The Unauthorized History of Trek

This was to be DeForest Kelley’s favorite episode of the series. According to him, Edith was to have been the key character, but the story was rewritten to give McCoy a greater role.

“Operation: Annihilate!” features William Shatner in a second role: that of the dead body of Kirk’s older brother George, complete with a mustache and gray hair. This personal tragedy is discovered on the planet Deneva, where alien parasites are attacking humans and driving them to excruciatingly painful deaths. This episode’s effectiveness is somewhat enhanced by the fact that the creatures look like enormous airborne fried eggs. Held to a wall with electromagnets, these creatures fell to the ground quite convincingly when hit by phaser fire.

This episode brought the first season to its end. Leonard Nimoy would be nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a Dramatic Series for this year’s work.

Between seasons, in its issue of July 15, 1967, Nichelle Nichols was profiled in TV Guide.

Although her presence on the show at all was considered daring, the actress felt strongly that her character was too limited. She told TV Guide, “The producers admit being very foolish and very lax in the way they’ve used me—or not used me.” Gene Coon, a producer, defended Uhura’s small role: “I thought it would be very ungallant to imperil a beautiful girl with twenty-toed snaggle-toothed monsters from outer space.”

Nichols, however, did not feel imperiled by additional dialogue, and by the end of the first season had increased her dialogue quotient. No longer confined to “All hailing frequencies open, sir,” Nichols also began ad-libbing, including the famous line, “Mr. Spock, if I have to say ‘Hailing frequencies open’ one more time, I’ll blow my top! Why don’t you tell me I’m a lovely young woman?”

TV Guide saw this development as more important than it turned out to be, alas, as borne out by a careful examination of the seventy-nine known episodes of Star Trek. But Roddenberry commented to TV Guide at the time, “We’re thinking about taking her down on the planets next season. Maybe we’ll have wardrobe make her an appropriate costume for planet wear.” In fact, female characters in addition to Uhura eventually beamed down to planets, still wearing the daring miniskirt uniform and getting involved in dangerous, often romantic, situations.

At the end of the first season, however, Nichols was so dismayed by her character’s limitations that she considered quitting the show. But when she met civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., he told her to stay with it; just appearing on the show as a bridge officer in a position of responsibility, he told her, she was providing a positive message that would be beneficial both to blacks and to the perception of blacks by others. (And somewhere in Brooklyn, the girl who would someday take the stage name of Whoopi Goldberg was inspired by Lieutenant Uhura.)

Of the famous tension between Spock and McCoy, DeForest Kelley tried to use elements of comedy and drama in the relationship, as related in a 1974 interview with Joseph Gulick:

“I never wanted it thought for a minute that McCoy truly disliked [Spock]. McCoy had great respect for Spock, and I thought and felt that the best way was to somehow lighten it with an expression or a line. I did that purposefully. I didn’t want to lose fans by being too hard with Spock under certain circumstances. McCoy liked him. It became a kind of battle of wits.”

The on-screen battle of wits came about through hard work offscreen. Kelley and Nimoy discussed their scenes at great length, working on how they should be acted. According to Kelley, all the actors’ deep caring for the show made for a unique taping situation. Unlike other shows, where actors would read a book or the trade papers between scenes, the crew of the Enterprise worked with the producer, breaking down future scenes and working on their parts—more like old-fashioned live New York television than Hollywood shows. Kelley explained, “This had a great bearing on the show. No one was out just running around or loafing or sleeping in a dressing room. They were preparing for the next scene.”

Like the crew of the Enterprise, Star Trek’s cast often worked seven days, with grueling schedules often keeping them on the set until 8:30 or 9 P.M. That first season, Nimoy and Kelley reported for makeup around 6 A.M. Between their getting home at 10 P.M., then reporting back to the set at 6 A.M., a real starship crew may have had more time for R&R.

But by the second season the schedule had improved, and Kelley admits, “The first year was pure hell, but I think we did our best work in the first year when I look back.”

CHAPTER FOUR:

STEADY AS SHE GOES

(THE SECOND SEASON)

During the spring and summer of 1967, while the first season of Star Trek was in reruns, word began to spread that the next season would feature a visit to Spock’s home planet, Vulcan. Needless to say, speculation was rife. That year in New York, World Science Fiction Convention attendees were the first to see the promised episode, “Amok Time,” as well as the first season’s blooper reel.

“Amok Time,” written by veteran science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon (who also wrote the first season’s “Shore Leave”), proved to be well worth the wait. Keying in on the interest in Spock’s emotional chinks, the story opened with the Vulcan officer acting decidedly strange and sulky.

McCoy determines that Spock will die if something is not done about the physical changes he’s undergoing, and Spock admits, not to the doctor but to Kirk, that he is undergoing Pon farr, the Vulcan mating cycle, which will, indeed, be fatal if he doesn’t get to Vulcan and undergo the proper rituals posthaste. Kirk bucks orders and reroutes the Enterprise to Vulcan.

The rituals involved are remnants of Vulcan’s barbaric past (one wonders if they’re really prudes except on these occasions). T’Pau, a dignified Vulcan leader, appears, as does the first use of the Vulcan ritual greeting “Live long and prosper.” (Leonard Nimoy provided the accompanying hand gesture, which he “borrowed” from an important Jewish religious ritual; congregations were supposed to look away when the rabbi made this gesture, but Nimoy, as a young boy, couldn’t help but peek!) Spock’s would-be bride (by long-standing prearrangement, of course) T’Pring adds danger to the proceedings when she demands that Spock must engage in combat for her hand, and chooses Kirk as her champion. The fight must be to the death. Fortunately, McCoy manages to set up Kirk’s “death” in order to end the fight. Spock snaps out of Pon farr thanks to this ruse, and is greatly relieved to find Kirk still alive; T’Pau gets Kirk out of any potential hot water by asking the Federation to divert the Enterprise to Vulcan.

Vulcan was presented here in sparse but effective visual terms; T’Pau, as portrayed by Peter Lorre’s onetime wife Celia Lovsky, carries the entire implied culture in her bearing. Sturgeon provided many small but telling touches regarding ethics and customs of the planet Vulcan; photography and music added immensely to this episode. The Worldcon audience was suitably impressed.

The cast of Star Trek was altered to include a new character in the second season. The network was pressing for a character to rope in the “youth” market, something along the lines of Davy Jones of The Monkees. A press release (later revealed to have exaggerated the truth by fabricating the incident) claimed that the show was criticized by the Russian Communist newspaper Pravda for, among other things, its lack of a Russian character in the Enterprise’s otherwise multinational crew. And so to kill two birds with one stone, Roddenberry reportedly created the character of Ensign Pavel Chekov, a young officer with a heavy accent, to satisfy Soviet angst. Signing on as Chekov was actor Walter Koenig.

The second season of Star Trek began on September 15, 1967. The episode shown was “Amok Time,” which also marked the first time DeForest Kelley received billing in the opening credits of the show.

“Who Mourns for Adonais?” brings the Enterprise into conflict with no less a personage than the Greek god Apollo, actually the last of a band of immortals who once visited Earth and lived on Mount Olympus. Scotty has a romantic interest here, but she falls for the god instead. Fortunately, Kirk manages to obtain her aid in destroying the temple that provides the god with his omnipotent powers, and Apollo destroys his own physical form and lets the Enterprise go. (In James Blish’s adaptation of this episode, a final epilogue note from the original script is retained: the young woman is found to have become pregnant by the god Apollo.)

‘The Changeling” is Nomad, an ancient Earth probe which has merged with an alien device and is convinced that its mission is to destroy imperfect life-forms. Unfortunately, humans fit its criteria perfectly. Fortunately, it thinks Kirk is the scientist Roykirk, the scientist who created it. Thus, out of deference to Kirk, it repairs Scotty after killing him. It is still a threat, but Kirk manages to trick it into destroying itself. (In retrospect, this seems to have been one of his specialties.)

“Mirror, Mirror” casts Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, and Uhura into an alternative universe where the Federation has developed along bloodthirsty, Klingonesque lines. Meanwhile, their counterparts from the alternate universe arrive on the regular Enterprise, where Spock has the sense to toss them all in the brig. In the alternate universe, Kirk and crew meet, among others, a brutal and scarred Sulu, an ambitious Chekov, a “Captain’s Woman,” and a bearded Spock. Kirk uses logic to win Spock’s assistance in his efforts to return home.

“The Apple” is the gift Kirk brings to the peaceful inhabitants of a dangerous world where their existence is protected by an ancient computer which also has retarded their social development. Kirk decides to violate Starfleet General Order Number One, known as the Prime Directive, which forbids Starfleet interference in a planet’s domestic affairs. Kirk blows up the computer, saving the Enterprise but destroying the society of the planet, Gamma Trianguli VI.

“The Doomsday Machine” was shot from a script by Norman Spinrad and featured William Windom as Commodore Matthew Decker, the sole survivor of the crew of the U.S.S. Constellation (an AMT model kit, apparently “damaged” with a Zippo lighter). His crew was on a planet destroyed by the device of the title, which seems to be a planet-zapping weapon apparently built by a long-dead civilization. Decker, a latter-day Captain Ahab in space, is obsessed with destroying it, and hijacks the Enterprise to this end.

When Kirk regains control, Decker steals a shuttlecraft and dies trying to destroy the weapon. Kirk himself then flies the Constellation into the device’s maw and sets it to self-destruct, transporting out in barely the nick of time and finishing off the device for good.

“Catspaw” was aired, appropriately enough, just before Halloween 1967 (on October 27, to be exact). Written by Robert Bloch, it involves the efforts of two shape-changing aliens to frighten the Enterprise crew with all the accoutrements of human superstition: magic, skeletons, witches, and the like. At one point, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are chained in a dungeon; Kirk turns to address the doctor as “Bones,” only to find a skeleton dangling in his friend’s place. This macabre humor is further developed by Spock’s inability (fortunate in these circumstances) to perceive any of the illusions thrown his way as frightening in any way, shape, or form. A final touch of pathos is introduced at the end when the aliens assume their true shapes and are found to be feeble, helpless creatures.

“I, Mudd” brings back Roger C. Carmel as Harry Mudd, currently serving as emperor of a planet of advanced androids. Of course, the androids realize what a buffoon he is, but they are using him to further their own plans of universal domination, which they intend to begin by stealing the Enterprise. Kirk and crew, including Spock, bewilder the androids by acting in absurd ways, and Mudd, who has created for himself a beautiful android harem, is punished by being afflicted with innumerable android replicas of the nagging, shrewish wife he’d abandoned long before.

“Metamorphosis” introduces Zefram Cochrane, the inventor of the warp drive, who was believed to have died a century before at the age of eighty-seven. It seems that he met a nebulous space creature who has kept him alive ever since; it has diverted the Galileo shuttlecraft to his location in order to provide him with human companionship. Cochrane begins to fall in love with the terminally ill Nancy Hedford, a Federation functionary who was being taken to the Enterprise. Kirk uses a translator to communicate with the alien companion and discovers that it is in love with Cochrane. Cochrane is initially repulsed by this, but accepts it when the immortal being merges with the dying woman, who stays with the scientist as the Enterprise resumes its course.

“Journey to Babel” finally introduces Spock’s parents. the Vulcan Sarek (Mark Lenard) and his human wife Amanda (Jane Wyatt). The occasion is a diplomatic mission. A ship is following the Enterprise; the Tellarite ambassador is murdered and Sarek is the prime suspect. Sarek needs a blood transfusion for a heart operation, but Spock must act as captain after an Andorian stabs Kirk. Kirk fakes his recovery so Spock can give blood. A battle with the ship results in its destruction. Kirk’s attacker kills himself after revealing that he killed the Tellarite ambassador, and Spock and his father achieve a rapprochement after nearly twenty years of estrangement.

In December 1967, another letter campaign came to the rescue of the again-beleaguered series. This one, orchestrated by fan Bjo Trimble and her husband, John, was even more successful than the first. Inspired by NBC’s decision to cancel the show, it generated an unprecedented number of letters, and would prove instrumental in clearing the way for the show’s third season.

New Year’s Day, 1968, saw the Star Trek season’s continuation with a perhaps unintentional Christmas touch: an episode wherein a child is born in a cave.

“Friday’s Child” opens with a briefing on how to get along in Capellan society. Kirk and crew are headed for Capella IV to head off a potential alliance between that world and the Klingons, but the good captain doesn’t seem to have learned much about the required protocol. The planet’s leader is deposed and his wife seems fated to die, but Kirk interferes and the Klingons turn the Capellans against him and his team. McCoy helps the woman deliver her baby, who is ultimately named the new ruler when the Klingons kill the latest ruler; the child is named “Leonard James” after McCoy and Kirk—but Spock, not much for children, it seems, gets short shrift.

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