Entertainment
The Long Lost Star Trek Episode Starring Milton Berle
Captain Kirk and his crew soon discover their advanced technology is due to cultural interference by a Federation scientist called Bayne. Bayne was to be played by the iconic and notorious Milton Berle.
By Saralyn Smith
| Published
Norman Spinrad thought the script he wrote in 1967 called “He Walked Among Us” had been lost to time until it showed up with an autograph-seeking fan at a convention. The fan scanned the faded script and emailed it to Spinrad, who has published it as an e-book.
Captain Kirk Versus Milton Berle
The script had the Enterprise encountering a primitive race called the Jugali, who used technology that should have been well beyond their ability to develop. Captain Kirk and his crew soon discover their advanced technology is due to cultural interference by a Federation scientist called Bayne. Bayne was to be played by the iconic and notorious Milton Berle.
Bayne had good intentions, but as things often do in science fiction, those good intentions result in unintended consequences. Because of his interference, the Jugali begin worshipping Bayne as a god. Captain Kirk’s job is to get him out of there without further damaging the Jugali.
The whole Bayne is a god mess would have ended up being comedic, had the script made it on screen. But that’s not what the script’s writer, Conrad Spinrad intended. So he set out to sabotage his own episode of Star Trek.
How Conrad Spinrad Killed His Own Star Trek Script
By Spinrad’s own account, the screenplay was a victim of a sometimes terrible but integral part of big- and small-screen productions: the rewrite. Roddenberry originally commissioned a dramatic script from Spinrad that would feature Milton Berle (and an “overgrown backlot village set” Roddenberry was apparently fond of). Berle — who was commonly referred to as “Mr. Television” — was arguably the biggest television star in the medium’s history and was mostly known for comedy.
The Star Trek line producer wasn’t aware that Berle could also do drama, though, and rewrote Spinrad’s script into “an unfunny comedy.” Spinrad was so disgusted and ashamed of the rewrite that he campaigned against its production: “This is so lousy, Gene [Roddenberry], that you should kill it!” I told him. “You can’t, you shouldn’t shoot this thing! Read it and weep!”
His pleas paid off, and the script was never filmed, but that also meant he never received any of the residuals that would have gone along with a produced syndicated episode. Eventually, Spinard made at least a little money off his work by publishing the script for fans to read.
Entertainment
A Fully Loaded Potato Salad for Dinner
I love potato salad. I love the creamy kind, the vinegar-y kind; I’ll take a warm one with dill, whatever you’ve got. And yet, I’m about to make a bold claim: this potato salad might be my favorite. Why? Because it’s decidedly not a side dish. It’s the whole damn meal.
This recipe comes to us from Melina Hammer, who calls it a “Niçoise-ish” potato salad, because it’s souped up with tuna, eggs, and other classic Niçoise elements. “You get those bright, bold flavors,” says Melina. It adapts easily for the season, she adds, suggesting winter radishes — like purple daikons or watermelon radishes — if you make it this month. “You can also swap the green beans for two cups of chopped escarole or Napa cabbage, and I’m always a fan of thawed frozen peas. No need to cook them any further — just toss ’em in!”
Here’s the full recipe, plus some pointers from Melina:
Niçoise-ish Potato Salad
by Melina Hammer
Serves 4
3 eggs
salt
1 dry quart small red potatoes (approximately 2 lbs), any larger ones sliced in half
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1/4 tsp (or more) freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp capers, strained
2 1/2 oz thin green beans, stem ends trimmed and sliced into 1 1/2-2 inch segments on a diagonal (or swap for peas, cabbage, etc)
1 5-ounce can albacore tuna
3 radishes, ends trimmed and sliced in halves, then thinly sliced
2 tbsp finely sliced chives
2 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
Bring a medium saucepan with enough water to cover the eggs by an inch to a boil. Lower refrigerator-cold eggs into the water and cook them on a simmer for 8 minutes, then plunge the eggs into an ice bath until they are cool enough to handle. Peel and then slice the eggs into six wedges apiece and set aside.
Bring the potatoes to a simmer in well-salted water. Cook for 8 minutes or until they yield easily when pierced with a sharp knife. Strain them into a colander with a slotted spoon, reserving the cooking liquid. Transfer the potatoes to a mixing bowl and add the oil, mustard, black pepper, and capers. Gently toss to fully coat.
Blanch the green beans in the potato water for 30 seconds to 1 minute — just long enough for them to turn bright green. Strain, and add to the potatoes. Add the tuna, flaking the fish into the bowl, followed by the radishes and chives. Toss to incorporate, then add the eggs and lemon juice. (Note: “If you’re making this a day or more in advance, hold the lemon juice and add it just before serving,” says Melina. “Otherwise, it will dull the color of the green beans.”) Gently toss once more. “I like to use a silicone spatula and work up from the bottom of the bowl, folding the ingredients together with a light hand so the yolks remain mostly intact.”
As you serve the potato salad, make sure to scoop up all the last bits of custardy egg, straggler chives, and mustardy goodness clinging to the sides of the bowl. Enjoy.
Melina Hammer is a chef, food stylist, recipe developer, and the award-winning author of A Year at Catbird Cottage. Her recipes have appeared on Bon Appétit, Food52, and Edible. You can follow her newsletter, Stories from Catbird Cottage.
What other dinner salads do you love? And do you have a house salad?
P.S. Five ways to upgrade a regular green salad, and white bean soup, because it’s February.
(Photos courtesy of Melina Hammer.)
Entertainment
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Mashable Deals
Streaming deals this good don’t stick around long — be sure to secure your $1 subscription by Feb. 9.
Entertainment
The Series That Scarred 80s Kids Forever
By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
Every child of the ’80s carries with them scars to this day. We watched Artax lose the will to live in the Swamp of Sorrow, half the Autobots blown up in the first 10 minutes of Transformers: The Movie, and Punky Brewster turning refrigerators into the scariest household appliance. Even the original 1983 G.I. Joe got in on the action with surprisingly dark episodes, including one in which a traitor is consumed by piranhas, but none hit as hard as “There’s No Place Like Springfield,” a two-part psychological horror focused on breaking Shipwreck, a fan favorite character, so that he’d give up the secret formula that turns water into an explosive. Cobra never did anything the way, so the master plan was to pay homage to the mind-bending sci-fi series The Prisoner.
G.I. Joe’s Psychological Horror Season Finale
After the required bumper saying “G.I. Joe will return after these messages,” Shipwreck wakes up in a hospital and learns that his family was concerned about him. Not Uncle Al, but his wife (Mara, the Cobra operative spliced with fish DNA who previously fell in love with Shipwreck) and daughter, which is news to the career soldier who had given up on ever having a normal life. Haunted by nightmares, Shipwreck nonetheless falls into a routine with the family he always wanted in the idyllic town of Springfield.
The two-part episode is the equivalent of a slow-burning episode for G.I. Joe, which normally wrapped up the entire story in 22-minutes with a massive gun battle. “There’s No Place Like Springfield” slowly peels back the curtain as Shipwreck realizes there’s something wrong with the town, and he uncovers the Cobra conspiracy behind it all. With the town burning down around him when the Joes arrive on a rescue mission, Shipwreck is confronted by Mara, the woman he loves, who’s still fighting for Cobra, and his daughter, armed with a rocket launcher.. Until they melt into goo.
G.I. Joe was a very light-hearted children’s show designed to sell toys, which is why the sheer anguish in Shipwreck’s voice when he realizes that his family were synthoids is so haunting. He knows he’s been lied to by Cobra, he knows everything is fake, but in those final moments, he’s still hoping that it could be real. A glorified commercial wasn’t supposed to include deep themes about life, love, and trauma. All it needed was for the loved ones of a fan favorite character to start melting as he helplessly looked on.
G.I. Joe’s Best Episode
“There’s No Place Like Springfield” clearly took cues from Patrick McGoohan’s psychological sci-fi drama by dropping the hero in the middle of a perfect town, where other residents use various methods, both overt and covert, to get information from him. Shipwreck’s house is also located at 6 Village Drive, an obvious homage to Number Six and The Village from The Prisoner. As a kid, it’s easy to miss references to a show from the 60s, even the large, white, gelatinous mass that attacks Shipwreck is a direct reference to The Village’s bouncy, balloon security device, Rover. All the kids cared about was that Shipwreck made it out alive.
G.I. Joe ended Season 1 with the two-part psychological horror, but when Season 2 came around a year later, Shipwreck wasn’t shown dealing with the trauma; instead, he was reduced to comic relief. The addition of Sgt. Slaughter in Season 2 forced Season 1’s fan favorites to get less of the spotlight, but of all of them, Shipwreck deserved to remain a featured player, and he deserved to eventually settle down with the real Mara.
Melting loved ones turned “There’s No Place Like Springfield” into a memorable G.I. Joe episode that’s remained at the top of fan favorite lists for decades. 80s kids were used to horrible, horrible things happening to their heroes ever since we watched E.T. get sick. There had to be a better way to introduce new toys than to kill off the old favorites.
If you want to relive the 80s or check it out for the first time, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero is currently streaming for free on Pluto TV.
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