Star Trek Episodes That Were Never Made

[Harvey]

The most common complaint from the producers seems to have been too much dialog, not enough actual plot or involvement from the heroes. I can think of a lot of fan film episodes that suffer from the exact same issues.

The staff loved to complain about stories that came in where Kirk did not drive the action...and where there wasn't enough action, period. I shudder to think what they would have written about the scripts that have actually been shot for most fan films — even the ones with adequate production values usually have the same issues.

 

[Warped9]

Are there any other classic Trek novels that were retooled from ideas originally written for the live action show?

I know "The Entropy Effect" was based on a screenplay Vonda N. McIntyre had written on spec while the show was still on the air, but she never submitted it to the show.

I really have no idea. I waffled about reading The Joy Machine due to some of the reviews I had read, but finally took the plunge to judge for myself. Like I said it was meh. The Galactic Whirlpool I read back when it was first published by Bantam Books and I thought it was meh then, too. Looking back the only Bantam published novel I really liked, and still do, was James Blish’s Spock Must Die! My general recollection of many of those long ago books and short stories was glorified fanfic, but at the time it was all we had until the books published by Ballantine. I don’t recall if any of those other stories were based on rejected submissions.

 

[Maurice]

Some of those pitched ideas actually sound better than some of the shit produced
It would have been interesting to see "The Joy Machine" for instance
Great work by the two investigators involved in the paper trail

The devil is always in the details and just like everyone looks better as a thumbnail a crap story oft looks better as a summary. A story premise does not a filmable teleplay make. Having read these turds let me tell you not a one was any good as executed. Even Joanna needed work, with all due respect to DCF (RIP).

 

[J.T.B.]

That was a great article. I've heard of most of those but never delved into it so it's a great primer for me.

Even Cushman's books give a lot of this stuff short shrift.

That's either the most charitable or the most sarcastic "even" I've read in a long time.

 

[drt]

I really have no idea. I waffled about reading The Joy Machine due to some of the reviews I had read, but finally took the plunge to judge for myself. Like I said it was meh. The Galactic Whirlpool I read back when it was first published by Bantam Books and I thought it was meh then, too. Looking back the only Bantam published novel I really liked, and still do, was James Blish’s Spock Must Die! My general recollection of many of those long ago books and short stories was glorified fanfic, but at the time it was all we had until the books published by Ballantine. I don’t recall if any of those other stories were based on rejected submissions.

I always liked Spock Must Die! too, even though it was pretty wacky. Of the rest, I actually liked The Galactic Whirlpool best, but not a high bar to clear, most of those Bantam books were pretty terrible. Whirlpool has a lot of ideas that Gerrold later incorporated into TNG, so I can see why some might not like that contamining a TOS book.

With regard to the unproduced episodes, "Shol" seems like it might have made a decent episode after another pass or two at rewrites to clean up the issues - it certainly has a TOS feel to it. "Japan Triumphant" also might have been good scrubbed of the racist overtones, as "Axis wins WW2" alternate history stories are a SF mainstay (I guess we eventually got this in ENT "Stormfront"). It wasn't mentioned in the article, but "Patterns of Force" seems like it also used elements of “He Walked Among Us” with regard to the character of John Gill and his influence on the Ekosian society.

 

[Noname Given]

The most common complaint from the producers seems to have been too much dialog, not enough actual plot or involvement from the heroes. I can think of a lot of fan film episodes that suffer from the exact same issues.

So does (IMO) TNG (and no, NOT kidding here).

 

[captainkirk]

So does (IMO) TNG (and no, NOT kidding here).

I'll agree with that. There were way too many episodes where a guest character has to bring all the conflict and drama because Gene's Vision™ won't allow that among the main characters.

 

[Warped9]

After TOS and the first Trek films GR must have changed his mind (or forgot) about drama between the main characters. He bought into the hype fed back to him from fans about the Trek universe being some sort of Utopia and from that decreed no serious disagreements between the main characters. That meant all the drama had to be brought in by guest characters. That makes it difficult to write for the main characters particularly in essentially bottle shows.

 

[Henoch]

After TOS and the first Trek films GR must have changed his mind (or forgot) about drama between the main characters. He bought into the hype fed back to him from fans about the Trek universe being some sort of Utopia and from that decreed no serious disagreements between the main characters.

Being Earth-bound has a bad influence on people.

 

[Poltargyst]

After TOS and the first Trek films GR must have changed his mind (or forgot) about drama between the main characters. He bought into the hype fed back to him from fans about the Trek universe being some sort of Utopia and from that decreed no serious disagreements between the main characters. That meant all the drama had to be brought in by guest characters. That makes it difficult to write for the main characters particularly in essentially bottle shows.

Oh, is THAT why? That was a bad decision. Some of the most compelling scenes in TOS are when they are heatedly arguing. Like the briefing room scene in BoT where they're arguing over what to do about the Romulan.

 

[johnnybear]

Spock Must Die was good but I could never accept the idea that the Klingons could isolate and imprison the Organians!!!

 

[Tribble Threat]

I'm surprised how many of these episodes were similar to episodes that got created later, and the writers of the original scripts never got credit. That seems like an ethically dubious matter, to write a new script that has the same broad outline as the poor script you've already read, and not give the original scriptwriter credit. On the other hand, you also don't want to make it look like the original writer was very good either.

 

[Maurice]

I'm surprised how many of these episodes were similar to episodes that got created later, and the writers of the original scripts never got credit. That seems like an ethically dubious matter, to write a new script that has the same broad outline as the poor script you've already read, and not give the original scriptwriter credit. On the other hand, you also don't want to make it look like the original writer was very good either.

I’d be curious which ones you think are similar to aired episodes, other than the ones that were clearly killed because they were similar two episodes that were in the works.

 

[Tribble Threat]

The article said that "The Managerie" was a recycled version of "From the First Day to the Last".
The Way to Eden is based on Joanna.
Patterns of Force is almost identical to Tomorrow the Universe. Nazi planet that's the way it is because someone from the Federation made it a Nazi planet.

 

[Maurice]

The article said that "The Managerie" was a recycled version of "From the First Day to the Last".
The Way to Eden is based on Joanna.
Patterns of Force is almost identical to Tomorrow the Universe. Nazi planet that's the way it is because someone from the Federation made it a Nazi planet.

"The Menagerie" I don't think the article quite said that it was "recycled". The premise of taking Pike back to Talos IV is in both versions, but Black's was about a hearing to decide if they should do it, whereas in "Menagerie" there's this whole personal drama with Spock absconding with the ship and risking his career and life to help Pike. I've never seen the first half of John D.F. Black's "From the First Day to the Last" to offer any opinion as the merits of his seeking arbitration to get screen credit, the WGA gave Roddenberry sole credit based on all the materials they were given, so who knows?

Yes "The Way to Eden" is based on "Joanna", but in the sense that it's a massive rewrite of "Joanna", not some separate story, and Fontana was paid for her work on it. But she didn't like what they did so she used a pseudonym.

I've read "Tomorrow and the Universe" and there are certainly some similarities with "Patterns of Force" even if what's motivating what's happening on the planet is very different. "Tomorrow" is more like "A Piece of the Action" in that the culture is based on incomplete Earth historical data, except here a scientist wants to study what happens. "Pattern" is about a Federation Historian who decides to test his theories about the Nazis on this planet. The main similarity is both are a "planet of gestapo hats" story. Without seeing the complete document trail the WGA used to decide credit on this.

There's stuff that did make it on Star Trek which is outright copying, including one whopper by Roddenberry that I discovered a while ago but @Harvey and I are not quite ready to unveil yet.

 

[Harvey]

There's stuff that did make it on Star Trek which is outright copying, including one whopper by Roddenberry that I discovered a while ago but @Harvey and I are not quite ready to unveil yet.

Hehehehehehe.

Tease.

 

[Tribble Threat]

Both The Menagerie and From the First Day to the Last take place in a hearing to decide whether a severely injured Captain Pike should return to Talos IV. That similarity is far more than chance. Two writers aren't independently going to cause the same injuries to Pike, and to write a story about a trial about the return.

"Tomorrow the Universe" and "Patterns of Force" are both stories about a Nazi planet, which in and of itself wouldn't be strange, but they're both Nazi planets because a human came along and talked them into being Nazis.

I didn't know notice that fact about Joanna. Good call.

 

[Harvey]

Both The Menagerie and From the First Day to the Last take place in a hearing to decide whether a severely injured Captain Pike should return to Talos IV. That similarity is far more than chance. Two writers aren't independently going to cause the same injuries to Pike, and to write a story about a trial about the return.

Both scripts were written knowing that Jeffrey Hunter would not return to film additional material, so it's understandable that Pike is heavily injured in both. Both scripts were also written with the intention of showing as much footage from the original pilot as possible. Having Kirk and company sit down to watch TV is kind of lame, but it's understandable that both Black and Roddenberry would resort to the same convention there, too.

Black's opinion was that he shot himself in the foot by not submitting a statement along with his script material for the arbitration process. He may have been right on that front. I'm reminded of this passage from a story I read in The New Yorker almost twenty years ago (source):

When arbiters are sitting down with more than a dozen screenplays to sift through, writers' statements become extremely important. Akiva Goldsman told me, "I wrote more words in my fifty-page statement for the Batman Forever arbitration than there were in the script. It really does make a difference-I got credit."​

"Tomorrow the Universe" and "Patterns of Force" are both stories about a Nazi planet, which in and of itself wouldn't be strange, but they're both Nazi planets because a human came along and talked them into being Nazis.

"Tomorrow the Universe" and "Patterns of Force" were subject to WGA arbitration. The Guild ruled in favor of John Meredyth Lucas getting full credit for the filmed episode. He claimed (with Gene Coon's support) that he never read Paul Schneider's story or script, nor was he even aware of it when he was writing "Patterns of Force."

 

[Tribble Threat]

Great point about The Managerie! And you really made me glad I don't write scripts.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Both scripts were written knowing that Jeffrey Hunter would not return to film additional material, so it's understandable that Pike is heavily injured in both. Both scripts were also written with the intention of showing as much footage from the original pilot as possible. Having Kirk and company sit down to watch TV is kind of lame, but it's understandable that both Black and Roddenberry would resort to the same convention there, too."

I'm not sure I agree. If I had to incorporate "The Cage" into the production run of Star Trek, and I had never seen Black's idea to hide "non-Hunter Pike" behind injury makeup and return him to Talos IV, my first thought would be to open the show with this:

SPOCK:
We're passing in the vicinity of Talos IV, Captain.

KIRK:
We won't be stopping there.

SPOCK:
I visited that planet once before, but this was thirteen years ago under Captain Pike. It was my first tour on the Enterprise.

CUE WAVEY FILM DISSOLVE AND HARP MUSIC TO INDICATE A FLASHBACK. SHOW "THE CAGE."

I think that's the obvious idea no one could own, while Black's more complicated idea was lifted for "The Menagerie."