These Are The Voyages, TOS, Season One

by Cushman, Marc

  By the time “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” was delivered to NBC, $211,061 had been spent. Three other episodes during this first season would cost more. “Balance of Terror,” due to all the optical effects needed, was one. The others, to Bob Justman’s horror, were yet to come. The first season deficit was now up to $19,432.

  Release / Reaction

  Premiere air date: 10/20/66. NBC repeat broadcast: 12/22/66.

  RATINGS / Nielsen 30-Market report for Thursday, October 20, 1966:

  At 8:30 p.m., ABC had the top spot with The Dating Game. The No. 2 position was too close to call with My Three Sons only a fraction of a ratings point above Star Trek. At 9 p.m., the situation reversed, with Star Trek besting the competition on CBS by an equally small margin and taking second place. The movie on CBS was the TV premiere of the 1960 drama The Rat Race, starring Tony Curtis and Debbie Reynolds.

  From the Mailbox

  Knowing that Roddenberry loved to tinker (in post-production as much as he did with the scripts), and aware of how desperately behind Star Trek was with its deliveries to NBC, Robert Justman sent his boss one last memo concerning this episode, on September 28, as he left for a short and well-deserved studio-mandated vacation to Hawaii. “RJ” wrote:

  Dear Gene: It is our intention to dub “Little Girls” next Monday, October 3, 1966. It is my intention that either you or Eddie Milkis should sit in on this dub. Please dub quickly and be willing to compromise. Hopefully, you will get this memo after I have left, so that no matter how mad you get at me for suggesting that you compromise more, you won’t be able to do anything about it. Don’t send me nasty wires. Remember, at this point in your career, you need me more than I need you. (RJ9-5)

  Memories

  Sherry Jackson fondly said, “Shatner was his sexy, charming self. If you’ll notice when you’re watching, when he’s kissing me, and when we pull apart, not only is my lipstick off but my lips are swollen. He really kissed me!” (90)

  16

  Episode 10: DAGGER OF THE MIND

  Written by Shimon Wincelberg (as S. Bar-David)

  (with Gene Roddenberry, uncredited)

  Directed by Vincent McEveety

  Marianna Hill as Dr. Helen Noel in NBC publicity photo (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)

  NBC press release, issued October 17, 1966:

  An escapee from a penal colony on another planet triggers a USS Enterprise investigation of alleged maltreatment of prisoners, in “Dagger of the Mind” on NBC Television Network’s colorcast of Star Trek, Thursday, Nov. 11.... The near-incoherent ramblings of Simon Van Gelder (Morgan Woodward), who secreted himself aboard the Enterprise in a cargo delivery from the prison, cannot be ignored by Captain James Kirk (William Shatner) despite his respect for the noted director of the colony, Dr. Tristan Adams (James Gregory). Accompanied by a medical aide, Dr. Helen Noel (Marianna Hill), Kirk goes inside the prison to learn the truth.

  Once there, Kirk reluctantly begins to suspect that Adams, a renowned expert on the human mind, may have a new agenda of mind-control, which could push his staunch supporters, Kirk included, into madness.

  This episode melds two recurring Star Trek themes: the threat posed by unintended consequences of science and technology and the corruption of power.

  SOUND BITES

  - Mr. Spock: “Interesting. You Earth people glorify organized violence for 40 centuries. But you imprison those who employ it privately.” Dr. McCoy: “And, of course, your people found an answer.” Spock: “We disposed with emotion, Doctor. Where there is no emotion, there is no motive for violence.”

  - Simon Van Gelder: “I want asylum.” Kirk: “At gunpoint?”

  - Dr. Adams: “May we never find space so vast, planets so cold, heart and mind so empty that we cannot fill them with love and warmth.”

  - Kirk, to Dr. Adams: “One of the advantages of being a captain, Doctor, is being able to ask for advice without necessarily having to take it.”

  - McCoy: “It’s hard to believe that a man could die of loneliness.” Kirk: “Not when you’ve sat in that room.”

  ASSESSMENT

  “Dagger of the Mind” gives us a first look at the Vulcan mind-meld, which, like the Spock Neck Pinch, went on to become a fixture of the series.

  While this may not make many fan’s Top 10 lists of favorite Star Trek episodes, it is nonetheless well crafted, entertaining and delivers a thought-provoking statement at its conclusion regarding intolerable solitude. Adams is found dead, a classic depiction of the mad scientist who falls into his own torture machine. Dr. Helen Noel says, “The machine wasn’t on high enough to kill.” Having been subjected to Adams’ neural neutralizer, Kirk has the answer. He tells her, “But he was alone. Can you imagine the mind emptied out by that thing... and without even a tormentor for company?”

  THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY

  Script Timeline

  Shimon Wincelberg’s story outline, ST #5: Mid March 1966.

  Wincelberg’s revised story outlines, gratis: March 30, 1966.

  Wincelberg’s 2nd Revised Story Outline, gratis: April 25, 1966.

  Wincelberg’s 3rd Revised Story Outline, gratis: May 2, 1966.

  Wincelberg’s 4th Revised Story Outline, gratis: May 9, 1966.

  Wincelberg’s 1st Draft teleplay: Early June 1966.

  Wincelberg’s 2nd Draft teleplay: June 23, 1966.

  Wincelberg’s script polish, gratis (Revised 2nd Draft): June 27, 1966.

  John D.F. Black’s polish (Mimeo Department “Yellow Cover 1st Draft”):

  July 6, 1966.

  Gene Roddenberry’s rewrite (“Yellow Cover Revised 1st Draft”): July 22, 1966.

  Additional page revisions by Roddenberry: July 30, 1966.

  Roddenberry’s second rewrite (Final Draft teleplay): July 31, 1966.

  Additional page revisions by Roddenberry: August 2, 1966.

  Roddenberry’s third rewrite (Revised Final Draft teleplay): August 5, 1966.

  Additional page revisions by Roddenberry: August 6, 8 & 9, 1966.

  Shimon Wincelberg, 42, was a veteran of dozens of television series. He also wrote for the stage. One of his plays, Kataki, received rave reviews upon its opening in 1959. The New York Daily News called it “a powerful suspense play scented strongly with the sweet smell of success.” Time magazine said that it “ticks with time-bomb suspense.” And Radie Harris, in The Hollywood Reporter, wrote, “Hats off... to playwright Shimon Wincelberg.”

  Wincelberg was one of producer Irwin Allen’s favorite TV scribes. He wrote “Jonah and the Whale,” the second season kick-off episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and could have been considered co-creator of Lost in Space had Allen wanted to share credit. Wincelberg wrote the pilot, which later had additional subplots added in and was expanded into five hour-long episodes launching and crash-landing the Jupiter II. He also wrote two additional early and formative episodes. Roddenberry knew him from Have Gun -- Will Travel where Wincelberg wrote nearly as many episodes as the former did. Roddenberry’s tally was 24; Wincelberg: 22.

  Wincelberg dropped by for the third screening of “Where No Man Has Gone Before” at Desilu on March 9 and was impressed. He was immediately invited to a pitch meeting. He remembered, “While I was waiting to meet Gene, his secretary [Dorothy Fontana] mentioned that some agents had the nerve to suggest writers who had worked for Lost in Space!” (186)

  Roddenberry, desperate for writers who understood the needs of TV as well as science fiction, took Wincelberg’s pitch, despite the Lost in Space connection. He liked the irony of a healer of mental illness becoming the transmitter of mental illness in his own right, through mind-control and psychological torture, and put Wincelberg on assignment. In fact, ST-5, “Dagger of the Mind,” was the first story assigned after Star Trek emerged out of pilot mode. (The writing of “The Cage,” “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” “The Omega Glory” and “Mudd’s Women” had all begun before the series was green-lighted.)

  Wincelberg amused himself
in coming up with the names for his characters. In his story outline, the head of the penal colony is Dr. Asgard. In Norse religion, Asgard translates to “enclosure of the gods” and was a place surrounded by walls where the gods lived. Dr. Asgard certainly thinks of himself as godlike, and he lives in a prison. One of the “reformed” inmates on Tantalus is named Lethe. She has clearly had her mind conditioned and selected memories suppressed by the not-so-good doctor’s brain probe. In Greek mythology, Lethe is the “river of forgetfulness,” one of the seven rivers that run through Hades.

  Even the name of the penal colony has meaning. Again, the origin can be found in Greek mythology --Tantalus was the son of Zeus who, condemned for his crimes, was made to rule in the deepest part of the underworld, a place reserved for evildoers. Dr. Asgard, feeling unappreciated, believes he too has been condemned, and he rules in an underworld of his own making -- a mad house deep below the surface of Tantalus V.

  The character name Simon Van Gelder had significance, as well. Shimon Wincelberg’s daughter, author Bryna Kranzler, said, “Later on in his career, [my father] was somewhat less diplomatic, using a pseudonym for his work as well as naming villains in scripts after people who had pissed him off (though Dr. Van Gelder in ‘Dagger of the Mind’ was named after a family friend who told me at my father's funeral how honored he had been to have had his name be used for a character in the show. [My father] also had a murder committed, in another show, on Bryna Avenue, so that the studio would have to produce the street sign that I then got to keep. But his naming of villains didn't endear him to a lot of people in Hollywood.” (103b)

  Wincelberg also put great thought into the title he chose. “Dagger of the Mind” is from Macbeth. In Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth is preparing to murder his king’s children and thinks he sees a dagger in his hand then realizes it is only a figment of his imagination. His soliloquy, in part, reads: “Is this a dagger which I see before me?... I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible to feeling as to sight? Or art thou but a dagger of the mind, a false creation proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?”

  The neural neutralizer is used to repress thoughts in the brains of its subjects, creating daggers in their minds and inflicting unbearable pain. The characters of Shakespeare are filled with self-torture, and so are those subjects of Dr. Asgard. This includes Kirk and his companion on the trip to the colony who, at this early stage in the development of the story, was Yeoman Janice Rand.

  The story outline process was a long one. Wincelberg was paid for his first draft, then delivered four more drafts between late March and early May 1966 for no additional pay. Of the second try, Robert Justman wrote Roddenberry:

  I feel a tremendous discomfort trying to analyze this story outline. I think I’m being defeated by the mass of special effect type devices which may be cluttering up my understanding of the storyline. Now, if I’m getting cluttered up, perhaps others would too. Perhaps Shimon has let the science fiction technical aspects of Star Trek, or what he perhaps conceives to be Star Trek, supersede the value of straight dramatic instruction which he does so well. I don’t think that we’re out to do “astounding science fiction” tales -- we’re not a science fiction pulp magazine type show. (RJ10-1)

  Indeed, Wincelberg’s initial approach to the story had far greater science fiction flavor and certainly more sci-fi gimmicks than later versions. For instance, hypnosis is not used to access Van Gelder’s inhibited mind as in later drafts, but instead the story outline calls for a “truth beam” device. Another device allows Asgard to look in on nightmarish things the inmates see in their “heat-oppressed minds,” through a series of moving “pictures.” One such picture brings to life the image of a girl about to be ravished by a monster.

  Roddenberry sent Wincelberg a letter, telling him:

  The story needs simplification and straight-lining our pivotal character Asgard -he, his past, his motivations, etc., must be built to be much stronger and more vividly believable.... There is no possible way to do this tale as presently indicated without going much over budget…. Suggestion -- eliminate practically all the special devices, except for a very simplified kind of “dagger of the mind” room in which we get our dramatic effect not out of strange devices so much as out of what they do to the characters in the room. (GR10-1)

  Wincelberg ended up delivering four free rewrites of his story outline before Roddenberry felt that it -- that fifth draft -- was good enough to show to NBC. Of this, the network’s Stan Robertson commented:

  In this storyline and in others received to date, it appears that we are leaning in a direction which could prove to give our stories a sameness which none of us want. One point is that possibly we are allowing too many of our “heavies” to fall into the area of “mad scientists,” or those egomaniacs who seek to create a world to their own liking and tastes. It appears, at least from here, that these are the “expected heavies” one envisions when thinking of science fiction. Let’s not fall into that trap! We’ll leave that to those who have neither the originality nor the talents of you and your people. (SR10-1)

  Robertson had just finished reading another Star Trek story with another mad scientist type -- Dr. Korby in “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” and, to a lesser degree, Professor Crater in “The Man Trap.”

  Robertson added:

  Another point is that we seem to be allowing a number of our stories to fall into the broad general realm in which things happen in the mind or the mental powers of our heroes, or their antagonists. This, too, seems to be one of the accepted devices of science fiction which may be overworked. (SR10-1)

  Overall Robertson liked the story and approved having Wincelberg proceed to script.

  Wincelberg’s first draft teleplay hit the Star Trek offices in early June. Bob Justman sent Roddenberry a four-page memo dissecting the story, its plot points and character turns. After listing all that irked him -- and there was much -- Justman concluded:

  I’m sorry, Gene, but I detest most of the dialogue in this script and I find it difficult not to get very upset by it.... I know there is a germ of a good idea in this story. But that’s all I feel we have with this screenplay. Just a germ of a good idea.... Please count to ten before you scream and come running in to disembowel me. I’m just a poor honest Associate Producer, and I call ‘em as I see ‘em. (RJ10-2)

  Mary Stilwell, working as John D.F. Black’s assistant (and later to become Mrs. John Black), had also given script notes. She recalled, “I read Shimon Wincelberg’s first draft, and I wrote up my comments, and it wasn’t unusual for my comments to be a bit smart assed, indicating actual stuff that needed addressing but having a good time with it. Why not? They weren’t meant for the writer to see – or anyone else, for that matter – only for John to see. One of the things I remember with my comments had to do with this character that had snuck on board the Enterprise and, after being captured, he was trying to kill himself by swallowing his own tongue. My comment was, ‘I have been sitting here for the last ten minutes trying to swallow my own tongue, and it can’t be done.’ And that was the tone of practically everything I’d written with my notes. The meat of it was valid, but I didn’t do it with a great deal of reverence.

  “John was under time pressure and he said, ‘I really haven’t had time to read your notes; I’ll look them over while in the meeting.’ And he went into GR’s office where Shimon Wincelberg was meeting with Gene.” (17a)

  John Black said, “Within a couple minutes of being in there, GR announces that he has to leave to go to a network meeting and he says, ‘Ah what the hell, here’s John’s notes,’ and he takes them out of my hand and passes them to Shimon Wincelberg.” (17)

  Mary Black said, “And Wincelberg took it in such good part. He sent a note, saying, ‘You have a special capacity, John, for being brutal yet kind.’ His response was so gentlemanlike and classy; I have to assume that he recognized that the notes respected the material even though they were flippant. I�
��ve had a handful of moments where I really was thrilled by the grace of someone in the business, and that was certainly one of them.” 917a)

  John Black added, “He came into my office later and thanked me for being that frank and that honest. He told me I was right and went home to rewrite the story. Now that’s not only a gentleman but that’s an honest and dedicated writer.” (17-4)

  Wincelberg’s freebie Revised First Draft was delivered in early June. More notes came from all involved. Justman, regarding only one of more than a few dozen areas of contention, wrote:

  Say that’s a pretty clever routine with the junction box on here…. Too bad that when Janice drops the piece of conduit across the power lines, only a few drops of metal are left. Janice is also an extremely capable character with her judo twists and quick-thinking. (RJ10-3)

  At this stage in the script development, it was still Yeoman Janice Rand who accompanied Kirk to the penal colony.

  Wincelberg turned in a 2nd Draft (June 23) and then a Revised 2nd Draft (June 27) before being told he had satisfactorily fulfilled his contract and was thereby given his final pay.

  The script was still not considered good enough for NBC’s eyes, however, and John D.F. Black did a polish -- the Yellow Cover First Draft version dated July 6 -- before sending it to the network.

  NBC Broadcast Standards responded. Among the changes requested:

  Please try to find some other way for Van Gelder to subdue the crewman since the knee in the face would be considered brutal.... McCoy’s injection of Van Gelder must not be shown on camera if a needle-type hypodermic is used.... Please delete the underlined in Janice’s speech: “I’m a damned attractive female.” (BS10-2)

  Rodenberry did a rewrite of his own on July 22 -- his being designated as the Yellow Cover Revised 1st Draft. For this, the knee in the face was changed to a judo chop on the back of the neck. The injection was administered by McCoy’s air-hypo. And Janice Rand’s line about being a damn attractive female was stricken. Janice Rand was stricken as well and replaced by Dr. Helen Noel, a member of McCoy’s medical staff.