Partial bibliography of “lost” works
Unpublished, unfilmed, unfinished, unreleased, etc.
Compiled by: Corey W. Tacker
Last updated: December 12, 2025
This is a list of all of Peter David’s unreleased writings that he (or others) have talked about publicly. It is certainly not a complete listing of all of his “lost” works. It does not include unreleased works that are scheduled to come out in the future (upcoming novels, comics, etc.). For each item, the title is given (if known), along with a brief description and a source for information on it.
If you have information on any unreleased works that are not included here, please let me know.
Quick links:
Novels – Short Fiction – Movie Screenplays – TV Scripts – Audio Programs – Stage Plays – Comic Books – Fan Fiction – Nonfiction – Convention Skits – Mystery Trekkie Theater 3000
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Novels:
Fantasm
–Peter’s first novel, unpublished. It’s about a man with psychic powers. Peter couldn’t find a publisher who would buy it.
Source: BID column in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1528
Fantasy novel series [proposal only; title unknown]
–A novel series proposal Peter had in the late 1980s, described as “sword and sorcery with a skew to it.”
Source: Destinies: The Voice of Science Fiction radio interview
Star Trek: The Original Series [2 outlines]
–Two unused ST:TOS novel outlines Peter submitted to Paramount along with his outline for the published The Rift novel. He said, “I drafted up three different story outlines and Pocket submitted them without my name on them. I did them in three completely different styles. Roddenberry’s office wound up reviewing three story outlines, all by me. Interestingly, I wrote one outline which I thought was fantastic, one that I thought was okay and one outline that was simply a conglomeration of old clichés from previous Star Trek episodes. That was the one [The Rift] they liked. Once I got into it, I actually thought I managed to make it a pretty decent book. The outline was the most unpromising thing I ever crafted because it was designed to make the other two look good. It wasn’t designed to be the one they picked.”
Source: Star Trek: Voyages of Imagination
Knight Life II [outline only]
–the first draft outline for what would eventually become One Knight Only. Originally the story was going to be about a sex scandal during Arthur Penn’s Presidency, playing off the real-life Clinton/Lewinsky sex scandal. But then September 11th happened, and Peter thought the sex scandal story would seem too trivial, so he tossed out the outline and started over.
Source: Destinies radio interview
[Unknown title]
–a “psychological horror novel” PAD was working on in the mid-1990s.
Source: Interview in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1126
The Legend of Cain (a.k.a. The Redemption of Cain) (movie novelization, screenplay, and comics)
–The project that first brought Peter to work with Will Smith and his production company in 2009. The movie, with initial screenplay written by Caleeb Pinkett and Dan Knauf, was about Cain (the Biblical figure) as a vampire. Will Smith was to play Cain, with Jada Pinkett-Smith as the female lead. Peter described it as “a Biblical epic that is essentially the Trojan War with vampires.”
Peter was brought in to write the novelization of the movie, and completed two drafts of the novel. He also helped re-plot and re-write the screenplay. Also, two 5-issue comic limited series from IDW were planned, one focused on Cain and the other on Jada’s character.
The movie and tie-in projects were cancelled following the poor performance of After Earth.
Hope in Hëll
–About a character named Hope, in Hëll. Peter said in 2011, “I’m working on a novel about two dámņëd souls falling in love. It’s called “Hope in Hëll.” It’s a tale of dámņáŧìøņ, redemption, and Harry Truman.”
Source: SF Site interview
The Genieologist
–A novel Peter wrote circa 2019. Peter said, “it’s about a woman who studies genies, and all the living hëll that results from that.”
Source: convention interview
Spoken Word
–A novel Peter mentioned in his memoirs Mr. Sulu Grabbed My Úš circa 2021, and the memoirs include the first chapter of the novel. “It’s about a comedian whose son never speaks a word… until a very unusual woman enters their lives and changes that.” He posted Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 on his blog.
Source: Mr. Sulu Grabbed My Úš, and Other Highlights from a Life in Comics, Novels, Television, Films and Video Games
Star Trek novel pitch
–from 2020. Peter said, “I came up with an entire Star Trek novel that was inspired by the [Covid] pandemic. The concept was that the Enterprise goes to this world and this disease is sweeping the world. And it winds up getting onto the Enterprise. Slowly, the Enterprise doctors come to the realization that this is not simply a disease, it’s actually an alien race. And the way that it survives is by living inside of hosts. And now they’re not sure what to do–if they wind up getting rid of this disease, they are essentially committing genocide. They’re getting rid of an entire alien race. There can’t be a greater violation of the Prime Directive than that.
“When I pitched it, the editor at Simon & Schuster thought it could be an interesting book, and he said he was going to get right back to me about that, but that was seven months ago.”
Source: Crazy 8 Press panel
Krysta, Warrior President
–A novel Peter was working on circa 2021, based on his short story of the same title.
Source: Interview in Paperback Parade #112
Schlepper the Leper
–a “sideways sequel to Sir Apropos Nothing” featuring the Schlepper character from the novella “Sir Apropos of Nothing and the Adventure of the Receding Heir”
Source: Youtube interview
4ever
–A novel Peter was working on circa 2019. He and Kathleen posted the first 6 chapters on his Patreon account.
Source: Peter David Patreon account
Robyne of Sherwood 2 (outline only)
–Peter wrote an outline for a sequel to Robyne of Sherwood before his death. As of this writing, his daughter Caroline David is writing the novel based on his outline.
Source: Peter David Patreon account
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Short fiction:
[Unknown title] (about a man angered by the loss of a particular sock who is applying for a grant to discover when in the wash cycle socks disappear)
–written back in Peter’s “amateur” days. A description of the story from Robert Kasman: “You could see the retentive first person narrator becoming obsessed with discovering the exact moment that the machine swallowed the sock, keeping charts, making notes, until one day he opens it just at the right moment, seeing the foaming mouth, the agitator as a tongue, swallowing the sock down its throat… As the story progressed, the coin laundry owner became more and more wealthy becaused the obsessed man was spending so much on the project.”
Source: Robert Kasman
.[Unknown title] (about a female mental asylum employee; inspired Knight Life novel)
–one character in this story was in an asylum because he believed he was King Arthur, this inspired Peter to write a novel about the real King Arthur living in the present day. Peter thinks this story is “awful” and it “never worked.”
Source: Amazing Heroes #175 interview
[Unknown title] (a district attorney uses mind-reading ability in court)
–Peter wrote this story for an anthology edited by Kurt Busiek that remains unpublished.
Source: Internet newsgroup posting
Star Trek: Starship Creator: Warp II (CD-ROM; 7 unused missions, written with Kathleen O’Shea David)
–Kathleen said that she and Peter came up with 10 missions for this PC game, and only 3 were used.
Source: Post by Kathleen on Allpeterdavid Yahoo Group
Book of Doctor Seuss Parody Poems
–a collection of poems spoofing Dr. Seuss poems. Peter’s agent refused to shop it around because the estate of Theodore “Dr. Seuss” Geisel is fiercely protective of its copyrights and was likely to sue to stop publication of it. PAD published excerpts from a few of the poems in CBG #1683:
You can roll it, you can chew it,
You can watch two women do it.
You could eat it on a wharf
You could smoke it with a dwarf.
–from “Green Eggs and Crack”
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And in from the outside with a splooshity splat,
Came a tall, pale man in a battered top hat.
His skin was like chalk and he had yellow teeth.
He wore brown mismatched shoes with no socks underneath.
The rest of his face was obscured; “Why?” you ask.
‘Cause he sported a blue and black umpire mask.
–from “The Cad in the Hat”
Peter also did readings of “Green Eggs and Crack” at various conventions circa 2005.
Source: www.peterdavid.net, Comics Buyer’s Guide #1683
“How Do You Feel?”
—Short story written for the Farpoint Convention 2019 Author’s Track short story contest. It won third place in the contest, but was not released outside of the convention.
Source: https://sites.google.com/view/farpoint-author-track/
The Write Stuff short story anthology
–An anthology of Peter David’s creator-owned short stories, both new and previously published. He was working on the anthology circa 2020.
Source: two YouTube interviews
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Movie screenplays:
Squeeze Play (a.k.a. Base on Balls)
–about a female major league baseball player. Peter wrote this screenplay long before the movie A League of Their Own was filmed, and Peter said he had Geena Davis in mind for it before she starred in the other movie.
Source: BID column in Comics Buyer’s Guide #894, various Internet postings
Cliffhangers
–Circa 1989, about “archetypes” of 1930s’ movie serial heroes who team up to save the world. Peter said, “Bill Mumy called me up and said that three friends of his (Mark Hamill, Miguel Ferrer, and Bill Paxton), were all together, and thinking it would be great if they could all work together on something.
“Bill came to me and asked if I had any ideas.
“What I did was write a screenplay called Cliffhangers, in which four archetypes of the 1930s movie serials team up to save the world from certain destruction. Of course, Bill, Mark, Miguel, and Bill would each play one of these archetypes. There’s a cowboy, a hard-boiled detective, a space ranger, and a swashbuckler.”
Source: Amazing Heroes #175 interview
Dying to be Heard
–written with Bill Mumy
Source: Internet postings
Knight Life (based on the novel)
–a fairly direct adaptation of Peter’s 1987 Knight Life novel. Movie producers were interested in the screenplay at one point, intending for the role of King Arthur to played by Jim Varney (of Ernest movie fame). When Peter revised and expanded the Knight Life novel in 2002, he incorporated elements from the screenplay into the new version of the novel.
Source: Internet postings.
Howling Mad (based on the novel)
–circa 1990, movie producers of one studio optioned the novel—producers Peter would later describe as “bottom feeders.” The producers demanded ridiculous changes which Peter made, but then the producers decided they didn’t like the changes they demanded, and the movie was never made.
In 2004, another studio optioned the novel, but Peter did not work on the screenplay that time around (the screenwriter was Steven Kriozere). Apparently that attempt never made it out of development hëll either.
Source: BID column in Comics Buyer’s Guide #915
More Trouble in Little China [30-page treatment only]
–this would have been a sequel to the Kurt Russell/Kim Catrall movie Big Trouble in Little China, with Egg Shen being the only returning character. In 1994, screenwriter Charles “Chip” Proser used PAD’s treatment in writing a TV-movie script (titled Big Trouble in Little China II). PAD got a story credit on the teleplay, but it is unknown how much of his treatment remained in Proser’s teleplay. You can read Proser’s teleplay here.
Source: Internet newsgroup posting, Noel Thingvall
.[Unknown title]
–a screenplay about comic books
Source: Interview in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1126
Overload [second draft only]
–written with Bill Mumy. Overload was a short screenplay for a science fiction film that would have starred George Takei and other friends and associates of Bill Mumy (mostly 1960s TV stars like Mumy himself). A 10-minute segment of the movie was filmed in an effort sell the concept to producers, but there were no takers.The second draft of the screenplay is most likely the only draft Peter worked on (the first draft being a solo effort by Mumy).
Source: Internet postings.
Space Ghost [two versions]
–a movie based on the animated TV series character. Peter wrote the screenplay which the producers didn’t like, so Peter heavily rewrote it based on their feedback. They still didn’t like it.
Source: BID column in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1318. Peter posted most of the second draft screenplay (minus the ending) on his Patreon account.
Glory B.
–a screenplay about an alienated teenage girl who concludes she feels that way because she’s an actual alien. Artists Leonard Kirk and Robin Riggs were going to take the screenplay and adapt it into a 6-issue comic miniseries for Dreamwave, but negotiations with Dreamwave fell though. Some of the artwork was probably completed.
Source: Comicon.com interview, PeterDavid.net posting
Gene Roddenberry’s Starpoint Academy
–a screenplay for a CGI animated film inspired by the work of Gene Roddenberry. The premise: the best and brightest galactic teens are recruited and trained as elite Astro Rangers on Starpoint Pharos, an artificial planet that’s a cosmic United Nations and solves problems around the universe. PAD said: “Basically it progressed exactly as I thought it would. When I first hooked up with it, I wanted to meet with the director. They told me there wasn’t one yet; they wanted the script first. And I thought, ‘Great. I’m going to work on this script, and when it’s finally done, they’re going to hire a director who’s going to throw out everything I did and bring in someone he’s worked with before.’ Which is exactly what happened. Last I heard, he had his own guy who turned in his own script which the execs hated. So I’ve no idea where it stands.”
Source: PeterDavid.net postings
The Legend of Cain
–see entry in Novels section
After Earth 2
–a sequel to the Will Smith film. Peter described the story as very different from the first movie, set on Earth and about Jaden Smith’s character Kitai becoming a social media star following the events of the first film. Said Peter, “We were playing off of Jaden’s life. Kitai was going to go back to his home planet and become this very popular person. Everyone’s going to know that he’s the youngest ‘ghost.’ Cameras are going to be following him, every thing in his life is going to be on public display. He was going to become so frustrated by this. I had one scene where he’s just trying to walk around, and he hears a voice behind him saying, “Can I have your autograph?” And he turns around, totally frustrated, and it’s this gorgeous young girl, and she’s pulling aside the bodice of her outfit. And she says, “Could you sign my breast?” And he stands there for a moment, and says, “Do you want me to personalize it?” And she says, “I have a pretty long name…” And he goes, “No problem.”
Peter, Michael Jan Friedman, and Robert Greenberger also wrote the series bible for the entire planned After Earth franchise. According to Greenberger, “We delivered a 273-page bible, color coded to identify different threads and timelines. Fairly quickly, word came back that they loved it. Then they asked for some minor tweaks. Since then, after a new screenplay draft was written by Stephen Gaghan, they have come back to us to do some additional writing as new elements required explanation and background.”
Peter, Mike, and Bob had plans more for After Earth novels, short stories, and comics that were abandoned after the film’s poor performance.
Artful
–A screenplay based on Peter’ novel of the same title. Comics publisher Action Lab Entertainment turned the screenplay into the 6-issue comics miniseries.
Source: convention panel
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TV scripts:
Tiny Toon Adventures: “Wacky Sports Spectacular”
–most of the animation on this episode was completed, and the animators claimed it was one of the funniest episodes they had worked on, but Steven Spielberg himself didn’t like it and it was shelved.
Source: BID column in Comics Buyer’s Guide #916, AOL posting
Super Goose [animated series bible]
–Peter wrote this series bible for Stan Lee’s media company. The series never happened.
Source: Alex Kasman
Way Out [pilot script]
–An unfilmed TV pilot script intended for ABC, which was abandoned when the ABC executive in charge of it was fired. PAD later teamed up with Bill Mumy and together they heavily retooled the concept for kids, and it became Space Cases.
Source: Destinies radio interview
Babylon 5: “Gut Reactions” [2 drafts]
–a script intended for the eighth episode of B5’s fifth season, written with Bill Mumy, dealing with the fifth-season story arc about the Centauri attacking other races’ ships, as well as a sub-plot about Sheridan dealing with the minutae of being Alliance President. The first draft involved “too many” characters and sets, so PAD and Mumy revised the script to utilize fewer characters and sets than most other episodes. Nevertheless, the script was shelved due to unspecified “production problems.” Aside from one script by Neil Gaiman, J. Michael Straczynski wrote every fifth season episode.
Source: various Internet postings, BID column in CBG #1284.
Roswell Conspiracies: “Playing with Fire”
–written with Bill Mumy. “Playing with Fire” is the alternate title for Peter and Bill’s script, which aired under the title “Flying Saucer Down.” Even though Peter and Bill are the only credited writers on the episode, Peter said “the script that aired didn’t contain a single bit of the dialogue that Bill and I wrote originally.” So the script they submitted was heavily rewritten by the show’s producers.
Source: Internet and AOL postings
Space Cases: “Breath of a Salesman”
–written with Bill Mumy. “Breath of a Salesman” is the original unaired pilot for Space Cases, used to sell the show to Nickelodeon. The pilot was never aired because the costumes, set designs, and some of the cast was changed after it was filmed. The pilot was available for viewing for a brief time on the now-defunct semi-official www.spacecases.com website.
Source: http://www.spacecasestv.com
Space Cases: “Catalina Explains it All”
–written with Bill Mumy. “Catalina Explains it All” was the original concept for the first episode of Space Cases. Peter David wrote the following about it:
“Originally, Nickelodeon didn’t want a straight-up origin episode. They wanted to reserve the right to be able to run the episodes in any ol’ order, and wanted what’s called the “premise pilot” to be able to be dropped in anywhere into the run. Furthermore, there was no money in the budget to build a Starcademy set, which would certainly have been necessary if we were going to do an episode that began at the chronological beginning.
“The show was to open with the crew already aboard the ship, and Catalina–breaking the fourth wall to the viewer–was going to explain everything about how they wound up on the ship. There would have been simply an exterior shot of the Starcademy, and Cat’s narration would have explained what happened. Then we would have cut immediately to the kid’s arrival on the ship. But somewhere along the way, the PTB (Powers That Be) changed their minds: the money was found for a Starcademy set and we retooled the episode.”
The “retooled” episode became “We Gotta Get Out of This Place,” the first aired episode of Space Cases. About half of the material in this “Catalina” script was used in that episode.
Source: http://www.spacecasestv.com
Space Cases: “We Don’t Need Another Hero”
–written with Bill Mumy. This unfilmed script is set early in Space Cases’s first season, with one notable exception: Davenport exists only in the computer. At the time this script was written, the first actress to play Davenport (in the “Breath of a Salesman” unaired pilot) became pregnant, and for a while they decided to hide the pregnancy by putting Davenport in the computer. Instead, they brought in a new actress to play Davenport when the series was sold to Nickelodeon (although the concept of putting Davenport in the computer was used in a later episode). It is unknown why this script was never used on the show, as it could easily have been rewritten to remove the Davenport-in-the-computer element.
Source: eBay auction for script
Star Trek: The Next Generation: “Partial Evil”
–Producers passed on this script, so Peter adapted elements of it into the TNG novel A Rock and a Hard Place. He said, “The basic storyline centered on Riker being put into a Prime Directive situation where he has to just stand there and watched someone [be] killed. [Riker] was devastated by it… A Rock and a Hard Place stemmed from this idea and I took a Riker-like officer [Commander Stone], put him in that situation, and then the guy fell apart.”
Source: Star Trek: Voyages of Imagination
Star Trek: The Next Generation [outline only, unknown title]
–about an unknown son of Geordi LaForge, circa TNG’s sixth season. Peter sold the outline to TNG producer Ronald D. Moore and did rewrites on it for Moore, but TNG Executive Producer Michael Piller passed on the outline.
Source: Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion CD-ROM
The X-Files [outline only, unknown title]
–a first season story about Mulder encountering a time traveler from the future. Peter wrote the outline at the request of his friend David Nutter, a director of many X-Files episodes.
Source: Post on Allpeterdavid Yahoo Group
Teen Titans [animated series, first draft series bible and pilot script]
–Peter got the job to develop this series based on his work for the Young Justice comic. As Peter might say, “they liked it so much they decided to go with someone else.” The final TV series was developed by different writers. But PAD eventually did get to write for the later Young Justice TV series. A partial series bible was later released on the internet and included episode concepts by Peter with the titles “Follow the Leader, ” “Never Give a Joker an Even Break,” and “Beast Boy in Wonder Land.” It also led to his work on another comic-book-based animated series, details of that one are unknown but it apparently was never greenlighted.
Source: PeterDavid.net posting
Supernatural: “Excuse Me While I Whip This Out”
–a spec script for the series. Said Peter, “If you are trying to write for a television series, the one thing you don’t do is send them a script for their actual program because you can’t possibly match their voice.
“Nevertheless, I came up with an idea for the television program Supernatural and couldn’t get it out of my head. It was a sequel to the wonderfully hilarious episode “The French Mistake” in which Sam and Dean Winchester find themselves in an alternate universe where they are believed to be Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, the stars of a TV series entitled Supernatural. All I could think of was, “What happened to the ‘real’ Jared and Jensen when the Supernatural brothers took their place?”
“The good news is that my agent is friends with Eric Kripke, so he sent it to Kripke and asked him to send it along to the producers. Kripke happily agreed to do so and did just that.
“Over a year later the producers have still not bothered to read it, at least to the best of my knowledge.”
Source: Peter posted the script to his Patreon account
Head Cases
A project for Stan Lee’s World of Heroes YouTube channel circa 2012-2013. The channel is now defunct. A 75-minute script intended to stream as 5-minute webisodes. Based on Peter and Kathleen’s short story in the Masked anthology. Originally developed as a superhero series for Comedy Central, it was rewritten and expanded for Stan Lee’s World of Heroes.
Said Peter, “It’s like a superhero version of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. It follows the adventures–that may be too strong a word–of a cynical young superhero named Ari Cooper who goes by the name of Thunderhead. He’s capable of generating seismic blasts of thunder by slamming his head against solid objects. The problem is that his head is not invulnerable. The first time that he launches into action and attempts to thwart a bank robbery, he succeeds not in stopping the bank robbers, but knocking himself cold. The subsequent video of the bank robbers jumping over his prostrate body immediately goes viral on YouTube, making him a joke to the entire community. Now feeling that there’s no point in heroism at all, he just hangs out in a local bar called the DMZ that caters to both superheroes and supervillains.
“He generally just spends most of his day just hanging out at a table with a couple of his C-level superhero friends. One guy is a very hairy Chinese guy who fancies himself a descendant of the Monkey King, and actually calls himself the Monkey King, although his major power is throwing poop at people. We’re not going to actually show that. The other friend is a psychic named Xander, who unfortunately because he’s constantly being pummeled with visions of the future, spends most of his time stoned so he won’t have to worry about it. Consequently he does indeed have accurate visions of the future, but deciphering what the hëll he’s talking about can sometimes be problematic.
“Into the DMZ comes a young would-be superheroine named Vicky Quick, whose big brother is Captain Quick, the single most obnoxious hero in the town. She has come to town because she has heard that Ari is dead. Essentially in the very first episode we explore the classic heroic trope of someone being dead and comes back to life. In this episode, Ari is believed dead, he comes back to life, and then he has to deal with… his social security number. His pension benefits. His driver’s license. His passport. An insurance scam that the Monkey King put into motion, collecting money off of him after he supposedly died. There’s a lot of paperback that exists when you die. And there’s not a ton of paperwork that exists for when you come back to life.
“Vicky knows Ari from the old days when he was likewise young and upcoming, and after discovering that he’s alive, feels that he has lost his way, and decides that she wants to try to bring him back into the fold of superheroing. Whereas Ari is determined to knock some of the joy out of her, and get her to be as cynical as he is. That’s kind of the emotional underpinning of it.
“I’m hoping to have it feature as many cameos by various creators in the industry as humanly possible. And Stan Lee will be a recurring character, he will be playing the role he was born to play, naturally, Stan Lee. He will be the equivalent of Norm from Cheers. He walks in, ‘Afternoon, everybody.’ ‘STAN!’ And the bartender says, ‘Your usual, Stan?’ Stan says, ‘Absolutely!’ She hands him two mugs. One says ‘Beer’ and the other says ‘Non-alcoholic beer.’ He holds them up in sequence and says ‘Great power!’ and ‘Great responsibility!’
“My favorite thing is, at one point Stan suddenly says out of nowhere, ‘EXCELSIOR!’ And the reason he says it is that a superhero walks in whose name is Excelsior. And Stan says, ‘Hey where’s my check for this month’s rental of that name?’ And Excelsior says, ‘I’m getting it right off to you in the mail, Stan.’ And Stan says, ‘Oh, that’s what you said last month.’
“Excelsior says, ‘Oh right, don’t worry,’ and he turns to the other guys and says, ‘Honest to God, I was hoping that he would forget.’ And Stan says, ‘Oh! I heard that! You thought that I would forget! But I’ll have you know that I have a mind like a steel tarp!’
“And they all go, ‘What?’
” ‘A steel tarp!’
“And they go, ‘Stan, it’s steel trap.’ And Stan says, ‘No it says right there–‘ and we pan over to see the cue card girl holding Stan’s dialogue. And the bartender goes, ‘No Stan, see right here, it’s steel trap.’
“Stan replies, ‘Well, how am I supposed to read that?! I don’t have incredible eyesight like Daredevil!’ And the bartender says, ‘Stan, Daredevil’s blind.’ Stan goes, ‘He is? Well, who remembers?!’
“I’m also trying to talk Mark Hamill into being our Joker-ripoff character.
“We really do focus on the nature of heroism. Being a bad guy versus being a good guy. At one point Jackanapes, the Joker character, will put forth a very convincing argument for why being a bad guy makes way more sense. I’m delighted by the notion of people sitting there and nodding, and suddenly going, ‘Wait a minute…’ ”
Source: convention interview and Dragon*Con 2012 panel
Audio Programs:
Star Trek: Cacophony [1st and 2nd draft manuscripts]
–Peter wrote the early drafts for this “Captain Sulu” original audio program which was then rewritten by J. J. Malloy. Peter said:
“I was indeed originally the writer for the above-mentioned project. I did two drafts of the script. S&S Audio then took my script and handed it over to someone else, who not only tossed out virtually all my dialogue, but retooled the story to try and squeeze in as many sound effects as they could, even when it was staggeringly stupid (a Starfleet Admiral recording his logs with a reel-to-reel tape recorder, for example).
“I was so appalled by the final product that I had my name taken off it, since I felt it wasn’t remotely representative of my work.”
Source: Internet newsgroup posting
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Stage Plays:
“Ransom of Redlight”
–a play PAD wrote in his “amateur” days while working in the office of the NYU Law Review. The play was performed by students of the NYU law school. A running gag from the play, as described by Robert Kasman: “There was a ditsy secretary who wore an electric clock around her neck by its cord. All through the play, people mused about why she was wearing the clock. Finally, someone asks her. ‘I don’t want to misplace it.’ ‘But if it isn’t plugged in, then how do you know what time it is?’ ‘If I want to know what time it is, I just plug it in.’ ”
Source: Robert Kasman
“Truth and Other Lies” (a.k.a. “Shoestrings”)
–this is a greatly expanded version of the one-act play “Shoeicide” that Peter published in one of his But I Digress columns (CBG #1323). Producers in Los Angeles optioned the play and did a stage reading of it (one of the actresses in the stage reading was Allison Mack, who shortly afterwards landed the role of Chloe on Smallville), but nothing more came of it.
Source: Internet postings, BID columns, and Peter posted the play on his Patreon account.
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Comics:
Moon Knight and Indiana Jones
–Peter once mentioned he wrote some plots for Moon Knight and Indiana Jones before he became a professional writer and pitched them to editor Denny O’Neil at a convention. He’s still waiting to hear back from Denny on these.
Source: BID column in Comics Buyer’s Guide #871
Daredevil comic plot
Before he worked for Marvel in the sales department, Peter was at a comic convention with a panel where audience members could come up on stage and pitch a story to editor Mark Gruenwald. Peter said, “I pitched a concept for a Daredevil story in which there’s this politician who is rabidly anti-superheroes. And he’s standing there making a speech that is rabidly anti-superheroes. And Matt Murdock is in the audience, and his hyper-hearing informs him that the guy has a bomb on him, that the guy obviously doesn’t know about. And Matt’s got to find a way to get to the guy and remove the bomb without causing a riot. He winds up changing to Daredevil and has to get to the guy before the bomb goes off.” Gruenwald said it was a really good idea for a Daredevil story.
Source: Youtube interview
The Transformers #16: “The Love Bug”
–about the character Bumblebee on a solo adventure. Pencils by William Johnson, inks by Kyle Baker. According to editor Christopher Priest (a.k.a. James Owsley), Johnson took so long to draw it that new Transformers toys came out that made the story out-of-date. A different Bumblebee story by Len Kaminski, perhaps based in part on PAD’s story, ran in its place in issue #16. There are indications that the Johnson/Baker art for the story was lost or misplaced soon after.
Source: Usenet posts by Christopher Priest and Peter David
Freddy Krueger’s A Nightmare on Elm Street #4-6
–Peter wrote stories for these issues which were never published. The editor-in-chief at the time had a personal dislike for the series and canned it. According to a Comics Buyer’s Guide article, Peter wrote one of the two stories for #4, with art by Bret Blevins; and Peter wrote all of #5 with art by Dan Lawliss and Alfredo Alcala. In an online posting, Peter also mentioned a 6-page story he wrote for #6 with art by Sam Kieth. According to Tom Brevoort, the PAD/Sam Keith story was “a take-off on the then-recent Field of Dreams movie.” Peter said these Freddy Krueger horror stories were like nothing else he’d ever written. In retrospect, he wasn’t happy with them and was somewhat glad they were never published.
In 2017, Sam Keith posted images of his partially completed art for PAD’s story on his blog.
Source: Interview in Comics Buyer’s Guide #829, online postings
Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #111: “Power Play”
–Part of a crossover beginning with Secret Wars II #7 and Amazing Spider-Man #273 written by others. Peter’s part of the crossover was solicited with art by Mark Beacham. However, a different story which also completed the crossover was published instead, written by Jim Owsley with art by Rich Buckler and a different title. The end of ASM #273 even promoted the title of Peter’s lost story, “Power Play.”
Source: Marvel Age
Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #124
–Peter had a story guest-starring Dakota North for this issue which went unused after Dakota North’s own title was cancelled. Art by Dwayne Turner with inks by Bob McLeod. It was initially slotted for issue #122 with art by Mark Beachum.
Source: Marvel Age
D.P. 7 #13: “Everything is Beautiful at the Ballet”
Peter wrote an issue for this Marvel New Universe title which went unused. It would have featured the “untold life story of Charly Beck” with art by Lee Weeks.
Source: Marvel Age #55
Spider-Man: Web of Fortune (choose-your-own-adventure graphic novel)
–a 64-page hardcover graphic novel written in the “choose-your-own-adventure” style with pencils by Ron Frenz and inks by John Romita Sr. The solicitation for the book read:
“Here’s your chance to help Spider-Man out on one of his adventures! Web of Fortune is a first for Marvel–a story where you get to decide what happens next! At several points in the story, Spidey is faced with some tough choices. That’s where you come in! You get to choose which move Spidey is going to make next! If you choose right, Spidey wins. If you choose wrong, it could mean death for the wall-crawler! The basic premise of the story is that Spidey is captured by Arcade, and must walk through a series of doors to escape. Will Spidey make the right choices? That’s up to you! Featuring guest appearances by the Punisher, the Hulk, and others.”
Artist Ron Frenz wrote about it on Facebook:
“Regrets, I’ve Had A Few!
Back while I was pencilling my face off on THE MIGHTY THOR I was fool-hardy enough to take on an extra project,one of those “work on it when you have an extra moment” things! It was titled WEB OF FORTUNE: A SPIDER-MAN CREATE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE! Written by Mr.Peter David this was a graphic novel featuring an ambitious tale of Spidey battling the villainous Arcade and his robots ultimately leading to a showdown in Arcade’s deadly holographic Murderworld! The twist was that each scene would reach a point where the reader would then decide what happens next by turning to the page option of their choice requiring alternate scenes for each option! Mr.David put in a LOT of work on this project!
The big draw of this job for me was the double-barreled pleasure of working on a Spider-Man project with Mr.John Romita, Sr. as inker! Mr. Romita was,at the time,the art director of Marvel Comics,a more than full-time endeavor in itself and I, as mentioned, was pencilling the monthly (sometimes bi-weekly) Thor title. I would work on the project in fits and starts, sending pages in when I could and occasionally seeing glorious inks from Mr. Romita.
The period between sending pages would sometimes get long. A few times I was notified that the project had been handed to a different editorial team and once I was told that the project had NO editorial team.The project would get picked up by a new editor and I would pencil a new spurt of pages and so on and so forth until…
The project went away.
It was never re-assigned to another penciller. It just went away. I had pencilled around thirty pages. Mr. Romita inked almost a dozen or so that I saw. The pages were never returned to me. Some of the inked pages have apparently made it into the original art market. My sincere apologies to Mr.Peter David.”
And editor Gregory Wright added:
“Let me add my two cents here. I was the original editor of this. Getting pages out of Ron was way easier than getting pages out of John Romita Sr. John was full time art director at Marvel and retired from being a freelance artist, so it took lots of begging to get him to do the project. Once he started he realized just how much work it was, no matter how long of a deadline he had. He tried to get out of the project, ( he really wanted to be able to spend time with family) but my begging kept him doing it. And you can see from the work he did it was nothing less than perfect. John’s that kind of pro. It HAS to be done right. And that takes time.
Now getting pages from Ron…this was a problem because he was already pencilling THOR, and since that was a monthly book it had to be done first. So Ron was generally told NOT to pencil this project in favor of his regular assignment. Which is entirely the correct thing to do. And if you see Ron’s pencils, again you will note that he wasn’t about to put anything down on the page that wasn’t perfect… especially since John Romita Sr. was inking it.
The main reason this didn’t get done was because Marvel never decided it was a priority. They never said…Okay…Ron’s done with Thor now… FINISH WEB OF FORTUNE… they just gave him the next assignment. It’s a shame because the pages were really awesome. And the idea that Ron and John didn’t get their pages BACK is upsetting. So Ron need not apologize. Marvel should have prioritized the project at some point before it fell off the earth. I’m just glad to be one of the folks who got to hold these pages in my very hands and look at them whenever I wanted to for as long as I wanted to.”
Some completed and dialogued art pages from this project can be seen here.
Source: Marvel Age #85 and Facebook postings
Dreadstar Rising: “The Fall”
–this would have been a three-issue miniseries continuing the Dreadstar storyline from the monthly series. First Comics went out-of-business before the miniseries could be published. It is unknown how much of the art (by Paris Cullins and Dave Cooper) was completed.
Source: Dreadstar #64
Disney Adventures digest magazine comic story (most likely an 8-page Rocketeer story)
–In an interview with Comic Shop News, Peter said he wrote two stories for the Disney Adventures digest magazine. But only one was published (an 8-page original Rocketeer story set in the movie’s continuity in the July 1991 issue). The unpublished story was most likely a Rocketeer one as well.
Source: Comic Shop News #205
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves comic adaptation
–Peter wrote the script for a comic-book adaptation of the Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves movie. Says PAD, “The project was killed at the 11th hour by none other than Kevin Costner. I was told that he felt comic books were simply not a worthy vehicle for his likeness to appear in, and the publisher understandably felt that, if they couldn’t have the star of the film look like the star of the film, then there was no point in doing the adaptation.” It is unlikely that any art was completed for the comic.
Source: Comics Buyer’s Guide #1655
Open Space #5: “Weak Link” or “To My Son”
–unfortunately, Open Space was cancelled after issue #4, so Peter’s completed comic story, painted by Bill Koeb, was never published. The description of PAD’s story from Open Space #4: “ ‘Weak Link’ is the story of a young business executive, the kidnapping of an obsolete robot—and its deadly repercussions.” Interestingly, another story intended for issue #5 would have been the first published comics work of artist Alex Ross. Ross’ story was later published as Open Space #0, a promo comic for Wizard magazine. Sadly, none of the other stories from #5 were included in #0.
Source: Open Space #4, #0
Sachs & Violens sequels
–PAD had this to stay at Dragon*Con 1995 about follow-ups to his and George Perez’s Sachs and Violens minseries:
“George Perez and I will undoubtedly do more [Sachs & Violens] as soon as our schedules match up… the first thing we would like to do is a trade paperback collection of the first series, plus a new short story or novella, illustrated by George, in which J.J. Sachs becomes involved with a libidinous gubernatorial candidate for President. His involvement with J.J. makes him a target, so his handlers decide she’s got to be disposed of. We could call it ‘The Governor and J.J.’ Then we’d probably do a 4-issue series set in Hawaii, so that we can go on vacation to Hawaii and write it off. We’d have great titles like ‘Lei of the Land’…”
These concepts never happened, although a trade paperback collection was eventually published. Sachs & Violens’ next appearance after the 1993 miniseries was in 2005’s Fallen Angel (DC) #19.
Source: Dragon*Con 1995 panel video
Star Trek #16-17 (1989 series): #16: “First Contact”; #17: “The Long Good-Bye”
–Peter wrote a story for DC Comics’ Star Trek #16-17 and Gordon Purcell completed some pencil art for the comic, but then Paramount rejected the story, claiming it was “too humorous” and “didn’t treat the characters with the proper amount of respect.” The Paramount rejection came solely from Richard Arnold, an assistant to Gene Roddenberry who had a personal vendetta against Peter David and was the reason Peter quit the Star Trek comic. Arnold was fired soon after Roddenberry’s death, but the story remains unpublished. A different story written by Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski was published as issue #16.
However, Peter David quickly rewrote this story for his Dreadstar series, and you can see a very close resemblance between the first three pages of Dreadstar #63 and the few pages of Purcell’s art for Trek #16 that were published in Comics Interview Star Trek Special magazine.
Peter discussed the plot in Speakeasy #112 magazine:
“Issue 16 and 17 is essentially a first contact story, in which the Enterprise goes go a planet that is to all intents and purposes the way Earth is now. I don’t mean a parallel world or anything like that, I just mean a similar stage of development, a thinly-disguised type of Earth. The story deals with how that world reacts to them, namely that they are absolutely lionized, people start generating all sorts of merchandise, they appear on talk shows, all the women start wearing their hair like Uhura, all the men start pointing their sideburns, all that kind of thing. Everything is going really great until Orion pirates show up–although we were informed by Gene Roddenberry’s office that Orion pirates don’t exist (laughs), so we’re going to have to call them something else!”
Peter wrote two script drafts of issue #16 and one draft of #17. Gordon Purcell drew the first four pages of the first-draft version of #16, then started over and drew 11 pages of the second draft of #16 before the story was canned. In the scripts, the villains were indeed changed from Orion pirates to parodies of the Dreadstar characters. (Compare this to the version of the story published in Dreadstar #63-64, in which the villains were parodies of the Star Trek characters).
Source: Speakeasy #112; Comics Interview Star Trek Special magazine.
Star Trek #18-24 (1989 series): “Time and a Half for Overtime”
–This multi-issue concept never went past the proposal stage. Paramount (read: Richard Arnold) rejected it despite three rewrites by PAD, saying it was “not simplistic enough” for Star Trek fans.
Peter discussed the plot in Speakeasy #112 magazine:
“In #18-24 we’ll embark on a major time-travel storyline called “Time and a Half for Overtime,” that will send the Enterprise back 5,000 years, and will feature the Guardian of Forever, the planet Sarpeidon, which is where Zarabeth was, and ancient Vulcan, and Earth from 5,000 years ago. Mr. Chekov, in what I consider a punchline to the entire character, will end up in the part of Earth that will eventually become Russia, and will get the opportunity to invent everything, thereby establishing once and for all that Russians really did (laughs). If I’m allowed to do it, which is looking shaky at the moment, it would also be the finale for the R.J. Blaise character.”
Early working subtitles for the first two issues were #18: “Hello I Must Be Going” and #19: “Divine Inspiration.”
Source: Speakeasy #112 magazine, Comics Buyer’s Guide #927.
Star Trek: New Frontier comic #2 [outline; title unknown]
–Peter finished an outline for a second New Frontier comic, but WildStorm’s Star Trek comic series ended before it could go any further. It involved Captain Calhoun visiting the Mirror Universe. The Mirror Universe was later explored in the New Frontier series (in the novella Cutting Ties, the short story Homecoming, and the comic series Turnaround), but went in a different direction from PAD’s original idea for the WildStorm comic.
Source: PeterDavid.net postings
Star Wars Infinities: A New Hope [4-issue comic treatment]
–an “Elseworlds” version of the first Star Wars movie. Lucasfilm rejected Peter’s treatment as being “too dark.” Dark Horse Comics published the series with a different writer and concept. Peter had this to say about it on the Usenet:
“I gotta say, I was furious when Lucasfilm kicked it back. The whole reason I’d taken on the assignment was because I’d been told that Lucasfilm had effectively given us carte blanche. But then, after I drafted the outline, they turned around and said that the story had to end with Luke, Leia and Han triumphing over evil. In other words, it had to have the same exact ending as Star Wars. It’s a crying shame. The cover image to issue #2, with a close shot of Princess Leia in the Darth Maul face make-up glaring out at the reader, would’ve been killer.”
At Dragon*Con 2006, he explained further:
“The concept was that you take one point in the film, and deviate from it, and see what happens. I actually ended up keying off my ‘Skippy the Jedi Droid’ story. I didn’t use Skippy in it per se, but I went to that moment when the droid that Uncle Owen was originally going to go with blows, and I had it not blow up. That simple. The robot mangaged to hold itself together long enough for the Jawas to make tracks, and then it blows up. But that sent everything off in a different direction. Because if that droid doesn’t blow up at that particular moment, they don’t acquire R2-D2. Without R2-D2, the story doesn’t go the way it’s supposed to go… the story ended with Leia, now the ruler of the Empire, a Sith Lord and her apprentice and lover, Luke Skywalker. They didn’t know [they were brother and sister]!”
Source: Internet newsgroup posting
Glory B. [6-issue miniseries]
–(see entry in Movie Screenplays section for Glory B.)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) #8-10: “T4: The Turtlenator”
–Dreamwave’s TMNT series was cancelled before this storyline could be published, even though earlier issues of the TMNT series advertised the upcoming storyline. Peter had completed writing the first 2 parts of the 3-part story, and LeSean had completed the pencil art on the first part. In 2007, Titan Books published PAD’s outlines for the 3 issues along with his script pages and LeSean’s pencil art for 5 pages of issue #8 in the Out of the Shadows TPB, which also collects issues #5-7 of the series.
Source: www.peterdavid.net
Wha… Huh?! #1 [short comic gags]
–Marvel published this all-humor “What If?” comic in 2005. The comic had been postponed for 8 months due to unspecified legal problems. PAD was listed in early solicitations for the comic as a contributor, but his submissions did not appear in the final comic. His two ideas for the comic were: (1) “What if Black Bolt had Tourette’s Syndrome?” and (2) What if Peter Parker had died instead of Uncle Ben?,” which would have been a picture of the Parker house with a “For Rent” sign in front of it.
Source: Discussion with Peter at WizardWorld Texas 2005
X-Factor #214 [unpublished script]
–The original solicitation for this issue read:
“The suicide of a high school student triggers X-Factor’s most personal case as X-Factor is hired to learn the identities of the bullies who drove the student to take his own life. But once they have the names, do they turn that information over to the authorities… or to the student’s angry family, who may well take punishment into their own hands?”
Peter said this story was cancelled due to “creative differences.” A different story spotlighting Darwin ran in its place. Artist Emanuela Lupacchino completed 4 pencil art pages for this story before it was cancelled.
The Legend of Cain (two 5-issue IDW limited series)
–see entry in Novels section
Video Games:
Shadow Complex 2
–following the first Shadow Complex video game that Peter wrote the story for, he also wrote the script for a Shadow Complex 2, which was never completed or released.
Fanzine fiction:
Doctor Who short story [title unknown, perhaps “Doctor Who vs. Dracula”]
— In a 2007 interview with Doctor Who writer Paul Cornell, PAD mentioned an old Doctor Who fanzine story he wrote in which the Doctor meets Dracula. I have not been able to locate the fanzine this story was published in, if indeed it was ever actually published. I asked PAD about it at San Diego Comic-Con 2007, and he thought the story might have appeared in the fanzine Jelly Baby Chronicles. But I have researched all the issues of that zine I could find (5 issues plus a holiday special) and that story is not in them. If anybody has any recollection of this story or knows what zine it appeared in, please email me at coreywt@gmail.com.
Source: Paul Cornell interview
Nonfiction:
Dragon’s Lair video game strategy guide -and-
Space Ace video game strategy guide
–From Robert Kasman: “When those games came out, [Peter] wrote guides to winning them. He spent a fortune in arcades. He had a publisher paying for him to play for a while, but I don’t think they were ever published.”
Source: Robert Kasman
Gannett News Service Articles [4]
–Peter had an internship during his senior year (early 1980s) at NYU journalism school with the Gannett News Service. He wrote four articles in four weeks that all made the front page of various Gannett-owned newspapers. Presumably these could still be found in the newspaper archives/microfilm of most Gannett newspapers.
Source: Robert Kasman
.
Convention skit/play scripts:
Notes about Peter’s convention skits: Peter has written many comedy skits for conventions, both before and after he became a pro writer. Most of them have been Star Trek or Star Wars parodies, and in later years Peter’s done a series of skits called Mystery Trekkie Theater, a take-off on Mystery Science Theater 3000 in which Peter and his friends (Michael Jan Friedman, Bob Greenberger, and others who help write the skit) parody and mock various Star Trek episodes.
Most of these skits were performed once at a convention and never again. Peter rarely makes the scripts for these skits available for public consumption (although he has published one Mystery Trekkie Theater script in But I Digress, and one was released on DVD for limited time [see below]).
Although this is a woefully incomplete listing, here are the Peter David convention plays known about at this time:
Star Trek:
“Star Trek: The Home Movie”
“Star Trek, The Home Movie II: The Snit of Khan”
“Star Trek III: Search Me Spock”
“Rebel Without a Q”
Mystery Trekkie Theater (17 annual skits to date, 1992-1994, 1996-1998, 2000-current [2010]; see below)
Star Wars:
“Star Feuds”
Star Wars/The Wizard of Oz play (title unknown)
“Return to Jedi: Address Unknown”
Battlestar Galactica:
“Battlestar Ponderosa”
Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
“Bye Bye Buffy”
The Lord of the Rings:
“Monty Sauron’s Flying Nazgul” (filmed performance available on DVD here)
Hellboy (with a little Supernatural and Doctor Who):
“Hellmo’s World” (see it on Youtube; Peter posted the script on his Patreon account)
.
Mystery Trekkie Theater
Mystery Trekkie Theater has been performed at the Shore Leave convention in Baltimore, Maryland every year since 1992 (except for 1995 and 1999). It’s a take-off on Mystery Science Theater 3000 (aka MST3K) in which Peter David, Michael Jan Friedman, and Bob Greenberger, and others mock and skewer various Star Trek episodes (except for one year when they MST-ed an unaired William Shatner/Adam West TV pilot from the 1960’s). Each performance starts with a comedy sketch before the episode-mocking begins, per the original MST3K. Other celebrities and writers occasionally guest-star in the opening sketch, and T. Alan Chafin traditionally plays the mad scientist.
Below is a listing of each year’s opening sketch and the episode MST-ed, if known. Links to more detail on the sketches are provided if available. A lot of this information came from the MST3K Fanvid and Live Performance database, with some of the info coming from But I Digress or other sites linked below. Special thanks to Robert Greenberger for filling some of the holes. If you can fill in any missing information, please email me.
1992:
Opening sketch: (unknown)
Episode MST-ed: TOS: “Turnabout Intruder”
1993:
Opening sketch: (unknown)
Episode MST-ed: TOS: “The Apple”
1994:
Opening sketch: (unknown)
Episode MST-ed: TOS: “Shore Leave”
1995:
(No Mystery Trekkie Theater this year)
1996:
Opening sketch: (cyborgs and Terminators; guest-starred J. Michael Straczynski)
Episode MST-ed: TOS: “The Gamesters of Triskelion”
1997:
Opening sketch: “Riverborg” (description in CBG #1242)
Episode MST-ed: TNG: “Justice”
1998:
Opening sketch: “South Trek” (description at http://www.spacecasestv.com/sl98-sun.html)
Episode MST-ed: DS9: “Move Along Home”
1999:
(No Mystery Trekkie Theater this year; PAD couldn’t attend Shore Leave)
2000:
Opening sketch: “The Sith Sense” (description at Google Groups)
Episode MST-ed: TOS: “The Paradise Syndrome”
2001:
Opening sketch: (unknown)
Episode MST-ed: TOS: “Plato’s Stepchildren”
2002:
Opening sketch: “Beat the Klingon Geeks” (script in CBG #1499)
Episode MST-ed: TOS: “Wolf in the Fold”
2003:
Opening sketch: (unknown; guest-starred Andrea Thompson)
Episode MST-ed: TNG: “Captain’s Holiday”
2004:
Opening sketch: Buffy sketch: Spike & Harmony
Episode MST-ed: VGR: “Threshold”
2005:
Opening sketch: (unknown)
Episode MST-ed: Alexander the Great—William Shatner/Adam West TV pilot
2006:
Opening sketch: “A Faerie Home Companion” (description at KRAD’s website)
Episode MST-ed: TOS: “A Private Little War”
2007:
Opening sketch: (unknown)
Episode MST-ed: TNG: “Conspiracy”
2008:
Opening sketch: George Takei sings country (watch it on YouTube)
Episode MST-ed: TOS: “Catspaw”
2009:
Opening sketch: Star Trek: The Return of James Kirk — The Musical (description here)
Episode MST-ed: VGR: “Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy”
2010:
Opening sketch: Lost the Movie: Hugo Nuts
Episode MST-ed: ENT: “Unexpected”
2011:
Opening sketch: “Red Shirt Riot”
Episode MST-ed: TOS: “The Way to Eden”
2012:
Opening sketch: (description here)
Episode MST-ed: TOS: “The Cage”
2013:
Opening sketch: TBA
Episode MST-ed: TOS: “And the Children Shall Lead”
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