Apparently, the great science fiction author Norman Spinrad wrote a script for “Star Trek: Original Recipe” that never got used. The script resurfaced a few months ago, and Spinrad began selling copies of it online. He also made arrangements with the “Star Trek New Voyages: Phase II” folks to do an adaptation of it.
At least, all this was going to happen until CBS put the kibosh on it.
Question: the Onion A/V Club describes the script as being about “the Enterprise crew’s encounter with a self-proclaimed messiah”. So how, exactly, does this differ from…well, pretty much every “Star Trek” episode written by Gene Roddenberry? Not to mention “Star Trek V”.
(Feel free to post in the comments and tell me I’m wrong. Especially you, A.T. After all, my hatred for “Star Trek” is a well known fact. But I think it is also a pretty well known fact, pointed out by notables such as Harlan Ellison, that “the Enterprise meets God” was a recurring obsession of Roddenberry’s.)
There were several episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series with stories about the Enterprise crew meeting messiahs. They tended to put me to sleep.
I’ve rather liked several of the Star Trek: New Voyages episodes. They have much better writing and production values than I’d dreamed possible for a fan-financed production. I showed one episode to my bride, and she asked me to watch further episodes without her.
The timing of filming the Spinrad episode is curious. I wonder if it is related to his being the WorldCon Guest of Honor next year.
The comments about Roddenberry’s thematic obsessions may well be true. But citing Harlan Ellison as a reliable source is a bit of a stretch. I don’t think Harlan and Gene had any relationship beyond the filming of “City on the Edge of Forever”.
“I’ve rather liked several of the Star Trek: New Voyages episodes.”
One thing that I didn’t mention, but which the linked articles do: this isn’t the first shelved episode they’ve done. I’ll even confess that I’m vaguely interested in seeing their version of “Blood and Fire“, if for no other reason than to see what the controversy was about.
“The timing of filming the Spinrad episode is curious. I wonder if it is related to his being the WorldCon Guest of Honor next year.” I suspect it is more due to the episode being “rediscovered”, if you will, recently.
“I don’t think Harlan and Gene had any relationship beyond the filming of ‘City on the Edge of Forever’.” True, perhaps, but I believe that Harlan maintained personal relationships with many of the writers and certainly heard a great deal from them. I believe other writers have mentioned Roddenberry’s God/messiah obsession as well, including Joel Engel in his book
. However, I don’t have references in front of me at work.
And, yes, I am fully aware that messiah != god. Though if you want to get theological, I could bring in the Holy Trinity and the concept of god as three persons.
On Star Trek: New Voyages…
The best episode is probably “World Enough and Time”, with a script that ended up as a Nebula finalist.
“Blood and Fire” has excellent production values and a good story, but it takes two hours to tell a story that could probably be told more effectively in one. Moving the story from The Next Generation to The Original Series timeline was probably an improvement, since it was fun to watch Kirk deal with alternate lifestyles on the Enterprise. By the way, this was the single episode my wife watched before deciding not to watch any more.
Next time I see the two of you, I will have to talk to the lovely and talented Mrs. A.T. about that…