Day 3, Wednesday, saw the company still on the bridge. Shots taken this day included the climax where Kirk confronts Charlie and is sent to his knees in pain.
Eddie Paskey, as Shatner’s lighting stand-in and usually present on the bridge as Lt. Leslie, recalled, “Part of a stand-in’s job is to watch the actors as they rehearse their scene, seeing where they’re gonna be going as they’re delivering their lines. So we stand off camera and watch that rehearsal and then duplicate it while the main actors go and get their makeup freshened or study their lines. And then we take their place, standing in so that the cinematographer, his camera operator, the gaffer and his main electrician can work out the lighting set-ups and the camera moves.
“As I got to know Bill a little bit more, I saw that when he ended up on the ground in a fight or if he had some sort of pain going through him, you could almost depend on his face going to the camera for a full-on shot -- even though, when he rehearsed it, he didn’t do it that way... because the camera hadn’t been positioned yet. So George [Merhoff] and I, between the two of us, picked up on the fact that if he’s gonna be down on his knees, in pain, that face is gonna go to the camera when it’s shot. Sure enough, that’s exactly what he did. Consequently, we’d try to second guess Bill so that he would get the best lighting he could. And of course this made the shot go quicker, too, because they didn’t have to change the lights in the middle of the scene and reshoot it.” (135-2)
Paskey was appreciated by the lighting crew for helping come up with this time-saving innovation -- second guessing the series’ lead. And the lighting crew rewarded him.
Typically, lighting crews merely ensure that a background extra like Paskey be visible, but gaffer George Merhoff went one step further. Paskey said, “George did a funny thing. After he had lit for what Bill was going to be doing, he would say, ‘Eddie, where are you going to be in this scene?’ I would show him and he would light me with a ‘key light’ and a ‘back light,’ which popped me out of the background. It was kinda neat because he didn’t have to do that. I really respected him, and all the crew because you could see they all wanted to make the very best show that they could possibly make, and if I helped make their job easier as a stand-in, then all is well and good. But that was just his way of saying ‘thanks.’” (135-2)
At the end of the scene, Charlie pleads for Kirk to not let the Thasians take him away, he wants to stay... stay... stay. By the time the last “stay” was spoken, it was 7:30 p.m.
Day 4 was spent in the recreation room filming, among other things, the chess game between Charlie and Spock, Charlie’s efforts to impress Janice Rand with card tricks and Uhura’s playful rendition of “Charlie Is My Darling.” The wrap time, again, was late, at 7:30 p.m. Tired actors were dismissed to have their makeup removed. Tired crew began securing the set. It had been a 13-hour day by the time most left the studio.
Day 6. A section of Stage 9 is converted into the ship’s gym (Color image available at www.startrekhistory.com and www.startrekpropauthority.com)
Day 5, Friday, began in the transporter room for the teaser, and Charlie’s innocent question, “Is that a girl?” Next up: Janice Rand’s quarters where Charlie makes his “first crush” vanish and then uses his mental prowess to break Kirk’s ribs and Spock’s legs. Dobkin, meanwhile, was breaking the bank. He had fallen further behind in addition to wrapping later each day of production. Cast and crew were kept on stage this night filming until 7:45 p.m.
Conflict on the set: Shatner preferring to keep his shirt on (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)
Day 6, Monday, took the company into the briefing room and the ship’s gym for the scene where Kirk, stripped down to the waist, teaches Charlie the art of self-defense.
Solow wins – an unhappy Shatner strips to the waist (NBC publicity photo)
Mary Black recalled, “Bill [Shatner] was very at ease with himself other than that one time he had the attack of insecurity. I was on the set and there was a debate going on about whether or not Kirk should do the scene with the shirt on or off. And Roddenberry must have been away somewhere, so John was called to the set to help decide. Solow was there also, and he was the one who was engineering the discussion, trying to get Bill to do it without the shirt. Bill still had his top on and was talking about why Kirk would or wouldn’t, and he turned to John and said, ‘What’s your opinion?’ And John said, ‘Well, let’s see you do it with the shirt on.’ And Bill did. ‘Okay, now take the shirt off and let’s see how it works.’ And Bill took the shirt off and went through the moves again. And John decided to be a smart ass and he said, ‘Let’s do the audience a favor, Bill, and keep the shirt on.’ Bill took it in good part and laughed.” (17)
Shatner had been seen shirtless before, in “The Corbomite Maneuver” and “The Enemy Within,” filmed more than a month earlier. But after two months of 13 hour workdays, less time to exercise and eating on the run, he had gained a few pounds. When posing, and sucking in the gut, extra poundage can be hidden. Not so easily when doing an athletic scene.
After John Black left the set, Solow, determined that the viewing audience wanted to see the star bare-chested, even with an expanding mid-section, was able to reach Roddenberry by phone. Black’s decision was overruled. The shirt came off and Shatner did the wrestling match with Charlie Evans, topless.
It was 7:08 p.m. when they stopped the roll.
Day 7 returned the company to the ship’s corridors for scenes outside the brig. Other corridor scenes were shot, including one between Kirk and Charlie that Dobkin had failed to cover the previous Tuesday, cementing the continuity gaffe. The regular cast was then dismissed and the company moved back to the bridge, this time to film a camera tie-down shot of an empty wall, then Abraham Sofaer, whose wavering image would be superimposed before that wall. Dobkin didn’t finish with Sofaer until 9:15 p.m. He was more than half a day late and, on all seven days of production, the studio lost a good chunk in overtime pay.
Dobkin later admitted that he was struggling with personal issues during the production. He said, “All the people in the cast were perturbed either by me or by the work. They had to be reassured by the producers that my personal problems of that period, the stress, weren’t reflected in the film. And apparently they weren’t.” (49)
Robert Walker, Jr. was needed for all seven days. Grace Lee Whitney, struck by his devotion to creating and maintaining a character, remembered, “He wouldn’t go near anybody while we were shooting because he didn’t want to be friendly with us; he wanted to be ‘method,’ to stay in character even when he was not in character. I didn’t understand it then, while we were doing it. You know, you never understand anything when you’re doing it. But in hindsight, he didn’t want to get close because Charlie was alienated from us.” (183-6)
Whitney recalled, at the end of that last day, Walker did make it a point to let his fellow actors know how much he relished his time on Star Trek and how impressed he was with the caliber of work they had accomplished together.
“I thought he was excellent,” Dorothy Fontana said. “He was a fine actor. A little old for it but he still looked young. When I saw the finished show, I thought, ‘Gee, he did a really good job.’ And he managed to pull off a lot of the things that were important to me.” (64-2)
Lawrence Dobkin was struck by the entire cast. He later recalled, “The sense of cooperative effort was very, very strong. Shatner’s ability to envision shots was evident even though he hadn’t started directing yet.” (49)
Despite the fond words, those “personal problems” Dobkin admitted to, and the resulting overtime, “Charlie X” was his only directing job on Star Trek. He did return, however, as an actor, playing Klingon Ambassador Kell, for “The Mind’s Eye,” an episode of Star Trek: the Next Generation.
Post-Production
July 20 through September 6, 1966.
Music Score recorded on August 29, 1966.
Fabien Tordjmann did the cutting -- his second Star Trek assignment, follow
ing “The Enemy Within.” Among the notes Roddenberry gave after watching the first cut was to repeat the word “stay” in Charlie’s final plea, adding reverb with each usage.
Fred Steiner scored his third episode of Star Trek. His work is exquisite. Of the 12 complete scores Steiner contributed to the series, “Charlie X” was his favorite.
Howard Anderson and Company struggled to supply the photo effects in a timely fashion. In fact, some were never completed.
Editor Tordjmann said, “The opticals would trickle in, but what we did was cut in the reactions to those effects that were still being completed, and when they came in we had to change very little.” (176)
With “Charlie X” being needed as the second episode to air on NBC, there was no time to wait for some of the photographic effects. One that was passed over involved the cargo ship Antares, which the Enterprise sides up to. Even though it was called for in the script and is spoken of in Kirk’s Captain’s log, the Antares is a no show. A stock shot of the Enterprise was used instead.
Despite the overtime hours during filming, this “bottle show” only cost $177,941 ($1.3 million in 2013), coming in at $15,559 under the current Desilu per-episode allowance.
Release / Reaction
Premiere air date: 9/15/66. NBC repeat broadcast: 6/1/67.
NBC didn’t want “Charlie X” to be the second episode to air but, other than the second pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” which lacked several of the series’ regular characters, there were no other episodes ready.
Three days before “Charlie X” aired, Stan Robertson wrote Roddenberry:
“Charlie X” was, by anyone’s standards, a most moving and memorable, sensitive portrait of a boy-man caught twixt never-never land of carefree puberty and responsible adulthood. It could just as easily have taken place in 1966 instead of the 200 years hence. I think that we are all in agreement that “Charlie X” was a class show but one which was at times slow and lacking in enough pace to sustain the interest of a large section of the audience. And, if our testing methods are of any value -- and we find that they are when evaluated in proper perspective – “Charlie X” suffered whenever we became involved in a long stretch of dialogue relating to Charlie’s internal struggles to find himself, or whenever the members of our crew engaged in lengthy discussions attempting to understand him and his dilemma. (SR7-3)
Robertson predicted “Charlie X” might start strong in the ratings but, unlike “The Man Trap,” would lose many of its viewers before the hour had ended. The Nielsen overnight Trendex report (based on a national phone survey) seemed to prove him right.
RATINGS / Nielsen Trendex report for Thursday, Sept. 15, 1966:
At 8:30 p.m., A.C. Nielsen shows that Star Trek was only one-tenth of a point under that of My Three Sons, a dead heat for the lead spot. At 9:00, The CBS Thursday Night Movie had the television premiere of The Music Man, starring Robert Preston and Shirley Jones, drawing nearly 45% of the America’s TV households.
The Arbitron report (published in the September 19, 1966 issue of Broadcast magazine) placed Star Trek a little lower for the first half-hour, yet stronger for the second, very nearly tying with Bewitched for the second position.
RATINGS / Nielsen National report for Thursday, Sept. 15, 1966:
According to this report, Star Trek delivered a hard blow to the season premiere of Bewitched. Just weeks earlier, and for the entire previous season, Bewitched was ABC’s highest-rated series and the seventh biggest audience grabber on television. Now with the airing of its first color episode, the National Arbitron rating service showed it missing the Top 20 altogether.
Was Robertson right that the audience numbers dropped at the half-way point of “Charlie X” because the episode lacked physical action, or was the shift in viewers a result of the CBS movie beginning at 9 O’clock?
Jack Gould of The New York Times supported Stan Robertson’s theory. From his September 16, 1966 column, Gould gave “Charlie X” a thumbs’ down, writing:
Star Trek, which NBC is presenting at 8:30 p.m. on Thursdays this season, makes it clear that life in space will probably be more traumatic than on Earth. A sick teenager who was never acquainted with terrestrial amenities ran amok last night on the master patrol ship. The accent was less on super-duper gadgetry usually associated with travel in the heavens than on astronautical soap opera that suffers from interminable flight drag. It was TV’s first psychodrama in orbit.
But according to the October 16, 1966 issue of The New York Times, Nielsen’s numbers showed that the 9 - 9:30 race was actually quite close. While Star Trek was faring better in cities than in rural areas, and while Star Trek still came in third, it had a much stronger 30% audience share. Bewitched, in second place, had 32%. And the margin for the big CBS movie, with 34%, was far more modest.
From the Mailbag:
Among the letters received the week after “Charlie X” first aired:
Dear Mr. [sic] Fontana, I watched the first adventure you wrote called “Charlie X.” I enjoyed it very much. It was real fantastic. I think Star Trek is even better than Lost in Space, because of the ideas and the special effects. I especially liked the way you wrote “Charlie X.” I like the plot. Unsigned.
Mr. Fontana, if it’s not too much to ask, would you please send me a script [for] “Charlie X” so I can read it and study it, so in the future I can write scripts like you.... I am very interested in being a script writer. Carl W. (Chula Vista, California).
The reply to the latter letter:
Dear Mr. W.: Thank you for your interest in Star Trek. I am, of course, very pleased you especially enjoyed “Charlie X.” Unfortunately, the studio legal department does not allow us to send out scripts as samples. I would suggest, however, that you contact local universities which offer courses in television writing... or one of the local high schools which also have such courses in their night school classes.... I have enclosed for your information the publicity package made up on the show in the hope it will interest you. Sincerely, D.C. Fontana.
Dear Mr. Roddenberry... on Sept. 15 on Star Trek, a Negro girl sang a song to and about Mr. Spock. Due to the confusion at our house at the time, I was unable to catch all the words. Could you please send me the words to the song. Also, let’s have more of Mr. Spock. He’s sexy.... Thank you for your time & trouble.” Pat S. (Northfield, Min).
Dear Sir, I just love your new show - Star Trek! It’s really Strasto!! (stratospheric!!). Last week, Sept. 15, a Yeoman sang a song about Spock. I loved it. Would you please send me the words. Thank you. Judy C. (Horseheeds, N.Y.)
The response sent to both Pat S. And Judy C.:
Thank you for your letter[s]. We are naturally very pleased you enjoy Star Trek, and we hope you’ll be able to come “aboard” often. Enclosed is a copy of the words of the song Nichelle Nichols sang on “Charlie X,” as you requested. Sincerely, Gene Roddenberry, Executive Producer, Star Trek.
Memories
D.C. Fontana said, “I always liked that show. It felt really good for my first Star Trek.” (64-2)
Grace Lee Whitney, in her book The Longest Trek, wrote, “[‘Charlie X’ was] a beautiful episode -- gentle and sensitive in its treatment of a troubled, confused adolescent. When I opened the script for the first time, I was struck by what a tender, sensitive, yet powerful tale it was. The story wrings every emotion out of you -- fear, horror, sympathy, laughter. Seventeen-year-old Charlie Evans is easily the most frightening yet sympathetic character ever presented on television. To this day, it is one of my all-time favorites.” (183-2)
In another interview, with this author, she added, “The whole first year of Star Trek, I believe, was made from the most fascinating scripts ever written. ‘Charlie X,’ I thought, was especially brilliant. But all of them -- all those scripts -- truly amazing.” (183-6)
Lawrence Dobkin said, “Probably my best memory of Star Trek is all those people. That young in the series, they did not yet have the approval of the crowd. They hadn�
�t any support for what clearly was an attempt to bring humanities into another time zone, to graph today’s relationships in some fashion onto a different time frame, and keep the realities and the human interaction going. My god, what a talented bunch.” (49)
14
Episode 8: BALANCE OF TERROR
Written by Paul Schneider
(with Gene Roddenberry, uncredited)
Directed by Vincent McEveety
NBC press release, issued November 22, 1966:
The USS Enterprise embarks on a fateful seek-and-destroy mission following a series of unprovoked attacks by the marauding flagship of an enemy power, in “Balance of Terror” on NBC Television Network’s colorcast of Star Trek.... William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy co-star. Captain Kirk (Shatner) engages the hostile spacecraft in a furious mid-space battle but is forced to take quarter when the equally-powerful enemy, although suffering serious losses itself, inflicts heavy damage and injuries on the Enterprise. With most of their power and weaponry gone, Kirk and his wily adversary become locked in a suspenseful battle of wits as they maneuver for advantage. Mark Lenard portrays the commander of the enemy craft.
Complicating the matter for Kirk is that the Romulans have an uncanny resemblance to Vulcans. The Captain must now deal with issues of prejudice when one of his officers, navigator Lt. Stiles, suspects the half-human Spock of having split interests.
The theme involves an examination of bigotry, and how easily it spreads when one’s enemy is different in appearance. Is it Man against Man ... or Man against Himself? Try both.
These Are The Voyages, TOS, Season One Page 39
