American novelist and screenwriter, author of The Reincarnation of Peter Proud, who wrote the story of The Apple and shares its teleplay credit with Gene L. Coon.
Max Ehrlich was a novelist and scriptwriter for radio, film and television, best known for the novel The Reincarnation of Peter Proud and its film adaptation.
His Star Trek credit is The Apple, from the second season, for which he wrote the story and shares the teleplay with Gene L. Coon. On Gamma Trianguli VI the landing party meets poison-dart plants, exploding rocks and a childlike people who never age and who feed the serpent-headed machine Vaal. With the Enterprise being dragged from orbit, Kirk destroys Vaal and leaves the inhabitants to fend for themselves.
The episode is a frequent point of reference in arguments about how Kirk applied the Prime Directive.