10 Star Trek: The Original Series Episodes That Were Almost Made
6. “The Joy Machine”
Ted Sturgeon’s third Star Trek effort began life as an outline called “The Root of Evil,” which was about a Federation planet that has cut off all contact with the outside world. The inhabitants are all hooked up to a “payday” machine that rewards labor with a feeling of pure ecstasy — and as a result, all everyone does on the planet is work any way they can, as hard as they can.
Interestingly, Sturgeon’s initial outline made Uhura its central character, pushing Kirk, Spock, and McCoy to the sidelines. Gene Roddenberry, however, told Gene Coon to de-emphasize Uhura’s importance. “Ted should keep in mind,” wrote Roddenberry, “that our real money is Kirk, Spock and McCoy.”
Sturgeon obliged and reconceived the story, now titled “The Joy Machine,” with Kirk as the central character. In the original version, Uhura reconnected with her old flame, Danny, on the planet surface. In the revised version, it is Kirk who reconnects with his old flame Dannie. It’s the kind of change that would have made Nichelle Nichols livid — had she found out, and had the episode been made.
Sturgeon started work on the script in June of 1967 and then toiled on it for months, finally delivering a revised teleplay in November. Bob Justman liked the overall idea, calling it “marvelous,” but found the execution lacking “logical construction, correct characterizations, and believability.” He suggested holding it until the third season, when someone other than Sturgeon could rewrite the entire thing from scratch.
That’s exactly what happened. In the fall of 1968, producer Fred Freiberger brought in Meyer Dolinsky (writer of “Plato’s Stepchildren”) to bring his own take to the material, but it wasn’t enough to push the episode over the finish line. After Dolinsky delivered his first draft in late October of 1968, “The Joy Machine” was abandoned.
Almost twenty years later, however, Ted Sturgeon’s story was realized — sort of. Science fiction author James E. Gunn, who had been a friend of Sturgeon’s, adapted the abandoned story material into a Star Trek novel, which was published on September 1, 1996.