Star Trek, the original series, a retrospective

[TMC]

http://www.denofgeek.us/tv/star-trek...-retrospective

Star Trek, like all TV series, was filled with plot holes and contradictions. They played fast and loose with the Prime Directive. Galaxies became planets. Somewhere along the line, the ship’s phasers looked like photon torpedoes and vice versa, but no one ever seemed to notice on the show. Star Trek wasn’t that far removed from the 50s SciFi and horror classics that had men in gorilla suits as monsters. They had about the same budget and Star Trek’s episodes were probably shot more quickly. They cut corners to trim expenses. They used what was on hand.

Gene Rodenberry got fancy salt shakers for his wife, Number One, Nurse Chapel, Majel Barrett that she hated, so they turned them into Dr. McCoy’s medical kit. In the pilot episode, the crew has see-through communicators that look like kazoos and their phasers looked like children’s toys that came out of cereal boxes.

What Star Trek did do was attract great writers whose imaginations had been stifled on television since the demise of The Twilight Zone and Outer Limits. SciFi writers dropped from the ceiling like tribbles in a cargo hold to sing the praises of the new interstellar program. The series heralded a science fiction renaissance. Writers like Gene Coon who wrote "Arena," "Space Seed," "A Taste of Armageddon," "The Devil in the Dark," "Errand of Mercy," "The Apple," "Metamorphosis," the gangster classic "A Piece of the Action," "Bread and Circuses," "Spock's Brain" ("Brain and brain. What is brain?"), "Spectre of the Gun," the quickie "Wink of an Eye" and the two-toned "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" and James Blish, who novelized the episodes. D. C. Fontana, Jerome Bixby, Robert Bloch and John Meredyth Lucas. Jerome Bixby who penned "Mirror, Mirror," "By Any Other Name," "Day of the Dove" and "Requiem for Methuselah." Oliver Crawford, who wrote "The Galileo Seven," "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" and "The Cloud Minders."

Harlan Ellison, probably best known for writing “A Boy and His Dog” and for being something of a pain-in-the ass to talk to (I kid the afflicted, you gotta love him for sticking up for writers getting paid), wrote a very advanced teleplay involving drug addiction, loss and the very frightening effects of messing with time. He witnessed the amazing Shatner feat of line counting while riding a motorcycle. The censors rewrote Ellison’s script until he thought it was unrecognizable. The episode was the “City on the Edge of Forever” and it remains one of the best of the series. It starred Joan Collins preachifying for peace in the days right before Hitler and imagined the Enterprise crew on Earth in the depression twenties. The televised script had a copout ending and shied away from the more contentious issues of the original teleplay.

Star Trek’s theme song was written by Alexander Courage. Eight composers were under contract to provide incidental music and subthemes: Alexander Courage, George Duning, Jerry Fielding, Gerald Fried, Sol Kaplan, Samuel Matlovsky, Joseph Mullendore, and Fred Steiner. The music is very important on Star Trek. It is instantly recognizable, just a few notes brings us directly into the Star Trek galaxy, as even a casual watching of South Park will bear out.

Gene Rodenberry started peddling a “Wagon Train to the stars” in 1964. Rodenberry was a TV writer who came up through the Air Force and had been an LA cop. He wrote for the series Highway Patrol and Have Gun–Will Travel under the name "Robert Wesley" before producing the series The Lieutenant, which featured the future Uhura, Nichelle Nicols, for NBC. It didn’t last very long. Rodenberry pitched a new futuristic series to Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’ studio, Desilu. Desilu liked the concept, but didn’t like the pilot episode, “The Cage.”

The pilot starred one of the universally regarded best-looking Jesuses (Jesii?) from film, Jeffrey Hunter, as Capt. Christopher Pike. Pike’s earth home was near the Mohave Desert. The galaxy-weary captain is tired of making decisions of life and death for the 203 crewmembers who rely on his expertise. Mr. Spock, who later in the series will have no emotions, sounds absolutely heartbroken when he pouts “We’re not going?” to a class M, earthlike, planet to pick up stray astronauts. Spock looks like he’s got an extraterrestrial stick up his ass. Nimoy never fully removed the stick for a lot of his performance. Of course it may have been that his ears were glued on too tight. This might explain why Spock is limping when he first gets to the asteroid.

Gene Rodenberry was an optimist who believed that humans would ultimately evolve into advanced beings. He saw a future where all races and genders could stand equally on one bridge and make fun of Vulcans. The crew wasn’t as extraterrestrially evolved in the pilot as they would become. The women were still being designed by the Don Drapers of pre-swinging sixties Madison Avenue. Female officer’s uniforms were miniskirts. Pike tells Number One, Majel Barrett before she got her nursing license, that he’s still not used to women on the bridge, except her. She’s different. She might as well be a man. (I’m glad I wasn’t at the Rodenberry household that night.)

On the asteroid, Vena (Susan Oliver) is a sexual animal in a grass skirt that was raised by aging scientists. She plays into all kinds of sexual and personal fantasies, including the enduring, alluring Green Lady from the Orion system. (The production department kept painting her pink.) Green Ladies like it when you take advantage of them. The viewer gets subliminal foreshadowing when Vena occasionally assumes the position of what she will ultimately become, the mangled woman-child assembled by the aliens without easy to follow directions. For an advanced race, you would think the Thelosians might at least understand the basic concept of symmetry. The aliens have big veiny heads with an ass in the back to make the point that the rest of their bodies are superfluous. The future is agnostic. The aliens send Pike to Hell and tell him they got it from his memory of a “fable he once read in childhood.” Vena decides to stay on the asteroid with the Thelosians because she would be too grotesque to join her human counterparts. Dating would be out of the question, despite any surgical procedures they might have come up with in the 23rd Century to fix her condition. Captain Pike agrees with her reasons because really, there’s no place on the Enterprise for ugly bitches. Lucy didn’t love it.

On Lucille Ball’s orders, “Where No Man Has Gone Before” was shot to become the new pilot episode, introducing the cast to TV sets across the country. Although it would be the third episode aired on TV. After we’d already met them. The pilot introduces some of Star Trek’s recurring themes and subthemes. Kirk is dynamic, reckless and loyal, in this case to his friend. We get the first glimpse of Spock’s family issues. Spock says one of his ancestors married a human female. We later learn that ancestor is his mother. Not a close family, the Spocks. He’s seen as unfeeling. When news comes aboard that someone from the landing party died, Spock doesn’t question whether it was the Captain. Uhura, perturbed by his stoic self, reminds the Vulcan that Kirk is the “closest thing to a friend you have.”

[shotzette]

Originally Posted by TMC

http://www.denofgeek.us/tv/star-trek...-retrospective

I love the subject matter with a passion, but that has to be one of the most poorly written articles that I have ever read.

[robyrob]

complete schlock article, totally useless. Harlan Ellison is a god - read his books some time.

ahh yes, the future used to be so good back in the old days.