The Production Guide
The Metamorph Cut Scenes

In July and August 1976, several US stations broadcast previews of The Metamorph. Before the world-wide premiere in September 1976 the episode and titles were slightly re-edited.

One of the first was WVTV-18 Milwaukee on Wed 14 July 1976 at 7pm. Other stations scheduled against television coverage of the Republican party convention (Ford vs Reagan, 16-19 August 1976). Among the stations that showed it were WUAB-TV43 in Cleveland, Ohio, at 8pm, Thursday 19th August 1976, and KRON-TV in San Francisco, California on Saturday 21st August 1976 at 10pm. (see US broadcast history)

Scene 45. In the final cut a lion transforms into Maya. She then starts to form into Koenig "Would I make a good Alphan, father?". In the first cut Maya transforms straight from a lion into an orange tree, then into a silver tree. She completes her transformation into Koenig.

We zoom towards the lion's head, cutting to a close up of the lion's eye which contines the zoom. The original edit shows the lion's left eye; the revised edit shows the lion's right eye with a larger black pupil.

In the pupil we see Maya's human form, laying down on her forearms. The original edit has a large spotlight top right. Maya turns to face us and pushes herself up on her arms.

Maya stands up as the zoom continues into her dress.

In the original edit, the zoom continues a few seconds longer into her dress. The zoom continues into sparkles of her dress.

In the original edit, there is a jump cut to the feathers of her dress as she stands up. We zoom back to reveal her on the set.
In the final edit, her legs are still visible when the feathers of her dress are superimposed, and we dissolve cut to set shot of Maya standing up, zooming back.

We pull back until the shoulder of Mentor is visible.

We see a close up of Mentor. Maya's is heard: " Quite unlike any of the others." "Mm. They obviously come from a culture similar to our own. But, ah.. "

Maya. Mentor's voice over: "not so advanced of course." We zoom into Maya.

Close up eye. She blinks. We see Koenig in pupil and start to zoom in. "Would I make a good Alphan, father?" "Stop it, Maya."

In the original edit, we zoom into the eye. It is a different shot of Koenig, showing more of his shoulders.
In the final edit, the eye is static, but Koenig's face appears in a larger pupil. The eyelashes have heavy mascara (until she blinks and Koenig disappears).

In the final edit, we cut from the eye close up to a brief close shot of Maya, looking amused.

In the original edit, a tree appears with silver jewels appears. We zoom into the eye.

In the original edit, we zoom back from an orange tree. Mentor is in the foreground, as before. "Maya" he says, disapprovingly.

In both versions, we now see Mentor. "I teach you the priceless art of molecular transformation and see how you use it"

In the original version, we see the same shot as before, with Mentor looking at the tree. "Foolish games." he says. We zoom back into towards an orange on the tree. Cut to the orange appearing in Maya's eye. It disappears, and she blinks.

We see Maya, smilling. She moves close to Mentor: "Oh, father. You only taught me because you knew I'd eventually master the art myself."

In the original version, the start of the shot is wider, showing Maya's head and shoulders as she laughs. In the final edit, the start of the shot is a close up of her smiling. In both, the camera tracks her and pulls back to include Mentor as she talks.