Star Trek: The Original Series “Who Mourns for Adonais” left out a controversial tag scene

Star Trek: The Original Series second episode of the second season brought a god into the midst of the crew.

“Who Mourns for Adonais” introduced the giant-sized Greek god, Apollo, who grabbed the Enterprise with his hand and brought it to a stop, forcing Captain Kirk and some members of his crew to beam down to the planet Apollo occupied. Joining the team was Lieutenant Carolyn Palamas who happened to specialize in Greek mythology, and Apollo was instantly taken with the lieutenant which caused all sorts of problems. Originally, it was going to cause a lot more.

According to the book These are the Voyages by Marc Cushman, a daring tag scene had been included in every version of the script despite its taboo topic for the 1960s. In it, Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock are talking at the captain’s chair when Dr. McCoy walks onto the bridge. Kirk immediately knows there’s something wrong. Dr. McCoy tells him he was used to interesting problems, but he’d just been confronted with a brand new one. Lt. Palamas had gotten ill at breakfast, leading Dr. McCoy to exam her. That’s when he discovered she was pregnant.

Of course, Kirk and Spock respond with surprise, and McCoy assures them they’d heard what he’d said. He confirmed that the father of the child was Apollo as well. Then the doctor confounds the captain and his second-in-command with a question.

"“Now, I’ll give you an interesting question to chew on. What will the child be? Man…or god?”"

Of course, Star Trek: The Original Series didn’t include the scene when the episode aired.

Not surprisingly, just two days before the scene was to be filmed, revised script pages were delivered to the cast and crew, and the scene had been deleted. Word of the tag had spread beyond the offices of NBC’s Broadcast Standards, and one or more of the higher ups decided it should not be included in the episode.

Though we didn’t get to see this tag scene, in the novelization of the episode, Star Trek 7 by James Bish, the scene was included, and Lt. Palamas named her daughter Athena. Athena’s grandson shows up in Star Trek: New Frontier, a series of novels written by Peter David.