February 9, 2015
"The Return of the Archons"
"The Return of the Archons" first aired on NBC this day, a whole bunch of years ago, in 1967. Did you know that the teleplay for this episode was one of two Star Trek scripts nominated in early 1968 by the Writers Guild of America as “Best One Hour Drama” for the year 1967? Do you know what the other Star Trek script was? And what script – be it from Star Trek or another series – that won?
And the winner is.......
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“The City on the Edge of Forever,” (Harlan Ellison’s version, not the one that was filmed, which was a “Page One Rewrite” by Gene Roddenberry, Gene Coon and D.C. Fontana, all uncredited). There was a lot of drama in the script wars over “The City on the Edge of Forever,” and at the WGA Awards show when the trophy was handed out.
You can read all about all the drama in These Are the Voyages, TOS: Season One. By the way, the book is an award-winner, too. It and Season Two, combined, won a “Special Achievement” Saturn Award in June 2014.
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Here’s another question....and don’t get us wrong, we like “The Return of the Archons,” but how come it was the other Star Trek script to get a WGA nomination that year instead of, say, late Season One episodes such as “Arena,” “The Squire of Gothos,” “Tomorrow Is Yesterday,” “Space Seed,” “This Side of Paradise,” “The Devil in the Dark,” or early Season Two episodes like “Amok Time,” “Mirror, Mirror,” “The Doomsday Machine,” “Journey to Babel,” or ‘The Trouble with Tribbles,” all of which qualified for consideration since they first aired in 1967?
The answer to that question lies in These Are the Voyages, TOS: Season One. Read your copy again … or get an autographed, revised and expanded edition here.
* While some of the images are shown in color, all images in the books are in black and white.
