These Are The Voyages, TOS, Season One

by Cushman, Marc

  Day 2 picked up with the unfinished business from Thursday, and again was spent entirely on the bridge. At 7 p.m., when filming stopped, Gist was two-thirds of a day behind.

  John Crawford had a dismal experience on Star Trek. William Shatner would direct him, telling him where to stand and limiting his ability to move about the bridge. He complained, “My friend Bob Gist was directing it. Now, sometimes Bob can be fun and sometimes he can be a pain. I think he was playing it safe, didn’t want to make an enemy of the star because, after all, he might want to do one of these again.... It wasn’t free and easy like all the things I did in Lost and Space where I could do any damn thing I wanted.” (41)

  But, then, wasn’t that the problem with Lost in Space?

  Day 3, Monday, was supposed to start on Stage 10, but Gist still had unfinished business on the bridge as well as a short sequence in the transporter room where the commander of a search party reports to Kirk about giants living on the planet below. Finally, at 10:45 a.m., the company made the hour-long move to Stage 10 where sequences were shot on a set called “Ext. Rocks.”

  Don Marshall said, “On that show, Bob Gist was the director, and he was a former acting coach of mine. And I had left his class, because I had a problem with Bob -- he wanted everybody to be like James Dean. You know, all that fidgeting and turning your back and unsure and all of that. And he was asking me to play my character that way here, too. I said, ‘Well, I’m playing an Astro-physicist, Bob. I can’t play James Dean in this.’ But in the first scene we shot, we’d found a dead crewman and Bob wanted me to be leaning against a rock, then turn around and respond when Leonard Nimoy does something, but like James Dean would. And I thought, ‘I can’t do this.’ And Leonard Nimoy came to me and said, ‘What’s going on, Don?’ He could tell I was down. And I said, ‘I don’t know if I should say anything to you but I’m playing an Astro-physicist and Bob wants me to play a James Dean-type character.’ And Leonard says, ‘Okay, Don, you go ahead and play it the way you want to play it and I’ll handle the director.’ I’d never heard that before, or since! It’s like, ‘Wow! Okay.’ You talk about beautiful people -- that you could be working with someone and they’re concerned about you, concerned about your character, and would give you the freedom to do the best work you knew how. It was just beautiful. I couldn’t ask for anything better. And that’s why the character came out so strong, really, because I felt free to do whatever it was that I needed to do. And the director just backed off. He didn’t try to force me into doing anything of that sort after that, like leaning against the rock and being very withdrawn into myself.” (113b)

  Regarding the approach he used for the role of Lt. Boma, Marshall said, “It was a good part, and I felt I had to play this character as though he believed he was helping the rest of the crew, not just withdrawing into himself and thinking about himself, but fighting for the rest of them. So I just played that. And, with this character, if you notice, there was no shyness or hold back because of race or anything like that. You didn’t get that a lot on TV at that time, where a black man could speak his mind to a white man without being regarded as out-of-line -- where race was not the issue and it was a different form of conflict between the characters. The argument there really was between myself and Spock as far as him not wanting to take the time to bury the dead was concerned. There was no color issue at all. It was not black against white. It wasn’t even about bucking authority. It was about one person’s beliefs versus another’s and showing respect, including paying respect and acknowledging a loss. That was the message I got from it. And the thing that I saw was Gene Roddenberry and the other people on that show, like Leonard Nimoy, were greatly concerned about the show and about the people on it, and about how it depicted the future. There’s so much beauty in that. They were there to help you with it, whatever it was. That’s what my experience was.” (113b)

  This was also the first day that Buck Maffei stepped before cameras as the giant hairy beast. When Gist wrapped at 7 p.m., he was one-and-a-quarter days behind.

  Day 6: Interior shuttle with stage lights above (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)

  Day 4 continued on the “Ext. Rocks” set, then slowly progressed to scenes played outside the mockup Galileo, and then into a second mockup for interior filming.

  Maffei returned during the exterior sequences for long shots, medium shots, and close-ups, although the close-ups would never see the light of a TV screen. Come 6:50 p.m. when Gist dismissed the cast, he had fallen one-and-a-half days behind.

  Day 5, Wednesday, brought more filming among the rocks, and both interior and exterior of the Galileo. Don Marshall had never appeared in a science fiction series before and was unfamiliar with acting for post effects, such as holding perfectly still as he fired a “space gun” so animation could be added later. But he did not recall being overly aware of the surroundings or trickery, and said, “I came from the stage. So I trained that way. Whatever you do on the stage, that’s it. The sets are all fake; it’s all about the character in the middle of the room. So I wasn’t worrying about how the phaser effects would come out or any of that, I was focused on what I was doing with my character. You don’t play to the background, unless you have to do something with it, you play to the character in a particular situation. And that’s all I’ve ever done, and that’s the way that I look at it as to how it should be done. So I never worried about the rest of it. I figure, I’m going to attract your attention, anyway. I’d better. It’s up to me to do my job, to keep people interested in the character. If I did that right, then it would all work out. And from what I saw, it all worked out.” (113b)

  No ‘Big Buck’ this day, but more big bucks were spent than the budget allowed for -Gist quit at 7:12 p.m., an hour into overtime when the set was wrapped, and now one-and-three-quarters days behind.

  Day 6 was spent inside the Galileo.

  Scotty was very prominent in this episode, but most of James Doohan’s acting was done from the floor. “I spent much of the episode on my belly with my face in the floorboard engineering system of the cramped shuttle,” Doohan said. “The most memorable aspect of the episode for me was that it was the first opportunity I had to work closely with Leonard. We’d had scenes before, but it was the first time we worked just one-on-one. Leonard was easy to like from the get-go, as sincere, thorough and professional an actor as one could hope to work with.” (52-1)

  In the controlled environment of the shuttlecraft, Gist picked up some time. He stopped filming at 7:12 p.m., again a full hour into O.T. once the set was wrapped, with cast and crew rushing to make it home by 8:30 for the NBC premiere of “The Naked Time.” A.C. Nielsen found it to be the top-rated show during its time period, with a 34.1 audience share.

  By the end of Day 7, Friday. Gist was one day behind, having spent another full day inside the Galileo wrapping his first and last Star Trek assignment at 7:40 p.m.

  Post-Production:

  October 3 through December 13, 1966. Music score: tracked.

  Miniature of shuttle filmed against a projected star field (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)

  Bob Swanson and Edit Team #1 did not fare as well with their fourth Trek (following “The Corbomite Maneuver,” “The Man Trap,” and “Balance of Terror”). Perhaps Gist and Finnerman were to blame and Swanson and his team actually used the best shots available of those spears being heaved onto the exterior planet set and that papier-mâché rock pinning Spock against other papier-mâché rocks. Or maybe they were just trying to beat the clock.

  Film Effects of Hollywood was in over their heads with this assignment. The opticals were demanding and the results are inconsistent. But to the credit of Linwood Dunn and his team, the shots of the Galileo in space were deemed good enough to be seen in future episodes -- even with those “garbage mattes.”

  A garbage matte is a box or, in this case, a rectangular-shaped outline put around a model by the post lab to hide anything that was not intended to be seen -- like strings or wires. The view
ers of the original broadcast did not see a visible border around the Galileo in flight. But in the 1980s, when the contrast levels were raised for the first re-mastering of Star Trek episodes, and now with the added clarity of DVD signals and HD TV, the garbage mattes, once hidden, are somewhat apparent.

  For its time, with the technology available, “The Galileo Seven” was borderline-spectacular. It certainly wasn’t cheap. The optical effects alone cost $20,655. And, at a total cost of $232,690, “Galileo” was one of the series more expensive outings, pushing the running first season deficit to $51,936.

  Release / Reaction:

  Only NBC air date: 1/5/67.

  The face only a mother could love and NBC would not allow to be seen (nixed publicity photo on left) and the one that replaced it (on right) (Both courtesy of Gerald Gurian)

  According to A.C. Nielsen, NBC should have stuck with the publicity picture that was more frightening.

  RATINGS / Nielsen 30-Market report for Thursday, Jan. 5, 1967:

  The movie on CBS was the TV premiere of the 1951 adaption of Tennessee Williams’ Summer and Smoke, starring Geraldine Page and Laurence Harvey.

  The dip in the ratings for Star Trek weren’t the only problem. “We had a failure,” Leonard Nimoy said. “The Spock character had been so successful that somebody said, ‘Let’s do a show where Spock takes command of the vessel.’ I had a tough time with it. I really appreciated the loss of the Kirk character for me to play against [and] to comment on. The Bill Shatner/Kirk performance was the energetic, driving [force] and Spock could kind of slipstream along and make comment and offer advice [and] give another point of view. Being put into a position of being the driving force -- the central character -- was very tough for me, and I perceived it as a failure.” (128-2)

  Regardless, Nimoy recalled this as representing a step in the evolution of Spock. He said, “Little by little I began to understand that it was possible to play the suppressed emotion and give the audience an occasional peek of the struggle of the character. I think it’s a very human character. He’s dealing with a very human problem. We’re all living our lives trying to find a balance between emotion and logic. I think, for that reason, audiences identified with Spock.” (128-4)

  Don Marshall remembered watching the episode when it aired, and said, “The effects were great for their time. And the exterior of that shuttlecraft looked really good on TV. On the set, you know, it opened up and they could pull it apart to get different camera angles, so it was always half open as I was looking at it. There were the blinking lights and the buttons and so on, but it wasn’t complete. Then I saw it on TV and it worked. Everything looked good. And, for me, the story worked because the characters worked.” (113b)

  We might have seen more of Lt. Boma in Star Trek. Marshall added, “They came back to me later on and asked me to become a recurring character. There were several scripts where they had written my character in.” (113b)

  But it was not to be.

  Producer Irwin Allen saw Marshall playing a member of a shuttle crew in “The Galileo Seven” and immediately envisioned him as a member of another shuttle crew, for Land of the Giants. Marshall spent two seasons as one of that series’ regulars.

  22

  Episode 15: COURT MARTIAL

  Teleplay by Don Mankiewicz and Steven W. Carabatsos

  (with Gene L. Coon, uncredited)

  Story by Don Mankiewicz

  Directed by Marc Daniels

  Kirk about to go on trial, as Bill McGovern slates the shot (Unaired film trim courtesy of Gerald Gurian)

  NBC press release, January 16, 1966:

  Captain Kirk is charged with negligence and brought to trial following the disappearance and reported death of one of his officers, in “Court Martial” on the NBC Television Network colorcast of Star Trek on Feb. 2, 1967.... Investigation into the presumed death of Officer Finney (Richard Webb), who was lost during a hazardous assignment aboard the Enterprise, discloses evidence that Captain Kirk (William Shatner) may have perjured himself in his testimony regarding the incident. Kirk’s case appears hopeless until a little-known fact in Finney’s past is inadvertently revealed by his daughter.

  The Captain’s accuser: the Enterprise’s own computer, which offers the damning visual evidence needed to convict Kirk. His primary advisory: Areel Shaw, the prosecutor at the court martial hearing and a former love. She offers further evidence to show that the late Ben Finney had a grudge against Kirk, which may prove motivation for the captain wanting Finney off the ship. Kirk’s only hope is an outdated defense lawyer who harbors a grudge of his own, against the mechanized and dispassionate world of computers.

  The theme: The battle of Man versus Machine is a fallacy -- it is always Man against Man, for man is the machine’s creator. The hook seemed irresistible: The Caine Mutiny in outer space.

  SOUND BITES

  - Cogley, to the court: “One might as well be a machine if he lets himself be handcuffed by a machine. A machine deals in facts, not justice!” Commodore Stone: “Very neat philosophy, Mr. Cogley. But you still haven’t said why you desire the procedural change.” Cogley: “Because I am against a machine pre-empting the ruling of this court -- a machine crucifying this fine man. And that is exactly what it is doing! Inexorably -- without feeling, remorse or concern. A machine has no conscience! This court has! I appeal to it!... I speak of rights. A machine has none. A man must.”

  - Dr. McCoy: “Mr. Spock, you’re the most cold-blooded man I’ve ever known.” Spock: “Why, thank you, Doctor.”

  ASSESSMENT

  While the idea of doing a courtroom drama in outer space is interesting and “Court Martial” certainly has its moments, the overall execution is clumsy. The story, which went through too much rewriting by too many different writers (four in all, with a lot of string-pulling by a fifth) has plot holes and leaps of illogic. Consider the following:

  Jame, the daughter of Ben Finney, just happens to be on the nearest Starbase to where the Enterprise had been damaged and now orbits.

  The other officers visiting or assigned to the Starbase, all colleagues and/or peers of James Kirk, are surprisingly quick to assume his guilt. One must also wonder how word was leaked so quickly from Commodore Stone’s office.

  One of Kirk’s past loves, who just happens to be a Starfleet Prosecuting Attorney at this particular Starbase, also just happens to be assigned to nail him to the wall.

  We are told that the only man qualified for the job of defending Kirk is a cantankerous old-school lawyer named Samuel Cogley, who also just happens to be at the Starbase -- and is immediately available to take the case.

  The “white sound” device, which appears to be nothing more than a twentieth century microphone, is supposed to enable the ship’s computer to amplify every sound on the ship but can also isolate and monitor only heartbeats, ignoring the voices and breathing and clanging about of those on board. Okay. But instead of merely throwing a switch to have the device ignore the sounds on the bridge, McCoy goes to the trouble -- and wastes the time -- to make the rounds and “mask” each person’s heartbeat.

  One final peeve: During the fight on the engineering deck between Kirk and Finley, the use of stuntmen is painfully obvious.

  Not all was bad. Worth noting:

  “Court Martial” provides our first of only two visits to a Starbase in the first series.

  This was the first time the nomenclature of “Starfleet” and “Starfleet Command” was used, courtesy of Gene Coon.

  The Starfleet dress uniform made its first appearance here.

  Starbase Commodore Stone was the highest ranking Black on Star Trek. Gene Roddenberry and Joe D’Agosta, as well as NBC, must be credited with taking bold steps in casting. I Spy, the first series to star a Black and a White opposite one another, was only one year old. It, too, was on NBC.

  The Albert Whitlock matte painting of Starbase 11 was, for its time, an eye-opener.

  There is a strong social statement in this story
, relevant in 1967 when “Court Martial” first aired and even more so today. Cogley motions to a “table computer” -the prototype for the PC -- and says, “I got one like this in my office. Contains all the precedents. A synthesis of every important legal decision since the beginning of time. Never use it.... Got my own system -- books, my young friend -- Books!”

  It is hard to damn any work of fiction that has a clear theme and boldly makes a statement, and “Court Martial” certainly has its supporters. In conjunction with the theme, it is a unique story with a handful of engaging scenes, creating an episode the viewer wants to like, warts and all.

  THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY

  Script Timeline

  Don Mankiewicz’ outline, ST #23, “Court Martial on Starbase 811”: May 3, 1966.

  Mankiewicz’ revised story outline, gratis: June 26, 1966.

  Mankiewicz’ 1st Draft teleplay: July 15, 1966.

  Mankiewicz’ Revised 1st Draft teleplay, gratis: Early August, 1966.

  Mankiewicz’ 2nd Draft teleplay: September 6, 1966.

  Steven Carabatsos’ rewrite (new 1st Draft, now “Court Martial”): Sept. 19, 1966.

  Carabatsos’ script polish (unspecified draft): September 21, 1966.

  Mimeo Department’s reformatted “Yellow Cover 1st Draft” teleplay: September 23, 1966.

  Gene Coon’s script polish (Final Draft teleplay): September 26, 1966.