The flight Shatner was able to book wouldn’t leave Los Angeles until that evening, and he preferred to stay busy, working. He later admitted, “At that moment in time, the pain was awful.... All through the scene, I kept having trouble with a particular line. My emotion was getting in the way, making me forget.... The one thing that I recall perfectly and that I’ll never forget is the closeness that my friend Leonard had toward me. Not just emotionally, but physically as well. I mean, I’ve seen film of elephants that support the sick and the dying with their bodies, and Leonard somehow seemed physically close to me.... Our cinematographer, Jerry Finnerman, whose father had also recently passed away, stayed close, too. And together, they kind of herded around me, assuring me that there were people close by in case I wanted to talk or just needed a friend.” (156-8)
Pevney said, “Shatner was very shaken then, and Leonard was very good to him at that point; he was with him all the time, and able to give him great comfort.” (141-2)
Day 4: Eddie Paskey (photographed from the back) with Nimoy, carrying on in Shatner’s absence (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)
Curiously, just as Kirk only confided his feelings to McCoy, or Spock, and kept his inner torment hidden from the crew, Shatner chose not to discuss his sadness with many on the set. Kirk would stay strong in front of his crew, and Shatner did the same in front of his. Eddie Paskey said, “We were doing the scene where Bill has us in the Security detail all lined-up in the caverns, and I was there, and I know Billy Blackburn was in there, and the other regular stand-ins, with some extras. We were basically lined-up, getting our orders from the Captain, telling us what he expected from us. I didn’t know at the time that his father had just passed away, and, as far as I knew, no one else on the set knew it. When he went out the door, I think it was Mike Glick, the Assistant Director, who informed us all what had been happening with Bill; that he was on his way to the airport, and I just thought, ‘Wow, here he is working his butt off for the good of the show, even though, personally, he knew his father had just passed away. That spoke to his character, and who Bill Shatner really is. I have a lot of respect for that. I’ll never forget it; he did a great job.” (135-2)
Nimoy added, “Finally, Bill finished the scene and left, then we went on to shoot the scene where Spock approaches the Horta in order to make mental contact with it. Kirk is supposed to be standing and watching during this time. We wound up filming across the back of Bill’s double [Eddie Paskey], so that we got the wide master shot, then the shot of me with the Horta. Later, when Bill returned, we got some closeups of Kirk from the front.” (128-3)
During Shatner’s absence, slating the start of filming on the yet-to-be-made “All Our Day 4, scene 97, take 1 (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian) Yesterdays.”
While this was happening, Coon was busy doing his final rewrite, changing a pair of briefing room scenes to now play-out in Vandenberg’s office. By not having to make a move from Stage 10 to Stage 9 and then back again, as the schedule had it planned, the company saved a few hours. The latest page revisions had “The Devil in the Dark” spend less time on board the Enterprise than any other episode of Star Trek with the exception of
On Day 4, January 19, Pevney shot the remaining scenes that did not involve Kirk, and then cast and crew were excused. The production was now one day behind. On this night, NBC aired Star Trek for the 19th time, with “Arena.”
Day 5, Friday, January 20. One day behind now became two. Desilu Stage 10 was
dark. Cast and crew stayed home. Insurance paid the bill.
Shatner rejoins Nimoy for filming on Day 6 (Unaired film frame courtesy of Gerald Gurian)
Day 6, Monday, January 23. Shatner returned and production resumed. He would later admit that his father’s death, the journey home for the funeral, the difficulties he was experiencing as a result of his failing marriage, and the exhausting work at Star Trek, had left him depressed. His acting, however, did not suffer.
Pevney said, “Shatner was very close to his father, and it really shook him up, but he managed. He was much better than I was when my wife died -- I was impossible.” (141-2)
On the schedule this day: the portions of the scenes left unfinished from the week before, including Kirk’s encounter with the Horta. More work in the caverns followed, as Pevney filmed 32 camera set-ups, covering 13 pages of script. Even at this pace, he failed to catch up and was a full day behind, not counting the lay-off day on Friday. Wrap time was 6:50 p.m.
“That was a very difficult show to do,” Joseph Pevney said. “Janos Prohaska... he probably lost eight to ten pounds a day, just from moving around in the suit.” (141-2)
Day 7, Tuesday, January 24. Still on Stage 10, the company moved onto the set for Vandenberg’s office, filming all the exposition scenes, including the two that were originally planned for the briefing room on the Enterprise.
Day 8, Wednesday, January 25. The morning hours were spent finishing in Vandenberg’s office, and then a move was made to Stage 9 for a pair of brief scenes on the ship’s bridge, one with Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, the other with only Scotty (left in command while the three senior offices visit the planet).
Post-Production
Available for editing: January 26, 1967. Music score: tracked.
Fabien Tordjmann and Edit Team #3 did the cutting, including sneaking in those shots of Eddie Paskey’s back, coupled with William Shatner’s front, as Kirk encounters and interacts with the Horta.
The Westheimer Company handled the optical work, including materialization effects, phaser animation, and further animation needed when the Horta makes its first appearance by burning through solid rock.
With the extensive planet sets required, and delays due to Shatner’s absence, “Devil” ran over Star Trek’s mandated six day shooting schedule and maximum budget of $185,000 per episode. The final tally: seven production days, one lay-off day, and $192,863 spent. The first season deficit was up to $83,980.
Release / Reaction
Premiere air date: 3/9/67. NBC repeat broadcast: 6/15/67.
Opening of preview trailer, edited out of DVD releases and not commercially available since NBC broadcast in 1967 (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)
Star Trek made the cover of TV Guide the week “The Devil in the Dark” first aired on NBC. This exposure in the No. 1 selling magazine in America ensured good ratings.
RATINGS / Nielsen National report, Thursday, March 9, 1967:
Star Trek held second place for its entire broadcast with approximately 26 million people watching (an average of two per household). The movie on CBS: the television premiere of the 1961 drama The Sins of Rachel Cade, starring Angie Dickinson, Peter Finch, and Roger Moore.
One member of the viewing audience on March 9, Gene Roddenberry, was not fully happy with all he was seeing. He wrote to Gene Coon, beginning on a positive note.
I want to congratulate you on an excellent show... full of suspense, jeopardy, all the things that help bring us a mass audience, (while) maintaining good science-fiction elements. The “monster” was treated very well and given beautiful and heart-warming characteristics toward the end. (GR26-1)
Roddenberry had placed quotation marks around the word “monster” for a reason. The word represented a pet peeve of his. His memo continued:
We may have used the term “monster” a little too much at the beginning of the show. Would much prefer our people, highly trained astronauts of the future, well-acquainted with thousands of forms of alien life, use terms like “beings” or “creatures.“ (GR26-1)
In regard to the cavern floors, he wrote:
This could have used some painting mottled effect, as it seemed awfully shiny and new and stage-surface-like for an underground mining installation. It took away from the reality, which the rough-blasted walls gave us. (GR26-1)
Bjo Trimble, who was visiting the set as Roddenberry’s guest, explained that the floors were made smooth for the needs of the Horta. She said, “It would have been difficult for Janos [Prohaska]
to navigate the rocky floor. He stood about six-four, but he could contort himself into the most amazing positions. He was down on his hands and knees, so they needed it to be a smooth floor; he was in a bad enough position as it was.” (177-8)
Robert Justman concurred, saying, “That was a seven day production. We spent six of the seven days in those tunnels and catacombs. That meant the man in the Horta costume spent six of those seven days on his hands and knees. Correction: elbows and knees -crawling, turning, pouncing, scurrying away. And we were fond of the man in the Horta costume. We hoped to see him be able to stand up and walk away from this job…. There were many other creatures scurrying about -- production people, camera operators, actors, each a potential lawsuit should one fall and break one’s neck. And this is why stage floors are usually flat. You may recall that the Horta turned out not to be a beast after all. The real beast is the inherent short schedules of television production. If ‘The Devil in the Dark’ were a feature film, we would have been in those tunnels for several weeks instead of several days. Speaking only for myself, I was happy we were not in those tunnels for several weeks. It was not an easy production.” (94-1)
In his long memo to Coon, Roddenberry also talked about casting, saying:
Per NBC’s continued reminder to us, one which I find myself agreeing with, we should make some more use of females as crew members in planet stories, or find some way to include females among groups and miners, who are here on a planet years at a time. Granted, this can get phony and unbelievable if not handled right, but let’s keep in mind that we’re in a century where women are granted equal status and responsibility with men. (GR26-1)
Others involved with the series were more taken by “The Devil in the Dark.”
This was one of William Shatner’s two favorites. “A terrific story,” he said. “Exciting, thought-provoking, and intelligent.” (156-8)
James Doohan picked this as a favorite, as well. Leonard Nimoy also listed it as one of his favorites, saying that the theme was “powerful,” as it dealt with racism and “intercultural conflict,” a fear of a person or thing that we do not know or understand. He remarked, “‘The Devil in the Dark’ illustrates beautifully how unreasoning fear begets violence -- and how an attempt at understanding can benefit both sides in a conflict.” (128-3)
Entertainment Weekly chose “Devil” as Number Six in their Top Ten picks from the original series. Cinefantastique also listed “Devil” on its a Top Ten list.
From the Mailbag
Received after the premiere telecast of “The Devil in the Dark”:
Dear Gene: We’ve been watching Star Trek for some time. We tend to take science fiction very seriously, which gives us a perfectionist viewpoint; but we’ve found it generally enjoyable. When Mr. Spock turned up on the cover of TV Guide, we felt this was a very good sign indeed. But then came the evening of March 9. Gene, that show was a disaster. And all the worse because it must have attracted special attention after the fine TV Guide bit. The plot was a basically good idea, but it was realized in a very strained way. Your alien was not believable. The scene in which Spock makes contact with the alien was the low point, dragging on and on and pulling the show down with it. Some other points were unbelievable from an engineering viewpoint, which always detracts from the basic quality of the show. But we expect that. James Ashe, Editor, Science Fiction Times, N.Y., March 12, 1967.
In time, Gene Roddenberry ultimately went along with popular opinion and embraced the episode. However, immediately after its premiere, he had reservations, as indicated by this excerpt from his March 30 reply to Ashe:
Dear Jim: Whether or not the evening of March 9 was a disaster depends, of course, on whose viewpoint it is. It was not my favorite show either. On the other hand, we received not only one of our largest audience ratings but a considerable amount of complimentary mail from the upper level of our audience, even from many in Fandom. Yes, we’ve made episodes we wish we could forget, bury and hide. We can’t. Each of these episodes costs something like $200,000 and the loss of a single one of them would result in a net loss for the entire year and neither television studios nor television networks nor their stockholders would permit that kind of loss.
Memories
Dorothy Fontana said, “That’s the one that a lot of people remember very distinctly. The mother protecting her young. That’s a great show; it’s a great script.” (64-2)
In 1995, the renowned science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke said of this episode, “It impressed me because it presented the idea, unusual in science fiction then and now, that something weird, and even dangerous, need not be malevolent. That is a lesson that many of today’s politicians have yet to learn.” (31B)
35
A Back Order of Three / “Errand of Mercy”
Unaired film clip from “Errand of Mercy” (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)
As “The Return of the Archons” filmed, NBC had yet to inform Star Trek whether any additional shows would be required beyond the delivery of 26. Robert Justman had been sweating out the wait. It was his job to make sure the scripts had gone through their breakdown and all aspects of the productions were properly prepared.
Weeks earlier, on November 13, NBC had coughed up $14,000 and authorized the writing of four additional scripts, just in case.
On December 8, with “Archons” in its third day of filming, Justman wrote Gene Coon:
As you are aware, there is a definite likelihood of our being picked-up by the Network for four more shows this season. One of the conditions, or rather, the main condition of this pickup is that we will be able to keep delivering new shows to the Network without surcease through the 27th of April, 1967.... As of now, we have “Space Seed,” which will follow the presently-in-production show and then likelihood that we can get “A Taste of Armageddon” sufficiently down to budget in order to enable us to follow “Space Seed.” After that, we have nothing.
As had happened in October, 1966, when the mid-season pickup from NBC came and Roddenberry, Coon and Justman, with only days notice, had to be ready to put “Shore Leave” into production on the very day after “The Menagerie” finished filming, they now had to be ready with something/anything to put before the cameras should the network wish it.
With the script development money assured by NBC, Coon had been writing scripts of his own as well as rewriting those of others -- scripts that he knew might never see the light of a film set. He delivered a savagely pruned-down version of “A Taste of Armageddon” to Justman in time to follow on the heels of “Space Seed.” And then, in sufficient time, he delivered his polish of D.C. Fontana’s script for “This Side of Paradise,” as well as his own script for “The Devil in the Dark.” And this brought Star Trek to a total of 26 episodes. Beyond this, Coon had other scripts waiting in the wings ... or, at least, waiting near the wings.
Justman had been correct with his prediction that NBC would want four more shows. Daily Variety announced the news less than 24 hours later, on December 9, with the headline “Star Trek Given Another Hitch.” Said the trade paper: “Star Trek yesterday received its second pickup of the season, to make for a firm 30 segs.”
The network would scale this order back from four additional episodes to three, but, on December 9, Coon needed to get four more teleplays ready to go before the camera. He was still struggling to get a script for “The City on the Edge of Forever” that could actually be filmed somewhere close to budget, then dashed off a new one of his own, written in record time -- even for “the fastest typewriter in the west.”
Episode 27: ERRAND OF MERCY
Written by Gene L. Coon
Directed by John Newland
John Abbott (second from right) in unaired film trim (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)
From TV Guide, March 18, 1967:
A peace-loving race gives Captain Kirk a lesson in warfare. The inhabitants of the neutral planet Organia hesitate to interfere in a war between Kirk’s federation and an invader -- until
intervention becomes necessary.
Commander Kor, representing the Klingon Empire, wants Organia as a base. Kirk, representing the Earth-led United Federation of Planets, has the same desire. The Organians and their leader, Ayelborne, have a surprising idea of their own.
The theme, and hook, is a battle between the United States and the Communist Allies – or between Hawks and Doves -- circa 1967 ... with divine intervention ... on a distant alien world.
SOUND BITES
- Kirk: “Gentlemen, I’ve seen what the Klingons do to planets like yours. They are organized into vast slave labor camps. You’ll have no freedoms whatsoever. Your goods will be confiscated. Hostages will be taken and killed. Your leaders will be confined. You’ll be better off on a penal planet; infinitely better off.” Ayelborne: “Captain, we see that your concern is genuine. We are moved. But we assure you that we are in absolutely no danger, and that there is no reason to concern yourself about us. If anyone is in danger, you are, and this troubles us greatly.”
- Kor, to the Organians: “Where is your smile?... That stupid, idiotic smile everyone else seems to be wearing.... Smile, and smile. I don’t trust men who smile too much.”
- Kirk, to Ayelborne: “Even if you have some powers we don’t understand, that doesn’t give you the right to dictate to our Federation...” Kor: “...or our Empire ...” Kirk: “...how we’ll handle our inter-stellar relations! We have the right...” Ayelborne, interrupting: “To wage war, Captain? To kill millions of innocent people? To destroy life on a planetary scale? Is this what you are defending?” Claymare: “Your emotions are most discordant. We do not wish to seem inhospitable ... but really ... gentlemen ... you must go.” Ayelborne: “Yes. The mere presence of beings like yourselves is intensely painful to us.”
These Are The Voyages, TOS, Season One Page 91
