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

Shortly after turning in his final draft of “The Doomsday Machine,” Norman Spinrad got a second assignment — a prime directive story called “He Walked Among Us,” about a pre-industrial civilization that has been contaminated by a notorious “psycho-sociologist” named Dr. Theodore Bayne. Spinrad has claimed that the character was written with Milton Berle in mind, but it should be noted that at least one draft describes the character of Bayne as “obviously a Negro from Earth.”

In Spinrad’s outline, when Bayne crash landed on the planet Jugal fifteen years prior, the natives began to revere him as a god. Rather than correct this misconception, he used it as “chance to establish his ideal society and vindicate his theories.” Kirk is aghast at this blatant violation of the prime directive. Making matters worse for him, Bayne isn’t willing to leave. The story’s fundamental dilemma is how Kirk will remove Bayne from Jugal without violating the prime directive or further contaminating the planet’s society.

“Are we doing too many ‘god’ stories?” asked D.C. Fontana in a memo to her boss, Gene L. Coon (that season alone, they had “The Apple,” “The Changeling,” and “Who Mourns for Adonais?”). After Spinrad turned in a second draft outline, Fontana advised Coon, "There is no real jeopardy to Kirk and the others...There are no genuine, valid problems for Kirk." She suggested a rewrite.

When Spinrad turned in his first draft teleplay, associate producer Bob Justman didn’t mince any words:

No doubt you will remember that I made a statement about Norman Spinrad evidencing definite signs of becoming a highly skilled television writer. I would like to retract that opinion....This teleplay is very sloppy.

Fontana agreed with Justman. “In general,” she wrote, “there are too many people, not enough action, indecision and no assertiveness on the part of Kirk, and dreadful dialogue.”

There was another problem with the script, too. Spinrad had been hired to write a planet show using the existing backlot and bring it in on budget. Instead, he delivered what Justman saw as a budgetary nightmare. Justman wrote to Coon:

The amount of extras and bits and wardrobe and special silver wigs at several hundred dollars apiece 'begs explanation'! I am very glad that the representatives of Gulf Western do not examine or first draft teleplays.

Hoping to salvage the effort, Coon fired off a lengthy memo dictating all the changes the staff needed from Spinrad when he rewrote the teleplay. Regarding the dialogue, he told Spinrad, “Remember that this is [being] written to be spoken not to be read.” It was one of the kinder things he said in his memo, which did not sugarcoat things.

Spinrad delivered his second draft teleplay a month later. Wrote D.C. Fontana, “It is a poor structure, badly characterized, and with unspeakable dialogue.” She went on to eviscerate the first 20 pages of the script, and then concluded:

Just because I didn't say much about Pages 20 through 44, and 44 through 65 doesn't mean I like them. This is a dull script, except for several flurries of contrived action. Kirk stands around examining his navel...

Coon did his own rewrite of the script, but then he left the show. When producer John Meredyth Lucas took over, Roddenberry sent him a memo about the latest draft of the script:

Perhaps most of all, the thing we've missed most all along on every version of this script by various writers, is a theme or premise. What is this story about? What statement are we making? Recommend you and Dorothy and I sit down together on this one, toss some ideas back and forth, see what happens.

In the end, rather than tossing together some ideas, they tossed out the whole script.