Bloch got further orders to revise his outline, twice, for no additional pay, before his captain felt comfortable sending it to NBC. The submission from Roddenberry to Stan Robertson came with an apologetic note, saying:
This outline by Robert Bloch requires some revision but am sending it to you in this rough form since I’m anxious to get this particular writer to work before he accepts another assignment. (GR9-1)
It was a clear case of being more impressed by the writer than by the material. But how could Roddenberry ask someone of Bloch’s stature to write a fourth draft of a story outline? At Star Trek -- as with all TV series -- the writer was only paid for the first draft of the outline, a pay rate set at $655. The second pay increment came when the writer was “advised to proceed to teleplay.” That check was for $695, but Bloch had yet to receive this. That would require NBC’s blessing.
Stan Robertson understood the importance of associating Star Trek with renowned authors of science fiction or its distant cousin, horror. His tempered reply said:
We would again caution against the “too cerebral” approach. There appears, by this outline, to be a slight tendency to lean in that direction. (SR9-1)
The character of Margo -- later retooled as an Enterprise crew member and estranged fiancée of the missing Korby -- is portrayed as a wealthy woman who admired the scientist and therefore “hires” the Enterprise to go in search of him. Korby drugs Kirk with a glass of spiked wine, then makes an android replica of him, all done to keep the Captain from telling of the discoveries made of the android-making machine and its results -- the terrifying Ruk, the beautiful Andrea, and the somewhat average-looking Smith (later to be named Brown). When the fake Kirk beams to the ship, Spock’s suspicions are aroused -- not because of anything the imposter says or does, but because he doesn’t wear the phaser the real Kirk had beamed down with. In the end, Ruk is destroyed and Korby -- a flesh-and-blood mad scientist -- is mortally wounded in a fight with Kirk. Andrea, who is “feeling” upset that Korby was thinking of leaving with Margo, refuses to save him. Before dying, Korby pushes her and the duplicate Kirk into a force-field, causing them to disintegrate.
Even with the story in such an embryonic and seemingly unworkable state, Bloch received his orders to proceed to teleplay and was given that second check, for $695. Roddenberry also gave Bloch story notes. In an effort to strengthen characters and add more conflict, he wrote:
You have more than a hint of past romance between Korby and Andrea. This is an excellent situation, productive of Margo-Andrea conflict, productive of Andrea motivations, etc. Do you see Korby as having sort of “programmed” Andrea to please? It’s a lovely thought. (GR9-1)
Roddenberry also told Bloch that he and his staff were confused as to why Smith and Ruk were completely different types of beings. The solution: Make Ruk an android built by the Old Ones and Smith one that Korby built, made to look like a member of his team who had died. The beautiful and sexy Andrea needed no explaining. What man would not make an android to look like her?
Bloch, at this point, was still under the impression that writing for Star Trek would be quick, easy and fun. He jumped into the work, delivering his first draft script in only four days, on April 12, and, in doing so, picked up his third pay check -- this one for $1,800. That was the easy money -- a hefty check for a script that had merely been delivered; it had yet to be approved. The fourth and final increment -- this one for $1,350 - was the hard money. It wasn’t paid until the delivery and acceptance of the writers’ final draft (not to be confused with the producer’s final draft, AKA the shooting script). If, in reading the writer’s initial draft, it was felt that he had failed to properly and completely address any notes given regarding the story outline, he could be asked to revise it for free. If all went wrong, as it often did at Star Trek, this process of providing free script drafts could go on for a while, just as the process of providing free story outline drafts often did.
Robert Justman was the first to express his shock and disappointment over Bloch’s script. His mammoth list of grievances to Roddenberry, in a memo that ran for several single-spaced pages, began:
As you can see from the length of this memo, I am disturbed about this first draft screenplay.... [It] seems stilted and forced. The characterizations are cartoon and the dialogue does not make me happy at all. I feel that this script needs a good rewrite man. (RJ9-1)
Days later, Roddenberry hired himself a good rewrite man, adding John D.F. Black as a second associate producer for the series who would serve as “script doctor” for several episodes. But he had no intention of putting Black to work on this script, not yet. Robert Bloch’s name was too great an asset for Star Trek to discard. Besides, John D.F. needed to start rewriting “Mudd’s Women” while Roddenberry rewrote “The Corbomite Maneuver.”
Roddenberry sent a memo to his two associate producers, candidly sharing:
My feelings on the Robert Bloch script are rather mixed -- it seems a good craftsmanlike job but, at the same time, I feel that Bob has come nowhere near extracting and using the dramatics inherent in his basic story and characters. Even with skilled direction, it could easily become slow.... Although Bob’s talent is obvious in this, I think it’s up to us to challenge that talent into the more vigorous and suspenseful writing for which he is justly well known. (GR9-3)
Roddenberry then wrote to Robert Bloch. His challenge to the writer read, in part:
Margo seems rather dumb about a lot of things. It seems to me she should be intelligent and aware. Kirk should not have to spend so much time answering questions which have obvious answers.... Margo does a lot of screaming and sobbing... the character should be made of stronger stuff.... Would the Enterprise be at the beck and call of an influential family? There should be a better reason for the Enterprise’s trip and Margo aboard.... Can the wine glass and the drug potion business be eliminated? It seems so old, and it takes time, and Kirk can be disabled some other way. How about a fight with Ruk, which might put some action into this?... There ought to be something more significant about Kirk than the lack of a phaser pistol to indicate to Spock something is wrong. Perhaps his “lack of attitude”? (GR9-4)
Roddenberry’s lengthy letter discussed how both Kirk and Dr. Korby came off “stilted,” how Korby’s motivation for abducting the Captain seemed unconvincing and confused, and how the Margo character, besides rather dumb, was devoid of believable motivation. He suggested:
Let’s consider what happens if Margo becomes Dr. Korby’s wife. For one thing, it gives us a little better orchestration with Andrea. And it would give Margo strong proprietary interest in Korby and, I suspect, stronger emotion, suspicions and values to play.... Imagine any wife or flame, visiting her man who has been gone five years or so, finding a lovely young lab technician has been there with him all this time. Even though she later turns out to be an android, isn’t it true that androids can be programmed for anything? An even darker and uglier suspicion -- since they are perfect in anything for which they are programmed, would a man want to take back a normally illogical, female-type wife with all her problems when he has had the satisfaction of a perfectly obedient creature? Or, perhaps he would; perhaps he has grown tired of perfection, but either way and during all the stages of our story, there would be some pretty exciting conflicts in it. And although the networks do protest that sex isn’t really very important in life, they always seem most pleased when it becomes a source of story conflict. (GR9-4)
Bloch was asked to provide a free rewrite -- that TV industry freebie known as a Revised First Draft. He dropped off his second try at a teleplay six days later, on April 26. He included a note to Roddenberry, saying:
Margo is now Mrs. Korby.... Ruk is still a golem because I feel we need him to illustrate to our audience the “blind” obedience type of android in contrast to the developed personalities of the other two. Also, he represents the physical side of Korby’s menace.... I think you’ll find Korby less stilted. (RB9-2)
&
nbsp; As for Smith, he was now Brown -- still devoid of personality, intentionally so, but with a slightly less common name. Very slightly.
In a hurry to get something/anything in front of the cameras -- and it seemed like a race between “Little Girls” and “The Corbomite Maneuver” at this point -- Roddenberry had John D.F. Black send the script to NBC even though it clearly needed further rewriting.
Stan Robertson, in a backhanded compliment, wrote to Black:
The first draft of this script was a vast improvement over the initial script of “The Corbomite Maneuver.” Simply stated - things happened. People weren’t waiting around for something to happen. (SR9-2)
In a different room at NBC Burbank, the feeling was less upbeat. Bloch was notorious for having written a 1962 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents -- “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” -- that was deemed by the series sponsor, Revlon, as “too gruesome” to air. CBS had to shelve the episode, with the network and studio, Universal, splitting the financial loss. NBC Broadcast Standards was determined this sort of thing would not happen on their watch.
Jon Kubichan and Jean Messerschmidt, two different arms of the network’s B.S. (Broadcast Standards) Department, banded together, albeit in separate memos, sending multiple pages of concerns to Roddenberry and Black, including:
Please avoid having Brown wear “a glassy grin” in death, and please also avoid other effects which might appear grotesque or shocking to the home viewer.... Caution on Kirk’s use of the binding as a noose and Korby’s subsequent choking, as this could be objectionable and must be handled correctly.... A general caution with regard to the embrace between Korby and Margo.... General cautions that the kisses throughout the script are kept within the bounds of television propriety. (BS9-1, 2 & 3)
John D.F. Black immediately wrote to Roddenberry:
Gene: Have just received two pages of remarks on “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” from NBC. Holy Christ! Has anyone told them Let’s Pretend has gone off the air? I have a feeling we’d better discuss this and lay hold of NBC in short order... by that I do not mean to imply “anything grotesque and shocking”... and, naturally, “embraces” are out. Gently and nicely yours, John D.F. (JDFB9)
Robert Bloch turned in his obligatory 2nd Draft on May 6. Justman, picking up on the ideas Roddenberry had contributed, wrote to John D.F. Black:
On Pages 26, 28, 29 and 30, there are references by Korby and follow-ups by Andrea with regard to “pleasing” Captain Kirk. Disregarding my own personal opinion, may I play Devil’s Advocate and raise the question of NBC’s reaction to such a situation?... This is probably my shortest memo on the subject of the Robert Bloch story. I don’t think it’s because I have little fault to find with the script. It’s just that it’s Friday and I think I’m getting tired. (RJ9-3)
The question at this point was whether to have Robert Bloch do another free script polish or to hand the material off to another writer. Justman voiced his opinion to John D.F., saying:
I recommend at least a dialogue re-write by someone else, because I still feel that the dialogue is stilted and unnatural. (RJ9-3)
And then the shit hit the fan. De Forest Research found similarities in Bloch’s Star Trek story with three short stories he had written and sold to the genre periodical Fantastic Adventures. Bloch wasn’t just borrowing from H.P. Lovecraft (which Kellam de Forest somehow missed), but he was also borrowing from himself, and from Fantastic Adventures, the holder of the copyrights. Numerous elements from his Star Trek script traced back to “Queen of Metal Men” from 1940, “Almost Human” from 1943, and “Comfort Me, My Robot” from 1954, the first being the most blatant. In that story, a scientific exploration team discovers a lost underground city beneath the ice, filled with machines and robots. They also encounter a beautiful young woman who, it turns out, is also a robot.
Roddenberry quickly wrote to Desilu Executive Herb Solow:
[W]e’re having some revisions done on the Bloch script. From the magazine stories sent you, I think it seems safe that Bloch could not be accused of stealing the story. At any rate, we intend to go ahead with the Bloch script as we are in need, unless we hear immediately to the contrary from you. (GR9-5)
A bigger problem came when Kellam de Forest discovered that the story for “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” also resembled a recent episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. His letter to Herb Solow said:
There remains a danger and grounds for possible litigation in that Bloch’s script and the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea script contain similar elements, and these elements appear in the same order in both scripts. To avoid possible repercussions, one, preferably more, of the elements should be changed. (KDF9)
Solow compared the new script to the short stories, and to the script written for ABC’s popular sci-fi show, then wrote Roddenberry:
Gene, it is incumbent upon us to alter Robert Bloch’s script along some important lines so as to avoid a lawsuit.... Though the Bloch stories do contain some of the elements in Bloch’s script, the “important” elements of the script are not in the Bloch stories but are in the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea script. Kellam’s recommendation... some important factor in the Robert Bloch script be changed so as to importantly make a difference between the Voyage script.... [He] particularly recalls John Black’s thought that perhaps the mad scientist can turn out to be an Android also. This, of course, would give a different twist to our show. (HS9)
That different twist, the big ending that made “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” pay off, had not been part of the story until now -- and was added only as a legal defense.
Since the solution was John D.F.’s idea, he was given the chore of adding it to the script, creating the “Yellow Cover First Draft” from mid May. Besides revealing Korby at the end of the story as an android, another change was made -- the character of Margo Korby became Nurse Christine Baker, who transfers aboard the Enterprise when she learns the ship will be patrolling in the area where her fiancé (Dr. Korby) was last known to be.
Stan Robertson’s opinion about the material had now changed. He complained that the pacing of the script was slow, beginning with the teaser, which he told Roddenberry:
… needs to immediately grab the audience, establishing the fact that the Enterprise and our heroes are going on a mission which is not only a vital one, but one which will be hazardous…. We must establish jeopardy and conflict as soon as possible and keep our characters “moving” and “doing,” rather than “sitting” and “discussing. (SR9-3)
Roddenberry had Black rework the script again and, as John D.F. had done when dealing with the other celebrated science fiction writers to visit Star Trek, he endeavored to honor the style of the story’s original author. Beyond this, in his polish from June 15, 1966, the character of Christine Baker was changed to Christine Ducheaux, the same ship’s nurse Black had just written into his original script, “The Naked Time.”
Roddenberry and Black had a falling out around this time regarding the former’s rewrite of “The Naked Time.” Roddenberry also felt Black had failed to sufficiently fix “What Are Little Girls Made Of?,” still agreeing with Bob Justman that the script needed a “dialogue re-write by someone else.” He therefore offered the “Little Girls” job to George Clayton Johnson, the writer of “The Man Trap.”
Johnson recalled, “I was told that I should polish the script and improve the dialogue. So I started going through the Bloch script and, as far as I could see, there was nothing wrong with the dialogue -- it was very effective, it was strong, it was Dashiell Hammett.... So, I said to Gene, ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t do this the way you want to do it, because I would have to really take this thing apart and rebuild it.’ And Gene said, ‘No, no, no.’” (93-1)
Robert Bloch later said, “They called George in, asked him if he could make certain changes in it, and he flatly refused. He said, ‘This is the script, it is cohesive, you can’t tamper with it without absolutely altering everything in the story.�
� He said, ‘Either you want this kind of story or you don’t.’” (18-2)
Johnson added, “As a result, I got a demotion from being part of the team, from doing rewrites and polishes to being pushed back to just an outside writer.” (93-1)
John D.F. Black, too, wanted the script left alone. He later said, “Robert Bloch is a writer with a phenomenal and enormous stature among science fiction writers. I respected him... I don’t think I would have touched it. GR did.” (17-4)
On July 25, just three days before the start of principal photography, Roddenberry turned in his first rewrite, calling it the Final Draft. On the afternoon of July 27, less than a day before filming was to start, he rewrote it again, now as a Revised Final Draft.
Roddenberry later said, “On a television schedule, when you have delivery dates, production dates, air dates, you don’t often get the chance to put anything aside; to sleep on it.... Deadlines are what make you stop. It’s not usually because you say ‘this is as good as it can be.’ It’s because you run out of time.” (145-12)
Among the changes: the further development of the female lead -- Nurse Christine Ducheaux. Majel Barrett had been eyeing this role for some time. Barrett said, “As the series was beginning to get organized, I got to look at all the scripts coming in. One of the first dozen was ‘What Are Little Girls Made Of?’ As I read it, I saw there was a character going out into space to search for her fiancé. By the time I’d finished the script, I was thinking, ‘I can do this. I know I can do this.’ So I went home and immediately bleached my hair. Next morning, I came into Gene’s outer office and waited for him. When he got in, he walked by me, sort of half-smiled and grunted a ‘hello.’ But when he took a second look at me, he said, ‘Majel?! Is that you?!’ I said, ‘Look, Gene, if I can fool you, I can surely fool NBC.’ He said, ‘Yeah, you’re right.’” (10-3)
Roddenberry saw the character of the ship’s nurse as being so selfless, kind and virtuous that she was quite nearly saintly, and he opted for a name change to Christine Chapel, a name play on the Sistine Chapel.
These Are The Voyages, TOS, Season One Page 43
