written by Paul Schneider
FINAL DRAFT, dated October 16, 1966
report & analysis by David Eversole

Very close to what aired, only minor line changes, and one cut bit of Trelane's petulant behavior that I find in character, but others do not.

For once, McCoy's ubiquitous hanging around on the bridge is explained in the script. In the teaser he is there doing on-the-spot health checks with a tricorder, and has this line in response to a reading he gets on Spock when Spock frowns at a reading on his console: "... Why, I've misjudged you, Mr. Spock...a squiggle on your encephalograph--?"

When asked how long men could survive on Gothos (in its natural state) Jaeger's scripted line is: "As long as it would take for them to draw one breath." I like this line better than the aired: "Not very long." (iirc)

The stuffed creatures that adorn the niches in Trelane's drawing room are described as lizard-like (this is the one that the Salt Vampire costume took the place of), dolphin-like, tall humanoids and a tentacled spidery thing.

Once they escape Trelane and beam back to the ship Uhura asks McCoy what was down there, McCoy says "Something I hope I forget to tell my grandchildren..."

Hmm, was McCoy saying that at present he has grandchildren, or was he talking in the "future tense" of this old cliche?

Trelane pops onto the bridge and immediately says the line (referring to Spock): "You will see to his punishment?" In the aired episode there is quite a bit more dialogue that is not scripted.

In a bit of dialect, Trelane asks of Sulu (referring to the food and wine), "You likee too." I could see if Trelane spoke to Sulu in Japanese with a cliched accent like he did to DeSalle in French and Jaeger in German, but the exaggerated cliched accent inherent in the line to Sulu could have been seen as being overtly racist, or at the least a poor caricature of perceived Japanese accents when a national of that country speaks English.

This line of McCoy's is not in the aired episode:

McCOY
(through tight lips)
Three thousand years ago, he would
have been considered a god...
a little god of war.
(ironically)
How surprised the ancients would
have been to see not the grim-visaged
brute they visualized... but a strutting
dandy, preening his uniform in a mirror.

This line leads to the realization that Trelane is spending a lot of time close to the mirror, etc.

In his mock trial of Kirk, Trelane quotes the famous death sentence--"You will hang by the neck until dead, dead, dead!"-- supposedly uttered in capitol cases by Judge Isaac C. Parker (1838-1896), who was the District Judge for the Federal Court of Western Arkansas from 1875 to 1883. Historians and Parker biographers all agree this was never actually uttered by Judge Parker. Perhaps Trelane somehow got his hands on one of the popular "dime novels" which perpetuated this myth.

And the most noticeable change. I think the excised bit in the following shows Trelane resort to bullying that is equivalent to one child pushing another child down when it is frustrated. Other reasonable fans feel it is out of character for Trelane.

Anyway, in the script, here is how it was written after Kirk breaks Trelane's sword:

TRELANE
You... you broke it!
YOU BROKE MY SWORD!

KIRK
You got a lot to learn about winning, Trelane...

TRELANE
You dare to defy me...

KIRK
(thoughtfully)
In fact, you've got a lot to learn about
everything! Haven't you, Trelane?

Trelane, livid with rage and astonishment, stares at Kirk, raises his hand.

TRELANE
I'll... I'll blast you out of existence!
With a wave of my hand.

But before he can make that move, Kirk steps forward, and, very hard, slaps him hard, squarely on the cheeks! Trelane is appalled... he reels backward, staring at Kirk... and screams:

TRELANE
I'll fix you for that!

He extends his hand. A phaser appears in it, aimed squarely at Kirk.

TRELANE
You cheated! You didn't do it right!
I'll show you!

He squeezes the trigger. . . and a ray blasts out of the muzzle of the phaser.

ANGLE ON KIRK

As the phaser ray stops before hitting him, as though it hit a stone wall...
or better, a force field. Kirk is astonished, as:

WOMAN'S VOICE
(loud and reverberating)
Trelane!

The rest is scripted as aired, but Trelane is described as delivering his lines more petulantly, screaming and angry. In fact, William Campbell has noted that they filmed him doing the final scene two ways: Once as a broken, pathetic begging child, once as a petulant, angry begging child. They used the former take. I wonder if they may have filmed the phaser scene as well and then decided it didn't work with Campbell playing the final scenes as a broken, pleading child.

PAUL SCHNEIDER (1923-2008): a television writer whose career spanned 1952 to 1988. During those years he wrote for The Big Valley, The F. B. I., Eight Is Enough and Buck Rogers In The 25th Century. For Star Trek, he penned several scripts that were ultimately not used, but did sell two all-time classic episodes, "Balance of Terror" and "The Squire of Gothos." For the animated Star Trek series, he wrote "The Terratin Incident."

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