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How Dr. McCoy’s age changed The Way to Eden

ByRachel Carrington|
Smithsonian Channel will celebrate the 50th anniversary of Star Trek with a two-hour special that will take a look at the lasting influence the original Star Trek series has had on the world. BUILDING STAR TREK will premiere Sunday, September 4 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Smithsonian Channel.BUILDING STAR TREK will follow the conservation team from the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum as they attempt to restore and conserve the original 11-foot, 250-pound model of the U.S.S. Enterprise from the original series. The special also will track the effort to rebuild a model of the original U.S.S. Enterprise bridge by using authentic set pieces and props, which recently went on display at Seattle’s EMP Museum. - Photo: Courtesy of Smithsonian Channel Copyright: 2016 - SmithsonianChannel_StarshipEnterprise
Smithsonian Channel will celebrate the 50th anniversary of Star Trek with a two-hour special that will take a look at the lasting influence the original Star Trek series has had on the world. BUILDING STAR TREK will premiere Sunday, September 4 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Smithsonian Channel.BUILDING STAR TREK will follow the conservation team from the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum as they attempt to restore and conserve the original 11-foot, 250-pound model of the U.S.S. Enterprise from the original series. The special also will track the effort to rebuild a model of the original U.S.S. Enterprise bridge by using authentic set pieces and props, which recently went on display at Seattle’s EMP Museum. - Photo: Courtesy of Smithsonian Channel Copyright: 2016 - SmithsonianChannel_StarshipEnterprise

Why Dr. McCoy wasn’t old enough for the episode

Not many fans of Star Trek: The Original Series have “The Way to Eden,” the series third season episode, on their list of favorites. And while there are some redeeming qualities, overall, it’s on the to-be-skipped list. D.C. Fontana, who wrote the original script, didn’t see her story coming to fruition in this manner at all. In fact, what she had written was creatively different than what ended up on screen, and surprisingly, the change to her script came about because of what the producers saw as a problem with Dr. McCoy’s age.

According to Star Trek The Original Series 365 by Paula M. Block with Terry J. Erdmann, Fontana had written that Joanna, Dr. McCoy’s daughter, was the female in the group of space hippies. Bones isn’t at all happy to see her at first as she’d been telling him that she was studying to be a nurse so he finds out she’s been lying to him all along. Then, of course, Joanna had to get along “really” well with Captain Kirk which doesn’t please McCoy, either.

The rest of the plot would have remained the same with some minor changes. Dr. Sevrin was looking for Nirvana instead of Eden, and when they find the planet, it wasn’t poisonous; it’s just unlivable. So the entire group returns to the Enterprise where McCoy and Joanna managed to reconnect. But the producers nixed Fontana’s inclusion of Joanna immediately.

Why wasn’t Dr. McCoy old enough?

Once Fontana turned her draft of the script in, a producer told her McCoy wasn’t old enough to have a twenty-one-year old daughter because he was Kirk’s “contemporary,” even though DeForest Kelley, the actor who portrayed Dr. McCoy, would have been 48 in 1968.

Fontana was livid that the writers’ guide wasn’t even read so that the script could be considered. She requested her name be removed from it, choosing instead to use her pseudonym “Michael Richards.”

It’s disappointing that that fans didn’t get the chance to meet Dr. McCoy’s daughter and learn a little more of his background on TOS. There was so little opportunity for the growth of the characters, but both Captain Kirk and Spock had family members introduced. Fans would not have had an issue with Joanna’s age or Dr. McCoy’s, for that matter. And the way the episode turned out, it’s understandable why D.C. Fontana didn’t want her real name to be associated with the final result of “The Way to Eden.”

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