From Newsgroup: alt.tv.star-trek.tos
From Address: nope@noway.com
Subject: Re: IDW Does Harlan Ellison

In article , Jim G.
 wrote:

> A classic revisited, just as Harlan envisioned it...
> 
> The City that Never Sleeps or Goes Away: Harlan Ellison and Star Trek,
> Again
>
> http://www.tor.com/blogs/2014/07/the-city-that-never-sleeps-or
goes-away-harla
> n-ellison-and-star-trek-again
> or http://preview.tinyurl.com/l4sppdm
> 
> QUOTE
> Adapted for the comics by IDWrCUs primary Trek writers Scott and David
> Tipton, and with beautiful art by J.K. Woodward (who did slick work on
> the Doctor Who/TNG crossover a few years ago) everything about this
> release is totally legit. In the debut issue of this limited run (there
> will be five in all) IDW Trek editor Chris Ryall writes fondly about how
> this venture was his idea, and one that took some convincing of
> everybody to go along with. In his words, over time rCRnosrC# turned into
> rCRhmmmms.rC#
> END QUOTE
> 
> Okay, so how long until Ellison sues IDW over something about this?


I read the original script about 35 years ago, and I don't remember
anything about a Bizarro World Enterprise.

The article asks the question, "And yet, now nearly 50 years later,
with numerous Treks behind us, the question still nags: would EllisonrCOs
original script for rCLThe City on the Edge of Forever,rCY have been better
than what ended up on screen?"  I don't think so.  The story is not
about Beckwith, it's about Kirk and Edith Keeler, and Kirk's duty to
history and the future.  The story didn't require Beckwith or anybody
like Beckwith.  Accidentally overdosing McCoy gets things rolling quite
nicely.

Ellison's ending -- with Beckwith stuck in a time loop getting
annihilated every few seconds inside a nova -- is beyond melodramatic. 
In the show as seen, Kirk's final line, "Let's get the hell out of
here," is powerful, especially in a day when saying "hell" on U.S. tv
was a very rare thing indeed.

BTW the really confusing thing about City is just how history was
changed.  Everybody thinks McCoy saved Edith from getting run over by
that truck, and that wasn't the case.  The creepy little guy at the
rescue mission (his name in Ellison's script is Rodent) eventually
rapes and murders Edith.  He doesn't do so in the changed history
because he fiddled with McCoy's phaser and disintegrated himself.  The
significance of this was purposefully obscured, but that's why the
phaser scene is in there.  What's also not explained is why Kirk and
Spock simply didn't take Edith with them into the future, which would
have effectively "killed" her in 1930.  Neither story ever explains why
Edith's death was necessary.

Also, Clark Gable didn't make a movie until 1931.
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