Matheson's Muse
Matheson told author Marc Cushman, “I had just looked at Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and immediately saw the potential of using that transporter device for separating the two sides of a person’s character. Having an accident with that offered a good way to study the alternative personality. And it was part of my original concept that he [Kirk] needed that negative element in his personality in order to be a good captain. I think, probably, we’re all mixtures of good and bad. If any one of us was all good, we’d be boring. And leaders have to have that drive and that ambition.”
Gene Roddenberry immediately saw the point of this story, sending a memo to his associate producers (Robert Justman and John D.F. Black), telling them: “I think this could be a tour-de-force for Bill [Shatner]. Wonder if the NBC censors will allow an attempted rape scene?”
Roddenberry delayed sending the script -- rape scene and all -- to NBC until just before the episode was set to film. Network Program Director Stan Robertson was not happy and wrote to Roddenberry, “Quite honestly, Gene, our approval of this script is given very reluctantly since we feel that the major point which we objected to in the outline is more prominently apparent in the script. And that is what the characterization of Kirk’s ‘Alter Ego,’ as portrayed, might do to the viewer’s image of our hero.”
There are over 15 pages of behind-the-scenes information concerning the writing and production of this episode alone, as there are for all of the episodes of Star Trek®, These are the Voyages – TOS, Season One, to be published by Jacobs/Brown Press in July 2013.
Gene Roddenberry immediately saw the point of this story, sending a memo to his associate producers (Robert Justman and John D.F. Black), telling them: “I think this could be a tour-de-force for Bill [Shatner]. Wonder if the NBC censors will allow an attempted rape scene?”
Roddenberry delayed sending the script -- rape scene and all -- to NBC until just before the episode was set to film. Network Program Director Stan Robertson was not happy and wrote to Roddenberry, “Quite honestly, Gene, our approval of this script is given very reluctantly since we feel that the major point which we objected to in the outline is more prominently apparent in the script. And that is what the characterization of Kirk’s ‘Alter Ego,’ as portrayed, might do to the viewer’s image of our hero.”
There are over 15 pages of behind-the-scenes information concerning the writing and production of this episode alone, as there are for all of the episodes of Star Trek®, These are the Voyages – TOS, Season One, to be published by Jacobs/Brown Press in July 2013.
Watch for These are the Voyages — TOS, Seasons Two and Three, set for publication by Jacobs/Brown Press later in 2013
