Roger Joseph Zelazny was born in Euclid, Ohio, the only child of Polish immigrant Joseph Frank Żelazny and Irish-American Josephine Flora Sweet. In high school, he became the editor of the school newspaper and joined the Creative Writing Club. In the fall of 1955, he began attending Western Reserve University and graduated with a B.A. in English in 1959. He was accepted to Columbia University in New York and specialized in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, graduating with an M.A. in 1962. His M.A. thesis was entitled Two traditions and Cyril Tourneur: an examination of morality and humor comedy conventions in The Revenger's Tragedy.
Between 1962 and 1969 he worked for the U.S. Social Security Administration in Cleveland, Ohio and then in Baltimore, Maryland spending his evenings writing science fiction. He deliberately progressed from short-shorts to novelettes to novellas and finally to novel-length works by 1965.
On May 1, 1969, he quit to become a full-time writer, and thereafter
concentrated on writing novels in order to maintain his income. During this period, he was an active and vocal member of the Baltimore Science Fiction Society, whose members included writers Jack Chalker and Joe and Jack Haldeman among others.
His first fanzine appearance was part one of the story "Conditional Benefit" (Thurban 1 #3, 1953) and his first professional publication and sale was the fantasy short story "Mr. Fuller's Revolt" (Literary Calvalcade, 1954). As a professional writer, his debut works were the simultaneous publication of "Passion Play" (Amazing, August 1962) and "Horseman!" (Fantastic, August 1962). "Passion Play" was written and sold first. His first story to attract major attention was "A Rose for Ecclesiastes", published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, with cover art by Hannes Bok.
Zelazny died in 1995, aged 58, of kidney failure secondary to colorectal cancer.
Personal life
Zelazny
was married twice, first to Sharon Steberl in 1964 (divorced, no
children), and then to Judith Alene Callahan in 1966. Prior to this he
was engaged to folk singer Hedy West for six months from 1961 to 1962. Roger and Judy had two sons, Devin and Trent (an author of crime fiction) and a daughter, Shannon. At the time of his death, Roger and Judy were separated and he was living with author Jane Lindskold.
Raised as a Catholic by his parents, Zelazny later declared himself a lapsed Catholic and remained that way for the rest of his life.
"I did have a strong Catholic background, but I am not a Catholic.
Somewhere in the past, I believe I answered in the affirmative once for
strange and complicated reasons. But I am not a member of any organized
religion."
Characteristic themes
In his stories, Roger Zelazny frequently portrayed characters from myth,
depicted in the modern or a future world. Zelazny included many
anachronisms, such as cigarette-smoking and references to modern drama,
in his work. His crisp, minimalistic dialogue also seems to be somewhat
influenced by the style of wisecracking hardboiled crime authors, such as Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett. The tension between the ancient and the modern, surreal and familiar was what drove most of his work.
A very frequent motif in Zelazny's work is immortality or people who (have) becomegods (as well as gods who have turned into people). The mythological traditions his fiction borrowed from include:
Aside from working with mythological themes, the most common
recurring motif of Zelazny's is the "absent father" (or father-figure).
Again, this occurs most notably in the Amber novels: in the first Amber series, the protagonist Corwin searches for his lost, god-like father Oberon; while in the second series, which focuses on Corwin's son Merlin (not to be confused with the Arthurian Merlin), it is Corwin himself who is strangely missing. This somewhat Freudian theme runs through almost every Zelazny novel to a smaller or larger degree. Roadmarks, Doorways in the Sand, Changeling, Madwand, A Dark Traveling; the short stories "Dismal Light", "Godson", "The Keys to December"; and the Alien Speedway
series all feature main characters who are either searching for or have
lost their fathers. Zelazny's father, Joseph, died unexpectedly in 1962
and never knew his son's successes as a writer; this event may have
triggered Zelazny's unconscious and frequent use of the absent father
motif.
Two other personal characteristics that influenced his fiction were his expertise in martial arts and his addiction to tobacco. Zelazny became expert with the épée in college, and thus began a lifelong study of several different martial arts, including judo, aikido (which he later taught as well, having gained a black belt), t'ai chi, and pa kua.
In turn, many of his characters ably and knowledgeably use similar
skills whilst dispatching their opponents. Zelazny was also a passionate
cigarette and pipe smoker
(until he quit in the early '80s), so much so, that he made many of his
protagonists heavy smokers as well. However, he quit in order to
improve his cardiovascular fitness for the martial arts; once he had
quit, characters in his later novels and short stories stopped smoking
too.
Another characteristic of Zelazny's writing is that many of his
protagonists had sufficient familiarity with other languages to be able
to quote French, German, Italian or Latin
aphorisms when the occasion seemed appropriate (or even inappropriate),
although Zelazny himself did not speak any of those languages.
He also often experimented with form in his stories. The novel Doorways in the Sand
practices a flashback technique in which most chapters open with a
scene, typically involving peril, not implied by the end of the previous
chapter. Once the scene is established, the narrator backtracks to the
events leading up to it, then follows through to the end of the chapter,
whereupon the next chapter jumps ahead to another dramatic non-sequitur.
In Roadmarks,
a novel about a road system that links all possible times, places and
histories, the chapters that feature the protagonist are all titled
"One". Other chapters, titled "Two", feature secondary characters,
including original characters, pulp heroes,
and real historical characters. The "One" storyline is fairly linear,
whereas the "Two" storyline jumps around in time and sequence. After
finishing the manuscript, Zelazny shuffled the "Two" chapters randomly
among the "One" chapters in order to emphasize their non-linear nature
relative to the storyline.
Creatures of Light and Darkness, featuring characters in the personae of Egyptian gods, uses a narrative voice entirely in the present tense; the final chapter is structured as a play, and several chapters take the form of long poems.
Zelazny also tended to write a short fragment, not intended for
publication, as a kind of backstory for a major character, as a way of
giving that character a life independent of the particular novel being
worked on. At least one "fragment" was published, the short story Dismal Light, originally a backstory for Isle of the Dead's Francis Sandow. Sandow himself figures little in Dismal Light,
the main character being his son, who is delaying his escape from an
unstable star system in order to force his distant father to come in and
ask him personally. While Isle of the Dead has Sandow living a
life of irresponsible luxury as an escape from his personal demons,
"Dismal Light" anchors his character as one who will face up to his
responsibilities, however reluctantly.
Another common stylistic approach in his novels is the use of mixed genres, whereby elements of each are combined freely and interchangeably. Jack of Shadows and Changeling, for example, revolve around the tensions between the two worlds of magic and technology. Lord of Light,
perhaps one of his most famous works, is written in the classic style
of a mythic fantasy, while it is established early in the book that the
story itself takes place on a colonized planet.
Many of Zelazny's works explore variations upon the idea that if
there exists an infinite number of worlds, then every world that can be
imagined must exist, somewhere. Powerful beings in many of his stories
have the ability to travel to worlds that possess precisely the
characteristics which that being wishes to experience. (Zelazny
characters with this ability include Thoth in Creatures of Light and Darkness, who teleports to these worlds; those with the royal blood of either Amber or Chaos in The Chronicles of Amber, who "move through shadows" to reach these worlds; the guardian families of A Dark Traveling, who move between realities using high-tech devices; and Red Dorakeen in Roadmarks,
who reaches these worlds by driving along a magical highway.) Many of
these same characters wonder whether they are creating these special
places anew, or are merely finding places which already exist (very much
like "the problem of universals" in classical metaphysics). Usually each character who ponders this ultimately decides that the question is purely academic and therefore unanswerable.
Legacy
Zelazny's stories inspired other authors in his generation including Samuel R. Delany, whose novel Nova and many of his short stories were written "partly in response to Zelazny’s eruption into the field." In 1967 Algis Budrys listed Zelazny, Delany, J. G. Ballard, and Brian W. Aldiss as "an earthshaking new kind of" writers, and leaders of the New Wave. Neil Gaiman said Zelazny was the author who influenced him the most, with this influence particularly seen in Gaiman's literary style and the topics he writes about.
In addition, Zelazny was the Worldcon Guest of Honor at Discon II in
Washington, D.C. in 1974, and won the Inkpot Award for Best Prose Author
at Comic-Con International in 1993. "A Rose for Ecclesiastes" was
included in Visions of Mars: First Library on Mars, a DVD taken on board the Phoenix Mars Lander in 2008.
In the episode, after a heavily medicated Doctor Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley) travels back in time and changes history, Captain Kirk (William Shatner) and Spock (Leonard Nimoy) follow him to correct the timeline. In doing so, Kirk falls in love with Edith Keeler (Joan Collins), 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.
Plot
Chief Medical Officer Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley) is treating an injured Lt. Sulu (George Takei) when the Enterprise is rocked by a time distortion and McCoy accidentally injects himself with an overdose of cordrazine, a dangerous drug. Delusional and paranoid, he flees from the bridge to the transporter room, beaming himself down to a nearby planet. Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner)
leads a landing party to look for McCoy, and they come across an
ancient glowing stone ring, which turns out to be the cause of the time
distortions. The "Guardian of Forever" (voiced by Bartell LaRue) explains that it is a doorway to any time and place. While Spock (Leonard Nimoy) is recording historic images from the portal, McCoy escapes through it. The landing party suddenly loses contact with the Enterprise, and the Guardian informs them that McCoy has altered the past, and that the Enterprise, and all that they knew, was gone.
The Guardian permits Kirk and Spock to follow McCoy in an effort
to repair the timeline. Spock attempts to time their passage so as to
arrive ahead of McCoy, and they find themselves in New York City in 1930, during the Great Depression. After stealing clothes from a fire escape in order to blend in, they meet a woman named Edith Keeler (Joan Collins), who runs the 21st Street Mission.
They are given a place to sleep, along with doing odd jobs to earn
money. Spock works to devise a method of interfacing with his tricorder
and analyze its recorded images to determine how McCoy has altered
history. While they await his arrival, Kirk and Keeler spend time
together, and Kirk begins to fall in love.
McCoy stumbles into the mission, unnoticed by Kirk and Spock, and
Keeler nurses him back to health. Spock completes his work and
discovers that Keeler was supposed to die that year in a traffic
accident. In the altered timeline, Spock learns that Dr. McCoy saved
Keeler's life, and Keeler founded a pacifist movement, causing the United States to delay its entrance into World War II and allowing Nazi Germany time to develop nuclear weapons,
with which they will conquer the world. Kirk admits his love for
Keeler, and Spock answers that Keeler must die in order to prevent
billions of deaths.
On her way with Kirk to see a movie, Keeler mentions McCoy. Kirk,
shocked and excited, tells her to stay where she is and calls for Spock
to tell him. The Starfleet trio reunite in front of the mission.
Curious, Keeler crosses the street to join them, and she steps in front
of a fast-moving truck. Kirk turns to save Keeler from the truck, but a
shout from Spock freezes him in his tracks. Then Kirk blocks McCoy from
saving her, and she is struck and killed. A stunned McCoy can't believe
Kirk knowingly stopped him. With history restored, Kirk, Spock, and
McCoy return to the Guardian's planet where the rest of the landing
party is waiting. When the Guardian declares that "more such journeys
are possible", a brokenhearted Kirk simply states "Let's get the hell
out of here," and the landing party beams back aboard the Enterprise.
Production
Writing
The writing of this episode took over ten months, from the initial pitch by Harlan Ellison to the final re-write by Gene Roddenberry. Steven W. Carabatsos and D. C. Fontana, both story editors on the show, undertook re-writes of the teleplay, and changes have also been attributed to producer Gene L. Coon.
The experience led to animosity between Ellison and Roddenberry for the
rest of the latter's life, in particular over a claim by Roddenberry
that Ellison had the character Scotty
dealing drugs in one version of the script. The episode went over
budget by more than $50,000 and overran the production schedule.
Mistakes were made in the set design with an instruction for "runes" misconstrued as a request for "ruins". With Matt Jefferies ill, Rolland Brooks designed the set and the Guardian of Forever, to the surprise of Jefferies on his return.
Initial pitch and outlines
Harlan Ellison was one of the first writers recruited by Gene Roddenberry for Star Trek.
Roddenberry was aiming to have the best science fiction writers produce
scripts for the show, and had identified Ellison immediately; at the
time, Ellison had been nominated for the 1965Writers Guild of America Award for Outstanding Script for a Television Anthology with his script for The Outer Limits episode "Demon with a Glass Hand;" he went on to win. Rather than being assigned a pre-written premise, Ellison was allowed to develop his own and propose it in a 10-page outline. Ellison was inspired by reading a biography of evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, and thought that it would be an interesting idea to have Kirk
travel back in time and fall in love with a similar woman of good
intent, but someone who must die in order to preserve the future.
Ellison considered that it would have a heartrending effect on Kirk.
Harlan Ellison (pictured in 1986) was one of the first writers to be hired for Star Trek
In March 1966, Ellison pitched the idea to Roddenberry, who accepted it. A week later, he turned in his first script treatment. Producer Robert H. Justman
later recalled that he thought it was brilliant. When writing it,
Ellison did not have as many restrictions as some of the later writers;
he was hired prior to the series bible
being created. The first version introduced Lieutenant Richard
Beckwith, who is sentenced to death after he kills a fellow crewman when
he is threatened with the exposure of his involvement in the illegal drug trade.
Ellison had included this element, since he expected the starship to be
like any other military unit, having at least some unlawful people. Beckwith is then escorted to the surface of a nearby planet alongside Kirk, with Spock to carry out the execution by firing squad. Because of the planet's atmosphere, they have to wear environmental suits.
On arriving, they find an ancient civilization and the remains of a
city — this was Ellison's "city on the edge of forever". It is inhabited
by several 9-foot-tall (2.7 m) men, the Guardians of Forever, who
protect an ancient time machine.
Kirk then asks to see the history of the United States
on the machine, and as it reaches the Great Depression of the 1930s,
Beckwith dives into the projection and vanishes. The guardians inform
Kirk that history has been altered, and upon returning to the Enterprise,
they discover that the vessel is now manned by renegades. They fight
their way back to the transporter room and return to the planet, where
the Guardians allow Kirk and Spock to pursue Beckwith into the past.
They are informed by the Guardians that Beckwith prevented the death of
Edith Koestler, and as in the final version, Kirk falls in love with
her; in this version however, he does so knowing that she must die in
the end. Emotionally, he cannot stop Beckwith from attempting to save
Koestler — Spock has to do it. Roddenberry had asked for the ship specifically to be placed in danger, and so Ellison added the renegade element in response.
Roddenberry disagreed with some of Kirk's actions in the first
draft, and he asked Ellison to rewrite the treatment without pay. The
redraft took a further five weeks, after which Roddenberry gave more
notes and Ellison took another two weeks to respond. There were still
plans to film the episode in the first half of the season at that point,
as a version included Yeoman Janice Rand (Grace Lee Whitney).
When a version was received on May 13, Roddenberry and the executives
at Desilu and NBC were all relieved—there had been concerns over the
amount of time taken, as scripts were being pitched, written, and
approved in the time taken for Ellison to revise his outline. This
version dropped the environmental suits due to cost, and rewrote the
information given to Kirk by the Guardians, making it more general and
less Earth-specific. It also changed Edith Kostler's surname to Keeler. However, the majority of the plot points were unchanged.
Development of the teleplay
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
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 slept 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 which 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.
When D.C. Fontana rewrote the teleplay, she added McCoy's accidental overdose in the first act.
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 which 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
hand, Roddenberry rewrote the script over the Christmas–New Year period,
handing in a new version on January 9, 1967. His changes included the
elimination of the evil version of the Enterprise and the
addition of some comedy elements. Justman was pleased with Roddenberry's
changes and told Coon that it was close to being filmable but that he
still expected it to exceed the budget for a single episode.
Dorothy Fontana
was hired as a new story editor, replacing Carabatsos. She had
previously been Roddenberry's secretary and was well aware of the
script's problems from reading the previous versions. When she arrived
at work for her first day in her new role, Roddenberry gave her a copy
of his revision and told her to try rewriting it. She later referred to
that day as "walking into a hornets' nest", and the script itself as a
"live grenade". Among the changes in her version was the introduction of
the drug cordrazine. Ellison specifically criticized this change, as
his most recent version of the script called for an alien creature's
venom to cause the symptoms in McCoy. He said that "Gene [Roddenberry]
preferred having an accomplished surgeon act in such a boneheaded manner
that he injects himself with a deadly drug!"
Justman praised Fontana's version, saying that it was the version
which was most likely to be shot. But he suggested that it had now lost
the "beauty and mystery inherent in the screenplay as Harlan originally
wrote it." He said that he felt bad, because if he had not seen
Ellison's earlier versions then he would probably have been "thrilled"
with Fontana's version. Still unsatisfied with the script, Roddenberry
set about rewriting it once more, entitling the result, dated February
1, the final draft.
Ellison later called elements of the dialogue in this version
"precisely the kind of dopey Utopian bullshit that Roddenberry loved", and added that Roddenberry had "about as much writing ability as the lowest industry hack". However, Shatner later believed that it was actually re-written by Gene L. Coon and only supervised by Roddenberry. Ellison requested via his agent that he be credited on the script only as Cordwainer Bird. In response, Roddenberry threatened to have Ellison blacklisted by the Writers Guild of America,
and the writer was eventually convinced to be credited by name. None of
the other writers involved in the work chose to seek credit for the
script, since they agreed with Roddenberry that it was important for Star Trek to be associated with writers such as Ellison.
Direction and casting
Joan Collins (pictured in 1956), was a well known actress before appearing in "The City on the Edge of Forever".
Joseph Pevney
was assigned as the director of this episode. He had previous
experience in directing full-length films, and later explained that "The
City on the Edge of Forever" was the closest episode in Star Trek to that same level of work and challenge, stating that he treated it as a film.
But he was critical of Ellison's version of the script, saying that he
"had no sense of theater" and it was fortunate that Roddenberry re-wrote
it. He praised Ellison's level of detail in the 1930s setting, and for
the general idea behind the episode.
The crew were surprised when actress Joan Collins expressed an interest in appearing in the series.
After her agent asked her if she wanted to appear on the show, Collins,
who had never heard of it, mentioned it to her children. When her
oldest daughter was enthusiastic about the show, Collins decided to
accept the offer from the studio.
Casting director Joe D'Agosta called her a "notorious actress", but
said that at the time they saw approaches from a wide range of actors
and actresses who wanted to appear on the series. Pevney said "Joan
Collins was very good in it. She enjoyed working on the show and Bill
and Leonard were both very good to her... Using her was a good choice." Collins would later incorrectly recall Keeler as a Nazi sympathiser, an error which has been repeated in biographies of the actress. Ellison said in response that this was not an intended character trait.
Filming
began on February 3, 1967, with an expectation that it would take six
days to film. The shoot was completed a day and a half behind schedule
on February 14. The overall cost was $245,316, compared to the budget of $191,000 for this episode. The normal budget for episodes during the first season were $185,000.
Roddenberry later claimed that around $257,000 was spent on the
episode, and said that he could have saved a further $20,000 if he had
not insisted on high quality casting and sets. He also claimed that the original Ellison version would have cost a further $200,000 on top of what was already spent.
The shoot began on location at the Desilu Forty Acres,
with Pevney aiming to complete all the location filming in a single day
in order to complete the episode in the allocated six days. The site
had been used previously for the episodes "Miri" and "The Return of the Archons".
None of the producers expected him to do so, but with the series
already $74,507 in the red and with two more episodes left to film,
Desilu had to appear to NBC to be trying to keep to budget. Extensive
work was completed during the daylight hours, on the set which had been
used for other series such as The Andy Griffith Show,
with Floyd's barber shop appearing in some of the shots. The filming
continued into the night, and with Pevney running out of time, he was
not sure when to stop. The problem was that other series such as Rango and Gomer Pyle
had the sets booked up for the next several days, and they were unsure
whether they would have time to return and film the missing scenes.
After a weekend break, filming resumed on the Desilu Gower Street sets, where My Three Sons
was normally shot. These were used to represent the interior of the
mission where Keeler nurses McCoy back to health. DeForest Kelley felt
that McCoy should also fall for Keeler;
so Pevney shot the scenes with that element included but never included
it in the final cut. The following two days were spent on the same
sets, while on day 5 the action moved to the bridge set for the Enterprise. This day's shoot was meant to include scenes in the transporter room and in the Enterprise
corridors, but by now the production was a full day behind and these
were pushed to the following day. Part way through day 6, the filming
moved to a neighboring set for the exterior ruin shots and the Guardian
of Forever, which was used for the next two and a half days. The montage of historical footage was all taken from the Paramount film library, as was the footage of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Harlan Ellison long maintained that the ancient ruins were the
result of someone's misreading his description in the script of the city
as "covered with runes."
When informed that the word "runes" did not appear in any version of
his treatments or script (or any rewrites), Ellison responded in Edge Words, the letter column of IDW's comic book adaptation of his original script, by admitting that his memory was faulty, and that he actually told Matt Jefferies
that the set should appear "Ancient, incredibly ancient, with runes
everywhere..." He surmises that he perhaps slurred the word "ruins" and
Jefferies misheard him.
Music
There are a
number of musical pieces reused from earlier episodes in "The City on
the Edge of Forever", including sufficient use of the scores from "The Cage", "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and "The Naked Time" that Alexander Courage received an "additional music by" credit. Further pieces came from "Shore Leave", "Charlie X" and "The Enemy Within". A partial score was created by Fred Steiner, his final work of the first season. His work on Star Trek tended to focus on the use of violins and cellos to highlight romantic moments, and he did not use violas in any of his works on the series. This episode originally featured the 1931 song "Goodnight Sweetheart", which was originally composed by Ray Noble with lyrics by Jimmy Campbell and Reg Connelly. For the version used in the episode, the lyrics were recorded by an unknown session musician.
It had been licensed to appear in the episode,
and at first, Steiner sought to use motifs from "Goodnight, Sweetheart"
as the basis of his score. He wanted this to be subtle and introduce
the melody of the song over time, but Justman realized what Steiner was
attempting and rejected it on the basis that he did not want the song
introduced too early in the episode. Another work of Steiner's which was
rejected for "The City on the Edge of Forever" was an alternative main
title track using saxophone and celesta which he had hoped would set the episode in the tone of the 1930s. The music recorded specifically for "The City on the Edge of Forever" was recorded in stereo, which was unusual for the series. This was rediscovered when a 15-disc soundtrack of The Original Series
was being compiled by La-La Land Records, which they hypothesized was
because the accompanying vocals appeared on a separate track.
By the time "The City on the Edge of Forever" was released in the 1980s for home media use, such as on VHS and Laserdisc, the licence for the use of "Goodnight, Sweetheart" had lapsed and was instead picked up by a different studio. A new score was composed to replace the song where it was used in the episode,
however the new pieces did not match the existing Steiner works as they
used a different orchestral arrangement. Steiner was not contacted or
informed of the changes to the soundtrack requirements, and this was instead composed by J. Peter Robinson. The original intention was not to restore "Goodnight, Sweetheart" to the DVD release,
and issue the DVD with a disclaimer on the box, "Some music has been
changed for this DVD." However, the original "Goodnight, Sweetheart"
portion was erroneously included and Paramount reportedly had to pay
royalties. Since the royalties had been paid, all subsequent releases have included the original "Goodnight, Sweetheart" music and with the 1980s scores omitted.
Reception
Broadcast
"The City on the Edge of Forever" was first broadcast in the United States on April 6, 1967, on NBC. A 12-city overnight Trendex report compiled by Nielsen ratings showed that during the first half-hour, it held second place in the ratings behind Bewitched on ABC with 11.64 million viewers compared to Bewitched's 15.04 million. The episode beat My Three Sons on CBS. During the second half-hour it remained in second place with 28.4 percent of the audience share, behind the 32.1 percent for Love on a Rooftop, also on ABC.
A High Definition
remastering of "The City on the Edge of Forever", which introduced new
special effects and starship exteriors as well as enhanced music and
audio, was shown for the first time on October 7, 2006, in broadcast syndication in the United States. It was the fifth remastered episode to be shown.
This meant that the episode was made available to over 200 local
stations across the United States with the rights to broadcast Star Trek, and depending on the station it was broadcast either on October 7 or 8.
Cast and crew response
This episode has been held in high regard by those who have worked on Star Trek. Roddenberry ranked it as one of his ten favorite episodes, and said it was his favorite alongside "The Menagerie" and the second pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before".
In the final interview before he died, he said it was his favorite
outright. Fontana said it was one of her two favorite episodes that she
was not credited for, alongside "The Trouble with Tribbles".
The main cast have also said it was among their favorites. Shatner has often chosen either this, or "The Devil in the Dark" as the best episode, saying "'City' is my favorite of the original Star Trek series because of the fact it is a beautiful love story, well told." Nimoy described it as one of his favorites, alongside "The Devil in the Dark", "Amok Time", "Journey to Babel", "This Side of Paradise" and "The Naked Time". In his 1995 book, I Am Spock,
Nimoy said that episodes such as "The City on the Edge of Forever" and
"Amok Time" were "just as powerful and meaningful to today's audiences
as they were to viewers back in the 1960s." Kelley said it was his favorite, adding "I thought it was one of the most dramatic endings ever seen on a television show." Karl Urban, who plays McCoy in the 2009 Star Trek and the sequels, said that "The City on the Edge of Forever" was one of his favorite episodes alongside "The Corbomite Maneuver", "Amok Time" and "Arena".
Critical acclaim
"The City on the Edge of Forever" has been frequently cited as the best episode of all the Star Trek series and movies. In a preview of the episode in the Albuquerque Journal, it was said to be a "surprise variation of the 'time tunnel' theme" and was described as "an absorbing tale, a bit hard to take at times, but imaginative nonetheless." After Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was released in 1986, Luis Aguilar of The Washington Post said that "The City on the Edge of Forever" was superior to the film, calling it a "brilliant, beautifully executed story."
TV Guide
ranked it #68 in their 100 Most Memorable Moments in TV History feature
in its July 1, 1996 edition, #92 on the 100 greatest TV episodes of all
time, and #80 on its list of "TV's Top 100 Episodes of All Time."
For the franchise's 30th anniversary, it was ranked as the best Star Trek episode. "The City on the Edge of Forever" has placed highly in many "best of" lists of Star Trek episodes. In a special edition of Entertainment Weekly during the fall of 1994, "The City on the Edge of Forever" was ranked number one in a comprehensive listing of all 79 episodes.
The article described the episode as "Cosmic themes, effective acting,
and a heart-wrenching ending makes this the undisputed Uber-Trek".
2000s
In their 2003 book, Beyond the Final Frontier: An Unauthorised Review of Star Trek, Mark Jones and Lance Parkin described "The City on the Edge of Forever" as "Rightly regarded as the highlight of original Star Trek" and the "epitome of what Star Trek
does best". They said that having Kirk allow Keeler to die was
"horrifying and heart-rending, adding another dimension to his
character."
Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club
gave the episode an 'A' rating in 2009, describing it as "a justly
revered classic". But he said that McCoy's accidental overdose was a
"stretch" and gave the episode "a surprisingly awkward start, with
little indication of the greatness that is to follow." He called the
ending "brutal" and praised the conundrum that Kirk is placed in, faced
with the death of Keeler. Handlen suggested that it would have made a
better final episode of the season, instead of "Operation: Annihilate". Also in 2009, it was reviewed by Torie Atkinson and Eugene Myers for Tor.com,
where they gave it a rating of six out of six. They were concerned that
the episode might not live up to the memory when they re-watched it,
but said "it remains an incredible episode, often imitated but rarely
surpassed in science fiction in any medium." They said that both the
tragic and comedic moments helped to balance the episode, and said that
the ending was abrupt but fitting because of the change in Kirk despite
the Guardian's announcement of "all is as it was before".
Keith DeCandido
gave the episode a rating of ten out of ten when he reviewed it for
Tor.com in 2015. He said that the episode centered on people, which he
saw as a common theme among the great episodes of Star Trek.
DeCandido supported the view of Spock, that while Keeler's compassionate
nature was to be applauded, it was at the wrong time and as war with
Nazi Germany was the only way. Darren Franich compared "The City on the Edge of Forever" to the 12 Monkeys
television series in 2015, calling the episode "one of the great
episodes of television". However, he criticised it as well, saying
"complete crock of pseudo-scientific claptrap. It’s wacky like only old
science-fiction is wacky – and it’s slow like only old television is
slow." He listed nine "leaps of narrative logic" that a viewer must
overcome to accept the plot. But he felt that it was fearless in
comparison to modern science fiction, in that there was no attempt to
make it self-aware, nor introduce a comedic character to ground it.
Franich said that the ending was "one of the all-time great moments in Star Trek history".
IGN ranked it as number one out of their "Top 10 Classic Star Trek Episodes" in 2009. It said "This beautiful story poignantly establishes the maxim later explored in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan:
the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. Kirk's
reaction before beaming up at the end of the episode is one of William
Shatner's most moving moments in all of Trek." In the Radio Times, David Brown listed it as the second best episode for non-Star Trek fans to watch on Netflix in 2016, calling it a "tragic Back to the Future"
and that "seeing as the bulk of the drama takes place during the
depression of the 1930s, there's not much in the way of sci-fi gubbins
to confuse a newcomer". Jeremy Fuster at Yahoo! TV included it on a list of ten episodes to watch prior to the launch of the 2017 television series, calling it "one of the most heartbreaking episodes" of the series.
In 2009, Time Magazine rated "The City on the Edge of Forever " as one of the top ten moments of Star Trek overall including films up to that time. Time notes "The City on the Edge of Forever" as "a tightly wound episode that sets the standard for time-travel sci-fi".
2010s
In 2010, SciFiNow ranked this the number one best episode of the original series.
In 2012, The A.V. Club ranked this episode as one of the top ten "must see" episodes of the original series.
In 2016, Newsweek ranked "The City on the Edge of Forever" as one of the best episodes of the original series.
In 2015, New York Public Library noted this episode as having Spock's third best scene in the show.
In 2015, W.I.R.E.D. magazine did not recommend skipping this episode in their binge-watching guide for the original series.
In 2017, Business Insider ranked "The City on the Edge of Forever" the second best episode of the original series.
In 2016, Vox rated this one of the top 25 essential episodes of all Star Trek.
In 2017, Comic Book Resources ranked this the 10th best romantic relationship of the Star Trek franchise up to that time, between Kirk and Edith Keeler.
In 2018, PopMatters ranked this the second best episode of the original series.
In 2018, CBR ranked this episode the best time-travel episode of all Star Trek.
In 2019, Nerdist included this episode on their "Best of Kirk" binge-watching guide. They also ranked this episode the number one best time-travel episode of all Star Trek television.
Awards
Harlan Ellison's original version of the teleplay won the annual Writers Guild of America Award for Best Episodic Drama on Television. Justman later said that the submission of the original unfilmed version was out of spite,
and Roddenberry said in response to the victory "many people would get
prizes if they wrote scripts that budgeted out to three times the show's
cost."
The WGA rules allow only the credited writers to submit scripts for
consideration, who may submit whichever draft of theirs that they may
choose. It was up against another Star Trek episode, nominated by the production team; "The Return of the Archons".
Coon reportedly said at the time: "If Harlan wins, I'm going to die",
and that "there are two scripts up tonight for the Writers' Guild Award,
and I wrote them both."
On that night, Roddenberry and several of the crew were seated at a
table which Desilu had purchased, while Ellison was at another. When he
won, the Star Trek party rose to their feet and applauded, since they believed it would bring credibility to the series. Herbert Franklin Solow
later recalled that this elation turned to horror when Ellison began
talking about the interference of studio executives in the writing
process, before holding aloft a copy of the original script and yelling
"Remember, never let them rewrite you!" Ellison walked past the Desilu
table as he left the podium, and shook the copy of the script at
Roddenberry and his party.
When Glen A. Larson
claimed that it was Coon who had rewritten the original script and it
was this version that was submitted to the Writer's Guild, Ellison said that "pandas
will fly out of Glen Larson's ass!". He explained that as the credited
writer, he had the option of which version of the script to submit to
the Guild. A further claim was made by writer Don Ingalls,
who said that Ellison had admitted in a drunken stupor to him late one
night in a bar that he had tidied up and improved the script further
prior to submitting it; this was then published in Justman and Solow's Inside Star Trek: The Real Story.
Ellison repudiated Ingalls' claim, pointing out that he never drank
since he did not like the taste and had never been drunk and so this
could not have occurred. Upon being informed, Solow promised to add a note refuting the claim in a future paperback edition, but then decided to agree with Ingalls version of the story.
"The City on the Edge of Forever" was awarded the Hugo Award in 1968 for the "Best Dramatic Presentation" at that year's World Science Fiction Convention.
This was based on the filmed version, and not Ellison's original. But
since the script remained credited to Ellison, he won the award once
more. It was 25 years before another television program won that award
again, the next occasion being for the episode "The Inner Light" from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Roddenberry later claimed that he was present at the Hugo Awards, and
said that Ellison rushed past him up onto the stage. However, he was not
present.
Ellison remarked afterwards when talking about the Hugo win for the
filmed version of the script, "I would like to be arrogant enough to
think that the script was so good that even butchering it couldn't hurt
it" and that compared to the other episodes of Star Trek that it was "a pretty good show". Roddenberry would claim in response to Ellison's awards wins for the episode, that he had won a Nebula Award for his work on it. However, this was untrue, and the Dramatic Presentation category was not created until 1974.
Home media release and other adaptations
The first adaptation of "The City on the Edge of Forever" was as a re-working into a short story by author James Blish in the novel Star Trek 2.
He attempted to combine elements of both the televised version with
aspects of Ellison's original version after being sent a copy of the
original script by Ellison. The front cover of the British release of the book featured the Guardian of Forever. This was republished in 2016 alongside the Blish short stories of 44 other episodes in a single volume as Star Trek: The Classic Episodes. The first home media release of "The City on the Edge of Forever" was on Compact Cassette from Startone productions in 1982. A LaserDisc of the episode, alongside "The Alternative Factor" was released in 1985. Further releases of all episodes of the series were made on VHS and Betamax.
"The City on the Edge of Forever" was released on DVD paired with "Errand of Mercy" as part of the general release of the series in 2000, and as part of the season one DVD set in 2004. The episode was included in the remastered season one release on DVD and Blu-ray in 2009.
The remastered version included revamped and expanded special effects
by CBS Digital under the guidance of Dave Rossi, as well as Mike and Denise Okuda.
Changes included an expanded field of ruins on the Guardian's planet,
as well as updated visuals of the planet from space. Rossi explained
that they sought to tie the purple cloth backdrop used in the original
version into the redesign, but was concerned that the "giant purplish
desert flats" as seen from space were instead misconstrued as oceans. "The City on the Edge of Forever" was also featured in several DVD sets featuring compilations of episodes, including the Star Trek: Fan Collective: Captain’s Log, as selected by Shatner, and Captain Kirk's Boldest Missions in 2015.
Legacy
Ellison-Roddenberry feud
During
the period in which the script was being developed, Roddenberry asked
Ellison for his help in saving the show. In response, Ellison agreed
with other science fiction writers, including Richard Matheson, Theodore Sturgeon and Frank Herbert to form "The Committee". Ellison wrote on their behalf to the combined membership of the recent World Science Fiction Convention to ask them to write in to NBC in order to save the show. Shatner later credited Ellison for saving the show during the first season.
But after the work was completed on the episode, Roddenberry and
Ellison did not speak for several years. Ellison said he felt used,
while Roddenberry said he was being unfair and had unjustly condemned
the episode, loudly and in public. Ellison would sell copies of his original script at conventions, while Roddenberry's Lincoln Enterprises sold the filmed version. In 1975, Ellison copyrighted the version of the first draft script as it was returned to him with notes, which was then published in Six Science Fiction Plays by Simon & Schuster. By this time, he and Roddenberry had taken conciliatory steps towards each other, and he was invited to pitch a story idea for a late 1970s Star Trek film, despite saying that Star Trek was "dead" in an interview with The Washington Post when the film project was first announced.
However, this did not last. Roddenberry would go on to claim in an interview with Video Review magazine that Ellison wrote into the script that he had Scotty
dealing drugs and when asked to remove it, Ellison claimed that
Roddenberry had "sold out". At no point in any of the versions of the
outlines or scripts did Scotty ever deal or take drugs. Roddenberry repeated this claim elsewhere around the same period in 1987, including to Ben Harnson in an interview for Cinefantastique magazine, and on the convention lecture circuit. Two issues later, writer Alan Brennert wrote into the letters page of Video Review asserting that Scotty had never sold drugs in any version of the script.
In response, Roddenberry wrote to Brennert, dated March 25, 1987, and
agreed that he had mistakenly attributed the drug dealing to Scotty. But despite this, other publications have repeated the incorrect claim by Roddenberry since.
Roddenberry also claimed to have created the Edith Keeler character and
based it on his father, a police officer, in an interview with Humanist magazine in March 1991.
Until he was approached by TV Guide in December 1994, Ellison did not discuss the issues with the episode in print other than the introduction in Six Science Fiction Plays.
He was reluctant to discuss it for the magazine, and in order to make
them go away, asked for a sum of money that he believed was five times
more than they had ever paid for an interview. To his surprise, they
agreed. So he wrote the article, which immediately generated a backlash
from Star Trek fans.
In his 1996 book, Harlan Ellison's The City On the Edge of Forever, Ellison claimed to have never received more than a "pittance" from working on the episode.
He said that "every thug and studio putz and semi-literate
bandwagon-jumper and merchandiser has grown fat as a maggot in a corpse
off what I created." He said that was the reason why he wrote the book. On March 13, 2009, Ellison filed a lawsuit against CBS Television Studios,
seeking 25% of net receipts from merchandising, publishing, and other
income from the episode since 1967; the suit also names the Writers Guild of America for failing repeatedly to act on Ellison's behalf in the matter.
In a press statement, Ellison said "It ain't about the 'principle,'
friend, it's about the money! Pay me! I'm doing it for the 35-year-long
disrespect and the money!" On October 22, 2009, the lawsuit was settled with Ellison claiming he was satisfied with the outcome.
Guardian of Forever
The Guardian of Forever, the time portal portrayed in the episode, is an irregular ring (or torus) shaped structure around 3 metres (9.8 ft) wide. The Guardian's only other on-screen appearance was in the animated episode "Yesteryear" (1973), in which the Guardian's voice was provided by James Doohan (who portrays Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott).
A return for the Guardian in The Next Generation was proposed by Trent Christopher Ganino and Eric A. Stillwell during the writing of the episode "Yesterday's Enterprise". This would have seen a team of Vulcan scientists led by Sarek studying the Guardian, and accidentally travelling back in time to the history of their planet where they cause the death of Surak, the founder of Vulcan logic. After they return, they discover that their people had allied with the Romulans
and were at war with the Federation. In response, Sarek elects to
return to the past and take on the role of Surak to restore the
timeline. Producer Michael Piller wanted the plot to be centered on the cast of The Next Generation, so Sarek and the Guardian were dropped from the story.
The Guardian appears in two non-canonStar Trek series. In the first, Star Trek: Of Gods and Men, The Original Series character Charlie Evans used the Guardian to go back in time and change history. In the second, Star Trek: New Voyages, a much larger Guardian through which a starship can fly is seen.
Non-canon novels and short stories
The Guardian of Forever has also appeared in several Star Trek novels. The first appearance was in Star Trek: The New Voyages, a compilation of short stories which was the first anthology of Star Trek
fiction. The short story "Mind Sifter" by Shirley S. Maiewski saw
Captain Kirk stranded on 1950s Earth in a mental hospital, having been
abducted by Kor, subjected to a Klingon mind sifter, and transported through the Guardian of Forever. In A.C. Crispin's 1983 novel Yesterday's Son, the Guardian is used by Kirk, Spock and McCoy to visit Sarpeidon in the past from the episode "All Our Yesterdays".
There they discover that the subject of Spock's romantic liaison,
Zarabeth, had died years before but she had given birth to his son, Zar. An audio recording by Nimoy and George Takei was subsequently released. After the success of the book, Crispin was asked to write a sequel, Time for Yesterday in 1988, in which the Guardian is malfunctioning and the Enterprise crew must seek the help of Zar to communicate and repair it.
Peter David decided to base his 1992 novel Imzadi on the same premise as the end of Ellison's version of "The City on the Edge of Forever", except in this case it was William Riker who went back in time using the Guardian deliberately to save the life of Deanna Troi. He felt that if Ellison was not allowed to use the idea in the episode, he could instead feature the premise in a novel. The Guardian was also central to the plot of Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens' 1994 novel Federation as it recites three historical events to Captain Kirk.
Brett Hudgins short story Guardians was featured in the seventh volume of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds in 2004, an annually published work of fan stories.
In the story, the Horta from "The Devil in the Dark" colonise the
Guardian's "Time Planet" and end up acting as its protectors for the
following generations over the following 50,000 years. David R. George III
decided to include the Guardian and spin-off from events in "The City
on the Edge of Forever" in his 2006 trilogy, Crucible. In Provenance of Shadows,
the installment of the trilogy based on McCoy, part of the book is
based in the reality where McCoy is trapped in the past and no-one comes
to rescue him. The events of "The City on the Edge of Forever" are also recounted in the fictional The Autobiography of James T. Kirk by David A. Goodman;
the author said that the effects of the episode and the loss of Keeler
would affect Kirk for a long time and may have been why the character
never entered into a serious ongoing relationship.
Non-canon comics and computer games
In the Gold Key ComicsStar Trek line, the Guardian of Forever appeared in the story "No Time Like the Past" by George Kashdan and Al McWilliams and appearing in issue 56, published October 1978.
Kirk, Spock and McCoy must correct history after another traveller uses
the Guardian to the second century BC, and they confront both Hannibal and the Romans. In the second volume of DC Comics run of Star Trek
comics, the Guardian appears in issues 53 through 57 within the story
"Timecrime" by Howard Weinstein, Rod Whigham, Rob Davis, and Arne Starr.
IDW Publishing
published Ellison's script as a comic book under the title of "Star
Trek: Harlan Ellison's Original The City On The Edge Of Forever
Teleplay" in 2014. Chief Creative Officer and Editor-in-Chief Chris Ryall
said "Presenting Harlan Ellison’s brilliant original script for “City
on the Edge” has been a goal of ours since IDW first began publishing
Star Trek comics in 2007". Ellison worked alongside IDW on the comic,
with artwork by J.K. Woodward and additional writing by Scott Tipton and
David Tipton. Ellison said of the format, "To read a graphic novel is
to engage your imagination is to engage all five of your senses, and to
picture what the creator dreamed. And that’s what this book does for
me."
In the massively multiplayer online role-playing gameStar Trek Online,
the mission "City on the Edge of Never" involves the player character
using the Guardian to travel through time to 2270 to stop Klingons
intent on altering history. The episode features the USS Kirk,
and has the Guardian projecting a time portal into space, allowing the
player to take their vessel through to the past. It featured voice
acting by Nimoy, and was well received by reviewers with Kotaku writer Mike Fahey saying "This mission might have just made the entire game for me. Everything about it was simply perfect. If Star Trek Online fails for some reason, this mission will always be remembered."
"Let's get the hell out of here", Nazis, and other influences
Kirk's
final line in the episode, "Let's get the hell out of here" caused
problems for the crew as the network did not want the word "hell" to
appear in television episodes. Both Shatner and Roddenberry fought for
the line to remain, with Roddenberry claiming to NBC that no other word
would be suitable to be used instead. The studio executives agreed that
it could be left in. While many sources claim "The City on the Edge of
Forever" was the first instance of the word "hell" being used as profanity on television, it had been done before, as early as the November 25, 1960 Route 66 episode "Legacy For Lucia."
The episode was also the first time that the Nazis were mentioned in Star Trek. They would go on to be featured more prominently in the second-season episode "Patterns of Force" as well as a pair of two-part episodes, one each from other Trek franchises: one from Star Trek: Voyager as "The Killing Game" and the other from Star Trek: Enterprise as "Storm Front".
When a Star Trek film was being developed in the late
1970s, one of the ideas proposed by Roddenberry was to have the crew
travel back to the 1960s and prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy. This idea was based on "The City on the Edge of Forever," due to the episode's popularity among fans by that time. The episode was also suggested by Robert F. Moss in The New York Times as later influencing the plot of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. When Nimoy met Harve Bennett
to discuss proposed plots for the film, it was Bennett's love of "The
City on the Edge of Forever" that led to him suggesting that they should
include a time travel element in the film. This led to the duo discussing the potential plot with Ellison. A reference to "The City on the Edge of Forever" was included in the two-part Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Past Tense",
with a boxing poster appearing in a scene set in the 1930s featuring
Kid McCook and Mike Mason. There was a similar poster advertising a
match at Madison Square Garden in "The City on the Edge of Forever", while the one in "Past Tense" stated that it was a rematch in San Francisco.
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