Tormé recalled pitching his idea — originally called “The Blue Moon Hotel” — to “Star Trek” producer Bob Lewin. By the writer’s description, his original draft was a surrealistic satire with a great deal of humor. It was bigger, weirder, and more ambitious than most of the series had been to date. Lewin liked the idea and Tormé developed his script into what was to be “The Royale.” Then, for reasons that aren’t made entirely clear, Hurley stepped in and made everything worse. Tormé related:
“One of the executive producers and I had a severe disagreement about how the show should be done, and for reasons which I believe are personal rather than professional, I was informed that I was being removed from the script. At that point, I immediately told them that I wanted my name off the script, because I knew the direction they were going to go in, and I just knew with all my heart that it was a bad choice. I’ve completely disowned the piece.”
Tormé read about 10 pages of Hurley’s re-write and said he “felt a cold chill and had to put it down.” Tormé isn’t specific about what details were added but he does remember which ones were removed, noting that he was essentially taken away from “The Royale” merely because he and a producer wanted a different angle:
“Basically, there’s one person who had this disagreement with me and removed me. I felt like a lot of the comedy was taken out. A lot of the surrealism was taken out. I feel that it’s very heavy-handed now, and it’s gone from being a strange episode to being a stupid episode.”
“Stupid” has its place, but that wasn’t what Tormé wanted.
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