The Unauthorized History of Trek

“Where No Man Has Gone Before” was the third episode broadcast.

Things really hit their stride with “The Naked Time,” which gave the Star Trek cast a chance to show off their range when an alien microbe opens up the ship’s crew to their innermost personal conflicts. Kirk’s love of the Enterprise wars with his knowledge that the command keeps him from having a normal life. Spock’s dual heritage leads to even more divided behavior, and he is seen to actually weep.

The ship, meanwhile, finds itself in danger of being destroyed, but is saved through the simple expedient of a little minor time travel, the first for the series. This episode also introduces Nurse Christine Chapel and her unrequited love for the unreachable Mr. Spock.

“The Enemy Within” gives Shatner a shot at strutting his stuff when a transporter malfunction divides him into two diametrically opposed selves. Believe it or not, this episode first explored on television the much-abused concept of the “evil twin,” and this is perhaps the only time on TV that it was ever explored with any thought or imagination. Hack TV writers reduced the idea to a trivial cliché in the seventies and eighties on countless television shows.

“Mudd’s Women,” one of the three scripts proposed for the second pilot submission, introduces Roger C. Carmel as the rascally space swindler Harry Mudd. This also marks the first time the Enterprise is in dire need of fresh dilithium crystals. Furthermore, Mudd actually gives another character a pleasure drug—a fact overlooked by the network censor!

On October 15, 1966 (two days after “Mudd’s Women”), TV Guide featured a profile of William Shatner. Entitled “No One Ever Upsets The STAR,” it details Shatner’s first taste of real fame.

William Shatner, Star Trek’s 35-year-old Montreal-born ex-Hollywood holdout, sits in his plush Desilu dressing room force-feeding himself on five pages of rush dialogue. He is interrupted first by a small man bearing a new-style jacket on a hanger, and then an intently solicitous press agent, and then an eager-to-please youth who asks in the manner of a bellhop addressing the man in the presidential suite, “Would you like something cold to drink?”

Shatner appears to love all this attention, and comments on his new attitude, “Before, I always thought that kind of, uh, toadying was beneath human dignity. But for the first time I’m able to see the reason for it. These little attentions do help. It makes life easier for me.” Later he continues, “I’ve gotten great insight into the omnipotence of the series lead. Everybody does his best not to upset the star. It’s an almost unique position few in the entertainment world achieve … it’s like absolute power.”

Shatner then joins Leonard Nimoy, already wearing his famous ears, guest star Robert Walker, Jr., and director Larry Dobkin for a rehearsal just outside his dressing room. Shatner insists on these off-the-set run-throughs, an innovation that earns him the applause of most of the directors. The actor evidently has firm ideas about the show itself, and when an associate producer arrives with late, late script changes, Shatner gets testy. (Later, he persuades Roddenberry to outlaw these last-minute changes.)

Not content just to be the star, Shatner from the beginning would approach Roddenberry with his comments about the script. Later, he presented Gene with a script he himself had written. Roddenberry was impressed—“I caught myself wishing I could write that well. …”—but not inspired to buy the script. Working with such an assertive actor at first seemed ominous, “but it wasn’t so bad. I have never had more intelligent suggestions, and we used all of them,” Roddenberry said.

Shatner took to stardom like a natural from the very first, and in the years since that first season, he has even realized his early dream of writing and directing.

“What Are Little Girls Made Of?” again features two Kirks (Shatner must have loved this!) when he is duplicated, in android form, by Nurse Chapel’s fiancé, Dr. Roger Korby. She’s been searching for him, but he seems to have gone just a little bit ’round the bend, and is intent on taking over the Enterprise and populating the universe with his androids, one of whom, Ruk, is portrayed by Ted Cassidy (Lurch on The Addams Family). This episode has a strange, eerie quality about it, and writer Robert Bloch, who wrote the novel on which the film Psycho was based, peppers it with arcane references to aspects of H. P. Lovecraft’s mythos. Kirk’s brother George is mentioned in this episode.

“Miri” brings Kirk and crew to a planet remarkably like Earth, where ancient children live long lives until their long-delayed puberty causes them to sicken and die. Kirk is beaten up by children in this episode; McCoy finds a cure for the aging disease before almost succumbing to it himself.

“Dagger of the Mind” involves Kirk’s discovery of the abuses of power at a supposedly humane penal colony. This introduces the Vulcan mind meld, which conveniently serves as a means to avoid a lengthy expository conversation with a mentally deranged character.

“The Corbomite Maneuver” was actually the third episode filmed, as well as being the first one to include McCoy as a character. Here Kirk encounters a massive, threatening spaceship that is not what it seems to be.

The next two broadcasts consisted of a two-parter, “The Menagerie,” which incorporated much of the footage from the first pilot, “The Cage.” Here Spock goes to great lengths to take Captain Pike, crippled in an accident, back to Talos IV so that he can live out his life in a happy illusion created by the Talosians. Through flashbacks, Spock explains his actions to Kirk and the others.

By this point in the series, one thing was crystal clear: Mr. Spock, originally a supporting character, was becoming as popular as the lead, Captain Kirk. At times, Shatner even felt obliged to remind some series scriptwriters that he was the captain; he later acknowledged that there was sometimes friction between him and Leonard, but made certain to indicate that this was a thing of the past: “We went through that fire together and today we are fast friends. Leonard is an honest man and a fine craftsman.” Still, at the time Shatner was so concerned over the situation that he counted his lines in each new script to be certain that he had more than Nimoy. If he didn’t, either more were added for him at his insistence, or some of Nimoy’s lines were cut.

Norman Spinrad once related the story of his visit to the set of the episode he had scripted, “The Doomsday Machine.” He witnessed the director trying to come up with an alternative way for Nimoy to react to Shatner in a scene because for Nimoy to utter a line would have given him one line too many, as far as Shatner was concerned.

But by the end of 1966, Star Trek was already in trouble. NBC was dissatisfied with the Nielsen ratings, and was, as usual, uncertain of how to categorize the series. The show had already generated a highly positive response in the science fiction subculture, of course, and so Roddenberry turned to Harlan Ellison for help. Perhaps if the network knew just how large an audience science fiction fandom represented, it might very well see the show in a new light.

And so, Ellison sent out five thousand letters urging science fiction fans to press NBC with a letter-writing campaign. Dated December 1, 1966, Ellison’s missive bore the letterhead of “The Committee,” an impressive listing of names: Paul Anderson, Robert Bloch, Lester Del Rey, Ellison, Philip Jose Farmer, Frank Herbert, Richard Matheson, Theodore Sturgeon, and A. E. Van Vogt. Thus Ellison, who would later be less than keen on his involvement with Star Trek (“The City on the Edge of Forever” had yet to be filmed), was in fact responsible for the very first letter campaign organized to benefit the series.

This, of course, was in the days when the Nielsen ratings presupposed a bland, all-encompassing uniformity belonging to the “average” TV viewer. With this sort of a priori approach, it is hardly surprising that the appeal of Star Trek did not dovetail with the Nielsen company’s concepts, and hence eluded its comprehension. But in those pre-demographics days, before the variety of the American mind-set was taken into consideration, the Nielsen ratings were the voice of God as far as the networks were concerned. Those were the numbers that determined a show’s advertising value and marketability, as well as its popularity, despite whatever evidence reality had to offer to the contrary.

And evidence there was. The stars of Star Trek had become wildly popular with the public … almost, if not quite, overnight. The ratings problem seems almost ironic when held up against this fact.

In 1966, Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner were invited to appear in Hollywood’s annual Christmas parade. This newfound fame was no guarantee of respect, however, for while the parade announcer got Shatner’s name correct, he introduced the other Star Trek star as “Leonard Nimsy.” Despite this gaffe, Nimoy was, for the first time in his life, frequently recognized on the street, and constantly besieged for autographs.

He took it all in good humor, although he soon became weary of smart-aleck fans asking him where he’d left his ears. Fan mail began to pour in, too, a great deal of it from younger viewers.

All of this was uncharted territory for Nimoy. At first, he was determined to answer all his fan mail by himself. Thirty or so letters a week was no big deal, after all. Unfortunately for this plan, the numbers began to increase every week, until thousands of messages were pouring in. He had to hire an assistant, Teresa Victor, to help him cope with his popularity. The other Star Trek stars made similar arrangements.

With the success of the show, the principal actors were better off financially than they had been in their entire careers. Nimoy used this money to upgrade his personal transportation, and replaced his battered old car with a new Buick luxury auto. Shatner went for something sportier, while DeForest Kelley bought a Thunderbird—which he managed to ram into Nimoy’s Buick one day at the end of shooting. Things proceeded amicably, but passersby were probably a bit nonplussed to see a normal-looking man exchanging insurance information with Leonard, who was still rigged up in full Spock regalia.

There was also a downside to Nimoy’s newfound celebrity. Early in Star Trek’s run, NBC arranged for him to be the grand marshal of Medford, Oregon’s annual Pear Blossom Festival; this was to be his first real promotional trip, and he was quite unprepared for the chaos that would surround it. The parade went without a hitch—but it had also been announced that Nimoy would sign autographs in a small park at the end of the parade route. A crowd, with a large number of young people, actually followed Leonard’s itinerary. By the time he reached the park, it was swarming with immense numbers of people. The lone park employee was swamped by this madness; traffic was completely fouled up. In the end, Medford police had to make their way in and “rescue” Nimoy from the friendly mob.

Eventually, it reached the point where people actually turned down the chance for a Spock/Nimoy appearance. Macy’s, the famous New York department store, declined to have Nimoy appear to promote one of his record albums. The stone honestly admitted that it could not handle the sort of crowds which would undoubtedly attend such an event.

Nimoy himself turned down many requests for public appearances because they asked for him to wear the ears in public; he estimated losing about fifty thousand dollars in passing up these offers.

His popularity continued to manifest itself in a bewildering variety of ways. Spock was the only Star Trek character to merit solo reproduction as a model kit. While Kirk and Sulu did join Spock as small figures in AMT’s Enterprise Bridge model, a six-inch-tall Spock was featured in a larger diorama kit that featured him facing off against a three-headed alien serpent. (In 1975, Spock and other Star Trek characters would have the dubious honor of being reproduced as ice pop molds!)

His face also appeared on a variety of series-related toy packages over the years, including original show style phaser rifles and the ever-popular Star Trek disc gun. “I Grok Spock” buttons, alluding to Robert Heinlein’s classic 1961 science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land, began to crop up as well.

By this point, the NBC executives who had wanted to give Spock the axe were now acting as if they’d been for the character all along. Leonard’s place in the public consciousness was rock-solid, and the first season wasn’t even over yet!

“The Conscience of the King” involves Kirk in efforts to determine whether a well-known Shakespearian actor is actually the man responsible for a massacre some years earlier; Kirk is one of the few survivors. An intriguing study of guilt and self-punishment, with an intriguing plot twist or two, it is ably supported by actor Arnold Moss in a very demanding role.

“Balance of Terror” introduces the Romulans, who have returned after a century to harass the Federation with the assistance of their new cloaking devices. This story, essentially a submarine movie set in space, featured Mark Lenard as the Romulan commander. Lenard would, of course, play Spock’s father Sarek in a future episode.

“Shore Leave,” written by Theodore Sturgeon, prefigures the movie Westworld by some years, as the crew beams down for R&R on a planet that seems to be deadly but is actually an artifact programmed to custom-tailor amusements for each individual. This marks the first time a leading Star Trek character dies, only to return intact. (This time around it’s McCoy.)

“The Galileo Seven” brings Spock to the forefront as he commands a shuttlecraft which crashes, leaving him, Scotty, and Dr. McCoy stranded on a hostile planet. Is his logic sufficient to save the castaways, or must he learn to look at things from an irrational perspective?

“The Squire of Gothos” is Trelane, who traps the Enterprise and her crew to be his playthings; he is a powerful, godlike being, but also a child, ultimately answerable to his parents … though not before shaking up the resolute Captain Kirk a bit.

“Arena” adapts the classic science fiction story by Fredric L. Brown and casts Kirk in the lead, as the captain and the lizardlike Gorn are chosen as champions of their respective races by the meddlesome superior Metrons.

“Tomorrow Is Yesterday” is the first solid time-travel story for Star Trek, in which the Enterprise is hurled back to the twentieth century by the gravitational field of a black hole. Matters are complicated when an air force jet spots the Enterprise and Kirk must decide what to do with pilot John Christopher.

In “Court Martial,” Captain Kirk is tried for criminal negligence which resulted in the death of an officer; the redoubtable Mr. Spock applies his logic to the case and ultimately proves that the officer is really alive, having staged his own death in order to satisfy a personal grudge against Kirk.

Sulu gets to go nuts on-screen in “The Return of the Archons,” in which the Enterprise investigates the planet Beta III, which is ruled by a mysterious computer. (The last Federation ship to visit, a century earlier, was called the Archon; hence the returning Archons of the title are Kirk and his crew.) The outsiders are threatened with absorption, but Kirk ultimately talks the ancient computer into destroying itself. Spock actually hits someone in this episode.

“Space Seed” introduces Ricardo Montalban as Khan, a late-twentieth-century fanatic who, with his followers, has been adrift in a “sleeper ship” for hundreds of years. The Enterprise revives the sleepers only to be taken over by Khan, who uses the infatuation of Marla McGivers, a young woman officer, to gain control by cutting off the air to the bridge. At the end he is defeated (Kirk retaliates with knockout gas in the ventilation system) and chooses exile on an unexplored planet for himself and his people. McGivers chooses to join him.

“A Taste of Armageddon” draws Kirk into a peculiar war between the planets Eminiar Seven and Vendikar: battles are no longer fought, but computers do the fighting and determine the casualties. Victims in the affected areas then willingly report for euthanasia.

Kirk is appalled by this, of course—and all the more so when the Enterprise is decreed a casualty of war. Kirk and crew destroy the computers and leave the two worlds faced with the options of real war on the one hand and peaceful negotiations on the other.

“This Side of Paradise” takes the Enterprise to a colony that should have died of radiation poisoning years earlier, but survived because of spores on the planet Omicron Ceti III that also provide a constant sense of euphoria. The crew all fall prey to this, rendering them unfit for (and uninterested in) their duties. Foremost among these is Spock, who once again has his emotions liberated, as in “The Naked Time.” He falls in love with a young botanist whom he had known before. Kirk must discover a way to get his crew back; Spock’s happy romance is unfortunately short-lived. (He is also referred to as a Vulcanian on the show for the first and last time, since the terminology still hadn’t been standardized!)

About this time, in its issue of March 4, 1967, TV Guide featured a profile of Leonard Nimoy.

It could only happen in America: where else could a son of Russian immigrants become a television star with pointed ears?

The article then describes the picture of the “Spock Cut” in Max Nimoy’s Boston barber shop, where he would proudly point out his son to all customers; Nimoy’s mother, Dora, was sometimes interrupted at her job in a department store by people wanting to look at Spock’s mother.

According to TV Guide, much of Leonard Nimoy’s fan mail was from younger viewers, who thought Spock was “cool.” Roddenberry had a more philosophical idea: “We’re all imprisoned within ourselves. We’re all aliens on this strange planet, so people find identification with Spock.” Since it was the 1960s, it’s no surprise that so many young people felt they had more in common with a Vulcan than with their own parents!

Some fans had other ideas, and to many Spock became a sex symbol. A drama school colleague, actress Evelyn Ward, believed Nimoy’s own “great animal magnetism” was the reason for Spock’s popularity. Hidden for years under the heavy makeup of his Native American and Mexican roles, Nimoy’s charm was lying in wait for Gene Roddenberry’s genius—and a pair of pointed ears—to bring it out.

Hero for youth or sex symbol, Leonard Nimoy attempted to give Spock more depth and character. Spock was more than ears and eyebrows, largely because of Nimoy’s attitude: “I don’t want to play a creature or a computer. Spock gives me a chance to say something about the human race.” From the start, Nimoy hoped that the Spock role would bring him bigger projects: “I have all sorts of things I want to do. Perhaps this show will give me the wherewithal to do some of them.” But for now, he said, “I’m having a ball. It’s the first steady job I’ve had in seventeen years.”

Offscreen, Nimoy looked pretty much like an ordinary guy, if you overlook the “Spock Cut.” Quiet and serious, he even insisted that people call him Leonard, not “Lenny.” Though nicknames are almost required on a set, Nimoy managed to preserve a truly Vulcan dignity, regardless of whether he was being Spock or just plain Leonard Nimoy.

“The Devil in the Dark” is the Horta, a silicon-based creature that has been killing miners in the underground colony of Janus VI. The Enterprise is called in on the crisis, but Spock discovers, by means of the Vulcan mind meld, that it is actually a mother protecting its young, in this case spherical eggs which had previously seemed only peculiar geological phenomena. The real conflict of this story is the need to overcome the fear and hostility of the human miners when they are faced with something new and incomprehensible.

The Horta costume, designed and worn by Janos Prohaska, was originally used in the last Outer Limits episode, “The Probe,” but was customized and refurbished for its appearance on Star Trek.

“Errand of Mercy” sends Kirk to the peaceful, pastoral world of Organia, which is in danger of Klingon attack; Klingon/Federation relations have become increasingly strained, and war seems imminent. When Commander Kor and his Klingon force invade and take over, they arrest Spock and Kirk, but the Organians themselves seem unperturbed by the occupation. Still, the Organians rescue Kirk and Spock, and avert war by the use of their previously unsuspected mental powers, which render all weapons ineffective. They are in fact completely evolved beings whose human forms were a disguise, and they promise to keep a watchful eye on the enemy factions. In spite of the major plot element represented by the Organians and their ability to force an end to war, they were never used again in any subsequent Star Trek episode.

“The Alternative Factor” involves the battle between Lazarus and his antimatter double Lazarus; the fate of the universe hangs in the balance, and once again hinges on the need for dilithium crystals.

“The City on the Edge of Forever” is generally regarded as one of the best Star Trek episodes; it is also perhaps the episode with the most interesting background history. Harlan Ellison’s original script was rewritten by Gene Roddenberry, perhaps unnecessarily, and has become a long-standing source of annoyance for the writer. Roddenberry’s reasons for the rewrite have become somewhat clouded with the passage of time; he has claimed that Ellison’s script included huge crowd scenes and other factors which would have drastically exceeded the show’s budget (not exactly true), and even that the script had Scotty dealing drugs!

Ellison’s original draft did hinge on a low-ranking crew member dealing in illegal drugs, but it was not Scotty by any means; perhaps Roddenberry was simply aghast that someone might dare to show a seamy underside to his perfect human civilization of the future. The script as written by Ellison was published in the now-out-of-print Six Science Fiction Plays, edited by Roger Ellwood, and is due to be published again soon … with an extensive introduction by Ellison detailing the controversy in all its gory details. But, despite Ellison’s disavowals of the filmed product, his original story still shines through Roddenberry’s rewrite, and the story retains its fascination.

In the story as filmed, Dr. McCoy accidentally injects himself with a powerful experimental drug and becomes completely unhinged. (Apparently Roddenberry would rather impugn the good doctor’s basic competency than allow the blame to fall on a dishonest drug-smuggling crewman.) Meanwhile, Kirk and Spock are investigating a mysterious time portal, the Guardian of Forever, on the planet below.

McCoy beams down and leaps through the portal, disappearing into the past; the Enterprise suddenly ceases to exist, leaving Kirk and Spock stranded in a distant corner of the universe. They must go to the past and undo whatever it is McCoy has done to disrupt history. In 1930s New York, Kirk falls in love with Edith Keeler (Joan Collins), not realizing that she is the key to their predicament.

Spock manages to create a time-scanning device with his tricorder and the primitive technology of the period, and ultimately discovers that Keeler will, if she lives, lead a pacifist movement that will keep the USA out of World War Two. The Nazis will win the war and make history on Earth a veritable hell; thus, Keeler’s humanitarian impulses contain the seeds of humanity’s destruction.

Kirk must then force himself to keep the still delirious McCoy from saving Edith from her death under the wheels of a car. History is restored to its proper form—but not without some wrenching decisions for Kirk.