A Brief Guide to Star Trek

shows including two acclaimed episodes of
The Outer Limits
(‘Soldier’ and ‘Demon With A Glass Hand’) and instalments of
The Man From U.N.C.L.E
. He would go on to become a creative consultant and writer on the 1985 revival of
The Twilight Zone
and J. Michael Straczynski’s groundbreaking 1990s TV space opera
Babylon 5
(a rival to the same era’s
Deep Space Nine
). Getting a
Star Trek
script from Ellison was a priority for Justman. ‘We wanted a teleplay from Harlan as soon as possible, but despite a lot of badgering Harlan was behind schedule right from the start, taking two months to write his final revised story outline. The usual time allocated for a story was more like two or three weeks.’
    In a memo Justman described the long-awaited story outline as ‘beautifully written’, but he recognised that Ellison’s proposed story contained huge challenges for practical television production. Several of Ellison’s scenes featured locations and effects that would simply be beyond
Star Trek
’s budget and may even have been challenging for a major movie production to realise.
    A shimmering time vortex, an angry woolly mammoth, too many locations and too many speaking parts all caused Roddenberry to request a revision of the story. Additionally, concerned by how long it had taken Ellison to draft just the outline, he suggested the writer should be based in the studio offices for the writing of the first draft teleplay. That way, Roddenberry, Coon and Justman could keep a close eye on the maverick writer. ‘Harlan arrived with his own typewriter, his own portable radio, and his own original approach to creativity’, recalled Justman in
Inside Star Trek
.
    Located in the studio’s wardrobe storage room, Ellison felt the need to escape his limited confines at regular intervals and was often to be seen wandering the back lot checking out whatever happened to be shooting. Even when he was locked in the ‘office’, he’d escape out through the window. He complained of being forced to work under ‘inhuman and inhumane conditions’, with constant interruptions from people using the wardrobe store forcing him to work at night. In response,Justman moved Ellison into his own office and supervised him directly as he finished the teleplay (the pair had previously worked together on
The Outer Limits
). Important meetings conducted with Justman would continue around Ellison as he pecked away at his typewriter over a three-week period and gradually completed a first draft of what became ‘The City on the Edge of Forever’.
    Justman described the finished script as ‘without a doubt . . . the best and most beautifully written screenplay we’ve gotten to date’. However, he also knew ‘we cannot afford to make this show as it presently stands [due to] set construction costs, location shooting, crowds of extras, crowds of stunts, special effects onstage, special photographic effects, wardrobe costs, period props and set dressing rentals, and other costs too numerous to mention . . . We have to find a way to retain all the basic qualities contained within this screenplay and make it economically feasible to photograph it.’
    What Ellison’s script revealed about
Star Trek
was that it was a strictly budgeted production – that’s why so many of the planets visited resembled Earth-type settings (allowing easy use of the back-lot standing sets), why alien races often consisted of a handful of representatives, and why special effects shots (such as the
Enterprise
orbiting a planet) were repeatedly reused.
    The decision to redraft the screenplay to make it producible within a television budget saw the beginning of a long-running feud between Ellison and Roddenberry that was to run for decades, even beyond the latter’s death. Roddenberry faced rewriting what Justman had estimated to be an eight-day shooting schedule for the episode down to
Star Trek
’s standard seven days per episode, over Ellison’s loud objections. Roddenberry also felt that some of the ‘guest characters’ featured in the episode did not represent the ‘best of humanity’ that he saw in Starfleet’s officers. The blame, or credit, for the rewrite was spread around, however. Gene Coon had the first try at rewriting the show, following Ellison’s own changes under Justman’s direction. Then story editor D. C. Fontana found the script on her desk for another redrafting, which although now shootable resulted in Justman expressing his