written by Gene Roddenberry
FINAL DRAFT, dated October 7, 1966
report & analysis by David Eversole

Since this script incorporates great chunks of footage from "The Cage," it should not be a surprise that both parts of this story only comprise 64 pages of script, ten or so pages shorter than some one-hour scripts. In fact a couple of the acts in part two only run to four pages each.

Part One is 43 pages long, Part Two is 21 pages long.

Act One is pretty close to what aired, only a few bits of a dialogue are cut or rearranged.

· The Starbase is M-11 in the script. It is described it as being bathed in a constant purplish twilight. And the pad they beam down onto is called a transporter receiving pad. (In the aired version, it has a large jagged sculpture right in the middle of it! Scotty might become known as Vlad the Impaler if he transports someone slightly off to one side and a couple feet high onto it!)

· Pike has a tendency in the script to flash three times which is always translated as "Yes, yes, yes!" I can see how this would be confusing ("Did he flash 'yes, no'; did he flash 'no, yes?'"), so he only flashes once for yes, twice for no in the aired version.

· Sulu is written in the script; Hansen gets all his lines in the aired episode.

· Starbase 11 Computer Center Chief, Chief Humbolt has a line cut from the aired episode -- "What do you think you're doing, Vulcan!?"

· McCoy's exasperated line, "Well... confine him!" to the guards is not scripted.

· When told that Spock is confined to his quarters, in addition to what aired Mendez says, "Are you serving him pie and ice cream also?!"

The two middle lines of the following exchange were cut:

MENDEZ
He's dead if he makes it to Talos IV.
(turns)
Why would he want to get Pike there?
Spock's report stated Talos contained
absolutely no practical benefits to mankind.

KIRK
Perhaps some surgical methods there
we haven't developed yet.

MENDEZ
The single reference to life on Talos called
it... feeble and parasitic. Parasites hardly
make skilled surgeons.

KIRK
Spock would have some logical reason
for going there.

Also, Kirk at one points notes that Mendez hardly ever leaves the courtroom.

Here is how a typical "flashback" scene is written:

ANGLE ON KIRK, PIKE, MENDEZ

watching the screen intently.

BACK TO PROCESS ANGLE #2 (CONTINUATION SCENE 84)

On which we see SCENE XP6, CAMERA DOLLYING PAST MATTE LINES INTO FULL SCREEN
AND SEGUE INTO FILM, THROUGH XP9:

Bridge discovers radio message of crash on Talos IV; Captain believes there
are no survivors, goes to his cabin; Doctor comes to cabin, discusses Captain
Pike's fatigue; bridge calls cabin and confirms there are crash survivors on
Talos IV; Captain goes to bridge and orders vessel headed for that planet.
(7 7/8 pages)

PROCESS ANGLE #2 - PULL BACK

On which we see the finish of SCENE XP9:

Pike's orders carried out. Enterprise put on course for Talos IV.
(7/8 page)

MENDEZ
Screen off

· Sulu has a line saying that he was sure he made this move, did that--in other words it was a line to show that the Talosians were controlling him and not allowing him to attempt to regain control.

PART II

· At one point early in act one, before Spock says that The Keeper has taken over, he tells Mendez and Kirk:

SPOCK
If you attempt to adjourn, this
transmission will preempt every screen
and every communications channel on
board. You will not be able to escape it.

In Act III, this bit was not aired (or possibly not even filmed); After the screen shows Pike, et al., escape from the cell, we pull back to show the courtroom.

SECURITY CHIEF PITCAIRN
Sir, Engineer and ship's surgeon to see you.

Mendez looks from the blank screen to Spock, wondering. Then he nods to the Chief. McCoy and Scott enter hurriedly.

SCOTT
We've found it. The computers Spock jammed...
(indicates McCoy)
You can thank Doctor McCoy here. His idea.

McCOY
And I should have thought of it sooner.
Elementary body chemistry.
(to Spock)
Anything anyone touches carries some
trace of perspiration. But whereas ours
carries sodium and calcium salts mainly...

KIRK
(alert; interrupting)
Yes!
(to Spock)
Your skin carries copper salts.

McCOY
(nods)
And so we ran a spectrograph beam over
all computer banks. We got a "copper salt"
reading on the series "seven" tapes.

SCOTT
We can safely cross-circuit that series
out, return the vessel to manual control.

Then Spock is shaken and begs Pike to signal them to wait, that he wants to go on to Talos IV as in the aired version.

· In a bit of dialogue left over from an earlier draft when Mendez was named Donald I. Mendez (after Donald I. Prickett, an Air Force Buddy of Gene Roddenberry's), Uhura refers to the Commodore as "Mendez, D. I."

· We do not see the rejuvenated Pike at the end of the script. The final bit in the script is Spock and Pike facing Kirk and Spock says the line, "I believe I've been quite logical about the whole affair." Pike then flashes once for "yes," and they exit.

Kirk's stern demeanor turns into a smile and:

He shakes his head wondering, smiling, as though asking himself "What're you gonna do?, turns away as we:

FADE OUT.

THE END

GENE RODDENBERRY (Eugene Wesley Roddenberry) (1921-1991): Prolific television writer of the 1950s, who created and produced The Lieutenant, Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation. Pilots he produced and had a hand in writing which did not get picked up for a series run include Police Story, Genesis II, Planet Earth, The Questor Tapes and Spectre. Since his death, many series based on his "notes" have been produced. He wrote a Writers Guild Award winning script--"Helen of Abajinian"--for the series Have Gun-Will Travel.

For Star Trek, he wrote: "The Cage," "Mudd's Women" (Story), "Charlie X" (Story), "The Menagerie," "The Return of The Archons" (Story),
"Bread and Circuses" (Story), "A Private Little War" (Story by Jud Crucis (Don Ingalls)), "The Omega Glory," "Assignment: Earth" (Co-Story), and "The Savage Curtain" (w/Arthur Heinemann). For Star Trek: The Next Generation, he wrote "Encounter At Farpoint" (with D.C. Fontana), "Hide and Q" and "Datalore." More on the life and work of Gene Roddenberry can be found at this website.

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