page_title: The City on the Edge of Forever
section_title: Development of the teleplay
hierarchical_section_title: The City on the Edge of Forever / Production / Writing / Development of the teleplay
caption_attribution_description: English: A photograph of Gene Roddenberry from 1961, used to advertise for Mutual of New York. Published in Look magazine.
context_page_description: "The City on the Edge of Forever" is the twenty-eighth and penultimate episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek. The episode had several writers contribute to the finished product including Harlan Ellison, Steven W. Carabatsos, D. C. Fontana and Gene L. Coon. Gene Roddenberry made the final re-write. The episode was directed by Joseph Pevney and first aired on NBC on April 6, 1967.
  In the episode, after a heavily medicated Doctor Leonard McCoy travels back in time and changes history, Captain Kirk and Spock follow him to correct the timeline. In doing so, Kirk falls in love with Edith Keeler, but realizes that in order to save his future, he must allow her to die.
  The episode received widespread critical acclaim and has been frequently stated to be the best episode of the entire franchise, with it fondly received by cast, crew, and critics. Elements such as the tragic ending were highlighted by several reviewers. It won several awards, including the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Episodic Drama on Television and the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.
context_section_description: Justman registered immediate concerns over the potential cost of attempting to film the treatment. He had particular concerns about a time portal effect, a scene involving a mammoth and the number of exterior and night shoots that would be required. Despite this, Roddenberry asked Ellison to turn it into a shooting script and set aside a desk for him in the assistant director's room, expecting him to attend the office every day until he finished it. Ellison ended up with a smaller office of his own at his request but disliked it sufficiently that he spent the majority of his time on set. He would play loud rock and roll music in the office, and then leave it for the set. On one occasion story editor John D. F. Black caught him on set during the filming of "Mudd's Women" and had him escorted back to the office. The music went on, and Black went back to tell Ellison to turn it down, but the writer had already climbed out the window and left. But on other occasions, he would work late into the night and sleep on the couch in Justman's office. As the delays added up, the slots assigned to "The City on the Edge of Forever" were reallocated to other episodes. Although this period was later claimed to be of various lengths, Ellison completed the first draft teleplay in three weeks, handing it to Justman on June 7. Black later said that Ellison always had "40 things going" in reference to him doing multiple assignments at once. In response, Ellison said that doing multiple assignments at the same time was simply how screenwriters earned a living in the 1960s.
  Justman's initial glee at receiving the script was short-lived. He realized quickly that it was unfilmable due to cost, and the characters were not behaving as per the writer's guide. One such exchange between Kirk and Spock had the Vulcan character accusing humans of being barbaric, while Kirk saying Spock was ungrateful because humans were more advanced than Vulcans. Justman thought it was a good script, but could never be re-written and filmed in time for the first season. Ellison was asked to revise it once more, with the issues blamed on requests from NBC, and submitted a further version a week later. The production team was starting to lose patience, as he was not revising it in line with their requests, and he began arguing with Justman over the budget issues. On August 15 Ellison turned in a second revised draft to Justman, titled "final draft" on the front cover. Justman wrote a memo immediately to fellow producer Gene L. Coon, saying that after five months, Ellison had failed to reduce the budget requirements for the episode to something that could be filmed.
  Roddenberry and Justman both spoke to Ellison, seeking further changes, but failed. William Shatner was sent to Ellison's house to try to get the writer to reconcile. He claimed he was shouted at and thrown off the property, but Ellison said that he had read the script through while sitting on a couch and had left to tell Roddenberry that he liked it. Ellison suggested that Shatner had a personal interest in having the script revised because Leonard Nimoy had more lines than he did in Ellison's version, and had spent the time on the couch line counting. Meanwhile, Steve Carabatsos replaced Black as story editor on the show and was told by Coon to fix the script. Carabatsos replaced the new characters with an accident involving McCoy and an overdose of adrenalin and removed the Guardians of Forever, replacing them with a time travel portal. Ellison subsequently accused him of "taking a chainsaw" to the script. Roddenberry disliked the new version sufficiently that he convinced Ellison to come back and rewrite it again.
  On December 19 Ellison submitted a further revised teleplay, dated December 1. Justman suggested in a memo that Roddenberry might be able to rewrite the latest version to one that could be usable. He said that although it was a "fine story" and Ellison was an "extremely talented writer", he felt that it needed to be either rewritten by someone else or scrapped altogether. Taking this advice in h
caption: Gene Roddenberry (pictured in 1961), was among those who re-wrote Ellison's script in an attempt to bring it within budget and enable it to be filmed
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