Casting was lucky as the charming and lovely Joan Collins took the role of Edith Keeler. The directing chore fell to Joe Pevney, who had exhibited a special sensitivity and understanding of Star Trek and its characters.

As the episode approached production, there was a glitch in the art direction. Star Trek’s art director, Matt Jefferies, fell ill with the flu just as “City” was going into preparation. The department head, Roland (Bud) Brooks, stepped in to avoid any delay. He read the script, came up with set sketches, and got the carpenters going on the planet set. When Matt returned, he went down to the stage to look at it, and his mouth dropped.

“What the hell is that?”

He was looking at a gray planet surface on which were scattered broken Grecian columns, tumbled walls and statues. Bud explained they were the ruins, as called for in the script. Matt couldn’t recall any ruins. Bud opened the script to the planet description and said, “Oops.”

As he tells the story, he’d had two drinks with dinner the night he read the script and was puzzled by a description of “rune stones” covering the landscape. He had flipped through his dictionary and come to ruins before he got to runes. Deciding it must have been a typo, he had proceeded to design the ruined stones of the planet. (We never did figure out why the Guardian of Forever looked like a lopsided donut.)

The episode, which aired April 6, 1967, almost a full year after its birth, was a good Star Trek. It had humor, danger, and a deeply poignant love story. It turned out to be one of the most popular episodes of all time with both original Trekkers and with the youngest of the breed. But it wasn’t Harlan’s. It was Harlan, filtered through Coon, Fontana and, most of all, Roddenberry. For myself, I missed Trooper—a beautifully drawn portrait of a worn and despairing veteran of the Great War; I missed the Jewels of Sound—and the marvelous idea that sound could be an addictive narcotic; I missed the glittering city that is the source of the title; I missed the magic of Harlan’s words.

Harlan had the last word. He always does. He submitted his draft of the script to the Writers’ Guild of America for its annual award consideration. For the television awards, contending scripts are read by a number of writer judges who do not know the author of the piece. The film is never seen. Scripts which are nominated in each category are then read by a blue ribbon panel of writer judges and voted upon. In 1968, Harlan won the Writers Guild of America award for “Best Episodic Drama.” Writers judging other writers declared his script the best of all contenders for that year. They read his words—and the spell of them captured them all.

Read the script again, and fall under the enchantment yourself.

David Gerrold