Gene Coon, in a four-page memo to Roddenberry, was careful to be gentle in his criticism concerning this well-written but otherwise underdeveloped outline. He said:
This outline is so sketchy that we have no specific idea of what kind of action, story line, movement, motivation we are in for.... Don’t misunderstand this memo. I love the idea of Ahab pursuing the whale, which turns out to be himself. I love the idea of alternate worlds, of the stepping from dimension to dimension. It is simply that there are many things in this outline which must be explained and resolved before we go to screenplay. (GC20-1)
Justman, also writing to Roddenberry, since Roddenberry had given out the assignment, said:
I have just read this story premise. I am extremely confused. I have just read Gene Coon’s memo on the premise. I agree with everything he says. I find that he seems less confused than I do. I congratulate him. (RJ20-1)
Roddenberry agreed, and wrote back to Coon:
I am in a state of confusion over the whole story and not quite sure who is doing what to who. But I am sure Kirk is not doing much to resolve the story.... Don is rather vague about a good many sections of the action and progression in this story. Recommend he come back with a more explicit and definitive version. (GR20-1)
A revised story outline arrived on September 12, gratis. Ingalls was resisting making the changes asked for. In trying to retain the magnetism Lazarus #1 had over Lt. Charlene Masters, and over Kirk and his crew, Ingalls was not putting in the negative personality traits needed to differentiate between this Lazarus and his anti-matter self -- the “good Lazarus.” Both were on a mission, both were charismatic, both looked alike, both spoke alike and, adding to the confusion, Ingalls often neglected to add “#1” or “#2” to the character’s name.
Roddenberry wrote to Coon:
I still cannot easily follow Lazarus “good” and Lazarus “bad” and who’s really where. The audience has to know who’s who and who’s where at all times -- as we found in “The Enemy Within.” (GR20-2)
The bigger problem remained that the lead character in Star Trek was not the lead character in this story. Roddenberry continued:
Kirk is leading another search party. This is all he seems to do in this story. Let’s get him really involved. There has got to be some jeopardy and danger to our people. So far we’ve just been walking through this piece. (GR20-2)
Ingalls’ second free rewrite, from September 14, attempted to put more Kirk into the story -- double the Kirk, in fact. In this version, there were now two Kirks, with the “door” between Universes 1 and 2 swinging open far enough for Kirk to meet his own alternate self.
Coon liked the addition and sent the retooled story outline to NBC. Stan Robertson, however, was not keen on this new gimmick, which he saw as being an old gimmick. Kirk had already met a duplicate of himself in “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” and “The Enemy Within.” Otherwise, Robertson was very optimistic about what he described as “a very fine story outline,” writing Coon:
If the writer of this outline, Don Ingalls, instills the same exciting elements and sheer beauty of writing into the screenplay as are contained in this treatment, this should make for a fine Star Trek episode. (SR20-1)
Lazarus, or Don Ingalls, had just seduced Stan Robertson and thereby recruited another follower.
Justman, taking the counterpoint, dropped Coon a memo the next day, which was one day too late. He wrote:
I have ambivalent feelings about the Story Treatment. I enjoyed the Teaser and part of the First Act and found it very intriguing. The mystery of Lazarus and what he is doing on that little planet and the start of the relationship between him and the girl are somewhat compelling. However, as we begin to find out more about the story and about Lazarus, I find my interest waning rather rapidly. Also, the more we know about Lazarus and his counterpart, the more confusing the story becomes to me.... I see that you have already put Mr. Ingalls to work on a First Draft screenplay. Therefore, I will reserve any further comment until he turns in this draft. (RJ20-2)
With NBC’s approval, Ingalls had been sent to script, although told not to play the idea of Kirk meeting Kirk.
The First Draft teleplay, dated October 14, arrived on the 17th. The duplicate Kirk was out and, in his place, a stronger romance between Lazarus #1 and Lt. Charlene Masters, someone he could woo and then use to gain access to the energy source of the ship’s dilithium crystals.
In the scene where Masters and Lazarus #1 meet, she is in the recreation room, sitting alone. Sulu notices a sad expression on her face and approaches. He asks, “Lonely?” She invites him to join her, but her attention quickly shifts to a man who enters -- a man she has never seen before. He is the type of man a woman of her era might rarely have a chance to meet, a throwback to a more romantic time -- a rugged, driven man. When Sulu, in an attempt to flirt, asks what she is doing “in a place like this,” Masters replies, “Waiting for someone like ... you.” But her eyes are clearly focused on Lazarus. Ingalls writes:
Her eyes have never left Lazarus and there is that almost imperceptible something in her manner that comes alive when a woman sees the man approach her. ANGLE WIDENS as Lazarus reaches their table. He looks at Charlene and, for the first time, he smiles. A small, gentle little smile, softening the hawk-like features.
In another scene, Lazarus #1 is again with Masters. The script reads: “She stares at him, a strange look in her eyes. He stares at her. Then, softly, he tells her, ‘I have moved through eternity to find you. You know that, don’t you? When we first saw each other ... you must have felt it.’ She says, ‘You were like a wounded eagle.’ He says, ‘An eagle looks a long time for his mate ... and, once he finds her, he never leaves her. I have looked a long time.’ He pulls her close. She draws back for a moment, but his force, though gentle, is relentless. He tells her, ‘You have no idea what it’s like ... eternity unrolling before you ... and to be alone, through all time ... and then I saw you.’ Hungrily, he sweeps her into his arms and kisses her. For a moment she resists...and then she melts.... He says, ‘I knew it the moment I saw you. You belong to me. It is as inevitable as my struggle.... Charlene... I can’t be alone any more. When the Enterprise leaves here, I will stay. I want you to stay with me.’”
Later, Lazarus #1 tells her, “With your love, and help, I can end this terrible quest, then live a real life again, anywhere you say, together, the two of us.”
Masters conspires to help Lazarus. She sets the fire in the department of the engineering deck where she is assigned -- the dilithium recharging station -- creating a smokescreen so Lazarus can steal the crystals. She even travels to the planet where his “inter-dimensional ship” is located, then accompanies him into the “corridor” separating the two universes. As she becomes trapped with him, she discovers too late that he is mad.
Kirk’s personal stake in the story is hinged on his need to solve the mystery of the hunter and the hunted, save Masters from herself, and not save Lazarus from himself, thereby preventing the annihilation of two universes. To do this, Kirk enters the corridor and encounters Lazarus #2 -- the “good” Lazarus -- hard at work on a means to close the doorway for all time. He tells Kirk that he will catch Lazarus #1 when he enters, preventing him from making it through to the other end, and, at the same time, buying Kirk the time he needs to find Masters and pull her from the corridor. Kirk does so, and then uses the ship’s phasers to destroy the inter-dimensional ship and seal the doorway for all eternity. The ending is poignant. Lazarus #2, a man Kirk had looked-up to, will spend eternity at the hands of a raving madman, for the good of two universes. The other, damned to the same fate, is Lazarus #1, the man Charlene Masters had loved despite his self-torture.
Robert Justman, now believing he was able to follow who was who, liked the positive/negative tragedy in space and wrote to Coon, “I must admit, I’m rather intrigued by this property.” (RJ20-3)
Justman’s intrigue soon turned to trepidation. He continued:
&
nbsp; On here, I get to my first major hang-up with the show. Lazarus’ strange-looking spacecraft. As you may be aware, Gene, the Shuttlecraft exterior and interior mockups that we have probably cost well over $30,000. Unless we can find a way to re-use the Shuttlecraft for this show, we are going to end up with a pretty cheap-looking Spacecraft for Mr. Lazarus because we can’t afford to spend $30,000, or even $5,000 for this exterior and interior set. (RJ20-3)
Roddenberry was also satisfied. Kirk was more proactive. A non-regular was still the central focus, but this had been done before with “Charlie X” and had worked. With the right actor playing Lazarus, as it had happened when Robert Walker Jr. was cast as Charlie, the story could very well succeed.
Roddenberry knew who the right actor was. He suggested John Drew Barrymore for the role. Barrymore, a gifted and somewhat offbeat performer, was the son of famed stage actor John Barrymore and film legend Dolores Costello. Where John Drew went, free publicity followed.
A few days later, Bob Justman wrote to his colleagues, suggesting that the “corridor” which separates the universe of matter from that of anti-matter could be created through the use of reverse polarity, turning a positive image into a negative one, allowing white to turn to black and black to white -- an effect which, in its simplicity, served as a metaphor for the story being told, where good is bad and bad is good. It was also an effect Justman knew Star Trek could afford, and one which would be effective on both black-and-white and color TVs.
Ingalls turned in his 2nd Draft teleplay on November 7. The story, for the most part, seemed to work; the writing was certainly fluid and dramatic, enough so for Coon to tell Ingalls he had fulfilled his contract. This version of the script was sent to John Drew Barrymore and succeeded at interesting the actor into playing Lazarus ... and Lazarus #2.
Now that Barrymore was locked in, attention turned back to the script for additional polishing by the staff. Four things needed to be accomplished: 1) the dialogue required finessing so that the recurring characters sounded more like themselves; 2) the technology on the Enterprise had to be faithful to what was already established in the series; 3) greater emphasis had to be made to create a difference in the personalities between Lazarus #1 and Lazarus #2 to prevent audience confusion, something Ingalls had been reluctant to do; and 4) Lt. Masters could no longer betray her captain. This last change came about because of a memo from Roddenberry to Coon.
Roddemberry wrote:
In both “Space Seed” and this story, we have a crew woman madly in love with a brawny guest star and flipping our whole gang into a real mess because she is in love. Isn’t that really pretty selfish, which is not to say that women in love don’t do strange, stupid and/or selfish things ... but do they have to do them in two of our scripts? (GR20-2)
Roddenberry wasn’t suggesting “The Alternative Factor,” first to film, be altered. His criticism had more to do with “Space Seed” using the same plot device. Regardless, one had to be changed.
To Coon’s thinking, the betrayal element was more essential for “Space Seed.” With “The Alternative Factor,” the story elements which intrigued him the most had to do with the idea of an obsessed hunter hunting himself, and the villain being of our universe -- the positive side -- and the one who is willing to sacrifice his life for the good of all being from the negative side. This amused him. He also liked how Kirk slowly came to realize he was dealing with two different men -- one sane, one mad -- each stepping back and forth between two incompatible worlds. Finally, he was taken by the tragic example of self-sacrifice, by Lazarus #2, and the burden on Kirk’s shoulders in allowing the sane one to give up his life in such a horrific manner. And all of this could stay.
The changes were made for the November 11 Final Draft, likely by Steven Carabatsos.
Coon had underestimated the importance of the romance in the story. By taking out passages of dialogue where Lazarus #2 admits to Charlene Masters that he is growing weary of the chase, and is in fact lonely, the audience has less reason to empathize with the character.
The burden was now on the shoulders of John Drew Barrymore to make a crazy man seem somehow appealing.
Pre-Production … and more rewriting
November 8-11 and 14 & 15, 1966 (6 days total).
Gerd Oswald, the man who directed more episodes of The Outer Limits than anyone else, and who had pleased the producers with his handling of “The Conscience of the King,” was brought back for his second Star Trek assignment.
John Drew Barrymore (1960s publicity photo)
John Drew Barrymore, now signed to play Lazarus, had more going for him than his legendary family name -- he had achieved stardom in his own right. This Barrymore had shared the lead on the big screen with Steve McQueen in 1958’s Never Love a Stranger, and with Julie London in 1959’s Night of the Quarter Moon. He then traveled to Italy to top the bill in numerous films there, such as 1960’s I’ll See You in Hell and, as Ulysses, opposite Steve Reeves’ Hercules, in 1961’s The Trojan Wars. Between films in the early and mid-Sixties, Barrymore was always given choice television guest star roles, in series such as Gunsmoke, Rawhide, The Wild, Wild West, and now, tentatively, Star Trek.
Janet MacLachlan (casting department photos)
For the part of Lt. Charlene Masters, Joe D’Agosta and Gerd Oswald liked the idea of hiring an up-and-coming black actress -- Janet MacLachlan. She would soon take the lead guest spot, as a love interest for Bill Cosby, in a 1967 Emmy-winning episode of I Spy, then go on to receive second billing in a racially-charged movie, Halls of Anger, well above newcomer Jeff Bridges, and play the on-screen wife of star Jim Brown in ... tick... tick... tick.... But in 1966, MacLachlan was mostly known for her work on the stage. She had yet to achieve any standout recognition on television, so there was no real name value in hiring her, only color value. If Barrymore didn’t bring the press to Star Trek, television’s first interracial love affair certainly would.
For her casting call, MacLachlan wore a wig, but it was decided for the episode to go with the more natural short Afro hairstyle. Ande Richardson-Kindryd, secretary for Gene Coon, felt it was a small but important step in Black civil rights. She said, “At that time, black women were all wearing wigs. And my mother had made me swear that I would always wear a wig to work because I should not ever let them see my natural hair. It was just too radical.”
Kindryd remembered seeing MacLachlan on the Star Trek stages, and said, “It was very courageous that she wore her hair in an Afro at that time. Most network TV shows wouldn’t have had her do that. But the people at Star Trek thought in those terms -- individual rights; personal choices. It was a very freeing environment, and a very positive message. So now I knew I was finally at a place where I felt that we had a chance to be – we, being black people. I took off my wig and stuck my head under a water tap and combed out my Afro and went back to work. I sat down at my desk and no one ever said a word to me and I knew I was at a place where I belonged, that this was home and I was with good people.” (144a)
But the attitudes within the Star Trek buildings and stages were not representative of all of America in 1966, and the domino effect which took most of the good out of “The Alternative Factor,” began first with Coon’s decision to trim back some of the romance, now intensified with the casting of Janet MacLachlan to play opposite John Drew Barrymore. It was still one year before the release of the controversial Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?, in which black Sidney Poitier and white Katherine Houghton fight for their right to be married -and win. As NBC became aware of the casting, the network programmers expressed misgivings. Even with the success of I Spy and its equal-status casting of Robert Culp and Bill Cosby, and the love story in “The Alternative Factor” now pushed into the background, many were nonetheless wondering how the affiliates in the South might react to this interracial pairing. With only a few days left before the start of production, Gene Coon began receiving off-the-record phone calls suggesting that either Janet MacLachlan be replaced
with a white actress or that the script be changed to remove the remaining scenes depicting sexual or romantic interest between Lazarus #1 and Charlene Masters. The simplest solution would have been to pay MacLachlan a “kill fee” with the promise of future work. Coon, however, zigged when he should have zagged.
With Coon’s November 14th Revised Final Draft, the last traces of the love story were removed. Lazarus #1 had lost all his charismatic traits and, because of this, was now intolerably annoying. The character of Charlene Masters, no longer a chemist but instead a member of engineering, became pointless. She was left with so little to do that one has to wonder why she is even in the story, representing the engineering section in place of Scotty.
With filming due to start in two days, the new script was sent to the director and the regular cast members. John Drew Barrymore was not scheduled to work that first day of filming. For the moment, he was unaware of the drastic story changes.
Production Diary
Filmed November 16, 17, 18, 21, 22, 23 & 25, 1966
(Planned as a 6 day production, finishing one day over; total cost: $210,879).
Wednesday, November 16, 1966. The morning papers were filled with pictures of an historic event from the day before -- after accomplishing the longest and most successful spacewalk to date, astronauts James Lovell and Buzz Aldrin returned safely to Earth with the splashdown of Gemini XII. The four most popular songs awaiting them on the radio were “Poor Side of Town” by Johnny Rivers, The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations,” The Supremes’ “You Keep Me Hanging On,” and “Last Train to Clarksville” by The Monkees. America’s teens, in fact, had a sudden case of Monkeemania. The “pre-fab four,” as the press was calling them, had the No. 1 album in the nation and their TV show was on its way to winning an Emmy as Best Comedy. However, as popular as the pop music sitcom was, Star Trek’s ratings were higher. And out of 90 primetime TV series, the two that received the most fan mail by far were The Monkees and Star Trek, neck and neck. The top movies people were willing to pay $1 to see were Way… Way Out, with Jerry Lewis, Madam X, starring Lana Turner, Spinout, an action-romance vehicle for Elvis Presley, The Professionals, a western starring Burt Lancaster and Lee Marvin, and the risqué Penelope, with sexy Natalie Wood in the title role. All five films took a one-week turn as box office champ in the period spanning the final writing, the preproduction, and the filming of “The Alternative Factor.”
These Are The Voyages, TOS, Season One Page 77
