These Are The Voyages, TOS, Season One

by Cushman, Marc

  Gary Lockwood saw Roddenberry as a good “fix-it man” (MGM-TV, 1963)

  Gary Lockwood, as the series’ star, was allowed to see the first draft scripts as well as the final drafts. He was satisfied that Roddenberry improved the quality, saying “One of the things that I thought was good about him is that when he got hold of a story, or when there was something that was not quite working correctly, he could fix it. He was a real good ‘fix-it man.’ His name should have been Gene ‘Bondo’ Roddenberry. If you’re familiar with cars, you know that Bondo fixes everything.” (109)

  The directors of the series seemed destined to fail Roddenberry, as well. In The Lieutenant’s one-year run, 17 different directors came and went through the revolving doors of the production office. These directors were not getting the exact performance Roddenberry wanted from his series’ lead. Lockwood said, “Roddenberry was a terrific guy; I liked him. But he was untrustworthy in that he would always bullshit me. You know, if there was a problem with a script, but he wanted it that way, he’d say it was for the network. If he wanted me to play the part different, it was because of the director. But he was the one trying to get the directors to loosen me up; make me smile and do all kinds of boyish things. And it’s not my style. And I’d go to him and say, ‘I’ll do it if there’s a reason. But, if there’s no reason I’m not going to walk around grinning all the time. I find it silly.’” (109)

  As the series progressed, trouble began for Roddenberry with backlot talk about his extra-curricular activities. Majel Barrett and Nichelle Nichols, two female guest performers, later admitted that romance bloomed with the producer as a result of appearing on his series. Roddenberry later said, “I have an active love of females.” (145-23)

  Even before any of the lovers went public, the rumors were rampant and quite a few made it back to the network. It was a touchy subject in 1963, so much so that executives at MGM and NBC were nervously not seeing, not hearing and, except behind closed doors, not speaking about these matters. Regardless, Roddenberry was assumed guilty with “one strike” against him. Then came “Strike Two.”

  Roddenberry was gaining a reputation for fighting authority. One incident would jeopardize The Lieutenant. Exteriors for the series were filmed at Camp Pendleton, a Marine training facility an hour-and-a-half’s drive south from Hollywood. The location was provided for free, as were military vehicles, uniforms, weaponry and countless extras played by actual soldiers. The only thing the Pentagon expected in return was a series that portrayed the Marine Corps in a favorable light. It was a win-win situation, but Roddenberry was looking to push the envelope.

  Roddenberry's opinions regarding abuse of authority and discrimination based on religion, race or creed were well known. Now he wanted to tell the adult-type stories that episodic television instinctively avoided. To accomplish this, he put into production an episode called “To Set It Right,” concerning a black Marine who, without apparent provocation, attacks a white member of the platoon. As the story later reveals, the two men had known one another from high school where the white teenager often joined with other racists to gang up on the black teen.

  Don Marshall and Dennis Hopper in “To Set It Right” episode of The Lieutenant (MGM TV, 1963)

  Cast in the episode were Dennis Hopper as the white bigot, Don Marshall as the black Marine who learned to hate back, and Nichelle Nichols as his wife. Marshall said, “That was a chancy episode. But you had Gene Roddenberry, and he was such an honest man and would come straight from the heart. And he had seen so much in the world and resented discrimination and things like that. He didn’t run away from the issues like other producers did. Gene would go straight at it. I felt really good about being part of that.” (113b)

  This episode was not so much about entertaining; it was about making a statement: prejudice begets prejudice. But the Pentagon’s position was that racial problems did not exist in the Armed Forces -- especially TV’s Armed Forces. Regardless, Roddenberry chose to go forward with the controversial story and suddenly Camp Pendleton was no longer available for production of the series. Norman Felton said, “It was this story that lost us the cooperation of the Pentagon.” (58a)

  Cast and crew returned to Los Angeles and resumed filming on the MGM backlot. To make up for the loss of Marine extras, Roddenberry recruited two former Marine drill instructors to whip a small army of bit players into fighting shape. Through economic rewriting and frugal spending, The Lieutenant finished its order of 29 episodes. But losing the support of the military took much of the shine off the armor of the series in the eyes of NBC and the network refused to air the episode that had kicked up so much negative attention, prompting Roddenberry to say, “My problem was not the Marine Corps; it was NBC, who turned down the show flat…. There was only one thing I could do, I went to the NAACP and they lowered the boom on NBC.” (145-11)

  The NAACP, a civil rights watchdog, supported the story about the domino effect of racial prejudice and pressure was put on the network to air the controversial segment. NBC caved, but this proved to be “Strike Three.” Gene Roddenberry had won the battle ... but lost the war. Despite satisfactory ratings, The Lieutenant was cancelled.

  Before the final episode of The Lieutenant finished filming, Roddenberry presented Norman Felton with a proposal for a science fiction series called Star Trek. He described it as “Wagon Train to the stars.”

  Felton was not interested. Wagon Train was fine. For a series like that, Hollywood had plenty of what it needed -- replicated covered wagons, horses and western gear. Wagon Train could be done relatively inexpensively. But, when placed in the future, new worlds had to be envisioned and constructed week in and week out. Spaceships had to be designed, built, and subjected to expensive, time-consuming photographic effects. And then there were costumes, futuristic hair styles and all those gadgets.

  There was another reason to say “no.” Like elephants, studios never forget. Robert Justman later said “They passed on [Star Trek] having had experience with Gene and not wanting anymore.” (94-2)

  Roddenberry said, “I was chafing increasingly at the commercial censorship on television, which was very strong in those days. You really couldn't talk about anything you cared to talk about. [So] I decided I was going to leave TV... unless I could find some way to write about what I wanted to.” (145-11)

  Roddenberry was intent on taking a page from Jonathan Swift. He felt, given the oppressive nature of the American television, he could only produce the stories he wanted to tell by setting them in a far-off context. He later said, “[Swift] wanted to write satire on his time and went to Lilliput in his story to do just that. He could talk about insane prime ministers and crooked kings and all of that. It was this wonderful thing. Children could read it as a fairy tale, an adventure, and as they got older they’d recognize it for what it really is.... It seemed to me that perhaps, if I wanted to talk about sex, religion, politics, make some comments against Vietnam and so on, that if I had similar situations involving these subjects happening on other planets to little green people, indeed it might get by.” (145-11)

  Determined that this new series concept was the only way to tell stories about hottopic, Roddenberry turned down an offer from Ivan Tors to produce the pilot film for Daktari. He now had a greater mission: sell Star Trek.

  2

  To Boldly Pitch

  Star Trek series proposal, dated March 11, 1964 (By permission of Gene Roddenberry)

  One of Star Trek’s first supporters was Alden Schwimmer, Roddenberry’s agent at Ashley-Famous. Confident there was a market for good science fiction on TV, Schwimmer suggested Roddenberry commit his ideas to paper.

  Roddenberr y’s original vision for Star Trek was shaped with a strong emphasis on character, drama and bold ideas. One such inspiration was the 1956 film Forbidden Planet, a futuristic telling of The Tempest, the classic play by William Shakespeare (who knew a little something about character, drama and bold ideas). Another influence was Space Cadet, a juvenile n
ovel by sci-fi master Robert Heinlein, published in 1948. Roddenberry said, “Space Cadet is a very humane book. It deals with not only the problems of science -about space travel and technology and so on -- but of the need we have to act in a conscious responsible manner with all this technology.... That book had such profound influence on me... there are so many, many ideas that [Heinlein and I] shared. He wrote many of them down before I did, but they were -- have always been -- in my heart.” (145-2)

  Paraphrasing a section of Heinlein’s book, Roddenberry interpreted the positive theme of Space Cadet this way: “I welcome you to our fellowship. You come from many lands, some from other planets. You are of various colors and creeds, yet you must and shall become a band of brothers.” (145-2)

  Roddenberry wanted Star Trek to emulate those types of characters and themes. Dated March 11, 1964, the 16-page proposal offered this premise: “Star Trek is a one-hour dramatic television series; action / adventure / science-fiction; the first such concept with strong central lead characters…”

  Dorothy Fontana, Roddenberry’s secretary at the time, may have been the first person to read the written proposal for Star Trek. She said, “There was nothing like it on television at that time. It had lots of possibilities and you could see the stories. They'd begin to pop into your mind automatically.” (64-2)

  Watching the first 16 episodes of the series and looking through the script assignments that Roddenberry gave out and compulsively reworked, one can see he stayed true to this promise. “Drama” was the key element, followed by “action” and “adventure” and, only then, “science fiction.” The episode “Court Martial” was, in a sense, The Caine Mutiny transplanted into outer space. “The Conscience of the King” offered a Shakespearean play set on a starship. “Balance of Terror” was essentially a restaging of the World War II submarine movies The Enemy Below and Run Silent, Run Deep. “Charlie X” provided a study of the dangerous combination of adolescent immaturity and power. Roddenberry wanted an open format that allowed for a vast array of stories, all with human conflict at their center. He would tell his writers not to get overwhelmed with the enormity and the foreignness of science fiction, and explained in the Star Trek Writers’ Guide: “Joe Friday doesn't stop to explain how his gun works when he pulls it from the holster.” The gadgets should not take center stage; the stories would instead revolve around the characters.

  Captain Robert April (later renamed Christopher Pike, and finally James T. Kirk) was described as a 34-year-old space-age incarnation of C.S. Forester’s Captain Horatio Hornblower: “Colorfully complex, capable of action and decision which can verge on the heroic -- but who lives a continual battle with self-doubt and the loneliness of command.” Hornblower’s sense of duty and drive to succeed rendered the darker aspects of his character undetectable to his crew. To them he was a hero, a man to be revered and followed. But Hornblower suffered from his extreme ambition and was an emotional prisoner on his own ship during its long sea voyages.

  A character named Number One was also in the proposal. She was described as “a mysterious female, slim and dark, expressionless, cool, one of those women who will always look the same between years 20 and 50.” To be more specific: actress Majel Barrett, Roddenberry's lover.

  The ship’s doctor, Phillip Boyce, 51, nicknamed “Bones,” was drawn as “humorously cynical... enjoys his own weaknesses; [and is] the Captain’s only real confidant.” Roddenberry knew veteran actor DeForest Kelley from their association together on the pilot film “333 Montgomery Street” and the part was meant to be his from the start.

  Mr. Spock was First Lieutenant, the Captain's right-hand man. He was described as “satanic looking with semi-pointed ears, probably half-Martian, with a red complexion.”

  On another page of the proposal was that famous comparison: “Star Trek is a Wagon Train concept -- built around characters that travel to worlds ‘similar’ to our own and meet the action-adventure-drama which becomes our stories.”

  Interviewed for this book, Harlan Ellison (who would write for the series’ first season), said Roddenberry got the idea for his famous Star Trek pitch line from a renowned associate. “He got ‘Wagon Train to the stars’ from Sam Peeples. That’s what Gene said to me. They were at dinner and Sam Peeples, of course, was a fount of ideas, and Gene said something or other about wanting to do a space show and Sam said, ‘Yeah? Why don’t you do Wagon Train to the stars?’ And when Gene started shopping it around, that’s how he presented it.” (58)

  The overriding mission for the “space cruiser” of the future was to explore “Class M planets” with atmospheres similar to Earth. The “Class M” mandate made Star Trek affordable. Roddenberry wrote:

  The “Parallel World” concept makes production practical via the use of available “Earth” casting, sets, locations, costuming, and it means simply that our stories deal with plant and animal life, plus people, quite similar to that on Earth.

  The wording was important. The studio heads and network executives needed to be convinced that a show like Star Trek could be made within the limited budgets allocated to episodic TV. In 1964 those budgets were quite small, rarely higher than $150,000 per show.

  “Parallel Worlds” also meant Jonathan Swift-type stories, the ones Roddenberry had always admired. He wrote:

  Social evolution will also have interesting points of similarity with ours. There will be differences, of course, ranging from the subtle to the boldly dramatic, out of which comes much of our color and excitement. And, of course, none of this prevents an occasional “far out” tale thrown in for surprise and change of pace.

  In order to draw a mass audience, Star Trek had to appeal to more than just science fiction enthusiasts. Television viewers needed to relate to the characters on the series and identify with the surroundings, so in Roddenberry's proposal the geography was already well in place. The vessel used to transport us into the dramatic stories, with the registry of “United Space Ship,” was the Yorktown, later to be re-christened Enterprise. It was described as 190,000 gross tons, carrying a crew of 203 and able to travel beyond the speed of light, thanks to its “space-warp” drive. The mission of the U.S.S. Yorktown was set for five years.

  John D.F. Black, who would later help write the opening title narration for the series, said, “There was a reason for it being five years. Sure, the Navy -- and this, in a sense, was the U.S. Navy in space -- will send you on a tour of duty, but not for five years. Truth is Gene was hoping the show would last five years! If you could get five seasons done, you were assured a long run in syndication.” (17)

  Besides drawing parallels to Wagon Train (which ran eight seasons), Roddenberry also used Gunsmoke in his presentation for making comparisons. That series -- the granddaddy of all TV westerns -- ran for an unprecedented 20 consecutive years. Roddenberry wrote:

  As with Gunsmoke’s Dodge City, we may never get around to exploring every cabin, department and cranny of our cruiser. The point being -- it is a whole community in which we can anytime take our camera down a passageway and find a guest star or secondary character who can propel us into a story.

  Roddenberry was already thinking about budgetary constraints by proposing “the bottle show” -- an episode requiring only the use of the existing primary sets. He wrote:

  Now and then, a story will take place exclusively on the Yorktown, i.e., such as the tale of a strange “intelligence” which has made its way aboard and is working to take over the minds of certain key crewmen [such as in “And the Children Shall Lead” and “Day of the Dove”]; or the transportation of a person or a material which poses a mounting jeopardy to the ship and our characters [as in “Charlie X,” “The Conscience of the King” and “Space Seed”].

  The Yorktown’s orders -- and the type of stories to be told -- were broken into three categories: 1) Earth security, 2) scientific investigation, and 3) any required assistance “to the several Earth colonies, and the enforcement of appropriate statutes affecting such Federated com
merce vessels and traders.” The wording “Federated commerce vessels" would set the foundation for later nomenclature that helped to frame key concepts of the series. Gene Coon, the writer/producer to follow Roddenberry onto the series, would later coin “The United Federation of Planets.” As to the physical shape of the ship, Roddenberry summed it up simply as having “a slight naval flavor.”

  The series’ proposal also contained two dozen story synopses, many of which were destined to become Star Trek episodes.

  After Norman Felton and MGM passed on the Star Trek proposal, it became Alden Schwimmer's job to find a buyer. Conveniently, his boss, Ted Ashley, had just negotiated the unusual deal to make Ashley-Famous the representatives for Desilu Productions, and Desilu needed television properties.

  Lucille Ball may not have been a sci-fi buff, or even understood the magnitude of what she was endorsing, but the reluctant TV mogul played a major role in launching the Enterprise. In an indirect way, it all happened because Desi loved Lucy and the two wanted to spend more time together.

  In the late 1930s, Lucille Ball was getting top billing in B-films. A few years later, she was the lead in modestly-budgeted main features, including Too Many Girls. It was during the making of this movie that she met the love of her life: Desi Arnaz. He was an extroverted Cuban band leader with steady work in club engagements who had also found success as an MGM contract player with lead roles in movies like Cuban Pete and Holiday in Havana. Thanks to a studio “loan out,” he was given a supporting role in RKO’s Too Many Girls and an opportunity to meet its star. By the end of the production, Desi and the leading lady were romantically involved. Shortly after, they were married.

  As Lucy's film career heated up, so did her radio series My Favorite Husband, in which she and Richard Denning played a married couple, proving that opposites could attract. By 1950, CBS wanted to move My Favorite Husband to television. Lucy was reluctant -- she was still doing well on the big screen, cast opposite Bob Hope in the hits Sorrowful Jones (1949) and Fancy Pants (1950), and it seemed unlikely that TV could boost her career. But it was possible that it could be a healthy move for her marriage.