This is a far more startling development than what we are given in the filmed episode. Further, after knocking Kartan out, Spock brings him to the ship for examination and we learn that he was to wed Aurelan before the invasion. She is horrified to see her fiancé like this and pleads that, if he cannot be saved, he be put out of his misery. She is also supportive of him being used in the experiments to find a way to destroy the creature. She sees it as Kartan’s only chance to be spared from further agonizing pain ... and madness. Kartan is important to the story, because Spock is not a good candidate for the experimentation, being only half-human.
The ending to the Carabatsos script is nothing like that of his original story outline or the filmed episode yet to come. Spock, linked to the consciousness of the creature through that which lives within his body, is able to sense that it is a “composite organism” and that all its subparts are somehow connected and controlled by a “gigantic brain.” Kirk, taking this a step further, comes up with the hypothesis that the individual cells are mindless, in fact almost lifeless, and that there is a central concentration of them somewhere. Spock, being in telepathic communication with the creature, is able to direct the Enterprise to the alien’s home planet -- where the epidemic of madness first began hundreds of years earlier. Kirk orders Sulu to use the ship’s weapons to set fire to the surface of that planet, not Deneva. The heat and the light created by the weapons destroy the central brain. The creature within Spock leaves the body of its host. It is weak and easily destroyed. And this happens a million times over on Deneva, too.
Carabatsos’ Second Draft script from January 19, 1967, was sent to the Mimeo Department, and designated as the Yellow Cover First Draft. It was then sent to NBC.
Robert Justman still had issues, far too many to list. He did, however have one positive comment:
Come to think of it, Gene, the thing I like best about this show is the fact that it is heavy in its emphasis upon Mister Spock. I know that can’t do us any harm. (RJ29-2)
Stan Robertson was getting everything he usually asked for: a planet show, to be shot in part on location, and an interesting adversary/monster. What he wasn’t getting was fast pacing. He wrote Gene Coon:
This is an excellent dramatic script, certainly all of the important ingredients of action, adventure, jeopardy, conflict, suspense, characterizations, etc. However, in its “structure,” as with the structures of a large number of the other scripts we’ve had this season, we have missed on a salient factor which is more apparent on the screen than it is on paper. And that is this -- we have not whetted the appetite of our viewers enough in the Teaser. (SR29)
In the teaser of the script Carabatsos had written, we get the back-story, telling us that madness has been spreading across this part of the galaxy and Deneva is the next planet in line. Kirk orders the Enterprise to proceed to Deneva. Fade down.
Recent audience research told Robertson that the show needed to open with a bang or that many in the viewing audience might switch channels to get their thrills on ABC or CBS. NBC was learning that if you don’t catch them fast, you don’t keep them.
For better or worse, Robertson was ahead of his time. He told Coon:
I need not, I know, remind you that we are involved in a highly competitive visual medium in which the mass audience is, at best, fickle and approaching the blasé after almost a decade and a half of network television as we know it. We must, I’m firmly convinced, so arouse their curiosity and interest in the shortest time possible after the NBC Peacock that they will be completely absorbed in what is to follow. We must “cheat” a little bit and offer a little of the dessert with the entree. (SR29)
Robertson cited a perfect example of a snappy Star Trek opening -- the one seen in the teaser for “Tomorrow Is Yesterday.”
He continued:
As scripted, our story is written as a mystery and it is not until we are far along in it that we are presented with the actual visual confrontation of our “things”. (SR29)
Since Robertson had made reference to a Dorothy Fontana script as a prime example of the type of writing -- and the type of teaser -- he wanted to see more of, Coon handed the script off to his new Story Editor for a sprucing-up.
Fontana’s polish -- the January 24 Final Draft -- tightened the teaser and added in the action which, in the previous draft, didn’t happen until the start of Act One -- the Enterprise encountering the Denevan ship which is racing toward that system’s sun, and the ship’s destruction. NBC now had a big bang to open with.
Fontana also introduced the creatures sooner than Carabatsos had, and eliminated the idea that the entire creature would invade the body of its intended host. Now, it would inject living tissue into the body of its host by means of a stinger. And Fontana added Nurse Chapel into the script, assisting McCoy during the surgery on Spock, and trying to keep the Vulcan from later leaving sickbay. A gripping dialogue scene, which did not last through all the rewriting, is present here. McCoy does not bring the specimen he removes from Spock to the bridge, as in the filmed version, but, instead, calls Kirk to his office. Of the “tendril” in the jar of clear fluid, McCoy says, “By itself, this tissue has no organs. And I’d guess the same for the individual creatures we saw on the surface. What I’m saying is that maybe all those separate creatures down there -- and this stuff here -- put together, make one entity.”
The character of Menen was now seen but not heard, with Aurelan doing the talking and telling Kirk to kill Spock. Otherwise, the story structure remained very much the same.
The first person to make substantial changes was Gene Coon. With his rewrite, the February 3rd Revised Final Draft, the Fourth Act and the story’s ending were retooled. It was here where the idea of having Spock experience blindness was added. And Spock would not be alone. Scotty clumsily knocks over a specimen case, freeing one of the creatures, and is attacked and inhabited by the creature. And he, too, is blinded in the effort to remove the alien from his body. Kirk, after wrestling with his conscience, makes the decision to blind all those on Deneva -- over a million people -- to free them from the aliens. It is McCoy, after the fact, who finds a way to surgically repair the eyes, allowing Spock and Scott to see again. Medics are then sent to Deneva to begin the process of corrective eye surgery on the million-plus inhabitants of the planet.
Justman commented:
Incidentally, since Engineer Scott has now been infected by the Creatures also, what have we done with him? Is he in Sickbay? Is he in another section of the Sickbay that we can’t see? Has he died?... I am sure that you [Gene Coon] will agree with Mr. Roddenberry that I may not be the soul of tact, but I am extremely terrier-like in my determination to pursue a problem once I have fastened my teeth into it. As I have told the Great Bird of the Galaxy in the past, I may disagree with his point of view, but I will fight to the death to preserve his right to be wrong. (RJ29-3)
Roddenberry did a rewrite next. Steven Carabatsos said, “[Roddenberry] had wanted to do an episode involving Captain Kirk’s brother. Kind of a family connection.” (28-1)
Roddenberry removed the character of Melen, adding in Sam Kirk, having Aurelan be Sam’s wife, and giving them a son -- Peter (even though in “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” we are told Sam Kirk has two sons). The character of Kartan remained and still attacked Spock, but had so little significance, and was now in and out of the story so fast that his name is never even spoken. Roddenberry also took out the plot contrivance that had Scott being attacked and stung by one of the creatures. And he changed the ending. Spock loses his sight, but, before Kirk gives the order to blind all those on Deneva, McCoy discovers that only one spectrum of light need be used to kill the aliens -- one that is not harmful to the human eye. Lastly, Roddenberry added in a reasonable means for Spock to regain his sight -- due to that never-before-mentioned Vulcan inner eyelid.
Clearly, the script had been improved in many ways. But it had also become crowded. Good ideas do not always help a story -- not when there are
too many of them.
Regardless, Roddenberry, Coon, and Fontana felt the script was now better. When James Blish, the science fiction author commissioned to turn the scripts into short story form for a series of Bantam paperback books, based his story on the Grey Cover Final Draft script and not on the 2nd Revised Final Draft, Fontana sent a memo to Roddenberry, complaining:
This adapted story is not only not what we put on the air... [but] it lacks all the personal elements of urgency we placed in the story: the fact that the three people we find on the planet in the radio station are Kirk’s brother Sam, his sister-in-law Aurelan, and nephew Peter; that the brother and sister-in-law die, etc.” (DC29)
Roddenberry always believed that scripts got better with rewriting. At some point, however, too much writing leads to overwriting. And that is the case here.
Coon did more rewriting, with a series of minor page revisions on February 14, 15 and 22, as the episode was filming.
Pre-Production
February 3 & 6-10 & 13, 1967 (total 7 days prep).
Herschel Daugherty, 56, in TV since the early 1950s, was hired to direct. His resume included Wagon Train (nine episodes), Alfred Hitchcock Presents (15 episodes), and Boris Karloff’s Thriller (16 assignments, including “The Grim Reaper,” which starred William Shatner). He was also a frequent director for the anthology series General Electric Theater, where he won the Directors Guild award in 1957. Daugherty would return to Star Trek for “The Savage Curtain.”
Because “The City on the Edge of Forever” ran one and a half days over, Daugherty got an extra day of prep.
Joan Swift played Aurelan Kirk, Captain Kirk’s sister-in-law. Swift’s work in TV had been in roles such as “Hatcheck Girl,” “Saloon Girl,” “Secretary,” and “Stewardess.” “Operation: Annihilate!” allowed her to scream, writhe in agony, have a hysterical fit, and then die.
Craig Hundley played Kirk’s nephew, Peter. He was 12, and busy in television with guest spots on series such as My Favorite Martian and Bewitched. Immediately after “Operation: Annihilate!,” Hundley was added to the cast of Days of Our Lives. He returned for a bigger role on Star Trek in “And the Children Shall Lead.”
Wah Chang designed the parasite creatures, which James Doohan called “flying omelets.” Doohan said, “Those things went hurtling through the air on strings, and when the script called for one of them to smack Spock in the back, it nearly knocked him down.” (52-1)
The moment was preserved for the year-end blooper reel shown at the company’s wrap party.
Production Diary
Filmed February 14 (1/2 day), 15, 16, 17, 20, 21 & 22, 1967
(6 1/2 day production; cost: $196,780).
Principal photography began on Tuesday, February 14, 1967. This week: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Marianne Faithfull were busted for procession of drugs. The Beatles released their new single: “Penny Lane,” paired with “Strawberry Fields Forever.” The top two films in the movie houses across America: The Fox, starring Sandy Dennis, and Hurry Sundown, starring Michael Caine, Jane Fonda, and Faye Dunaway. Steven Hill, Barbara Bain, and Martin Landau, the stars of Star Trek’s sister show, Mission: Impossible, had the cover of TV Guide. On television the night before the commencement of production on “Operation: Annihilate!,” The Monkees performed “She” and “Sometime in the Morning” from their new album on their NBC series. Their self-titled debut album finally got knocked from the No. 1 spot in the record stores after a staggering 13 weeks at the top. It fell to No. 2 where it would sit for another month. The new top-selling album across the nation: More of the Monkees. Their “I’m a Believer” single was finally displaced as the most-played song on the radio and best-selling single, after seven weeks at the summit, now dropping to No. 2. The new 45 getting the most spins: “Kind of a Drag,” by The Buckinghams.
Filming began at midday. “The City on the Edge of Forever” finally wrapped, making room for director Daugherty to get started. He wasn’t complaining. Besides an extra day for preparation, he now had an extra half day to film.
Hamming for the camera, using phasers as electric shavers, while on location in Redondo Beach (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)
The original full-day schedule had planned to cover scenes in the transporter room, the briefing room, and Kirk’s quarters. With only a half day to work, the expectations were now scaled back by 50%.
On Day 2, location filming took place at the TRW Defense and Space Group Campus, in Redondo Beach, California. This futuristic complex served as the Denevan city.
For Day 3, the company returned to Stage 9 to pick up where filming had left off on Tuesday, then moved onto the bridge set.
“Space Seed” aired for the first time on NBC this night.
Deleted “tag scene” with Craig Hundley (from startrekhistory.com and startrekpropauthority.com)
The entirety of Day 4 was spent filming on the bridge, including the scripted ending of the episode, in which Kirk’s nephew, Peter, now recovered and seeming happy, wears a mini Star Fleet uniform (gold shirt, like Kirk’s) and sits in the captain’s chair. In the dialogue, cut from the aired episode, Peter tells Kirk he wishes to stay on Deneva.
Day 6, as tests are run to see if bright light can kill the creature (Unaired film trim courtesy of Gerald Gurian)
Day 5 was spent filming sequences in McCoy’s office and sickbay. Shooting in sickbay continued on Day 6, including the dramatic scene in which McCoy admits to Kirk that he made a mistake in exposing Spock to the full spectrum of light. The acting by the three leads -- Shatner, Nimoy, and Kelley -- and the gamut of emotions that passes among them brings forward a standout moment in this episode. Interviewed at this time, DeForest Kelley said, “I’ve been told that Dr. McCoy is the balancing rod between the two more extreme characters, Kirk and Spock.... Now, McCoy is merely human. At times he feels fear. At times he can perform really dangerous acts. But he’s always just a man who feels and thinks and who searches. And, who makes mistakes. The audience reacts to each of us. They admire Captain Kirk for conquering the faults in our human natures. They are in awe of Mr. Spock. But they sympathize with and relate to Dr. McCoy.” (98-13)
Day 7, February 22, 1967 -- the final shots were taken in-and-about the isolation booth. After filming ended, the cast and crew hung around for a season-end wrap party. The following night, on Thursday, February 23, “A Taste of Armageddon” aired on NBC.
Post-Production
Available for editing: February 23, 1967. Music score: tracked.
Fabien Tordjmann and Edit Team #3 did the cutting, their eighth episode. The Westheimer Company provided the optical effects. The new shots of the Enterprise in space, however, came courtesy of Film Effects of Hollywood.
For the sounds made by the creature, Sound Editor Douglass H. Grindstaff said, “That was a kiss. I [recorded] about a hundred kisses and played with them. Only one of them worked out. It just pulsated with [the movements of the creature], and it fit real well. You had to use your imagination, and you had to be one step ahead of them. I would never tell anyone what I did.... They could ask me all day what I did, I wasn’t going to tell them. You either liked it or you didn’t. So, they finally quit asking.” (76-1)
At $196,780, “Operation: Annihilate” came in $11,780 over its studio allocated budget. The first season ended $146,603 in the red. With Mission: Impossible also spending more than the studio had wished, Desilu was in danger of going out of business.
Release / Reaction:
Only NBC air date: 4/13/67.
RATINGS / Nielsen National report, Thursday, April 13, 1967:
From 9:00-9:30 p.m., in a too-close-to-call race, Star Trek tied for No. 1 with the movie on CBS -- About Miss Leslie, starring Shirley Booth and Robert Ryan. In the April 24, 1967, edition of Daily Variety, the trade published the Top 40 list of the latest 30-City Nielsen survey. Star Trek, with this final first-run episode of the season, came in at a respectable No. 37 out of 90 prime time shows.
Robert Justma
n chose not to include it on his list of suggested summer repeats for NBC, even though it appeared to be everything the network had been asking for.
From the Mailbag
Received after the broadcast of “Operation: Annihilate!”:
Dear Mr. Roddenberry: To begin with, let me say I enjoy your program Star Trek. I think it is one of the most sophisticated programs of its type on television. However, the purpose of this letter is to see if you can assist me in a problem which I have not been able to solve to date. I am an apartment complex builder in Santa Barbara and I continue to attempt to add amenities and upgrade my units as best I can. For some time, I have wanted to install in our new units an electronically controlled pocket panel door and I have done some research in this area. Our basic problem has been we can’t get the doors to open and close fast enough. If, in effect, the sliding doors in the space craft in your Star Trek series are special effects rather than a function of building then, of course, you cannot be of any help to me. In short, how do you get the damn door to open and close so fast!.... Hoping to hear from you soon. I remain... Very Truly Yours. Marvin T. (Santa Barbara, California)
Received one-and-a-half weeks after the first airing of “Operation: Annihilate!”:
Dear Gene, I just wanted to tell you how much I have enjoyed the Star Trek series this year. As a matter of fact, when I watched last night’s “first episode” repeat [“Where No Man Has Gone Before”], I realized the enormous strides you and your group have made with this show since the shooting of that episode. My wife is probably the biggest fan you have. Sincerely, Mort Werner, President, NBC. (April 21, 1967)
Memories
Craig Hundley said, “I was a big fan of Star Trek, In fact, producer Gene Roddenberry wanted me as a regular on the series as Captain Kirk’s nephew, Peter. Because of other commitments, I was unavailable. Gene did ask me back for the third season episode, ‘And the Children Shall lead.’” (87-3)
These Are The Voyages, TOS, Season One Page 98
