February 9, 2016


"Return to Tomorrow" first aired on NBC this day, in 1968 (a Friday night all those years ago). The screen credit says the script was written by John Kingsbridge.  So who was John Kingsbridge, and did he really write the episode?




John Kingsbridge was a pseudonym used on rare occasion by screen writer John T. Dugan, who took the first stab at writing the script for this episode. He opted to use his nom de plume when Gene Roddenberry completely rewrote the script – and we mean completely. Other than the basic story, and perhaps a few scattered lines of stage direction and a line or two of dialogue, more than 90% of what you see and hear came from Gene Roddenberry’s typewriter. And of course Roddenberry wanted credit for all his hard work. In fact, the credit on the script’s title page reads “Teleplay by Gene Roddenberry, Story by John T. Dugan.”

So what happened to stop Gene from getting his just due on this episode? You can read all about the drama behind the scene in These Are the Voyages, TOS [The Original Series]: Season Two. Find out for yourself why this book won a special achievement Saturn Award in 2014.
In honor of its broadcast anniversary, watch the original episode (try amazon.com, Netflix or Hulu Plus).  
See the episode in a whole new way by reading all of the great behind-the-scenes details in Marc Cushman’s
These are the Voyages: TOS
* While some of the images in the excepts are shown in color, all images in the book are in black and white.