. As "Creative Consultant," he also contributed to the creation of the Shadow planet killer and other visual elements, most notably "wind" in the Garden section of the station.

I was disappointed that Ellison didn't contribute a script to B5, especially since it became mostly a JMS-written series. I still hope that he gets a chance with the Lost Tales.