From the Mailbag
Received the week after “The Conscience of the King” aired on NBC:
Dear Mr. Roddenberry... As the man who brought [Star Trek] to reality, I think you deserve some well-earned praise. The writers are also doing a grand job. Each new episode somehow seems to surpass the previous one. I sit spell-bound from start to finish…. Whoever did the casting must have had a touch of genius; the actors are so right for their roles. Shatner, for his apt and very warm and human portrayal of Kirk; Nimoy, for his absolute touch of magic with Mr. Spock, an enigmatic alien from a culture that surpasses our own understanding. I dare say that Spock is one of the most well discussed characters ever to cross the TV screen. Somehow, with whoever I talk to, Star Trek comes up, and Mr. Spock provides some very interesting and speculative discussion. The character of Dr. McCoy is aptly done by Mr. Kelley, and I really enjoy the choice interplay of words that occur between him and Spock…. The crew of the Enterprise, comprised of all the nations and races of Earth working together in a joint effort, provides hope for the future of mankind. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be alive when these “fiction” stories of today become tomorrow’s truths. Cheryl N. (Spokane, Washington, December 12, 1966).
Dear Mr. Roddenberry... It is very evident that Star Trek is a labor of love. From the first episode the show has always been intelligently written, competently directed and well acted. I don’t think such a standard could be maintained unless everyone connected with Star Trek cared very much about putting out the best effort. I hope that Star Trek wins the Emmy it deserves…. I enjoyed “The Conscience of the King”; it was nice to see Lt. Riley again. The previews for next week’s show [“Balance of Terror”] were very interesting and I am looking forward to it. Sincerely yours. Mrs. Kay A. (Albuquerque, N.M., December 13, 1966).
Memories
Arnold Moss enjoyed playing Anton Karidian. He felt the episode was “well-written” and “beautifully directed.” He also found it to be “credible.” He said, “In a thing like Star Trek, where the whole premise is incredible, you must have something that’s believable. Everything there was quite believable.” (121)
Of her screen father, Barbara Anderson said, “Arnold Moss was a very lovely man. Came on and did his part, and he was such an important Shakespearean actor. He was just very nice with me; treated me very well.” (1)
Director Oswald was fond of this episode as well, and the script that it grew from. He said, “The first one I did I liked very much. A very intriguing idea. A good story.” (134)
The ghost of Lenore Karidian followed Barbara Anderson off the Star Trek set. Interviewed in 2013, Anderson explained, “A weird thing happened to me some time back in the 1980s. I was at a cocktail party and a man came up behind me and whispered, ‘Hello, Lenore.’ I turned around, but I had forgotten my character’s name, and I said, ‘I beg your pardon.’ He said, ‘Lenore Karidian. Star Trek.’ And I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, this is weird.’ But he meant it as a lovely, sweet thing. He was a fan. You know, you go on and you forget your character’s names, and you forget those lines, but over the years that show has been the thing people remember. I’m still receiving a ton of email, especially for Star Trek, and I don’t know where it’s showing, but they are writing in greater volume than usual, and it’s surprising. I’ve moved enough to where I wouldn’t expect people to know how to find me, so it’s interesting that all these emails are now arriving. They send letters and photos for me to sign with return envelopes, and it’s really very nice.” (1)
21
Episode 14: THE GALILEO SEVEN
Teleplay by Oliver Crawford and Shimon Wincelberg (as S. Bar-David)
(with Gene L. Coon, uncredited)
Story by Oliver Crawford
Directed by Robert Gist
NBC publicity photo (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)
NBC press release, December 20, 1966:
The severely damaged shuttlecraft from the USS Enterprise threatens to become a tomb for its trapped crew after it crashes on a planet and loses contact with its mother ship, in “The Galileo Seven” on NBC Television Network’s colorcast of Star Trek Jan. 5, 1967.... Marooned and under attack by ape-like creatures, a landing party with Dr. [sic] Spock (Leonard Nimoy) in charge faces imminent death when all communications are cut off. Meanwhile, in the orbiting Enterprise, Captain Kirk (William Shatner) must decide whether to continue the search or abandon his men to deliver emergency medical supplies to a plague-ridden planet some distance away.
Kirk’s efforts to locate his missing shipmates have been hampered by a stellar occurrence in the region where the shuttlecraft Galileo was lost. The ship’s sensory equipment is barely functioning. Adding to Kirk’s dilemma is High Commissioner Ferris, traveling on the Enterprise with orders that the ship must soon leave the area.
Meanwhile, damage to the Galileo and limited fuel reserves have Spock calculating that two of the seven survivors must stay behind, facing almost certain death.
There are three layers of conflict here: Man versus Beast, Man versus Man, and Man versus Himself. As with “The Enemy Within,” this is an examination of the requirements of command, with a look at the two sides of the human personality. This time, however, the case study is the hybrid half-human/half-Vulcan Mr. Spock.
SOUND BITES
- McCoy: “Mister Spock, life and death are seldom logical.” Spock: “But attaining a desired goal always is, Doctor.”
- Lt. Boma, about Spock: “Some minor damage was overlooked when they put his head together.” Dr. McCoy: “Not his head, Mr. Boma. His heart.”
- Spock: “Strange. Step by step I have done the correct and logical thing ... and yet ... I seem to have miscalculated regarding them [and] inculcated resentment on your part. Impossible. The sum of the parts cannot be greater than the whole…. I may have been mistaken.” McCoy: “Well, at least I lived long enough to hear that.”
ASSESSMENT
“The Galileo Seven” provides an important stepping stone in the development and understanding of the character of Spock. The story is rich with conflict and filled with thrills and chills. There is even an analogy incorporated into the script for the benefit of Americans in 1967 (when this episode first aired) who didn’t understand how a small and somewhat primitive nation like North Vietnam was holding its own against the might of the combined United States Armed Forces. Or, for that matter, why the North Vietnamese would even choose to continue to fight. Spock says, “When we demonstrated our superior weapons, by all accounts they should have fled.” McCoy responds: “You mean they should have respected us?... Mr. Spock, respect is a rational process. Didn’t it ever occur to you that they might react emotionally? With anger?”
Despite what works, the script has moments of being heavy-handed and much of the head-butting between the players is redundant -- Commissioner Ferris is a one-note character and the conflict on Kirk’s bridge suffers from even more repetitiveness than the point-counterpoint debates in and around Spock’s shuttlecraft.
As for the production, director Robert Gist guided the inconsistent material with an uneven hand. Some moments, and some camera shots, are inspired. However, watching the oversized spears clumsily heaved into the air, clearly by normal-size stage hands and not by giants, then falling yards shy from their targets, prompts snickers, not worry; the angling of the camera for the moment when the huge beast engulfs Gaetano’s body only shows the creature to be smaller than otherwise depicted; and, perhaps worst of all, the papier-mâché boulder that pins Spock’s leg appears to weigh half a pound.
When filming ended, the problems continued. The opticals were demanding and the end results added to the unevenness of the episode. Film Effects of Hollywood, which fared better with “Balance of Terror,” struggled here. Many shots don’t match the requirements of the script; for example, stars are actually seen flying past the Enterprise as it supposedly orbits the planet. Worse, at one point the stars are seen moving through the planet itself.
“The Galileo Seven” reached for the sky, but fell short on both budget and time needed to make it right. Regardless, even a flawed episode of the first Star Trek makes for superior TV. This one is worth a viewing … perhaps two.
THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY
Script Timeline
Oliver Crawford’s story outline, ST #16: April 1, 1966.
Crawford’s revised story outline, gratis: April 7, 1966.
Crawford’s 1st Draft teleplay: April 25, 1966.
Crawford’s 2nd Draft teleplay: May 23, 1966.
Shimon Wincelberg’s rewrite (Revised Draft): August 18, 1966.
Steven Carabatsos polish (Mimeo Department Yellow Cover 1st Draft): September 1, 1966.
Gene Coon’s rewrite (Yellow Cover Rev. 1st Draft): September 13, 1966.
Coon’s second rewrite (Final Draft teleplay): September 15, 1966.
Additional page revisions by Coon: September 20, 22 & 27, 1966.
Oliver Crawford, with quite a bit of rewriting by others, provided the script. The former blacklisted writer, a victim of the 1950s Red Scare, had written for The Wild, Wild West, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and The Outer Limits.
Crawford sold Roddenberry on the idea of doing a science fiction version of Five Came Back, a 1939 movie co-starring Lucille Ball in a rare dramatic role. For that film, a transatlantic flight is blown off course in a storm then crash-lands in a South American jungle known to be inhabited by headhunters. Repairs are attempted on the plane but, due to a lack of fuel, some of the 12 crash survivors may have to be left behind.
Crawford said, “Most of my approach as a writer had been to look to old movies and say, ‘Gee, this would make a good western or a good detective story.’” (42-2)
Or, in this case, a good science fiction.
Crawford’s first draft outline arrived on April Fools’ Day. The joke didn’t go over so well with Robert Justman. He quickly wrote to Roddenberry, listing the exorbitant costs that a story of this type would require, such as constructing a full size shuttlecraft mock-up (interior and exterior), constructing a shuttlecraft miniature, having the miniature take off from the Enterprise, crash landing on the planet, launching itself back into space, circling the planet, and then crashing again, this time exploding. There was one other thing that would add to the budget. Justman told Roddenberry:
And last but not least, hospital care for Robert H. Justman who will no doubt undergo a nervous breakdown upon completion of a show with this sort of cost involved. (RJ13-1)
But Roddenberry liked the story which, at this point, had Kirk commanding the shuttlecraft and Spock remaining behind on the Enterprise with the ship’s doctor (Dr. Piper, from “Where No Man Has Gone Before”). He wrote back to his associate producer:
This story should work very well -- we don’t have anything else remotely like it so far. I wonder, though, if it might be a little more complicated for Kirk if, instead of one of the yeoman being killed, it’s the engineer. Then the situation is thrown squarely on Kirk’s shoulders. A command pilot would be expected to know some kind of working knowledge of every section of his ship -- including engineering. Therefore, Kirk would have to repair the ship, making his responsibility even greater. (GR13-1)
At this point, in early April, it was Roddenberry’s intention not to have James Doohan (as Engineer Scott) as a regular. Justman relented and wrote Roddenberry:
I would suggest that instead of a foggy turbulence ahead of the Enterprise, there instead be an electro-magnetic disturbance whose dimensions the Enterprise is unable to determine at the present time and therefore sends out the scout craft. Therefore, when the scout craft is caught in the disturbance, it disappears from sight due to the fact that the Enterprise monitors are unable to track it due to interference with its instruments.... After Kirk finds Finney dead with a spear in his back, I think some more spears ought to be thrown in from off stage which force Kirk to rush back to the Galileo with this off-stage menace in close pursuit.... For reasons of economy, we had better not let Galileo crash land again, but instead set up our inter-cutting so that our people are transported out of the patrol craft just before it crashes and are transported, of course, back to the U.S.S. Enterprise. (RJ13-1)
As the “nuts-and-bolts” producer, in charge of realizing the scripted material, not writing it, Justman was not expected to give notes on a creative level. But, as this memo demonstrates -- as do so many others included in these pages -- Justman did make creative contributions. Many.
Crawford incorporated these and other ideas from Justman and Roddenberry into his story. He delivered a free revised story outline on April 7.
Matt Jefferies wrote Roddenberry:
This [shuttlecraft] will require several working weeks to build; the cost of interior and exterior may perhaps be as much as $12,000. (MJ13)
Shuttlecraft design sketches by Matt Jefferies which triggered Bob Justman’s monetary concerns (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)
It would actually be more -- in both time and dollars.
This didn’t seem to matter. NBC’s Stan Robertson was hooked from the start, writing to Roddenberry, “This is the action-adventure type story for which we are aiming.” Robertson saw the potential of the dramatic elements, telling Roddenberry:
The “command decision” of Captain Kirk to “ignite the remaining fuel in a brilliant retro-jet flare up” is a high dramatic point, but one in which it will be vitally important pictorially and audibly to show the weight and seriousness of the decision and the effect it has on Kirk. He took a calculated risk and won, but he could have lost -- his life and those of four subordinates. (SR13-1)
Roddenberry wrote Crawford:
Dear Oliver: NBC was quite delighted with your outline and enthusiastic that you are quickly putting it into script form for us. (GR13-2)
Crawford finished his first draft script on April 25. It took Justman only one day to share his unhappiness, writing John D.F. Black, with a “cc” to Roddenberry:
I don’t think that the interior of the Galileo should show any scorching of friction-generated damage. There might be some showing on the exterior, but certainly not inside. If there was any inside, then our inhabitants would have been incinerated…. I’m beginning to get a little disturbed about the capabilities of the Enterprise. This is not the first script or story in which we have established the fact that the Enterprise is running out of fuel or doesn’t have sufficient power. I mean, what’s the use of sending up an enormous ship like the Enterprise, when we discover that it drains the ship’s power to an enormous extent when we start sending Landing Parties down through the Transporter Mechanism, I would have sent the Enterprise back to the drawing boards…. Allow me to iterate and reiterate, the optical and special effects are more than we can possibly afford for this segment. The construction of the Galileo exterior and interior itself is more than any one show can bear and will, of course, have to be amortized over a number of shows. (RJ13-2)
Justman had other issues, writing:
The dialogue is your problem, of course, but it does bother me. The shortness of the script is our common problem. (RJ13-2)
Justman’s memo went on for three single-spaced pages, not as long or as bad as most to come from his office but certainly not upbeat. He did, however, make a suggestion as to how to lengthen the script -- by a page or so. He told Black:
To help the length of this story, perhaps we could have an added scene in which one of the landing parties which is transported down by Spock runs into trouble with these unknown inhabitants of this planet, loses a crew member and reports this upon transport back to the Enterprise. Certainly, this gives Spock further cause for worry, knowing that it is quite possible that Kirk and the others are actually on the surface of this planet. (RJ13-2)
This scene, like the others Justman had suggested, would be added to the script.
Roddenberry had ideas too. What if the commander of the shuttlecraft were Spock instead of Kirk? This would bring about greater conflict betw
een shuttle commander and crew, and Kirk, back on the Enterprise, could experience great angst and self-torture over sending his men out in the first place. But this was a substantial change for a writer to be asked to make after two drafts of a story outline and one draft of the script had been written.
Once Crawford recovered from the shock, he did a “page one rewrite” -- a complete overhaul. The new version, dated May 23, had Spock in charge of the Galileo. It was also the first version to include the characters of McCoy and Scott; they were not yet part of the shuttle crew (as they would ultimately be) but instead remained on the Enterprise with Kirk. Also added to the bridge were helmsman Sulu and, from “The Corbomite Maneuver,” navigator Bailey. High Commissioner Ferris had yet to be added to the story. The personal conflicts, both on ship and on the planet, were not fully realized.
The records kept by the writing staff labeled Crawford’s 2nd Draft script as a “Revised First Draft,” since it represented such a profound retooling of the story and would clearly require an additional polish from the writer. Crawford saw it differently. As it had happened with other freshmen writers on the series, Crawford typed “Final Draft” on this latest version of the script. His message to Star Trek: “No free rewrites; you want another draft, you pay for another draft.”
These Are The Voyages, TOS, Season One Page 57
