These Are The Voyages, TOS, Season One

by Cushman, Marc

  With tongue firmly in cheek, he added:

  This guy, D.C. Fontana, shows definite promise as a writer and I would like to find out more about him. (RJ7-1)

  One qualm Justman had with the story outline involved a recreational activity. He wrote to John D.F. Black and Gene Roddenberry:

  On here, in the Recreation Room sequence, Janice and Charlie play cards. Do people still play cards at this time in the future, and if they do, do the games and the cards still resemble what we know in our own present civilization? (RJ7-1)

  Justman had a fair point, but the card game would stay. It was needed to establish an important plot point.

  Stan Robertson had a qualm of his own, which had nothing to do with a deck of playing cards. He approved the story, but was not taken with its setting aboard the Enterprise. He called Roddenberry about this and then followed up with a memo, writing:

  Your point that we want our viewers to identify with the Starship and those who sail on it, as a western fan might come to be familiar with Dodge City and its various landmarks, colorful characters, etc., is an excellent one. We couldn’t agree with you more.... Let’s use our ship to its obvious advantages, but let’s think of a good blend of on and off-board stories. (SR7-1)

  Robertson pushed the point further. He telephoned again and told his idea of restaging the action away from the Enterprise to John D.F. Black. But in a memo to Roddenberry, Black said:

  The writer [Fontana] and I are mutually agreed that, should we move the story to a planet, we would weaken Kirk’s involvement and dissipate the intrinsic drama that can only exist when the safety of the Enterprise is at stake. Further -- despite the size of the Enterprise, the characters in this piece are restricted to the confinement of the ship – “caged” -- a big plus. My own opinion is that the story would suffer should we acquiesce to Stan in this instance. (JDFB7)

  Roddenberry’s five-word response: “Agreed. Stay on the ship.” (GR7-1)

  Robertson tried a third time by calling Dorothy Fontana. She later said, “I was still a secretary. He called me and started giving me notes on the script. I just said, ‘Thank you, Mr. Robertson,’ and I went directly into Gene and said, ‘Maybe this is the wrong attitude but I don’t think Stan Robertson should be giving me notes on my script over the phone when he doesn’t give them to anybody else.’ Gene called him back and ripped him a new one. He said, ‘You don’t mess with my writers. You don’t make comments to my writers. If you have notes from the network, you give them to me. But you do not call my writers.’” (64-2)

  Fontana’s first draft script arrived on June 6. Mary Black, who would read the scripts first before passing them on to John D.F., said, “I was so relieved when ‘Charlie X’ came in the first time, because I liked Dorothy so much. And I thought, ‘Oh my God, if she’s a rotten writer, this will be terrible.’ And then the first draft came in and, oh, what a relief, she was a wonderful writer.” (17a)

  Justman was quick to write Roddenberry and Black, telling them:

  I feel it is very unusual to get a first draft screenplay in this good of shape.... Charlie is more fully resolved in this version and much more of a person than he was before. And I kind of hate to see him get zapped out of existence at the end of the show. (RJ7-3)

  Roddenberry read through the comments from Black and Justman, and then wrote a memorandum of his own -- to Fontana:

  I agree with the other memo writers that it is an excellent first draft; would be very pleased if all of our writers performed as well the first time around. It also appears to be done with a very common sense attitude toward budget and practical limitations of photographing Star Trek. It has the potential to

  make an excellent episode. (GR7-2)

  But Roddenberry wanted some changes made before sending the script to NBC and going another round with Stan Robertson about the story’s setting. His memo continued:

  The principal aim of this revision should be toward more excitement, a growing “unusualness” in Charlie, unwrapping the package of which he is, bit by bit, more and more… indicating at first the possibilities of danger here, then as Charlie grows frustrated, showing the danger that exists, a very steady build of tension and excitement toward our climactic moments which themselves mount higher and higher with each Act. (GR7-2)

  It was Roddenberry’s idea that, as he put it, “the Enterprise should become a hell ship.” He elaborated:

  Why be content with a person zapped into disappearance here and there when the possibilities are almost limitless? (GR7-2)

  One suggestion was that Charlie turn a crew member into a tiny bug, then steps on it. Another suggestion involved the series’ protagonist, with Roddenberry writing:

  And now, most importantly, what about Captain Kirk? Frankly, I think you hit it much more closely with the supporting characters than with him. First of all, the responsibility to find an answer is totally his and no combination of impossibilities can relieve him of that primary chore. Like it or not, even to some extent wise or not, he has to take a stand against Charlie once he fully realizes what is going on. To do it by guile, without first attempting it by full confrontation, reduces Kirk in our eyes. (GR7-2)

  Fontana’s 2nd Draft, brimming with confrontation and an ounce less guile, was turned in on June 27. Kirk was more proactive, even when appearing near-powerless against superior alien beings. Fontana later said, “Kirk could not solve this problem. But I redeemed him and, at the age I was, it amazes me that I was smart enough to do it -- that I had him beg for Charlie. He pleaded for him... and I felt that that served dramatically, even though I had the aliens rescue the Enterprise.” (64-2)

  Fontana also added the scene in the recreation room where Uhura is described as entertaining off-duty crew members by singing a song. No other details were provided.

  NBC’s Stan Robertson wrote Roddenberry:

  All of the original problems, except one, which we felt were embodied in this story as first submitted have been taken care of in this fine draft.... The exception is the one thing with which we are most concerned at this point in the development of our series -- that is the confinement of our stories on board the U.S.S. Enterprise.... Without becoming involved in a rehash of all the dialogue which has passed between us on this point, we are very aware that the Enterprise, with all its lavishness, depth and grandeur, plus the imagination it took to construct it, is a definite plus as far as Star Trek is concerned. However, we are very aware of the dangers inherent in restricting any series of plots to the confines of only “four walls,” regardless of how magnificent they are.... In the case of “Charlie X” and other stories not yet in production, give some serious thought to measures by which part or all of our dramas might be told by action away from the Enterprise, possibly on planets or scientific stations. (SR7-2)

  Roddenberry ignored the request. He did, however, do a rewrite -- the final draft, dated July 5. Actor Jim Goodwin lost a job with these latest revisions. In all the previous drafts, Lt. Farrell was present at the helm. Roddenberry changed this to read nondescript “navigator.”

  The notes from Robert Justman continued. He told Roddenberry:

  Again, for a stronger ACT ending, I suggest that we end ACT III with the Disappearance of Janice…. On here the Thasian materializes on the Bridge of the Enterprise. Does the Thasian have to be vaguely humanoid in form? Why not this time can’t we go completely far out and have nothing that resembles anything humanoid? (RJ7-4)

  Justman got the Act break he desired, but the Thasian, to better serve the production schedule and the budget, would remain humanoid in appearance, at least regarding his head, which was all we would see.

  Regarding another change, Fontana remembered coming to work to find her scenes about the guilelessness of youth were now rewritten into a teenager’s introduction to his raging hormones. Her reaction: “Sex always got into Gene’s work.” (64-2)

  John Black said, “GR’s habit was to put sex into everything. It drove Dorothy crazy because he did that
to ‘Charlie X.’ He had to make it sexy.” (17)

  Charlie’s pat on Yeoman Rand’s rump was already in Fontana’s script, as was his innocent question in the teaser: “Is that a girl?” The big change, really, was a shifting and sharpening of dialogue in the man-to-man talk Charlie is given by Kirk. Fontana had it come from McCoy. Roddenberry reassigned the task to the reluctant captain and incorporated in Charlie’s admission of feeling sick all the time because of his hunger for Janice Rand.

  “There is a good example as to why I wanted to do Star Trek,” Roddenberry said. “You can take on subjects; say things that you can’t say on other shows. Now that one, it could tell teenagers that they weren’t alone with what they felt; with that confusion, wanting so much but not knowing how to go about getting it, and really, not even knowing why you want it. And where are you going to hear a father/son talk like that [between Kirk and Charlie]? Could Father Knows Best do it? Maybe, very much disguised, but not like this.” (145-12)

  Fontana later said, “I was trying to play on the naïveté and the innocence of the boy rather than his raging hormones, but, you know, that’s the way the story went. And some of that went pretty well, I thought.” (64-1)

  It was in Roddenberry’s draft where new lyrics to the traditional Scottish tune “Charlie Is My Darling” were added. Giving accompaniment to Uhura was Spock, picking at the Vulcan harp.

  But most of Roddenberry’s changes were confined to moving things around and tightening and rephrasing a few lines of dialogue. This was the least amount of work he had done on any script from this period. There was no question in anyone’s minds that if the series were picked up for additional episodes, Fontana would be writing again ... and Gene Roddenberry might be looking for a new secretary.

  Fontana thanked Roddenberry for letting her moonlight and demonstrate her abilities as a writer when it came time to submit the proposed screen credits to the Writers Guild. Just as with teleplays, per strict Guild rules, a producer cannot take “story credit” from a freelance writer without first proving that at least 51% of the story elements were his. Even though Fontana used Roddenberry’s last outline more as a springboard into her own treatment and did not stay close to its structure, or the character of Charlie as originally envisioned, she nonetheless gave her boss full credit for the story. She said, “The Writers Guild actually called me and said, ‘Technically, you are an outside writer, so this has to be arbitrated. Arbitration has to look at it. Are you sure you want to give him full story credit?’ I said, ‘Yeah, sure.’ So I just took the tele-credit. But yes, I developed the story. If you look at the drafts, you can see it.” (64-2)

  Pre-Production:

  July 1, July 5-8, 1966, and July 11, for ½ day

  (5 ½ days prep).

  Lawrence Dobkin, 46, was hired to direct. He was actually more an actor than a director with hundreds of credits in film and TV including 1955's Illegal, which also featured DeForest Kelley. He turned to directing in the 1950s for series such as The Rifleman, The Donna Reed Show, and 77 Sunset Strip.

  “I was in Europe, helping an old friend with a spaghetti western,” he told Allan Asherman for The Star Trek Interview Book. “I was playing a villain, and helping to rewrite it as we shot it.... The arrangement to direct the eighth [Star Trek] episode was made through my agent sometime during the period when I was away, and he wired me and told me that I had to be home by a certain date. I got home two days late, as I recall, after being delayed in Spain.” (49)

  The casting of Charles Evans was the key element. This was one of the biggest and most important guest roles at this point in the series. Roddenberry had been hearing good things about Michael J. Pollard, who recently finished filming a surprisingly somber and touching episode of Lost in Space, and suggested him for the part. Casting director Joe D’Agosta had been thinking of Pollard, too, but for another upcoming episode -- “Miri.” For “Charlie X,” he had a bigger catch in mind.

  Robert Walker Jr. as Ensign Pulver

  Robert Walker Jr., at 26, was a product of show business. His parents were Hollywood leading man Robert Walker and movie queen Jennifer Jones. When his father died suddenly at age 32, Walker’s mother remarried movie mogul David O. Selznick. After TV guest spots on Route 66 and The Naked City, among others, Walker landed second billing in 1963's The Hook, just under Kirk Douglas. Also in ’63, he had third billing in The Company, for which he received a Golden Globe award as Most Promising Newcomer. In 1964, he won a Theatre World Award for his back-to-back stand-out performances in the off-Broadway productions I Knock at the Door and Pictures in the Hallway. Then he took over a plum role from Jack Lemmon, as the title character in Ensign Pulver, the sequel to Mister Roberts. His top-billing placed him above co-star Walter Matthau. During all of this, Walker continued to make selected high profile appearances on television. Even though he was nine years older than the character, the role of Charlie Evans appealed to him.

  Joe D’Agosta said, “It’s pretty amazing that we were able to get actors of a certain status, but Star Trek was an unusual show and I think it was recognizable to them as that right from the beginning. We were the only theatrical show on television. We had the costumes, yes, that’s always part of it, but we also had current topics under the guise of science fiction. The scripts read theatrically, they read in such a way that they were very appealing to actors. They weren’t getting the same thing from other shows.” (43-4)

  “When they talked about Charlie Evans, I welcomed it when they said young Robert Walker,” Lawrence Dobkin said. “I don’t remember if he was in to read or not because, as I say, I was a couple of days late by the time I showed up, and everybody was panicked.... When I came in, I had so much to do -- getting used to the effects team, the cameraman, the lighting design that one had to make room for, the resident cast and then digesting the storyline. I don’t believe I got involved in the casting.” (49)

  “Robert Walker was a stroke of casting luck for Star Trek,” Grace Lee Whitney said. “It’s impossible to imagine anyone else in the role. He captured the perfect balance, projecting vulnerability, innocence and horrifying menace, all at the same time.” (183-2)

  Abraham Sofaer, at 70, played the Thasian. He had over a hundred film and TV credits, including an episode of Have Gun -- Will Travel written by Roddenberry. In the sci-fi genre from this period, Sofaer played the alien leader Arch in Harlan Ellison’s “Demon with a Glass Hand” on The Outer Limits, and another alien leader, Sobram, in “The Flaming Planet,” an episode of Lost in Space. He’d return to Star Trek in voice only for another superior alien being in “Spectre of the Gun.”

  Another guest player of a sort was Gene Roddenberry. He provided the voice of the chef who reports to Kirk that the meatloaf he put into the oven has come out as real Thanksgiving turkeys. At the time of the production, it was believed this episode would air on NBC right before Thanksgiving. However, due to other episodes being held up in post with more demanding needs for photographic effects, “Charlie” advanced in the schedule.

  For the production, only Stage 9 was required, and only two new sets were needed: the ship’s gym and the brig, both of which were reconfigurations of existing Enterprise sets.

  Production Diary

  Filmed July 11 (1/2 day), 12, 13, 14, 15, 18 & 19, 1966

  (Planned as 6 day production; finished 1/2 day over; total cost: $177,941).

  Nimoy shows Shatner and Whitney where his eyes will be directed for an upcoming scene. Shatner believes the eye line for the ship’s viewing screen should be lower (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)

  July 11, 1966. “Hanky Panky” by Tommy James and the Shondells was the most played record in America, replacing “Paperback Writer” by the Beatles, who were touring the U.S. amidst protests to John Lennon’s remark that he and his band mates were bigger with the teenagers than Jesus Christ. Among the top selling albums in record stores: Wonderfulness by Bill Cosby, the soundtracks to Dr. Zhivago and The Sound of Music, Strangers in the Night by Frank Si
natra, and three LPs from Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass – Going Places, Whipped Cream and Other Delights and, still at the top of the charts, What Now My Love. The Beatles, in support of their tour, were flying up the album charts with their new album, Yesterday … and Today, while their last long-player, Rubber Soul, was still selling strong. And the Star Trek cast and crew were assembling to make another sci-fi classic.

  Filming of “Charlie X” began immediately after lunch on Monday, July 11. The company had just completed “The Naked Time.” Director Marc Daniels turned cast and crew over to Lawrence Dobkin, who stayed on Stage 9 and broke ground in sickbay with McCoy’s physical exam of Charlie Evans. William Shatner, DeForest Kelleym and Robert Walker, Jr. were the only cast members needed on this short day, which concluded in Kirk’s quarters with that man-to-man talk Roddenberry added to the script. Due to the late start, Dobkin was not held responsible for overtime with a 7 p.m. wrap (the actual “wrapping of the set” would extend the time-and-a-half pay to 7:20).

  Day 2, Tuesday, July 12, saw the start of a major continuity mistake. In one of the ship’s corridors, Charlie asks Kirk if he can tag along to the bridge. Kirk is wearing his regular uniform top. But seconds later as he and Charlie walk onto the bridge, Kirk is wearing his alternate tunic -- the one created for “The Enemy Within” to help differentiate between “good Kirk” and “bad Kirk.” It was used during part of “Charlie X” to help convey the passing of time, as Charlie’s attitude changes day by day. There is no real excuse for a blunder like this, but there are always reasons.

  NBC publicity photo of Eddie Paskey (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)

  The corridor scene that was so crucially tied to the one on the bridge was to be filmed later on this same day, but Dobkin was falling behind and called for another 7 p.m. wrap, with the corridor sequences left undone. By the time he was able to get back to picking up the various unfinished scenes in the ship’s corridors, it was a full week later -- Tuesday, July 19. The passing of so much time and the juggling of so many scenes, rethinking the schedule as they went along, resulted in the oversight. By the time the error was caught in editing, Robert Walker, Jr. was busy elsewhere and unable to return to reshoot the scene with Kirk in his proper uniform top. All that could be done was to hope no one would notice.