It's high time a board was set up for the original TOS adaptations and James Blish's monumental task of adapting every single one of them for his series of tie-in books. Actually Blish had completed all but a small handful of the episodes at the time of his death, the remainder were completed by his widow J.A. Lawrence. Blish strived as much as possible to make his adaptations as accurate as possible, however in the early volumes he was often working from early drafts of scripts. Also, the publishing company in the early years put a limit on the length of each book, meaning that Blish had to cram seven or eight episodes into a book of little more than a hundred pages and had neccesarily to truncate events in some of those adaptations. Fans who did not know any better sometimes criticized Blish for those shortcomings, which were obviously not his fault. Reading some of those earlier volumes actually gives the TOS fan an insight into how the plot and events of many classic Trek episodes looked before the script was changed to a final draft. And in the later volumes, when Blish was finally given a reasonable book length to work with and better scripts, the adaptations give the Trek fan a chance to occassionally see scenes which were in a final draft of a script but cut from the final print so that they never appeared on screen. So I thought it would be fun to go through the Blish books one by one and examine key differences between his adaptations and the episodes we saw on TV.

Here's some of my observations from volume one of Blish's adaptations:

CHARLIE'S LAW: Of course, this was an earlier working title for "Charlie X". Despite the early title, this adaptation is very faithful to the episode as it aired. There are some differences in dialogue, and several aired scenes omitted from Blish's take, but all in all this is one of the most accurate of the early Blish versions. A couple of minor noticable differences: after Charlie shows indifference to the destruction of the Antares, Kirk berates him, causing Charlie to cry. The chess game between Charlie and Spock in which Charlie melts a chess piece is not present here. The crewman named Sam whom Charlie makes disappear in the gym is given a last name (Ellis) and appears back on the bridge at the end of the story along with Yeoman Rand. The scene where Charlie makes Rand go away and where Kirk and Spock try to trap him with a force field, seperate events in the episode, are combined as one in Blish's version. Kirk asks Rand to lure Charlie into her cabin so they can turn the field on him there.

DAGGER OF THE MIND: Again, pretty faithful to the aired episode, but much more truncated. One notable omission is the whole affair with Spock learning the truth from Van Gelder via the mind meld. Also, at the end of the episode Kirk has to undergo therapy via the Neural Neutralizer to deprogram him of his love for Helen, I don't think this was mentioned in the episode. There is no mention in the adaptation of the Neutralizer being dismantled as Van Gelder was said to have done in the show.

THE UNREAL MCCOY: Known to viewers as "The Man Trap", I'm not sure if "Unreal McCoy" was an actual working title for this episode or an invention of Blish's. The Craters are named the Bierces here, the planet they are on is Regulus VIII instead of M-113. The deaths of crewman Green and Sturgeon do not occur in the adaptation, those characters do not appear, nor does the scene where the creature appears as Uhura's fantasy man. Kirk does not have to stun Crater/Bierce to get him aboard the ship.

BALANCE OF TERROR: Again, pretty faithful to the aired episode. There is much dialogue in this adaptation which does not appear in the episode and is either present in an earlier version of the script or invented wholly by Blish. One major change is that Stiles dies along with Tomlinson and another crewman in the final Romulan attack, so that he never gets the chance to repent his bigotry that he got in the show.

THE NAKED TIME: Unfortunately, this adaptation suffers the most from truncation and is the weakest of those in the first volume. The name of the disintegrating planet, called Psi 2000 in the show, is here ULAPG42821DB, or "La Pig" for short. Just about every memorable scene from the aired episode is missing from this extremely brief adaptation, and even the final time-travel ploy the crew employ to escape their predicament is absent.

MIRI: Although one of the lengthier adaptations from volume one, Blish's take on Miri leaves out a lot of the action from the aired episodes. Particularly, the scenes featuring the other children besides Miri are absent, and Jahn and the other kids do not appear until the end. Blish spends a lot of time, as he did in "The Naked Time", explaining how the disease works, he apparently enjoyed elaborating on the biological aspect of such stories. There is also no presence of the "just like Earth" element, the planet in the adaptation is said to be an early Earth colony, and its solar system given as 70 Ophiucus.

THE CONSCIENCE OF THE KING: Lt. Kevin Riley's role in this episode is replaced in the adaptation by a Lt. Robert Daiken, which was the name in the script before Bruce Hyde was slated to reprise his part in "The Naked Time." Otherwise, the adaptation is fairly complete and faithful. In the TV series, this was Yeoman Rand's last episode and she did not get a line of dialogue. Here, she gets to speak. She also informs Kirk of the death of Thomas Leighton, so he does not discover the doctor's body as he did in the episode. Also, the scene where the phaser goes on overload in Kirk's cabin is omitted.

The weakest overall adaptation is probably that of 'Operation-Anihallate!' (sp?) which leaves out the Kirk family subplot altogether (substituting a random native Denevan family) and also dispenses with Spock's near-blindness.

'The Trouble With Tribbles' is a fun example of an ep that evolved considerably between the draft Blish was working from and the finished show. Specifically, Sulu appears in print in all the places Chekov does onscreen (thanks to George Takei having to skip filming for 'The Green Berets'.) Most of the humour is missing from the printed version, too, unfortunately.

The print 'Wolf in the Fold', on the other hand, is a surprisingly polished short story that doesn't deviate much from the finished ep. Except for a startling sequence in which grotesquely blasphemous visions materialize on the viewscreen: "A vision of hell," Kirk realizes. "The creature [Redjac] is showing us its place of origin."
Now, if that was in the first-draft script, I have no trouble understanding why it was never aired!

The print version of 'Who Mourns for Adonais' includes the original wonderful-but-censored ending in which McCoy informs Kirk that Lt. Palamas is pregnant: 'My training does NOT cover infant gods!"

Other minor changes:

Marlena 'Oiling my traps, darling' Moreau is missing from the Blish adaptation of 'Mirror, Mirror'. So is the Tantalus field.

The bit where McCoy briefs the crew on Capellan customs is missing from 'Friday's Child'; the print version starts as they're already onplanet.

The print version of 'A Piece of the Action' -while missing most of the taxi-driving and fizzbin - does include several interesting tid-bits of exposition that were cut from the finished ep, including a sequence in which the Iotian economy is described as 'If they pays their percentages, the Boss takes care of 'em'. A woman then complains about the garbage pickup - Spock's first clue that the civilization's disintegrating.
(This scene was filmed - it appears in the FotoNovel - but never aired; I believe it's the source of the 'mysterious woman' nits that the Chief mentions in the Classic Guide.)

P.S.:

Blish's version of the initial Gorn attack in 'Arena' is an interesting example of just how much action can be fleshed out between script and screen.

There's an unusual author's note appended to 'City on the Edge of Forever', in which Blish explains that he had access to several drafts - including the controversial Ellison version - and has tried to do them all justice as best he can. The resulting story, while differing slightly in the details, is quite lovely.

Yes, 'The Unreal McCoy' was a working title for 'The Man Trap'. (It was probably scrapped for giving away too much of the plot!)
Also, 'Spectre of the Gun' is in print 'The Last Gunfight', a much more evocative title which I personally have always wished they'd kept.

Surprisingly, 'Spock's Brain' makes for a great adaptation. No, really! Largely, I think, because the 'Spock-bot' isn't in this version.

On the other hand, 'The Way to Eden' and 'The Alternative Factor' are just as embarrassing in print. And Blish makes a mighty effort to turn 'The Corbomite Maneuver' into a thoughtful mood piece...doesn't quite pull it off, though.

Commodore Decker survives 'The Doomsday Machine' in print...making for a really dull adaptation. (A lot of the adaptations have that problem, actually; apparently the Trek writers came up with most of those last-minute plot twists literally at the last minute!)

And finally (I swear )...don't bother looking for the two Mudd eps under Blish. Apparently he had some idea of expanding them into a larger project but died before it could be begun. The ep adaptations (by 'I, Mudd' screenwriter Stephen Kandel) and a longer Mudd novella by J.A. Lawrence are together in the Bantam release Mudd's Angels (or Mudd's Enterprise.)

While the adaptation of "Operation-Annihilate!" does suffer from the lack of the element of Kirk's family, it's still a pretty good adaptation for the early series. I still consider "The Naked Time" the weakest of the adaptations. Keep in mind again that this wasn't Blish's fault!

I agree that Blish's adaptation of "Spock's Brain" was superior to the aired episode. Blish actually brings a quality of seriousness to what was a campy episode on-screen, and this is actually some of the best writing he does for the entire series!

I have a copy of i{Mudd's Angels} signed by Roger Carmel about a year before he died.

The only one of the original epsiodes not adapted in this series was the framing story for "The Menagerie." The adaptation under this title is simply a straight adaptation of "The Cage."

Hey, I'm not blaming James Blish for any of the adaptations' problems - his smoothly flowing prose and economy of phrase are always a joy to read. The Trek legend is so incredibly lucky that a 'hard' sci-fi author of his calibre was willing to enhance its reputation.
It's just too bad he often didn't have much to work with.

Actually, I've often wondered what would happen if someone equally talented took the NextGen or DS9 eps in hand. D'you think they'd translate well to print? (I'm thinking R.A. Salvatore - author of a recent set of Star Wars novels - might be the man for DS9.)

It'd be interesing to see what someone of a high caliber could do with TEWNWDNS (The Episode Whos Name We Dare Not Speak)

Notes on volume two:

This is the one volume where space was at a premium. Adapting eight episodes into one slim volume meant Blish had to do massive editing and condensing work, and had to eliminate all but the most essential bare-bones scenes for most of the episodes. While again, several memorable moments are lost from some of the episodes, Blish's second volume is an overall improvement upon the adaptations of the first.

ARENA: This is the most abbreviated of all the Blish adaptations, but is still accurate. Blish condenses the entire first half of the episodes down to a few paragraphs and loses nothing essential in the process, while still providing an exciting description of the battle between Kirk and the Gorn.
Of course, "Arena" is one of two Star Trek episodes to be based on an original science-fiction short story (the other is "Catspaw", which Robert Bloch adapted from his own "Broomstick Ride.") As far as I can tell, Bantam did not have to get any extra special reprint rights to retell the Trek version of "Arena".

A TASTE OF ARMAGEDDON: Again, faithful to the episode in the main, while eliminating much of the action/chase/fight sequences that pad the aired version. The sequence where Ambassador Fox beams down from the ship and has his life endangered is the most notable casualty.

TOMORROW IS YESTERDAY: The year in which the Enterprise travels back to is given as 1970 instead of 1967 as in the episode. Christopher's son was supposed to have headed the Earth-Titan probe instead of the Earth-Saturn one.
Eliminated from this episode is the entire subplot about the crew having to beam down to Earth to recover the film taken of them. While doing this didn't make much sense in the actual episode, its absence removes a lot of the eventfulness of this time trip.
This story contains one of Blish's in-references to his own original works. It is mentioned that it is not safe for the Enterprise to travel anywhere in the 20th century because of most of space being dominated by the "Vegan Tyranny". The Vegan Tyranny is the galactic empire of Blish's Cities In Flight books.

ERRAND OF MERCY: Another faithful adaptation which also trims down a lot of unessential chase and action sequences. There is a confusing reference to the Klingons being "originally of Oriental stock(!)" This probably is culled from Gene Coon's script in which he instructed that the Klingons should resemble Mongols.
Most of the dialogue survives from the original, and it emerges as one of the better adaptations of the second volume.

COURT-MARTIAL: Another good adaptation with a little difference in the resolution from the actual episode. Jame Finney (note that her name is spelled differently in the adaptation) actually puts in an appearance in the engine room during the showdown between Kirk and Finney. The sight of her causes' Finney's resolve to break, and does not make it necessary for Kirk to fight him.

OPERATION-ANNIHILATE!: As has been discussed earlier on this board, this adaptation contains a number of differences from the aired episode, most notably the lack of Kirk's brother being involved. A woman called Aurelean does appear in the story, as a regular Denevan citizen. She is given considerably more to do in this version of the story and helps with the plan to destroy the creatures; she also does not die as Aurelean Kirk did in the TV episode. The plan to destroy the creatures in this version does not involve exposing them to ultra-violet light, but in destroying their homeworld which serves as the "brain" controlling the amobea-creatures on other worlds. The subplot of Spock's being temporarily blinded is also absent from this version.

THE CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER: Of course, this has to be considered one of Blish's finest adaptations, especially considering the constrictions he was working under for this particular collection. Despite the number of different drafts Blish was working from, the adaptation does not differ markedly from the TV episode. Blish does add Harlan Ellison's original script tag on to this episode, perhaps the one part of Harlan's script worth preserving, and it turns out to work well and is a fine decision. Another in-joke by Blish - Spock compares Edith Keeler to Bonner the Stochastic, a character from his novels.

SPACE SEED: Another fairly accurate adaptation. Khan's full name is given as Sibahl Khan Noonien instead of Khan Noonian Singh. The final battle to recapture Khan somewhat disappointingly occurs "offstage." Kirk, who gives the name of the planet Khan and McGivers are exiled to in the Tv show (Ceti Alpha V), keeps in anonymous in the story. Kirk is given a rather prophetic final line in this adaptation in response to Spock's final line about the "seed"!

More on OPERATION - ANNIHILATE!

Spock is not blinded because they use magnetism instad of light/UV to remove the creatures.

I read the Blish stories before I saw most of the eps. Hence I can still remember seeing 'Arena' on tv for the first time and being startled at how much more there was to the finished product!

I also liked the ending of 'Court-Martial' much better in print. Besides those silly oversize wrenches, the scene as filmed plays like just one more excuse to get Kirk in a fight, while the print original is truly touching.
Incidentally, doesn't the print version leave out the scene in which McCoy finds Spock playing chess? I seem to remember reading Spock's testimony on the subject, but not the earlier confrontation.

Just out of curiosity, Todd, are you working from the original little paperbacks, the Readers, or the new collection? (I have a sentimental attachment to the Readers based on how hard they were to find before the Trek publishing boom. I can still see myself at age 12 or so, trying to convince librarians that yes, there were 'Star Trek' stories! By James Blish! Really!)

P.S.: Thanks for clearing up that 'Vegan Tyranny' reference...I always wondered whatever happened to the concept later!

Is Vegan Tyrrany where people who eat animal products are killed and arrested by the authorities, who don't believe in eating such stuff?

Kerriem, I'm working from my hardbound readers, although I have copies of paperbacks and the 25th anniversary large volume reprints (the latter of which are rather unweildy and won't survive very many reads). The readers are the nicest to own, even if the stories are out of sequence and they don't include the volume twelve adaptaions or the two Mudd stories.

No, the "Courtmartial" adaptation does not contain the scene on the Enterprise where McCoy finds Spock playing chess.

In addition to the aforementioned scenes in "Who Mourns For Adonais?" and "A Piece Of The Action," there are also lengthy scenes, both of which were probably filmed, which appear in the adaptations of "Elaan of Troyius" and "The Omega Glory" but not in the aired episodes. I'll discuss those in more detail as I come to them.

I hear you about the 25th anniversary volumes - mine fell apart almost instantly after purchase (only 1 and 3 are still barely intact) and are consequently only hauled out about once every blue moon or so...like for this discussion, for instance!

Just reread the Ellison coda to 'City on the Edge of Forever' and you're right, it is really quite lovely...and would have been remembered fondly as a Very Special Trek Moment: Spock's first use of 'Jim'!

Always liked Blish's 'Errand of Mercy', too. I had the reverse experience watching that ep that I had watching 'Arena' - all the familiar scenes fell right into place.

It's interesting as well (perusing volume 1) how closely 'Where No Man Has Gone Before' hews to the aired ep - I suppose this is one ep Blish may have been able to see before writing it up!

The growing pains of the Trek vocabulary ('Earth Ship', 'Space Command', 'Vulcanian' etc) show up in various places in volume 1. I especially like a sequence in 'The Corbomite Maneuver' where Kirk tells Scotty to ready the Transporter Room...and when they arrive, Scotty greets them with "materializer ready, sir."

"Where No Man" was adapted in volume eight, and by that time Blish was able to adapt the scripts in their entireity, and was not pressed for space as he had been in the earlier volumes. From about volume seven onward, you can pretty much follow the action from page to screen nearly line for line.

The one main enticement for owning the 25th anniversary reprints is introductions for each of the three volumes from people involved in producing the original series. Also, the adaptations are presented in production order, and each one includes a still from the given episode. This brings up a nit: the still at the beginning of the adaptation for "That Which Survives" shows McCoy sitting at his office desk, a shot which does not appear in that episode!

Notes on volume three . . .

THE TROUBLE WITH TRIBBLES: As mentioned before, this adaptation has Sulu play the part given to Chekov in the aired version. This of course eliminates the opening teaser, with Chekov identifying astronmomer John Burke as the Russian Burkoff. As Kerriem noted, most of the other humor is lost from the adaptation, including the bar fight and its aftermath. Scotty's final tag line, "There'll be no tribble at all" appears here as the "I trust all their tribbles will be big ones."

THE LAST GUNFIGHT (Spectre Of The Gun): In the main faithful to the aired episode, and even with a couple of elements added. Blish has Kirk inacurrately give the name of the sheriff as "Billy Behan" instead of "Johnny." Spock refers back to the events of "City On The Edge Of Forever," which he does not do in the aired episode. When the landing party tries to leave the OK Corral before the gunfight; instead of being stopped by an electrical barrier like they are in the aired version, they simply wind back up in the corral no matter which route away from it they take. The adaptation does contain a nice scene concluding bit of dialogue between Kirk and Spock which does not appear in the TV show, in which the captain calls his first officer "a sentimental bag of mush" because of the what he said to each individual during the mind meld. Another bit of dialougue presented here which did not survive to TV is during McCoy's visit to Doc Holiday. McCoy tells Holiday he is also from Georgia, and Holiday responds that it's a shame he will have to kill another Georgia man with so many Yankees in Tombstone. McCoy also offers to treat Holiday's tubercolosis. The Melkotian in the adaptation is described as a humanoid, in contrast to the scrodlike alien who appears onscreen.

THE DOOMSDAY MACHINE: The commander of the Constellation's first name is given as "Brand" instead of "Matt." He survives the encounter with the planet-killer (because the sequence where he steals the shuttlecraft is eliminated) and at the end of the adaptation expresses contrition to Kirk for usurping command of the Enterprise. The climactic sequence in which Kirk is beamed away from the wreck of the Constellation as it enters the doomsday machine to self-destruct is much less suspenseful in the adaptation than it is in the aired episode.

ASSIGNMENT: EARTH: One of the most condensed of Blish's early episodes. The character of Roberta Lincoln barely appears in this adaptation and is not given the importance she was in the TV episode, she is not even named. The whole sequence in which Kirk and Spock are captured by the feds at the rocket base is also cut out in this bare-bones retelling.

MIRROR, MIRROR: As Kerriem noted, the plot points of Marlenna Moreau and the Tantulus Field are trimmed from Blish's take on this story. Also all the hand-to-hand fights depicted in the Televised version, including the alternate Chekov's attempt on Kirk's life. The captain who preceded Kirk in the mirror universe is given as "Karl Franz" instead of Chistopher Pike. When Kirk is beamed by the alternate Spock back to his own universe at the end of the story, he is required to stun Spock with his phaser just after he activates the controls so that the others on the ISS Enterprise will think Spock was overpowered by the party.

FRIDAY'S CHILD: Another adaptation that has a lot of differences (probably due to an earlier draft script) to what eventually came out on screen. The biggest difference is that Eleen does not survive the episode, being executed by Maab for infidelity after she bears the child. Maab, however, does survive the adaptation instead of being killed as he was in the TV version. The Klingon Kras does not appear in Blish's story, nor does the security guard who was killed in the first few minutes of the TV show. The Klingons are mentioned as being involved in an offstage role, however. The planet is said to be in the Ceres star sytem rather than Capella.

AMOK TIME: Faithful to the TV version in the main, and suffers less from condensation than most of the stories of volume three. Probably the best and most accurate adaptation overall in the volume.

Speaking of nits in the 25th Anniversary ed.'s stills: The one for 'Tomorrow is Yesterday' is a shot from Kirk's mission to recover the film - definitely not in the ep.

I take your point about 'Where No Man'. It occurs to me that I've never really read the Blish series volume-by-volume, so am not 100% certain where each ep falls.

Ooops - make that 'definitely not in the print version.'

The Melkotian in the adaptation is described as a humanoid, in contrast to the scrodlike alien who appears onscreen. - Todd Pence

Now, that's interesting. One would expect less humanoids in a print version, not more. Maybe this is based on the original intent, to make them humanoid?

Notes on volume four of the adaptations:

Although adaptations would continue to be condensed somewhat for the next few volumes, the fourth collection is the first one in which Blish does not find it necessary to lop entire significant plot threads from the episodes. No important details from the episode are missing from these adaptations, and while scenes are still being chopped, less of them are getting axed than in previous collections. Of course, the one big exception in this volume is "The Menagerie", in which Blish found it necessary to eliminate the entire framing story of the pilot and simply do a straight adaptation of the pilot itself.

ALL OUR YESTERDAYS: The adaptation contains all the important scenes and lines of dialogue from the aired version. In the adaptation, Zarabeth admits in the final scene with Spock that she did lie to about knowing that the two could indeed go back through the portal, a line that does not appear in the episode.

THE DEVIL IN THE DARK: Again a fairly faithful adaptation with no major differences. The Enterprise security guard killed by the Horta is given the name Kelly, an identification which appears in such references as The ST Concordance but is not supported by any dialogue or credits in the aired episode.

JOURNEY TO BABEL: Again, an accurate adaptation plotwise, although a few memorable scenes are lost, the biggest casualty being Spock's dramatic conversation with Amanda.

THE MENAGERIE: As noted before, this is sinply a straight adaptation of "The Cage" and a fairly accurate one at that, if one overlooks the axing of the framing story, this has to arguably be considered perhaps the finest adaptation of volume four. A few have criticized Blish for eliminating the framing story, but he did well state his reasons for doing so in a footnote. Considering that the framing story (nicely conceived as it was) did not work all that well on TV, he can be lightly faulted for his decision.
The dialogue between Pike and Boyce in Pike's cabin is the only noteworthy omission from the adaptation.

THE ENTERPRISE INCIDENT: However, Blish does make a poor decision in his adaptation of this episode. Most of the suspense of the TV version hinges on the fact that we don't know that Kirk and Spock are play-acting until halfway through the episode. But Blish denies the reader this suspense by explicitly stating in the first paragraph that Kirk is acting under sealed orders and is intentionally deceiving his crew.
Blish does clear up a nit that was in the aired version by having Spock confess that the maxim "Vulcans never lie" is indeed a myth, and explaining to the Romulan Commander why lying is a necessary subterfuge for all rational beings, even the Vulcans. I'm not sure if this was in the original script or not.
Blish ends this adaptation with the line "And McCoy had the last word again", tying it in with his most recent adaptation featuring the regular crew, "Journey To Babel."

A PIECE OF THE ACTION: As noted before, this version by Blish utilizes a few scenes which did not survive to the aired version. The "Fizzbin" scene is also slightly different here. Kirk calls the last card dealt the Kle-et (the Vulcan word for attack) to signal to Spock what he is planning.
The most notable missing scene is the one with the small boy which provides the title for the epsiode.

There is also no mention at the end of the adaptation of "Piece" about McCoy having left his communicator back on the planet, which is called Dana Iotia instead of Sigma Iotia.

I always thought the print version of 'The Enterprise Incident' was pretty suspensful after all. Blish just stresses the opposite angle - Kirk's pushing the crew closer and closer to mutiny.
Supposedly the 'seduction' scene here is a lot closer to what Dorothy Fontana actually intended than what ended up on screen.

It's interesting how much of the dialogue in 'A Piece of the Action' got translated to exposition by Blish - the opening scene, for instance, and some of the fizzbin sequence.

P.S. to note #2 above: Do the adaptations seem to be becoming more assured, more literary (as opposed to straight script adaptations) or is it just me?

Observations on volume five:

Blish was apparently now doing the adaptations in reverse order from the scripts he most recently received. Volumes ive and six would consist mostly of late third season episodes, and Blish would not return to earlier seasons in later volumes. The adaptations continue to be more thorough and assured, and more and more of the dialogue is surviving intact, although there are still several minor scenes which are either omitted or slightly different from what aired.

WHOM GODS DESTROY: Several very minor details make this adaptation slightly different from the aired version. Although Garth mentions the torture chair in this version, and threatens to use it on Kirk, the chair itself never makes an actual appearence. The biggest difference is the omission of the scene where Garth executes Marta with the explosive, meaning that Marta presumably survives in the adaptation. Cory also mentions the fact that Garth killed off the rest of the Elba II staff, this was not specified in the aired episode. In this adaptation the transporter chief's name is given as Ensign Wyatt, presumably the same man who was killed in "That Which Survives."

THE THOLIAN WEB: Blish ties in this episode with "Whom Gods Destroy" by having Spock mention the incident of Captain Garth when Chekov asks if a mutiny has ever occurred on a starship before.

LET THAT BE YOUR LAST BATTLEFIELD: The dramatic sequence with Bele's invisible ship is eliminated - Bele simply beams aboard as a passanger from a transport ship. Blish slightly alters a line of dialogue near the end to refer back to his own original novel Spock Must Die.

THIS SIDE OF PARADISE: Arguably the best episode selected for adaptation in volume five gets the shortest shrift from Blish. Although the story is accurate in the main, much is eliminated from what appears on screen, including a lot of the romance between Spock and Leila Kalomi. Also sacrificed is the dramatic scene where Kirk fights off the influence of the spores, this is substituted with a comparitively ho-hum scene in which he learns how to kill the spores through laboratory experiments.

TURNABOUT INTRUDER: Blish's attempts to overcome the narrative difficulty inherit in this tale of having Kirk be in another person's body by referring to Janice in Kirk's body as "Kirk/J" and Kirk in Janice's as "Janice/K". While well intentioned, this device actually seems to create more confusion than it resolves.

REQUEIM FOR METHUSELAH: Not much different from what aired, and a really good, moving adaptation by Blish. Flint lists Jesus among the famous historical people he knew, whom he did not include onscreen.

THE WAY TO EDEN: Another pretty fastidious adaptation. Blish takes the time to print out the lyrics to all of Adam's songs, and also adds a footnote in which he expresses regret at being unable to supply the sheet music with the words.

When I first read the Blish version of 'The Apple' and saw that footnote, I could hardly wait to see the ep and hear all that great music...well. You can IMAGINE what my reaction was when I finally did see it!
I still don't know how a by-all-accounts brilliant, sensible man could have bought into that script so completely.

On the other hand, 'Requiem for Methuselah', which comes off as slightly silly onscreen, turns out to be just a lovely story in print - very suited to the literary format.

Loved 'The Tholian Web' about equally on-screen and in print. But I don't remember the print version including the sequence in which Spock and McCoy watch Kirk's last message together. (Gonna have to dig out vol.3 again, I guess.)

Wonder why they felt the need to change Bele's mode of transport between script and ep in 'Battlefield'? His entrance in print works just as well - and doesn't smack of budget cuts. (I believe the print version also eliminates the silly tech nit that has Spock listening at a half-open door!)

Sigh...I mean, when I first read the Blish version of 'The Way to Eden' and saw that footnote...I seem to have a very elaborate mental block where that ep's concerned.

>The print version of 'A Piece of the Action' ->while missing most of the taxi-driving and >fizzbin - does include several interesting tid->bits of exposition that were cut from the >finished ep, including a sequence in which the >Iotian economy is described as 'If they pays >their percentages, the Boss takes care of 'em'. >A woman then complains about the garbage pickup -> Spock's first clue that the civilization's >disintegrating.
>(This scene was filmed - it appears in the >FotoNovel - but never aired; I believe it's the >source of the 'mysterious woman' nits that the >Chief mentions in the Classic Guide.)

Actually, the scene with the women and the "percentages" line DOES appear in the aired episode.

Yeah, so I recently discovered. Apparently the ruddy 'official' Paramount video of 'Piece' I trustingly purchased is the syndicated version after all... <grumblegrumblegrumblemoneygrubbingstuffedsuitsgrumble>.
Same thing happened with my copy of 'Wolf in the Fold', althought it must have been corrected later; I only found out about it when the Classic Guide started referencing scenes I'd never seen.

The thought crosses my mind that if the Chief was working off the same edition of the 'Piece' video that I own, he might have missed those scenes too, without realizing it - hence, again, the 'mysterious woman' nits.

Hello, can someone write episode/adaptation comparisons for the other 8 volumes, please?

FRIDAY'S CHILD

<Maab, however, does survive the adaptation instead of being killed as he was in the T.V. version.>

As I recall, in the Blish story, Maab does get killed--stabbed in the back by the true father of Eleen's child. For whatever reason, the child was still considered Akaar's heir, and the child's true father was made regent for the child until he came of age. The father is the one who dubbed him "Leonard James Akaar".

I own all of the first season scripts for "Star Trek" (and a few second and third season ones), and though I have not compared them side-by-side to the Blish adaptations, it is my feeling that many times Blish was actually working from Final Drafts and that the differences can be explained by scenes that were edited, or by changes that took place on stage.

I've been writing reviews detailing the differences between the scripts (most of mine are finals, or revised finals). If anyone is interested, they can be found here:

http://www.fastcopyinc.com/orionpress/articles/unseen.htm

Sir Rhosis

I had them once.

Wish I had my own Guardian Of Forever, to go back and retrieve what my foolish younger self lost or gave away.