The Fifty-Year Mission: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek, Volume 1

by Edward Gross

  STEVEN W. CARABATSOS

  Like I said, some scripts could be put before the cameras quickly, but others required substantial rewriting, which Gene Coon and I handled. It was an exciting time for me, because I was really just a kid, and this was a big opportunity. I also remember being impressed by the fact that Roddenberry was enlisting a writing corps of experienced science-fiction writers. All of them came to their assignments with great enthusiasm and a sense of excitement to do their kinds of stories done in the way they wanted them done. My problem is that I didn’t share that background; I didn’t feel that I had the same preparation for it.

  ROBERT H. JUSTMAN

  With both Gene Coon and Gene Roddenberry, their major function was not necessarily to write originals, although they both did. Their job was to ride herd on the writers that we had corralled and get something wondrous out of them, which seldom happened, because it was a difficult show to write. You had to have an interest and a knowledge not only of the world of SF but also the way Gene predicted the future. That’s a tough call. He was so skilled and enthusiastic that he would sit there typing with a cigarette between his lips, the smoke curling in front of his nose and just jamming out ideas, the richness of which never ceased to make me happy.

  JAMES DOOHAN

  The gorgeous thing about Gene Roddenberry was that he recognized Gene Coon. I worked with Jackie Gleason before he became famous and what’s amazing to me is how he recognized the genius in Art Carney. He knew real talent when he saw it, because he was a real talent himself. That was also Gene’s talent in picking people like that.

  DOROTHY FONTANA

  After Steven, I became script consultant. I had dealt with the scripts all the time and had my own opinions about them. I just never put them down on paper, although I spoke to Gene and Gene Coon secretly about the shows they were doing. I got involved with the show first as a writer, so I had my own story conferences with them about it. I felt I could do that same job [of script consultant] and so did Gene, so he let me have it.

  Under the sure hands of Star Trek’s fab four of the time—Coon, Roddenberry, Fontana, and Justman—the scripts for the show began to rapidly improve as the first season went on, focusing heavily on the interaction of the characters, increasingly addressing social commentary, and laying the groundwork for what would become the most memorable aspects of the concept such as the non-interference Prime Directive and the introduction of the Klingons as our heroes’ primary antagonists. At the same time, the ratings, although initially fairly strong, were not consistent or high enough to guarantee a continuation of production. There were rumors that NBC was considering cancellation and, in desperation, Roddenberry turned to Harlan Ellison for help.

  In a time before things turned acrimonious between them as a result of the extensive rewrites on Ellison’s script for “The City on the Edge of Forever,” the legendary author wrote a letter on December 1, 1966, to the Science Fiction Writers of America saying, in part, “Star Trek’s cancellation would be tragic, seeming to demonstrate that real science fiction cannot attract a mass audience. We need letters! Yours and ours, plus every science fiction fan and TV viewer we can reach through our publications and personal contacts.”

  The word got out, helped in no small way by a science-fiction fandom that had been waiting for genuine science-fiction television series and finding it in Star Trek. As noted above, it was never a certainty that cancellation was possible, but it was already becoming obvious that the show had touched a chord with many—even if they weren’t Nielsen families.

  BJO & JOHN TRIMBLE (authors, On the Good Ship Enterprise)

  When the first hint of cancellation wafted through Desilu, Harlan Ellison went into action with a plea to science-fiction writers to help save the show. For the most part, Harlan went to the people whose main interests in Star Trek were in potential sales of scripts. The fans got wind of the plan and sent letters also. It was enough of a flurry to convince NBC that someone out there in the Vast Wasteland actually watched Star Trek. The network renewed the TV series and everyone breathed easier.

  DEVRA LANGSAM (writer; publisher of Spockanalia, the first Star Trek fanzine)

  During that first season, my cousin, Debra Langsam, picketed NBC and walked around passing out “Save Star Trek” flyers in Manhattan, and had people telling her that that “Dr.” Spock was a commie. They were a little confused. So we were definitely handing out flyers and buttons, and NBC kept sending secretaries down, and they’d report, “They’re still there; there’s four of them, they’re still picketing us.” It was only a very small number of people, but we kept handing out those flyers and buttons and writing them letters, not petitions. A petition isn’t as good; it’s a lot less effort, but writing them letters is stronger. They sent what we called “Thank you very much and please drop dead” letters. You know, “Your opinion has been noted and logged.” But it really did surprise them that there was so much interest in the show, and eventually they said, “All right, we’ll do it again,” but it was a lot of effort. I don’t know in the end if we really made that much difference, or whether it was that they decided it would make them money, but we were in there digging.

  I will say that Roddenberry encouraged them and sent out little presents from the show in support. They were sending out cutting-room clippings, actual pieces of film. You know, “Here it is, it’s pictures of Mr. Spock and it’s the real film!” He was sending them out as presents to say thank you, and then there was the fact that the network was sort of reacting to the protests. People started to find each other and get together more.

  JACQUELINE LICHTENBERG (founder, Star Trek Welcommittee)

  At the time, the attitude of the general public in the U.S.A. prior to Star Trek was total rejection of science fiction as just for people who were completely out of touch with reality. Being in touch with reality was the litmus test for being trustworthy. Science-fiction readers were not respected, and the literature was viewed by English teachers as toxic to a student’s development of good taste. The same was true on TV (and radio, for that matter). The writers, producers, and audience all agreed “that” is nonsense. Of course detective series, westerns, and others were admired even though they contained more fantasy than any science-fiction story.

  The first real break in this attitude came at the time when the TV series My Favorite Martian hit its peak. There is an underlying truth behind this that still works today. Comedy can make serious, deep philosophical points that drama cannot. Put the popularity of I Love Lucy against the feminist movement, and you will see the connection. Lucy struck a blow against the tyranny of “the husband” by using slapstick comedy. It may have become popular because it made fun of the subconscious bitter resentment of a generation of women. Likewise, My Favorite Martian introduced to prime time the Saturday-morning kiddie-show idea of “a visitor from another planet,” only more like the Doctor [Doctor Who], a kid comedy in prime time.

  So My Favorite Martian let the kids who had grown up on Johnny Jupiter laugh in prime time, and Star Trek brought the concepts to the level of adults who watched Wagon Train.

  ELYSE ROSENSTEIN (organizer of early Star Trek conventions)

  Science-fiction fandom has been around since about 1939. It was quiet, unpublicized. You only knew of a gathering if you knew someone else was going. It was all word of mouth. Science-fiction fans by their nature are intelligent, often involved in or at least very interested in science. They’re loners by nature, they’re not generally joiners, they are vocal when it’s appropriate, they’re very devoted to their genres. There were fan magazines out there in which people debated small stuff ad infinitum, but they did it intelligently. It wasn’t just, “Well, I think it should have been this!” or “Why didn’t they do that?” The thing about Star Trek is it was intelligent and hopeful. It wasn’t your typical “let’s see if we can kill the aliens” kind of thing. And that appealed to a lot of people. Roddenberry was very upbeat, and it really came across as making se
nse. Why would we necessarily kill every alien we saw?

  DEVRA LANGSAM

  From the very beginning science fiction was very male-focused or male-controlled. There were a few women involved, but an awful lot of them were just the wives of the fans. So when Star Trek started, it had a very large female component, which I think the networks never really understood. They had these three sexy guys as heroes and they didn’t expect that women would say “Oh, wow!”? But they persisted in feeling that all Star Trek fans were sixteen-year-old guys with acne who wore eighty-seven buttons on their shirts. I mean, we tried to tell them, but they never listened. A lot of people were drawn into fandom because of Star Trek, many of them women, and the old-line fans started to feel like they were losing their grip on their own hobby. Look, I’m sure it must have felt like an invasion, just as when Star Wars came out and lots of people switched over from Trek to Star Wars.

  Then there was the added problem that many of the old-line science-fiction fans were … less than perfect in regards to socialization. So if they saw a girl and they came up to you, they had a little difficulty perhaps socializing, and that annoyed the hell out of them because they thought, “Well, she’s here and she’s a girl, she must be interested in science fiction and me.” I’m not being very polite about this, but, again, it was just a question of “I want to talk about Asimov and you’ve never even heard of Asimov, so why are you trying to take over? There are so many of you!” I mean, we had about four thousand attending the Worldcon in 1967, and then when Elyse Rosenstein and I decided to do our convention, it was so many more people. So the science-fiction fans sort of felt overwhelmed, and there was a certain amount of hostility.

  BJO TRIMBLE

  A close friend, Luise Petty, had volunteered to put together a “Futuristic Fashion Show” for Tricon 2, the 1966 World Science Fiction Convention in Cleveland. Luise involved me, and we contacted fans from all over the country for science-fictional costume designs. After a nice selection of those costumes was chosen, we contacted other fans to construct and model the outfits at a special fashion show during Tricon.

  Seems a new science-fiction TV show was to be introduced and some SF writers suggested to the producer that it would be nifty to show this series pilot to a bunch of SF fans. What better place than a convention? Aha! Even better idea: why not take some of the costumes from some of the episodes already “in the can” and put them on models? Contact was made with the convention committee in Cleveland, and someone else came up with an even niftier idea: put those costumes in the Futuristic Fashion Show! Plans were made to do so. Gene Roddenberry hired some Cleveland models and brought the costumes to the convention. There was one serious problem: nobody told me that a carefully coordinated, even more carefully timed fashion show was being enlarged by three costumes neither Luise nor I had ever seen! One member of the convention committee thought of asking the producer to reason with me. And that’s how I met Gene Roddenberry.

  After meeting him, I said I’d have to see the costumes. I didn’t even know what show he was talking about—something to be introduced on that season’s schedule called Star Trek, which he claimed was good science fiction. We’d had several seasons of other shows that were supposed to be good SF and weren’t, so I was dubious, and rather resentful that my fashion show was turning into nothing but an advertising stunt for a stupid new TV show. But Roddenberry had the models parade them for my reaction. I agreed to put them in the fashion show and, with a little subtle urging from GR, even to make a specific mention of Star Trek. There’s a type of Irish charm that can, as they say, charm the birds out of the trees. GR had that. Everyone liked the Star Trek costumes, and it certainly—as it was intended to do—stirred up great curiosity about the show itself.

  YVONNE CRAIG (actress, “Whom Gods Destroy”)

  I’ve never stolen anything from a set ever, but I’m so sorry that I didn’t say, “Could I have my costume?” from Star Trek, because it was done by a woman who made costumes for the Folies Bergère and it had one hook and an eye that held it up. She designed it like a bridge and it never moved. It was really comfortable and wonderful. There were a lot of women who want to dress up as Marta [season three’s “Whom Gods Destroy”]. I saw someone on the dance floor who was in that costume once, and I went down to meet her and she was a he. A hairdresser who did a beautiful job. The wig was there and he had made the costume and it was just gorgeous and he was wonderful.

  JACQUELINE LICHTENBERG

  The first time I heard of Star Trek was way before the debut at Worldcon, because I knew people in fandom. I knew this show would be real science fiction. But I still didn’t “get” the whole Spock thing. I just did my write-in letter begging them to keep it on the air until I could see it. In those days, canceled shows became inaccessible. No Netflix or Amazon Prime.

  In its first season, Star Trek had a remarkably successful run of episodes as the writers continued to try and discover the show and mine the richness of its characters. Among those episodes that would eventually define the series as a television classic were “The Enemy Within,” in which Kirk is split into “good” and “evil” versions of himself, with the discovery that one cannot survive without the other; “Space Seed,” which served as the introduction of the genetic superman Khan Noonien Singh, a character that would return in the feature films Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) and Star Trek Into Darkness (2013); “A Taste of Armageddon,” one of TV’s first true allegories for the Vietnam War; “This Side of Paradise,” which gave viewers one of its earliest insights into the human side of the Spock character; “The Devil in the Dark,” and its not-as-obvious-as-it-seems-on-the-surface tale of not judging by appearances; and “The City on the Edge of Forever,” the poignant and heartbreaking time-travel story in which Kirk must decide whether or not to sacrifice the universe for the love of a woman.

  RICARDO MONTALBAN (actor, “Khan Noonien Singh”)

  As an actor, I thought it would be great fun to do it. Khan was not the run-of-the-mill sort of portrayal. It had to have a different dimension. That attracted me very much. When they sent me the script, I thought it was a fascinating character and I loved doing it.

  Khan was a character that was bigger than life. He had to be played that way. He was extremely powerful both mentally and physically, with an enormous amount of pride, but he was not totally villainous. He had some good qualities. I saw a nobility in the man that, unfortunately, was overridden by ambition and a thirst for power. I saw that in the character and played it accordingly. It was very well received at the time and I was delighted. Then I forgot about it and went on to the next thing … until the second Star Trek film.

  DOROTHY FONTANA

  Gene Coon did a rewrite on “A Taste of Armageddon.” Some of the things he added really had a lot to do with the character of Kirk. It was Gene who wrote the speech at the end that man has a reputation as a killer, but you get up every morning and say, “I’m not going to kill today.” It was one of those things that began to identify Kirk far more solidly than we had before.

  DAVID GERROLD

  I would have to point to “Devil in the Dark” as being the best episode Gene L. Coon ever wrote, because it really gets to the heart of what Star Trek was. Here you had this menace, but once you understood what the creature is and why it’s doing what it’s doing, it’s not really a menace at all. We end up learning more about appropriate behavior for ourselves out of learning to be compassionate, tolerant, and understanding.

  HARLAN ELLISON

  The idea of “City” came from the image of the City on the Edge of Forever, and it was an image of two cities, which is what it says in the script. The City on the Edge of Forever is the city on this planet. It was not a big donut in my script; it was a city. That was a city that was on the edge of time, and it was where all of the winds of time met. That was my original idea. All the winds of time coalesce, and when you go through to the other side, here is this other city which is also on the edge of fo
rever, which is New York City during the Depression. They’re the mirror image of each other. In that time, all I was concerned about was telling a love story. I made the point that there are some loves that are so great that you would sacrifice your ship, your crew, your friends, your mother, all of time, and everything in defense of this great love.

  That’s what the story was all about. All of the additional stuff that Gene Roddenberry kept trying to get me to put in, kept taking away from that. The script does not end the way the episode does. Kirk goes for her to save her. At the final moment, by his actions, he says, “Fuck it. I don’t care what happens to the ship, the future, and everything else. I can’t let her die. I love her,” and he starts for her. Spock, who is cold and logical, grabs him and holds him back and she’s hit by the truck.

  The TV ending, where he closes his eyes and lets her get hit by the truck, is absolutely bullshit. It destroyed the core of what I tried to do. It destroyed the art; it destroyed the drama; it destroyed the extra human tragedy of it.

  JOSEPH PEVNEY

  “City on the Edge of Forever” was toward the end of the first season. Harlan was very happy to get his story on Star Trek. He was down on the set thanking me. It’s great that Gene rewrote it though, because Harlan had no sense of theater. He had a great sense of truth, which was very nicely placed in there—all of the 1930s stuff was well documented. It was a well-conceived and well-written show, but in the original script’s dramatic moments, it missed badly.

  HERBERT F. SOLOW

  We got a lot from Theodore Sturgeon and George Johnson and Harlan Ellison and Gene Coon, who without a doubt was the one who masterminded most of what Star Trek is today, not only inventing and developing the Klingons and their culture, but Gene produced and was in charge of writing all the shows, I think from number seven on until the middle of the second year. It was Gene [Roddenberry] who agreed to bring in some of these science-fiction writers, as opposed to the usual available television writers, who were very good but were not versed in science fiction, fantasy, or fascinating alien characters.