10 Star Trek: The Original Series Episodes That Were Almost Made

At the end of the show’s first season, Dorothy Fontana began revising the Star Trek writer-director guide. She took the opportunity to speak to all of the actors about their characters, and after chatting with DeForest Kelley, she updated his character’s description:

Dr. McCoy is 45 years of age, was married once...something of a mystery that ended unhappily in a divorce. He has a daughter, “Joanna”, who is 20 and in training as a nurse. McCoy has provided for her, hears from her as often as inter-galactic mail permits, but his duty aboard the starship keeps them apart.

We will meet her some day in an episode and find Joanna lovely, bright and intelligent...very much to Jim Kirk’s liking. We will suspect that it was the bitterness of this marriage and divorce which turned McCoy to the Space Service.

Fontana initially turned to actor and writer Gary Clarke to develop this idea into an episode for the second season, but a story outline never materialized. Later that year, Fontana asked to develop the story herself, but Roddenberry said no, telling producer John Meredyth Lucas, “there is really not sufficient story in the premise.”

Not one to let a good idea die, Fontana pitched the story again for the third season, and this time got the go-ahead to write it. Her outline begins with a group of “23rd Century Flower Children” beaming aboard the Enterprise. One of them turns to McCoy and says, “Hi, Dad.” She's Joanna McCoy (Fontana suggests Nancy Sinatra or Bobbie Gentry as possible casting choices).

Joanna is part of a small band that follows a young man named Sevrin. They're devoted to peace and brotherhood, though Fontana notes, "They are not dirty, no drugs or hallucinogenics [sic], [and] no mentions of ‘hippies’ will be made in reference to them.” They have come aboard the Enterprise after accidentally wrecking their ship, and tell Kirk they are in search of a mythical planet called “Nirvana.” Eventually, they take over the Enterprise and find the planet, but it isn’t what they expected...

If all of this sounds familiar, it’s because the story was reconceived and filmed as “The Way To Eden.” There’s one critical difference, however: the episode, as filmed, doesn’t have McCoy’s daughter in it.

After turning in her story outline, Fontana met with the show’s new producer, Fred Freiberger, who felt that McCoy wasn’t old enough to have a 21-year old daughter. Having already been burned by Freiberger’s rewrite of her teleplay for “The Enterprise Incident,” Fontana recognized it was time to move on, and walked away from Star Trek.

Joanna would be mentioned on the animated Star Trek show made a few years later, but she never appeared on screen. When it came time to assign credit, Fontana took her name off of “The Way To Eden,” using the pseudonym “Michael Richards” instead.