The Production GuideScript To Screen: The Taybor
by Martin Willey
The Production GuideTaybor kidnaps Maya, but she angrily transforms into a dog.
TAYBOR
Not only is your beauty breath-
taking, but you have the spirit
of a wild, untamed beast!
MAYA
You don't know how wild, Taybor.
ZOOM INTO C.U. MAYA
C.U. EYE
FEROCIOUS SNARLING DOG APPEARS IN EYE.
Standard transition.
Dog now confronts TAYBOR - his shock and amazement ...
and delight.
TAYBOR
A transmorph!
He starts backing up before the dog ... smiling,
enjoying the transformation.
CLOSE ON DOG - it bares its teeth. TAYBOR makes a
gesture and a net drops from above ... ensnaring the
dog.
TAYBOR
Ah, I will prepare a place
for you among my treasures.
He moves a sculpture aside.
103 INT. TAYBOR'S GRAND SALON (FLOOR) - SFX 103
CLOSE ON DOG UNDER NET
It changes into a beautifully coloured coral snake and
wriggles through the net.
C.U. SNAKE'S EYE, MAYA appearing in eye.
55
104 INT. TAYBOR'S GRAND SALON 104
MAYA stands up into shot. She triumphantly confronts
TAYBOR.
TAYBOR smiles.
In the 8th April line amendments (and also later in a 13th April blue page revision), the end of this sequence is altered slightly, to put Maya in a glass box.
Page 55 |
Sc.104 |
Stage directions to read: MAYA stands up into shot. A glass cage comes down |
In shooting, the coral snake becomes a ferret (easier for an animal trainer to control), while Taybor's line about preparing a place among his treasures was dropped. The dog and ferret shots were not on set during main episode filming. They were filmed as pick-ups sometime later, on a separate small set.
After Taybor cuts communication, in the original 31st March script, Koenig simply tells Yasko "Open channel 24-D1." On a 13th April revised blue page, Koenig gives a bit more explanation: "I planted a limpet transmitter on Taybor's spaceship. That gives us an ear into hyper-space." Later this was changed again, keeping Koenig's first line but adding an exchange with Helena. "I've planted a limpet transmitter on Taybor's spaceship." Helena asks "It means we have contact with hyperspace?" "Exactly. Yasko. Open channel D four."
Maya transforms into Rita Webb playing the "slatternly woman", or "Maya/Fat" as she is called in the script. The original 31st March script:
MAYA
Then you shall have it, Taybor,
my love...
Camera tracks into C.U. MAYA
CUT TO eye
Standard transformation.
FULL SHOT MAYA - she is now a gross, slatternly woman -
maybe 250 pounds of grinning, half toothless hag - an
exaggerated female counterpart of TAYBOR. The sight of
her appals him.
MAYA/FAT looming before TAYBOR, who starts backing away
from her in circles about the Salon, among his surround-
ing collections
TAYBOR
No, no, please ... you cannot do
this to me ... you can't be the one
to desecrate the beauty of..
(waving wildly about him)
... all that it has taken me a life-
time to gather! You must change!
Please change again...
MAYA/FAT
I have locked myself in this form
and I will stay with you forever
...forever Taybor ... forever...
This is where the glass cage introduced before (in the 8th April line amendments) is now shattered, in a 8th May revised pink page.
The glass cage is shattered as she becomes the fat
woman.
MAYA/FAT looming before TAYBOR, who starts backing
away from her in circles about the Salon, among his
surrounding collections ...
The 8th May revised page then expands the dialogue.
"THE TAYBOR
8th April, 1976
57A
111 CONTD.
TAYBOR
You foolish Metamorph. I am
giving you the opportunity
to be surrounded by beauty
forever.
MAYA/FAT
Taybor, you know everything about
hyper-space, but you know nothing
about inner space. I will be
the judge of where I want to
be, and I want to be back on Alpha.
TAYBOR
Please change again...you must
change back. You've got to
stay with me ... I'll make you
stay with me.
MAYA
All right, Taybor. I am going
to stay with you forever. It
will be your pleasure to look
at me in this form ... a female
reflection of yourself ... forever.
He groans and screams and rants and raves.
Copyright Martin Willey