Additional page revisions by Coon: Sept. 27 & 29 and Oct. 3, 1966.
Thanksgiving with the Mankiewicz clan must have been extraordinary. Don Mankiewicz was the son of legendary screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, who shared an Academy Award with Orson Welles for co-writing Citizen Kane. His nephew, Joseph Mankiewicz, was the Oscar-winning writer/director who wrote the screenplays for Guys and Dolls and All About Eve. (Another nephew, Ben, not yet born, would become the co-host of the popular TCM movie channel.) Don had written for television series such as The Naked City and 12 O’clock High, and was nominated for an Oscar of his own in 1959 for co-writing I Want to Live. He had never tried his hand at science fiction, but had provided six scripts for the supernatural series One Step Beyond. It didn’t seem to matter to Roddenberry that Mankiewicz was a novice at sci-fi, or that he lived and worked out of Long Island, New York. Between Herman, Joseph and Don, the Mankiewicz name represented a screenwriting dynasty that Star Trek, in these early days of looking for acceptance, would have trouble saying “no” to.
Don Mankiewicz was visiting Los Angeles and dropped by for one of the screenings of “Where No Man Has Gone Before” on the Desilu lot. A few days later, Roddenberry wrote to John D.F. Black:
Met with Don, who had just seen the film and had not yet time to develop any ideas. Intend to talk on the telephone with him in the following days. I am told that Mankiewicz... is excellent and a fast worker when a good solid idea is given to him. Will proceed in that direction. (GR14-1)
Mankiewicz recalled, “My impression was that they needed what, in those days, would have been called a bottle show -- something that could be done very cheaply, that didn’t require a lot of blowing up of anything. And I believe I suggested a courtroom show. I’d done many of those in the past, a novel and a screenplay. So I said, ‘Why don’t we do a court martial. Let’s put Captain Kirk on trial.’ And it would have to be a trial of that time. We’re not going to bring in human characters if we can use electronic characters. So the witness against you would be a computerized device that can reveal everything that happened, and seems to nail him. So we started with that.” (113-3)
One problem solved. Or perhaps not.
The outline for “Court Martial at Starbase 811,” dated May 3, began a period of story and script development unlike any other on Star Trek. No story went through more changes than this, and, echoing Cogley’s distrust of electronic media, there is more misinformation posted in cyberspace about the writing of “Court Martial” than any other episode.
Mankiewicz’ not-too-costly courtroom story was anything but.
Kirk is suspected of creating a situation on the Enterprise which allegedly resulted in the death of Records Officer Finney, who had a grudge against the Captain due to a past disciplinary action. Finney’s friend Farley, stationed on the bridge, is willing to lie under oath to bring down Kirk. The computer of the Enterprise, called IRRU (Information Reception and Retrieval Unit) has developed a personality and is fond of Finney, whose job it’s been to maintain it, and IRRU doesn’t like Kirk either, to the degree that it too is willing to lie on behalf of its friend. IRRU is actually the true culprit in the story since Finney is presumed dead and missing throughout much of it.
Finney’s dad (Finney, Sr.), at Starbase 811, accuses Kirk of killing his son and does all he can to see the captain’s hide is nailed to the courtroom wall. Additional irritants for Kirk are Prosecuting Attorney Shaw (a man in this version, not a former flame as in the episode), “Harbormaster” Sherek (later to get a name change to Stone), and numerous peers of Kirk’s who are quick to assume his guilt. On Kirk’s side: Spock and a father/son defense lawyer team, Cogley & Cogley (Samuel Cogley, Jr. and Samuel Cogley, Sr.). The latter Cogley, who begins the story as the second chair defense lawyer, is a throw-back to early 20th Century Earth and has a giant ax to grind against the computer age. The trial, then, pits men against machine.
The backstory has the Enterprise encountering a force field resulting in the “ship’s mass” being “simply too great to maintain stability.” Kirk has no choice but to “reduce the mass” by jettisoning the “after-cabin.” But Farley, who is “Finney’s bunkmate,” tells a story that is different in one essential particular: according to him, Kirk hit the jettison button several seconds before the “breakup light” went on and “so altered the ship‘s characteristics that he caused the near breakup.” In other words, Kirk either panicked or cold-bloodedly jettisoned the after-cabin to rid himself of Finney, who was sent tumbling into space where it is believed the discarded portion of the ship collided with an asteroid.
Cogley, Jr. quits as Kirk’s attorney when he sees the computer log which supports Farley’s story. He believes Kirk lied. Everyone else on the Starbase seems to agree and Kirk is thrown in jail before a verdict is even reached. Cogley, Sr. sticks with the Captain but finds opposition at every turn, from Farley, Shaw, Finney, Sr., IRRU the computer, Kirk’s peers, and even Harbormaster Sherek, who is described as “a grouchy, elderly former flying officer, now grounded as overage and disposed to be prejudged against Kirk for the simple reason that Kirk still holds command-flight function.” Stacking the deck even further against the Captain is modern justice 200 years hence, according to Mankiewicz, which presents evidence solely by computer.
Kirk is ready to give up. He is depicted as being in shock and for the most part waiting to be saved. Spock tries to save his captain, saying that IRRU is “this bundle of wires and impulses and tapes ... and is a liar!” Spock and Cogley, Sr. are able to show the court that IRRU had a high regard for Finney, who “fed it for so long a time” and therefore developed “a distaste for Kirk.” But Spock and Cogley, Sr. are unable to get IRRU to admit that it has falsified evidence, nor can they even establish that it has “the ability to re-cut its tapes in order to tell that sort of lie.”
Spock says, “If Finney survived the impact of jettison; his new orbit might have intersected with the asteroid, in which case, if he survived the second impact, he might still be alive on the asteroid.” Cogley volunteers “an old rocket-jalopy” he owns. We are told that he is the only one who can “drive it,” since “it has the galactic equivalent of a stick-shift.”
Cogley and Spock help Kirk escape, then take the rocket-jalopy to the asteroid where it is believed Finney may be. They find him, rescue him, and bring him back to explain to the court what happened. Kirk is found innocent. IRRU, however, having “acquired judgment powers,” is found to be useless as a guidance and log computer. But Cogley sees value in IRRU and decides it can help him with his pet project -- “a compendium of all the law in history, together with an argument for retaining human law, with such concepts as right to counsel, presumption of innocence, etc.” However, Finney, Jr. is the only one IRRU will allow to be its operator. Finney, Jr., therefore, leaves Starfleet to work for Cogley in feeding data to IRRU.
And this -- with all its sets, new ships, and effects-laden space crusades -- was going to save Star Trek money?
Robert Justman read the 10-page outline the day it arrived and, surprisingly, wrote to John D.F. Black, “I like the story idea very, very much.” (RJ14-1)
Later memos from Justman helped to clarify what part of the story he was so taken with. It had nothing to do with the manner in which the events were told but the heart of the story underneath all the layers of convoluted plotting -- that Kirk’s one true love, the Enterprise, with its electronic brain, IRRU, could turn on its captain and try to destroy him.
Justman’s memo to Black continued:
Sets, opticals and miniatures may be quite expensive in this show, but I can’t deduce anything definitely from the outline. (RJ14-1)
Justman did attempt to wade through the clutter of the plot, telling Black, among other things:
Due to the symmetry and construction of the Enterprise, I don’t think that Kirk would have jettisoned an “after-cabin.” Perhaps, since we don’t ever have to see this, he could have jettisoned a sub-part or something to
that effect.... Cogley suggests that they use his old rocket-jalopy for their escape. How about using the already-repaired U.S.S. Enterprise instead? That would solve various money problems that would arise otherwise.... In Act I, on here, we are told that “almost all legal questions -- and certainly all questions of fact -- are now determined electronically.” This bothers me because I felt that we were attempting to maintain our fight for humanity and against complete computerization within our show. (RJ14-1)
John D.F. Black also had issues with the story, and wrote Roddenberry:
Mankiewicz has missed the boat with this idea. He gives us a story where all of Kirk’s action, decision-making, thinking, etc., happened yesterday.... Kirk just stands around and reacts while everybody else does things.... Mankiewicz can do much better by us than what he has done. (JDFB14-1)
In a letter to Mankiewicz, Roddenberry took odds with the “pessimistic view of the future,” writing:
When you add up the following things, it is hard to have much feeling or respect for Star Trek’s century, the Earth, and the military service it represents. Things such as: a harbor master prejudiced against Kirk for the “simple” reason that Kirk still holds flight command; the use of a computer instead of reasoned judgment for legal questions; thus an implied assumption that computers are constantly photographing and recording all aspects of life, personal and professional; ugly antagonism from what seems an unreasoning group of individuals on the base, developing to almost physical violence; and the placing of a man of the rank of Starship Captain in jail even when a trial has not yet been concluded.... Not leaning on you, Don, but want you to see the direction in which the sum of all these things would be taking Star Trek as a series. (GR14-2)
Forty years later, Mankiewicz countered, “I didn’t think it was pessimistic. What I did was I took their view of the [future], which was that everybody in this ‘picture’ was electronic. You did research by button, like you do today, to some extent; everybody was hooked on Google. But this guy -- the lawyer who was Elisha Cook, Jr., a very good actor -he was the last person to have books. He looked things up, he pulled things down from the shelf, and they didn’t know what he was doing. But he won the case. Yes, if you think that’s a pessimistic view, that there would then be only one person with books, I think that’s what Roddenberry meant.” (113-2)
Not quite. Cogley, Sr. liking books was never even broached in Roddenberry’s letter.
Mankiewicz later said, “I wanted to have a country lawyer; an 18th century lawyer that lives in the 23rd century -- or whatever century this was. I just wanted a man out of place, a guy who uses books. With a computer, you get abbreviated information, and you can’t look back at it and make little underlines. There are unspeakable advantages in the just plain book. I’ve published three novels and I’ve always wanted them on paper. I don’t want them displayed on somebody’s computer.” (113-3)
Mankiewicz revised his outline gratis, simplifying the story somewhat, eliminating a few of the cost factors and taking out the idea that man would be submissive to machines.
The revised outline, dated June 26, came with a letter from the writer, saying:
This one, I think, meets your main objection to my earlier approach, since it casts no reflection on the nature of life in the future and -- to my eye, at least -seems capable of developing within reasonable production costs. (DMM14)
Roddenberry agreed enough to advise Mankiewicz to proceed to teleplay. But, being as busy as he was with numerous other outlines and scripts, he neglected to get NBC’s blessing; he hadn’t even submitted the story outline in for network approval. Stan Robertson had no idea that a property called “Court Martial at Starbase 811” was being developed.
The first draft script from July 15 hit Roddenberry’s desk on the 18th. John D.F. Black’s reaction landed on the same spot hours later. It started well enough, with Black saying of Mankiewicz, “You know, this one writes. I think.” (JDFB14-2)
Black liked the older Cogley character, for the most part, saying, “Cogley -- old-fashioned attorney -- is charming.” But the character was too cartoonish for Black’s liking, with him adding:
Should be some feeling of the years having passed since Clarence Darrow could buy galoshes at the Emporium. In the time of the Enterprise, anyone who would take the pains to locate a gooseneck lamp and a shoe box to hold index cards would be a nut, loaded with affectations, or an antique collector. His words are fine, only his background is exaggerated. (JDFB14-2)
Black felt Finney, Jr. was “a louse.” He didn’t think a whole lot of Finney, Sr., either. And, while he liked IRRU, he believed the full potential of a computer that thinks freely and has feelings had yet to be realized.
Roddenberry worried the drama of a military court martial was being overshadowed by the gimmick of a vengeful computer.
Records show that Mankiewicz agreed to give Star Trek a free rewrite -- a Revised First Draft -- which he delivered in early August, just as Gene Coon and Steven Carabatsos were setting up their offices. Much had changed in the story, moving “Court Martial at Starbase 811” more in the direction of the “Court Martial” we would come to know.
Coon read the script, compared it to the previous version, then sent a memo to “all staff.” He agreed with Black about Cogley being “a superb character, though perhaps just a shade too Clarence Darrow,” but was bothered that “such a great character” had “nothing to do during the wrap-up!” He bemoaned:
It seems a shame to have all these brilliant minds, augmented by such superb machinery, baffled and thrown into jeopardy and chaos and confusion by one small-time punk namely Finney. (GC14-1)
Comparing the scripts, Coon closed:
I must confess that personally I liked the original idea... that the computer developed a personality, became jealous of Kirk and tried to destroy him by deliberately falsifying his own reports and logs and so on. (GC14-1)
But Roddenberry no longer cared for that approach. Coon would have to wait to get his computer with feeling -- as a humorous sub-story -- in “Tomorrow Is Yesterday.”
There were many other differences in the new draft besides phasing out IRRU, such as elimination of the costly idea of the Enterprise being put into a space dock for major repairs. And Cogley, Jr. and Cogley, Sr. were now just plain Cogley.
The only problem in losing the son who was more computer-savvy was in understanding why Kirk entrusted his fate to a man who knows so little about those confounded machines. Robert Justman, in his next memo, wondered the same thing. He wrote:
We do have a basis for a good show here. What it needs is some internal cleanliness and a cutting down of various costs which are inherent in the present version.... I find Finney, Sr. completely unbelievable and irrational in his vacillating behavior throughout this show. I also fail to find the Captain Kirk we have all come to know and love anywhere within these pages....Why does Kirk decide to trust his future to an old fogey like Cogley?... Kirk is a man who will take chances, but he must have a logical basis for doing same.... At one time many years ago, we had talked about having the culprit turning out to be IRRU and not a human being. Whatever happened to that concept?... Sumo’s real name is Sulu.... On here, Finney should not grab the tiller to steady the ship. He should instead pick up the reins that Sumo has dropped.... My feeling upon reading the last act, especially, was “this really isn’t the end.” Or I might better have made use of the first letter of each word in my last quotation. This would make the phrase read – “T.R.I.T.E.” (RJ14-2)
Mankiewicz delivered his third draft script on September 6. The people at Star Trek considered it a 2nd Revised First Draft. Mankiewicz typed “Final Draft” on the front page. Regardless:
The “after-cabin” was out, the “pod” was in;
That “space-jalopy” more suitable as a prop in Lost in Space had been stricken;
Base Commander Sherek was now Base Commodore Stone;
Finney, Jr. was now merely Finney and not so much a “punk,�
�� since he was now older and an officer;
Finney, Sr. had been replaced by Jamie (AKA Jame), the latter’s daughter, named after Kirk since the two men used to be friends;
The trial had an Act 4 move from the Starbase court to the briefing room of the Enterprise;
It was now learned that Finney was hiding aboard ship instead of on some asteroid;
A giant ear device was used to hear his heartbeat and locate him.
Mankiewicz said, “I added in that nice little bit about there’s one person more on the ship than there’s supposed to be. I said, ‘white sound,’ which was to record everybody’s heartbeat and then you would remove, one by one, each beat until you’ve removed all the 29 heartbeats that were supposed to be on board. Then there would still be one. And this was all done by white sound. They said, ‘What’s white sound?’ White sound is something I invented. I had no idea there really was such a thing.” (113-3)
The next day, Justman wrote Coon, saying:
First, I would like to suggest we shorten the title [“Court Martial on Starbase 811”] to something else if we possibly could. Second, I find that the script doesn’t end in its present form. It just stops at the bottom of here and leaves me waiting for the rest of the script. I think we need an ending to the show.... In the Teaser, we introduce Jamie Finney, daughter of the missing man. Later on in the show, our Defense Attorney makes a point about what Jamie’s motivation is and shows his suspicions. Is this supposed to be a red herring? We set up Jamie later on in the show as an object of suspicion and then never pay it off. I don’t understand this.... Page 7: The whole Finney-Kirk-Jamie relationship, Jamie being named after Kirk -- and how old is our boy Kirk, anyway? -- will border on the maudlin if it gets out of hand. Suggest we get rid of it.... Page 7--11: What is Stone trying to do? Help Kirk or crucify him? He should have some definite attitude -- so far he has none.... Page 12: We start a sequence at a place entitled “Ext. Loading Area.” Believe me, I raise extremely strong objection to playing this sequence in this particular place. You will have to shoot me before I will agree to let us do what is indicated here. (RJ14-3)
These Are The Voyages, TOS, Season One Page 60
