These Are The Voyages, TOS, Season One

by Cushman, Marc

  McEveety was not blamed for running late. In Justman’s production notes: “Too much material in script -- should have been trimmed.” In other words, Gene Roddenberry was exhausted.

  Post-Production

  August 18 through October 24, 1966. Music score: Tracked.

  Bruce Schoengarth and Editing Team #2 did the cutting. This was their third episode, following “Mudd’s Women” and “The Naked Time.”

  Editor Bruce Schoengarth with Marianna Hill (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)

  Alexander Courage received credit for the score, even though no original music was written. For the first time in the series, the 50 minutes of edited film was augmented with “tracked music,” combining various portions of scores for previous segments mixed with unused tracks by the various composers.

  Music Editor Robert Raff said, “Gene Roddenberry and Robert Justman would sit in the projection room and ask me if we had material that would cover each episode. Looking at the picture we’d ‘spot’ the show each week. Gene was usually too busy, as I recall, so it was mostly Bob Justman and myself. The head of our music department would sit in, and the decision would be made whether we would track the show or score it.” (143a)

  When all the minutes of music were added up, Courage had composed the majority of the recycled score, constituting 51% or more, earning him the screen credit.

  This was the third episode to feature optical effects supplied by the Westheimer Company. They were few and far between, since all shots of the Enterprise were harvested from the growing stockpile. And this was the final episode to feature Gene Roddenberry’s name in the end credits as the sole producer. Another Gene, this one surnamed Coon, was already moving his personal items into one of the Star Trek offices.

  By leveraging leftover sets from the previous episode and minimizing the need for optical effects, the tab for “Dagger of the Mind” was $182,140, several thousand dollars under the studio-mandated per-episode budget of $193,500.

  Release / Reaction

  Only NBC air date: 11/3/66.

  RATINGS / Nielsen Trendex report for Thursday, November 3, 1966:

  Star Trek won its time slot by a wide margin in the first Nielsen report based on a phone survey in numerous metropolitan areas.

  A second report from Nielsen, after a more detailed study of rural areas across America, shifted the numbers in favor of the tastes of people living in smaller towns, putting Star Trek in a tie with My Three Sons, at No. 2, for the 8:30 to 9 p.m. spot.

  RATINGS / Nielsen 30-Market report for Thursday, November 3, 1966:

  The movie on CBS this night was Sidney Lumet’s 1964 thriller Fail-Safe, starring Henry Fonda and Walter Matthau.

  The shift in rankings makes it clear that those who lived in cities in the mid-1960s had a different perspective on the popularity of Star Trek than those in smaller communities; Star Trek was often the ratings-leader in major metropolitan areas.

  Grace Lee Whitney said: “The hardest thing was to watch somebody else say my lines.” (Courtesy Gerald Gurian)

  Among those watching Star Trek in the cities was Morgan Woodward. He said, “When it first aired, I was watching and thought maybe I’d overdone it a bit. I’d done so many westerns and played so many villains, but never anything quite like this. Then my agent called and said, ‘I didn’t know you could do that!’ I said, ‘Well, I’ve been with you a few years, maybe you should pay more attention.’ Vincent approved of everything I did and Gene Roddenberry liked it so much he nominated me for an Emmy with that performance. So I suppose my instincts were right in the first place.” (192-3)

  Grace Lee Whitney, who had read the Yellow Cover Draft of the script (which still included Yeoman Rand), and had been looking forward to filming this episode, remembered seeing the only network airing of “Dagger of the Mind.” She said, “The hardest thing was to watch somebody else say my lines.” (183-4)

  “Dagger” was skipped over for a repeat showing on NBC.

  From the Mailbag

  Received shortly after the first broadcast:

  Dear Mr. Roddenberry: I know many Star Trek fans have probably asked about this but please make one exception. I would like to, along with two friends of mine who are just as crazy to be able to visit the set of Star Trek on a day of shooting, visit and be able to meet the cast and crew of the show! I know on a shooting day this is virtually impossible -- but I am a “fledgling” writer and I specialize in Science Fiction and am intrigued by your creation. Also, when it comes to Star Trek, boy do I get involved in the show. Mr. Shatner -- man am I crazy about him. I would like to meet you, Shatner, Nimoy -- I love his ears -and see the set and meet others. Maybe you might even bother with letting me and my friends have lunch with the “stars” of the program. Please help me -I’ve just got to see the set and I need help in writing sci-fiction!... Please let me know -- I’d really like to spend the day there and I wouldn’t get in your way if I have a chair to sit in during the shooting. Thank you. Miss Gayle-Lynn G. (Sherman Oaks, California)

  Memories

  Despite the gut-wrenching performance he got from his friend Morgan Woodward, director McEveety said, “I don’t remember liking that show a hell of a lot.” (117-4)

  In 2013, Woodward said, “My mind was made a vacuum by that Neural Neutralizer and I’ve never recovered.” (192-3)

  Aftermath

  The 1998 South Park episode “Roger Ebert Should Lay Off the Fatty Foods” spoofed this episode. On a field trip to the local planetarium, the South Park kids are certain they will hate the experience until they watch the “star show.” Suddenly they become planetarium enthusiasts, returning often and even volunteering to work there. The reason: The director of the planetarium -- Dr. Adams -- is brainwashing them with the star projector. School counselor Mr. Mackey (think McCoy) uses an ancient school counselor technique called a “mind meld” on a kid named Van Gelder, who had escaped from Dr. Adams. In a climactic showdown at the planetarium, the star projector is knocked over, resulting in Dr. Adams receiving a full blast of the mind controlling machine. With no one around to talk him through it, the evil doctor becomes a mindless shell.

  17

  Enter Gene L. Coon / “Miri”

  Gene L. Coon, writer/producer

  “It is just impossible for one person to produce, write, and look over a show so extraordinarily complex as Star Trek,” Roddenberry said. “What I became during the first half of the first year was full-time script rewriter, and you just cannot do that and, in addition, fulfill all producer functions.” (145-9)

  Roddenberry first called James Goldstone, director of “Where No Man Has Gone Before” and “What Are Little Girls Made Of?,” who said, “Gene asked me if I would produce the series. I said, ‘Gene, if I produced it, I’d have to watch it.’” (75-2)

  The next invitation went to Sam Peeples, writer of “Where No Man Has Gone Before” and producer of the western series Overland Trail and The Tall Man, who later said, “I had to decline. I had two series of my own [in development] at 20th Century Fox --Custer and Lancer -- so there was no way I could work with Gene.” (136-3)

  The third call went to Fred Freiberger. In Roddenberry’s opinion, Freiberger had found the right mix for The Wild, Wild West one year earlier -- part western, part spy show and part science fiction. Freiberger later said, “I was going to Europe and I didn’t want to cancel my trip. I told Gene that if the job was still available when I got back, in about six weeks, I’d love to do it. Well, it wasn’t available.” (68-4)

  The fourth call went to another veteran of The Wild, Wild West. Robert Justman said, “Gene was fatigued and so was I. We both nearly didn’t make it through the first season because of overwork. We were at our wit’s end.... Honestly speaking, Gene Roddenberry would have died if he didn’t have Gene Coon to do this.” (94-7)

  Gene L. Coon was born in Beatrice, Nebraska on January 7, 1924. After the family moved to Los Angeles, he attended Glendale Community College. In 1942, he enlisted in the Unite
d States Marine Corps and saw combat in the Pacific, then, after the war, he was stationed in occupied Japan and in China. Following his four-year hitch, Coon became a radio newsman and then a freelance writer, eventually relocating back to Los Angeles.

  One of Coon’s first credits as a screenwriter was 1957's Man in the Shadows, a contemporary western that starred Jeff Chandler and Orson Welles. That same year, he started writing for television with the Disney series Zorro. Script assignments soon followed for Mr. Lucky, Bonanza, Wagon Train, and countless others.

  A prolific writer, Coon also squeezed in a couple of novels – 1962’s Meanwhile Back at the Front and 1964’s The Short End (of the Stick), both dealing with the Korean War. Of the former, The Los Angeles Herald-Examiner raved, “First to give the Korean conflict the light touch [and] does so delightfully.” The Hollywood Reporter felt it was “amply loaded with [enough] material for a hilarious motion picture.” The American News said, “Author Coon has the best comic style since Hargrove.” Marion Hargrove was well known for his popular humorous account of World War II, See Here, Private Hargrove. And The New York Herald-Tribune said:

  Gene Coon has everything going for him. Happily, he has sweetened his odds with the insight to recognize what was really going on, and the wit to express it pungently.

  Coon also had a hand in the development of two hit series. The first was McHale’s Navy, which was planned as a one-hour drama by Revue studios (soon to merge with Universal). The studio liked the concept but not the script. Coon had the idea to retool the show as a half-hour comedy. He was given credit for writing the pilot script and a second episode, but not for creating the series. The title and the general concept, although in a much different form, had already been in place, so that credit went to someone else.

  When it premiered in October 1962, McHale’s Navy was not only a hit in the ratings but with the critics. Daily Variety called it “an uproariously, zany, broad comedy with overtones of Sgt. Bilko.” The trade’s critic further noted:

  Gene L. Coon’s sparkling teleplay provides a constant half-hour of laughs, not only in the situations but with its dialog which is far better than average.

  The second series was also for Universal/Revue, designed to exploit the studio’s Frankenstein movies by merging them with an unlikely source, another studio property, the long-running wholesome sitcom The Donna Reed Show. This outrageous idea was Coon’s all the way, but his script was handed over to Bob Mosher and Joe Connelly, who had great success producing Leave It to Beaver for the studio. This time it was Coon’s concept that got retooled and The Munsters was born. Coon was paid off and Mosher and Connelly took the “Created by” credit. Coon didn’t seem terribly bothered. His passion was for writing, not producing.

  “He loved to write,” Coon’s second wife Jackie Fernandez said. “He bounced out of bed in the morning at five or six o’clock, went straight to the writing room with his old beat up typewriter, and the cigarettes and pipes, and he just wrote his brains out until about 1:00. When he stopped, then our life took off. We just had fun for the rest of the day. I never once heard him complain about writing. It would have been unthinkable for him to be anything else but a writer.” (60)

  The studio did owe Coon a shot at producing, however, and assigned him to the 1964 midseason replacement series Destry, a one-hour western. When Destry failed to find an audience, Coon was imported to CBS to take the reins on its network-owned western-fantasy The Wild, Wild West, where he finished out the first season before being lured away from TV to write a pair of scripts for the big screen. One was for Warner Brothers -- First to Fight, about U.S. Marines in World War II -- and the other for Universal -- The Killers, where hit men played by Lee Marvin and Clu Gulager go gunning for Ronald Reagan, in his last film.

  Back to working in television, the ever-prolific Coon tackled 11 script assignments in less than two years. These included a blending of comedy and science fiction for My Favorite Martian, an episode of The F.B.I., six episodes of the hour-long western Laredo, and three poignant dramas for Combat!, including the gripping two-parter “Hills Are for Heroes,” tautly directed by Leonard Nimoy’s buddy and the series’ star Vic Morrow.

  “Coon was a sensitive, kind man -- once you got to know him well,” Leonard Nimoy said. “But on the surface, he came across as a crusty James Cagney/Spencer Tracy type, the sort of guy you’d see cast as the tough 1940s newspaper editor.” (128-3)

  Robert Justman believed that Coon, based on appearance alone, would have made perfect casting for “the cold, cruel banker who forecloses on the widow’s mortgage.” From that first impression, Justman’s gut feeling was not to like his new boss, something which early Justman-to-Coon memos indicate. But it didn’t take long for that to change. Justman later admitted, “When I saw what he could write, I practically fell in love with the guy.” (94-4)

  John D.F. Black, whom Coon was to replace on Star Trek, only saw the “cold, cruel banker” side of the series’ new “show runner.” He said, “When I made it clear -- or when Mary and I made it clear -- that we were leaving, that’s when Gene Coon was hired. He came in about three or four days before I left and I’m very glad he came in that late, because I really couldn’t have handled him for two weeks.” (17)

  Concerning the changing of the guard, Mary Black added, “Gene Coon was clearly not burdened by undue sentimentality about the whole situation.” (17a)

  Dorothy Fontana saw a different Gene Coon entirely, saying, “Gene, no pun, was probably one of the most genial men I’ve ever met. He was rarely without a smile. I think he was just happy to have survived the Marines.” (64-2)

  Coon began as producer of Star Trek on August 8, 1966. His first task was to take over the rewriting of a script Roddenberry had approved and had since been struggling with.

  Kim Darby with Shatner, NBC publicity photo (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)

  ***

  Episode 11: Miri

  Written by Adrian Spies (with John D.F. Black & Gene L. Coon, uncredited) Directed by Vincent McEveety

  NBC’s October 4, 1966, press release:

  The USS Enterprise discovers another “Earth” whose childlike inhabitants are victims of an abortive experiment to retard normal aging processes, in “Miri” on NBC Television Network’s colorcast of Star Trek.... Captain James Kirk (William Shatner), Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) head a landing party to an uncharted planet, with the physical characteristics bearing an incredible resemblance to the Earth. They befriend Miri (Kim Darby), a disheveled and frightened young girl whose story of the failure of a mass youth experiment is questioned until their own lives are imperiled when they lose communication with the hovering spacecraft.

  Miri, nearing puberty, soon develops a crush on Captain Kirk. She’ll have her first love close at hand, for a short while anyway -- Kirk and his landing team cannot return to the ship; they are showing symptoms of having contracted the same infection that was responsible for eliminating the entire adult population of the planet.

  As in Lord of the Flies, this episode takes a disturbing look at a culture run by children. The themes deal with modern society’s obsession with youth and the inherent dangers in man’s attempts to alter the forces of nature.

  SOUND BITES

  - Yeoman Janice Rand: “Eternal childhood, filled with play, no responsibility. It’s almost like a dream.” Kirk: “I wouldn’t examine that dream too closely, Yeoman. It might not turn out to be very pretty.”

  - Janice Rand, disfigured by the disease: “Back on the ship I used to try to get you to look at my legs. Captain, look at my legs!”

  - Kirk, to the children: “This is no game! The food is going! The time is going! There won’t be anything left... not even you. Look at each other! Look at the blood on your hands! Is that what you want to be?”

  ASSESSMENT

  This was the second time members of the Enterprise crew were infected with a disease, the first being “The Naked Time.” This time the diseas
e lets us examine the price of humans attempting to prolong or drastically alter their lives. Even in the 1966 world, the scientific and medical communities were experimenting with cloning and the development of life-altering drugs. America, as with most Western cultures, had become youth-crazed. The divisions between the generations -- “the generation gap” -- seemed to be ripping America apart. “Miri,” with its “Onlies” and “Grups,” was another Swiftian way to place a lens on the changing times.

  There are flaws. The chants of the kids, especially that “blah, blah, blah” business, becomes annoying; the blotches that vanish from McCoy’s face -- although not a bad effect for the time -- could have been made to diminish more believably; and the parallel world the Enterprise encounters, that “another Earth,” should have clouds in its atmosphere.

  These points aside, “Miri” is entertaining and dramatically effective, with an intense and highly personal drama -- for Kirk, Rand, McCoy and, especially, Miri.

  THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY

  Script Timeline

  Adrian Spies’ Story Outline, ST #12: March 11, 1966.

  Spies revised story outlines, gratis: April 5 & 11, 1966.

  Staff polish of story outline: April 16, 1966.

  Spies’ 1st Draft teleplay: May 12, 1966.

  Spies’ rewrite, gratis (Revised 1st Draft teleplay): May 16, 1966.

  Spies 2nd Draft teleplay: June 8, 1966.

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

  August 10, 1966.

  Black’s additional script polish (Final Draft teleplay): August 12, 1966.

  Gene Coon’s rewrite (Revised Final Draft teleplay): August 16, 1966.