Space Seed
A landing party consisting of Captain Kirk, Doctor Leonard McCoy, Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott, and historian Lieutenant Marla McGivers beams over to the derelict.
First Officer Spock discovers that their guest is actually Khan Noonien Singh, who, along with his people, are products of selective breeding designed to create perfect humans.
Khan throws Kirk into a decompression chamber, and threatens to slowly suffocate him unless Enterprise's command crew agree to follow him.
Roddenberry attempted to claim the primary writing credit for "Space Seed", a request turned down by the Writers Guild of America.
His work on that show featured Ancient Greek-era humans transported in suspended animation through space, with the people of the future finding that they have mythological powers.
Fellow producer Bob Justman was less enthusiastic; he compared it negatively to Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, and felt the concept would be too expensive to film.
[4] NBC executives reviewed the plot for "Space Seed" and approved it, but Justman reassessed the outline, saying that it needed to be heavily revised.
Main cast member George Takei did not appear in "Space Seed"; the character of Hikaru Sulu was replaced by Blaisdell Makee as Lt. Spinelli.
Following positive feedback from the producers and the network regarding James Doohan, "Space Seed" was the first episode to feature a more prominent role for his character, Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott.
[18] The first day's filming coincided with the airing of the episode "Balance of Terror", and Daniels allowed the cast and crew to go home early to watch it.
For example, scenes shot on the Botany Bay were cut as executives felt the costumes worn by the newly awakened crew were too revealing.
[16] A high-definition remastering of "Space Seed", which introduced new special effects and starship exteriors as well as enhanced music and audio, was shown for the first time on November 18, 2006, in broadcast syndication.
[27] In Mark Pickavance's review at Den of Geek, he said that it remained an "obvious choice of great source material" to be followed up in a film.
It presents an original science fiction concept, grapples with notions of human technology and ingenuity creating a monster, and features Captain Kirk beating the crap out of someone with a piece of Styrofoam.
[16][38] Handlen said that it "features a terrific performance from guest star Montalbán, gives the franchise one of its greatest villains, and sets the stage for one of the best science-fiction adventure movies ever made".
[38] The first adaptation of "Space Seed" was as a re-working into a short story by author James Blish as part of the novelization Star Trek 2.
[39] "Space Seed" was the first Star Trek episode to go on public sale, sold as a single-episode VHS cassette in June 1982 by Paramount Home Video.
[12] Harve Bennett was hired to produce a sequel to Star Trek: The Motion Picture having never seen the television series; he watched every episode in preparation and latched onto Khan from "Space Seed" as the compelling villain he considered to be lacking from the first film.
[52][53] In reprising the role of Khan, Montalbán worried that fans would see him only as Mr. Roarke from Fantasy Island but felt that he managed to recapture the character after re-watching "Space Seed".
In "Twilight", the survivors of the Xindi attack on Earth eventually resettle on Ceti Alpha V.[60] The development of Khan and his followers were said to have been through selective breeding in "Space Seed".
[61] In fact, subsequent references to the creation of Khan and the other supermen, such as in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Doctor Bashir, I Presume", substituted genetic engineering.
[62] A non-canonical novelization by Greg Cox was later released in 2005 to fill in the timeframe between "Space Seed" and the film, titled To Reign in Hell: The Exile of Khan Noonien Singh.
This book expanded on Khan's romance with McGivers, and the author wanted to "give her a spine" as he felt that she was not "the pride of Starfleet, and even less of a feminist role-model" in her appearance in "Space Seed".
[66] A retro-style film poster for "Space Seed" was created by Juan Ortiz in 2013, released around the same as Star Trek Into Darkness.
[67] The Eugenics Wars, first mentioned in "Space Seed", are stated in the Star Trek Chronology by Michael and Denise Okuda as taking place between 1992 and 1996.
They considered it fortunate that these events did not come to pass in the real world, and noted that the development of the Botany Bay in 1996 as an instance of where "Star Trek's technological predictions have missed by a significant margin".
", writer René Echevarria, seeking a secret past for Doctor Julian Bashir, noted that coverage of the issue of eugenics in Star Trek had been limited to Khan and his followers.
[70] When Echevarria wrote that the Eugenics Wars took place 200 years before the Deep Space Nine episode "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?
", he took the time interval directly from The Wrath of Khan, failing to factor in the additional century between the events of the original series (and its associated films).
[27][74][75] This was a deliberate link by the producers of Enterprise to both "Space Seed" and The Wrath of Khan, and was one of several plots during the fourth season of the show to include elements of Star Trek: The Original Series in the hope that this would boost ratings.
