Avengers Assemble

Re a conversation I'm having in comments with trepkos.

I think I've mentioned before that growing up without TV reception, I really only saw shows when I was visiting Grandma or one of my cousins, and therefore my knowledge of Star Trek was largely based on the novels, and the very rare episode I caught while in town, or that someone had on VHS (mostly TNG, which was airing at the time).

I relied on the secondhand knowledge provided by the novels, which would refer back to canon events in an entirely muddled way that made it difficult to know what had happened. I was therefore delighted to discover that James Blish had written narrative versions of all the Original Series episodes.

"Great!" I thought, "Now I can get all the details straight, and understand the references in the novels."

I forget how I figured it out, maybe one of the novels contradicted the Blish versions, or maybe it was in one of the other reference books (we had, at one point, the nitpicker's guides and the encyclopedia). But I worked out that Blish was not only changing details, but sometimes changing the entire endings of episodes! Shock! Betrayal! Horror! Imagine the most outraged 9-10 year old you've ever seen!

(In retrospect, I'm wondering if Blish was writing them from memory? Or possibly shooting scripts? Does anyone know? Knowledge of this must exist.)

However, I was actually kind of disappointed when I finally saw "Amok Time," because I low-key liked some of Blish's made-up details? Well, not most of them, but there's a beat in the ending that I fully imprinted on, and that isn't in the original episode. And I know this is blasphemy, because the original ending is fully iconic, with Spock smiling and almost hugging Kirk before he remembers he's not supposed to have feelings. However, hear me out. I went and found the Blish version on Archive.org (they're all there, if you want to delight in corny 1970s renderings of 1960s camp), and it goes thusly:

[Kirk] came gradually back to consciousness in the Sickbay.* McCoy was bending over him. Nearby was Spock, his hands over his face. His shoulders were shaking.

Nurse Christine† came into his field of view, and turning Spock towards the Captain, gently pulled his hands away from his face. Kirk smiled weakly, and spoke in a faint but cheerful voice.

"Mr. Spock—I never thought I'd see the day..."

"Captain!" Spock stared down at him, absolutely dazed with astonishment.‡ Then, obviously realizing what his face and voice were revealing, he looked away.

I know it's not a masterpiece of literary genius,‡ but it does hit the niche trope of "emotionally more open character comes upon emotionally closed character secretly having a good cry, and that leads to banging revelations of true feelings." Which I could read a hundred thousand versions of and never tire of wanting more, and I have indeed included in at least a couple of my own fic. I'm not sure if this is the first time I ran into it, but it might have been? If so, Thank you, Mr. Blish!

Anyway, hi. I'm actually doing reading for history. Of 12th-century nuns, not mid-20th-century pop culture.

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* Definite article in the original?

† Nurse Does Not Have a Last Name!?

‡ Look. The thing about being nine is you don't notice when the prose is Not Very Good.