Star Trek: The City on the Edge of Forever

Harlan Ellison wrote a lot of the forward material in the "City on the Edge of Forever". In it, he comes across as a total jerk who is obsessed with the minutia of his work, and rails on others for making trivial mistakes. He is intent on setting the record 100% straight, and in the process seems to burn a lot of bridges. The actual teleplay only takes up a small fraction of the recording. It is well done with a full cast. After listening to the audiobook, I watched the original episode. I have never been much of a Star Trek fan, but it was pretty good. It is tough to see why Ellison was so upset. The filmed episode is missing the "musical drugs" and the space pirates that were in the original script. Both versions follow the same general plot. They find a "time planet" They are able to jump into time. Somebody goes back in time and "changes the flow". Spock and Kirk go back to try to fix history. However, to do it, Edith Keeler must die her natural death, rather than be saved. (If she continued to live, she would lead a "peace" effort that would delay the US entry in to World War II, and thus Germany would develop atomic weapons and dominate the world.) In the original version, it was a rotten drug-dealing crew member that went back. In the filmed version, it was Dr. McCoy who went crazy with a huge overdose of an accidental healing drug. In the original, the "bad guy" ended up getting the supreme punishment of being stuck in a time loop in an exploding star. It also had the "good guys" trying to prevent the "bad guy" from saving the life of a woman. The filmed version has Spock and Kirk discover the situation on their own. In the original version, they had the "time lords" tell them what needed to be done. The story is an interesting "time travel" story. Both the original and filmed version have their merits. Ellison's pride probably made it difficult for him to see past that.