Strange New World Just Ahead, or: How to Make a Vulcan Feel at Home (Part 7 of 15)

7. Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Cancelled!

About six months later, something else came to an end.

Though the original Star Trek began and ended its three-year run in the 1960s, in some ways it was just as much a show of the 1970s. As the reruns were now in syndication, that's when most people saw it for the first time. In fact, that's when it finally became a hit.

Now, that in itself was not so unusual. After all, Gilligan's Island was another 1960s show that got mediocre ratings during its original run, only to go on to great success in 1970s syndication. However, the seven stranded castaways...

...never got their own convention. The first one on record for Star Trek took place in January, 1972 at the Statler Hilton Hotel in New York City. Organizers expected 500 people. 3000 showed up. Soon, there were Trek conventions everywhere.

Though he appeared at many of those conventions, Leonard Nimoy was somewhat ambivalent about the show's new found success, as witnessed by this book he came out with in the mid-'70s.

Nevertheless, Nimoy lent his voice to the Saturday morning cartoon version, as did all of the original cast members except Grace Lee Whitney (Yeoman Rand, who didn't even survive the original live-action series first season) and Walter Koenig (Chekov, cut for budgetary reasons.) This new version was produced by Gene Roddenberry and D.C. Fontana (via the Filmations animation studio) and original series writers such as David Gerrold contributed scripts. Thus, story-wise, the show was highly sophisticated for a Saturday morning cartoon (and for a few prime-time live-action series as well), which won it a Daytime Emmy but perhaps went over the heads of kids used to Scoopy Do, Where Are You? It lasted just two seasons, but--wouldn't you know?--now has a cult following all its own.

Undaunted, and well aware how well the reruns were doing in syndication--by now they were the most successful reruns in history--Gene Roddenberry went to the studio that now owned the show he created with a proposal for a new series called Star Trek: Phase Two, with all the original actors, except for Nimoy, who really did want to put the character behind him. He was at this time  host of In Search of, a weekly documentary that examined such subjects as Bigfoot, the Loch Nech Monster, and the Bermuda Triangle. How logical Spock would have found belief in such things is hard to say, but Nimoy's authoritative, commanding presence certainly made it seem like it was hard science you were watching. The show did very well in syndication, so maybe that was the logic. Since this new series, in its own way, was also about exploring the unknown, I'm not sure Nimoy was really putting his Vulcan past behind him. Indeed, this new series was trading off his old character's and Trek's very strangeness (Rod Serling, of the equally strange The Twilight Zone, was slated to host In Search of but died before it went into production.) Good for Nimoy, but, c'mon, Star Trek without Spock? All the Paramount execs knew was that the old show was popular, and a new one could be, too. They gave Roddenberry the go-ahead.

Then 20th Century Fox came along and proved, much to everyone's surprise at the time (including the studio itself) that there were an awful lot of moviegoers out there who would plunk down money for a big screen science fiction space adventure. And so rival Paramount asked itself: why limit our own science fiction space property, er, adventure, to the small screen?

Next: Lights! Camera! Existentialism!

Strange New World Just Ahead, or: How to Make a Vulcan Feel at Home (Part 6 of 15)

6. Spock Reconsidered

In this installment, I want to look at three (or so) Spock-centric episodes. These aren't necessarily the best episodes of Star Trek (indeed, one is widely considered the all-time worst) but they're worth examining for what they reveal about our Vulcan pal.

Let's start with the purportedly worst first: "Spock's Brain." A sexy woman from a nearby ship beams aboard the Enterprise, and knocks everyone unconscious. After they all come to again, Spock is discovered in sick bay with his brain removed. Because of his unique Vulcan physiognomy, he can survive for another 24 hours before succumbing. In an obvious hurry, Kirk has the other ship traced to a planet heretofore thought to be uninhabited. McCoy hooks up Spock's body to remote control, and the two of them plus Kirk and, for a change, Scotty,  beam down to a frozen wasteland where they meet some scared caveman-types. An elevator takes them down to a technologically advanced underground city, where they meet up once again with the sexy woman. She's no help as she not only can't tell them where to find Spock's brain, she doesn't even know what a brain is! They do hear Spock over an intercom  and he leads them in to a room with a black box with what looks like a crystal ball sitting on top. Now comes the explanation. Spock's brain was hijacked so it could operate a computer that in turn operates the whole planet and takes care of a people too ignorant to take care of themselves. After some jostling back-and-forth with the sexy woman and her friends, phasers getting knocked out of hands and retrieved again, Kirk and co. find out about a device that looks kind of like a hair dryer with electrodes called "The Teacher" that gives the wearer advanced knowledge. This is how the otherwise backwards women figured out how to pilot a spaceship and steal Spock's brain. McCoy puts on the device and learns how to perform a brain transplant, and goes to work on Spock. The advanced knowledge runs out halfway through, but Spock, who apparently can have such an operation performed on him while remaining completely conscious, guides McCoy the rest of the way, much to the doctor's chagrin.

"Spock's Brain" was written by Lee Cronin, actually Gene L. Coon writing under an assumed name as he was now contractually obliged to a different studio. What in the world was he thinking? Well, if you look at some of his previous writing credits, this episode shouldn't really be that much of a surprise. "A Taste of Armageddon" and "The Apple", both of which he co-wrote, warn of the dangers of letting a computer do your thinking for you, and the comely young ladies do just that in "Spock's Brain". In fact, that these women are so ignorant may not be due to low I.Q.s but because material abundance has resulted in a state of mindless passivity, a theme mirrored in "Breads and Circuses" which Coon also co-wrote (the men laboring on the planet's frozen surface aren't too bright either; too much and too little leisure time can sap the intellect, this episode seems to be saying.) However, it's the Spock part of "Spock's Brain" that really matters. Coon wasn't just interested in exploring strange new worlds, but also in the explorers doing the exploring. More than anyone else, he made sure Star Trek's science fiction was character driven. And so in this particular episode, the most fascinating character in the series becomes the actual science in the science fiction that the rest of the plot revolves around. Maybe it's just the bizarreness of Spock's brain being removed that turns so many people off to this episode (that Spock and Nurse Chapel briefly share the same skull in the much more dramatic and much more highly regarded "Return to Tomorrow" always struck me as much more bizarre, but everyone else who's seen that one apparently finds it touching.)

Still, "Spock's Brain" is pretty goofy at times, stretching credibility even by the standards of science fiction (not least when the Vulcan's gray matter comes and goes without him losing a lock of hair.) It should be remembered that while he wrote the episode, Coon didn't produce it, and so something may have been lost in translation. I frankly think he meant it as a comedy, but the new producer and new story editor just didn't get the joke. Now, that's not to say, as others have suggested, the episode is actually a parody of Star Trek (at least not any more so than "The Trouble with Tribbles") or that Coon was mocking the creative and budgetary abyss on which the series was then teetering on the edge. With its stupefied women at home, brutalized men at work, and mechanized society, this episode is not a satire of Trek but the American Dream, circa 1968. Except when we hear Spock's disembodied (supposedly synthesized) voice, at which point it becomes pure character comedy. What I like about "Spock's Brain" is that it reminds me a bit of the classic Chuck Jones-directed Warner Brothers cartoon Duck Amuck. That's the one where an unseen animator plays havoc with Daffy Duck, even replacing his body at one point, yet Daffy remains unmistakeably Daffy, just as in this Spock remains unmistakeably Spock. The difference is that whereas the funny fowl was frustrated at what was being perpetrated on his being, Spock seems delighted at his predicament. Nothing turns this Vulcan on more than weird science, even if he himself happens to be the guinea pig:

KIRK: We might be able to locate you if you gave us some idea of what they were using you for. Is it medical?
SPOCK (over some kind of intercom): I am not certain. I seem to have a body which stretches into infinity.
SCOTT: Body? Why, you have none.
SPOCK: Then what am I?
MCCOY: You are a disembodied brain.
SPOCK: Fascinating! It could explain much, Doctor. My medulla oblongota is hard at work apparently breathing, apparently pumping blood, apparently maintaining a normal physiologic temperature...   
KIRK: Spock, we don't have time for that.

The whole thing turns into the sci-fi sitcom it was heading towards when Spock starts dictating his own brain transplant:

SPOCK: Yes, I already have some sensation of feeling. Please stimulate the nerve endings and observe the physical reactions, one by one. In each case, I shall tell you when the probe is correct. you will then seal using the tri-laser connector...
MCCOY: [...] A Vulcan telling me how to operate. I'll never live this down!

 Once everything's back to normal, yet another summing up of the day's events by Kirk, Spock and McCoy:

SPOCK: On the whole Captain, I believe I am quite fit. Fascinating. A remarkable example of a retrograde civilization. At the peak, advanced beyond any of our capabilities and now operating at this primitive level which you saw.  And it all began thousands of years ago when a glacial age reoccurred. This underground complex was developed for the women. The men remained above, and a male-female schism took place. A fascinating cultural development of a kind which never--
MCCOY: I knew it was wrong. I shouldn't have done it.
KIRK: What's that?
MCCOY: I should never have reconnected his mouth.
(Spock does a double-take.)
KIRK: Well, we took the risk, Doctor.
SPOCK: (deciding to ignore the slight) As I was saying, a fascinating cultural development of the kind which hasn't been seen in ages. The last such occurrence took place on old Earth, when the Romans were warring with the...

It all comes down to Leonard Nimoy's wonderfully comic performance. Whether or not Coon meant "Spock's Brain" to be funny, whether or not the producer realized the episode was supposed to be funny, Nimoy decided on his own he would make it funny. Years later, when this episode achieved a certain level of infamy among Star Trek devotees, the actor would claim that he found the story embarrassing. Embarrassing or not, Nimoy's own performance is nothing to be ashamed about.

It should be no surprise that Nimoy's Spock could be funny. In a way he reminds me of Sean Connery's James Bond. Starting with Dr. No in 1962, Connery on his own added humor to the narrative by the way he said a particular line or even his deadpan expression upon witnessing something amazing, be it a technological display theretofore unbeknownst to science or his own hairbreadth escape from certain death. Eventually the producers and writers caught on to what Connery was doing and started adding intentional comic material, until you get to Diamonds are Forever, an out-and-out comedy. In Nimoy's case, the humor, be it scripted or not, starts as early as the very first Star Trek episode to air, "The Man Trap", which opens with a bored (and not particularly professional) Lt. Uhura attempting to flirt with Mr. Spock:

SPOCK: Miss Uhura, your last subspace log contained an error in the frequencies column.
UHURA: Mister Spock, sometimes I think if I hear the word "frequency" once more, I'll cry.
SPOCK: Cry?
UHURA: I was just trying to start a conversation.
SPOCK: Well, since it is illogical for a communications officer to resent the word "frequency", I have no answer. 
UHURA: No, you have an answer. I'm an illogical woman who's beginning to feel too much a part of that communications console--(practically cooing at this point) Why don't you tell me I'm an attractive young lady, or ask me if I've ever been in love? Tell me how your planet Vulcan looks on a lazy evening when the moon is full.
SPOCK: Vulcan has no moon, Miss Uhura.
UHURA: I'm not surprised, Mister Spock.

OK, all that was scripted, but not the truly dumbfounded look on Spock's face when Uhura asks him about the moon. Sometimes I can't tell you why I find Spock funny, such as in "A Taste of Armegeddon" when he says, "Yeoman Tamula, you stay here and prevent this young lady from immolating herself. Knock her down if necessary. This is a killing situation." That killed me, and I don't know why! Don't get me wrong. I don't believe in knocking down young women (though I suppose self-immolation prevention is as good an excuse as any.) I just laughed out loud when I heard it. As I did when Spock, upon hearing Zefrem Cochrane's outrage at discovering he's been a kept man for a female ball of electricity in "Metamorphosis", comments: "Fascinating. A totally parochial attitude". Was I suppose to laugh at that? I don't know, but I did. When on a planet modeled after the Third Reich in "Patterns of Force" Kirk disguises himself as a Gestapo agent, Spock offers this compliment: "You should make a very convincing Nazi." Kirk's not sure how to take that, but I chuckled. Then there's the times where it's obvious that it's meant to be funny, but Nimoy makes it even funnier. When Kirk tells him at the end of "The Return of the Archons" that he'd make a "splendid computer" the starship captain means it as a dig, but Spock doesn't care: "That is very kind of you, Captain." Calculating the odds of making it past a couple of Klingons in "An Errand of Mercy" Spock says: "Difficult to be precise, Captain. I should say approximately 7,824.7 to 1" Trapped in a 1930s slum in "The City on the Edge of Forever" and trying to build a computer, Spock matter-of-factly tells Kirk, "Captain, I must have some platinum. A small block would be sufficient, five or six pounds." In "Friday's Child", when he finds out an alien mother is going to name her newborn baby Leonard [McCoy] James [Kirk] Akaar, Spock indignantly replies: "I think you're both going to be insufferably pleased with yourselves for at least a month." When Kirk tries to drive a 1920s-style car in "A Piece of the Action" Spock makes this observation: "Captain, you are an excellent starship captain, but as a taxi driver you leave much to be desired." Actually every word that comes out of Spock's mouth in that episode is funny "Why would you put our captain in a bag?" he asks a mobster. In "That Which Survives" after Scotty goes through great lengths to speed up the starship's engines and keep everyone from getting killed in the process, and then wonders why Spock won't even say thank you, the Vulcan uses the occasion to pontificate "What is it in you humans that requires an overwhelming display of emotion in a situation such as this? Two men pursue the only reasonable course of action indicated, yet you feel something else is necessary" and seems unaware that the exhausted engineer has just told him "Never mind." As much as the way he said his lines, however, Nimoy could make me laugh just at the way he used his eyebrows for double-takes and deadpan expressions, such as when Kirk tries to get him to go to an Adults Only establishment at the end of "The Wolf in the Fold" or his reactions to any number of McCoy insults. Do you suppose Spock is related to the James Bond on his mother's side?

In the end, the humor serves to--for want of a better word--humanize Spock, though he himself would surely want a better word, as witnessed by the epilogue to "The Devil in the Dark":

CHIEF VANDENBERG (via radio): You know, the Horta aren't so bad once you're used to their appearance. Well, that's about it, Kirk. Thanks for everything.
KIRK: Our pleasure, Chief. Kirk out.
SPOCK: Curious. What Chief Vandenberg said about the Horta is exactly what the Mother Horta said to me. She found the humanoid appearance revolting, but thought she could get used to it.
MCCOY: Oh, she did, did she? Now tell me [of course McCoy would bring this up] did she happen to make any comments about those ears?
SPOCK: Not specifically, but I did get the distinct impression she found them the most attractive human characteristic of them all. I didn't have the heart to tell her that only I have them.
KIRK: She really liked those ears?
SPOCK: Captain, the Horta is a remarkably intelligent and sensitive creature, with impeccable taste.
KIRK: Because she approved of you?
SPOCK: Really, Captain, my modesty.
KIRK: Does not bear close examination, Mister Spock. I suspect you're becoming more and more human all the time.
SPOCK: Captain, I see no reason to stand here and be insulted. 

The next Spock-centric episode I want to look at is "Mirror, Mirror" though many might not consider it a Spock-centric episode at all. The many would be wrong. At its very heart it's about Spock as Man of All Universes. Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, and Uhura (why those four exactly?) are on the planet Halkan, trying to convince the leaders to let the Federation mine dilithium crystals (which powers starships), and they're proving a bit stubborn as they don't trust outsiders. Kirk tells them to think about it, and then he and the three others beam back to the Enterprise. Unfortunately, as this is right during yet another ion storm, Kirk, McCoy, Scotty and Uhura find themselves on a bridge with a bearded Spock and themselves dressed like character right out of Conan the Barbarian. Turns out they're in a parallel, or mirror, universe, one in which where there is no Federation but instead an Empire governed by cruelty (meanwhile back home, non-bearded Spock has their savage counterparts thrown in the brig, all the while muttering "Fascinating.") Mirror Spock demonstrates this cruelty by punishing the operator of the transporter with an "agonizer". The four decide to play along until they can find out how to get back to their own universe. Unfortunately, time and the Empire's non-democratic way of achieving its goals seems to be against them. The mirror Kirk had orders to destroy Halkan cities if they don't turn over the dilithium. The regular Kirk's visible reluctance to do this stirs up savage opportunism aboard the I.S.S. (Imperial Starship) Enterprise. Mirror Chekov first tries to kill Kirk, but is double-crossed by one of his own henchmen wanting to curry favor with the intended target of the assassination, who's after all top dog. Mirror Spock shows up again, and expresses relief Kirk is still alive, as if he wasn't, he'd have to take his place and then be a target himself when all he really cares about is his scientific endeavors. Still, he reminds Kirk he's under orders to wipe out the Halkins, and if he doesn't, then Spock will have to kill him, whether he wants to or not. So Kirk goes to his quarters to mull things over, and finds out he has a beautiful harlot waiting for him. She laughingly reminds him of the "Tantalus Field" a lethal button that can allow one to monitor and kill their enemies from afar. Apparently, Mirror Kirk copped such a device from a plundered scientist's laboratory, and used it to move up the Empire's ladder. Meanwhile, Mirror Sulu decides he'd like to kill Kirk, but the harlot, Marlena, vaporizes his henchmen with the aforementioned Field. Mirror Spock shows up again, having decided the only logical way to save his own skin is by killing Kirk, after all. Taking on Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, and Uhura, Spock seems to be having an easy time of it, until the Starfleet captain lands a lucky blow, knocking the Mirror Vulcan out. They all head to the transporter room, which Scotty has rigged to get them back to their own universe, except McCoy. Seems the ol' Hippocratic Oath is bugging him, and he's just gotta stay behind and save Mirror Spock's life, even if finds this Spock no more likable than the other one. McCoy performs his oath a little too efficiently as Mirror Spock comes to and mind melds with the terrified doctor. The mirror Vulcan learns everything, and comes down to the transporter room and tells Kirk he'll personally man the controls and make sure he gets back to his own universe. Kirk then has a thought. Suppose, just suppose, the Mirror Spock is Spock. The universe has changed but he's basically the same guy, only operating under a different set of conditions, where survival is the ultimate logic. Kirk asks Spock how long this Empire can last before some there's some sort of revolt.

MIRROR SPOCK: Approximately two hundred and forty years.
KIRK: The inevitable outcome?
MIRROR SPOCK: The Empire shall be overthrown, of course. 

Of course. Asked why he's serving such an illogical system if he believes it to be doomed, Mirror Spock is again the rationalist: no man can change the future. It's then Kirk tells him about the Tantalus Field, gambling that he'll do the right thing. Kirk, McCoy, Scotty and Uhura all return to their own universe, and we never do learn if Mirror Spock did indeed do the right thing. But it's not like he could make the situation any worse. At least Mirror Spock transcends his immediate environment in this one. More so than anyone else, including Mirror Kirk.

Finally, in the third Spock-centric episode "Journey to Babel" we get to meet his parents, Vulcan father Ambassador Sarek (Mark Lenard) and Earth mother Amanda (Jane Wyatt, the mom on Father Knows Best; TV daughter Elinor Donahue played Commissioner Nancy Mitford in "Metamorphosis".) This story revolves around a bunch of diplomats, some of them not too nice, being ferried to the title planet on the starship Enterprise. Sarek is one of the nicer diplomats, but he and Spock are estranged, the father never having approved of his son's choice of Starfleet for a career. The pig-faced (fictional ethnicity, remember) Tellerlite ambassador is murdered, and suspicion falls on Sarek, as the two had earlier argued. During an interrogation, Sarak has a heart attack, and is rushed to sick bay, where he needs blood fast, which Spock is there to supply. Meanwhile, a member of the Andoran delegation stabs Kirk, and he's rushed to sick bay. In accordance to duty, Spock halts his father's transfusion, and heads to the bridge to take command of the Enterprise,  so that now he's estranged from his mother! Not wanting to break up a family, Kirk fakes a speedy recovery and relieves Spock of command. The transfusion continues. An alien spaceship tries unsuccessfully to take out the Enterprise, but that hardly matters here. As an amusing bit between Spock and his parents attests to at the end of this episode, Vulcan families are as fucked-up but loving as any found here on Earth.

Sarek and Amanda reminds me that I've been referring to Spock as a Vulcan throughout this series when he in fact is only half Vulcan, the other half being human. But what does that mean exactly? I suppose metaphorically, symbolically, allegorically, it all makes sense as Spock so often acts as a go-between Earth and whatever alien planet the Enterprise is visiting. Literally, though, what does it mean, since after all Spock both looks and acts 100% Vulcan? The most common answer is that since he's 50% human, Spock must have 50% emotions, which he has to constantly suppress, a burden not shared by his 100% Vulcan countrymen. Well, that's true if 100% Vulcans are born with 0% emotions, but the show sometimes suggests otherwise. Take the episode "Amok Time", for instance. We find that Spock can only resist the charms of Nurse Chapel and any other female making googly eyes at him for seven years before he gets sick and dies. OK, horniness isn't exactly an emotion, but Spock goes back to Vulcan to engage in a duel-to-the-death mating ritual that even he admits isn't very logical. There we meet a 100% Vulcan femme fatale named T'Pring, who connives to have Spock fight Kirk so she can run off with the 100% Vulcan Stonn. Spock ends up calling it "flawlessly logical" but it seems to me that T'Pring and Stonn are acting more like a couple of lovesick kids. A season later in "The Savage Curtain" we meet Surak, the back-from-the-dead father of Vulcan civilization who a way long time ago convinced his countrymen to lay down their arms, forgo the passion that was causing so much bloodshed and adopt logic instead. Two decades later in Star Trek II: The Search for Spock, when told by T'Lar that it's illogical to try to transfer "katra" from McCoy to a newly resurrected Spock, Sarek replies: "Forgive me, T'Lar. My logic is uncertain where my son is concerned."And then there's those Vulcan offshoots, the Romulans. They're hardly the most even-tempered bunch. So if this head-over-heart lifestyle is nothing more than mere socialization, it should really be no more difficult for 50% Vulcan Spock to suppress his emotions than his 100% Vulcan father, who, after all, when it came time to choose a mate, ignored the 100% Vulcan females on his own planet and instead hooked up with a 100% Earth woman with all that entails because "at the time it seemed the logical thing to do." Now you know where Spock gets his sense of humor.

Next: Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Strange New World Just Ahead, or: How to Make a Vulcan Feel at Home (Part 5 of 15)

5. Warp Driving on Empty

In the last installment I mentioned "Assignment: Earth", a pilot film for a new Gene Roddenberry series in the guise of a typical Star Trek episode, though there was nothing typical about it. In early 1968 Trek faced imminent cancellation, and Roddenberry had high hopes that this new show could be its replacement. The network dashed those hopes, but it turned out a replacement wasn't necessary after all. At least not just then. With the help of a fan of the show named Bjo (Betty Jo) Trimble, Roddenberry organized a letter-writing campaign, and this being the 1960s, even a demonstration, with a thousand students from twenty different colleges marching on NBC's Burbank studios. The network relented, and Star Trek was renewed for a third season.

What happened next might seem surprising. Roddenberry basically quit Star Trek. Why? He had hoped for a better time slot. During the second season, the show had aired on 8:30 Friday nights, following Tarzan starring Ron Ely. The ape man series got middling ratings, and Roddenberry blamed the lead-in for his own series middling ratings. It also reportedly galled him to be following Tarzan period, whatever the ratings. An Edgar Rice Burroughs fan since childhood, Roddenberry was working on his own Tarzan screenplay, which he knew would never get produced as long as there was a TV version on the air. So when Tarzan was canceled, and Star Trek wasn't, it seemed like two good things were happening at once. Except that for its third season, NBC scheduled Star Trek in a later time slot: Friday nights at 10:00, when so many of those college kids who had converged on Burbank were out partying. Trek now followed The Name of the Game, a series about the going-ons of a magazine publishing company. Whatever audience existed for that show (it lasted three years) most likely wasn't all that into science fiction. So Roddenberry walked away from the series he created without actually walking away. He was still Executive Producer, still drew a paycheck, could still use the show to hawk things like the IDIC pendant, but, by most accounts, in that third season, he saw each episode for the first time when anyone else interested saw each episode for the first time, on 10:00 Friday nights. As for Tarzan, there's been several movies since Ely last swung on the vine in 1968, but none based on a Gene Roddenberry screenplay.

With Gene L. Coon gone, Gene Roddenberry practically gone, Associate Producer Robert Justman (who reportedly acted as Roddenberry's eyes and ears when he wasn't around) on his way out, and D.C. Fontana deciding she no longer wanted to be Story Editor (though she continued to contribute scripts, sometimes under fake names if there were too many changes made by others), Paramount Studios decided to bring in an outsider to run the show, a fellow by the name of Fred Freiberger. His most notable science fiction credits up to that point were two movies he was credited with writing during the 1950s monster craze, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), about a dinosaur come to life in modern times,  and The Beginning of the End (1957), which featured giant grasshoppers. I've seen both films, and they're both mindless fun. Whereas Star Trek, at its very best, was fun that also engaged the mind. By the early '60s, Freiberger had moved into television, where he wrote for shows as disparate as Bonanza and The Beverly Hillbillies. TV writing led to TV producing, including a few episodes of the medical drama Ben Casey. The first season of The Wild, Wild, West (a show Coon also worked on) was his most recent producing credit when he was called to helm the third, and what many now consider to be the worst, season of Star Trek. Both William Shatner and Nichelle Nichols has defended Freiberger on that charge, claiming he did the best he could under trying circumstances, such as an even greater reduced budget and large staff turnover. They may be right, but looking over the characterless nature of that third season, Freiberger doesn't seem to have had any personal vision that he brought to the series, as had the two Genes. It was just another show to produce and get out on time. That kind of attitude may have worked for the dozens of lookalike western, detective, and secret agent series on at the time, but with a science fiction show where anything can happen, minus a personal vision what you end up with, unfortunately, is a science fiction show where anything can happen, including something as goofy (and not all that vital to the storyline) as the starship Enterprise shrunk down to the size of a toaster. Science fiction's very weirdness is what attracts some of us to the genre, but there's smart weird and there's silly weird, and Star Trek began slipping into the latter category. It didn't but might as well have had giant grasshoppers. What's the difference between those and a miniature starship, other than a few hundred feet?

The season wasn't a total loss. Among the high points (in my opinion) are the episodes "Spectre of the Gun", "Day of the Dove", "The Tholian Web", "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield", "That Which Survives" and "The Cloud Minders". Unfortunately those weren't enough to offset the many low points. In addition to a general silliness, there was a cruel edge to the series that third season. Star Trek had always had a dark side (especially for those crew members wearing red shirts), but nothing before made me squirm more than watching the telepathic sadists in "Plato's Stepchildren" force Spock to cry like a baby. And in the otherwise worthwhile "The Empath" Dr. McCoy is actually tortured (no doubt confirming his most xenophobic fears about aliens--and these aliens were self-righteous hypocrites to boot.) An amnesiac Kirk falls in love with an American (by way of outer space) Indian princess, only to watch her get stoned to death in "The Paradise Syndrome". I wouldn't call it cruel exactly, but Kirk has to go under the knife to make himself look like a Romulan for some routine espionage in "The Enterprise Incident". Alexander Scott (I Spy) or Barney Collier (Mission: Impossible) never had to do that. The Children of the Damned ripoff "And the Children Shall Lead" is probably worth watching just to see one-time famous attorney Marvin Belli ham it up as an alien apparition. Instead of ambulances he chases starships.  In "The Savage Curtain" Abraham Lincoln is no match for Genghis Khan. So where's General Grant when you need him? The episode "Is There No Truth in Beauty" contradicts itself completely. Supposedly the moral is we shouldn't judge someone solely on their physical appearance, but has Spock, the character least likely to do that, go insane after eying a homely alien. Of course, we never get to see this alien for ourselves. It wouldn't do to have the television audience go insane and further erode the ratings. The show did take a few stabs at political and social issues in that third season. Racial conflict (black-and-white vs white-and-black) in "Let This Be Your Last Battlefield". That was successful enough, I feel, though some have found it heavy-handed. Less successful and not so much heavy-handed as thickheaded is "The Mark of Gideon" which deals with overpopulation. The only thing the episode can say about the subject is that kidnapping starship captains for their germs is no way to solve the problem (though I suppose it's a better solution than Soylent Green.)

Finally, "Requiem for Methuselah" (the one with the incredible shrinking Enterprise)  has a provocative enough premise: an immortal man, while possessing no more intelligence or talent than anyone else, through a centuries-long accumulation of experience and knowledge, becomes some of the greatest figures in history (and/or legend), including Methuselah, Solomon, Alexander the Great, Merlin, Da Vinci, and Brahms. But once that provocative idea is introduced, the story has no idea what to do with it, other then have the immortal man and Kirk engage in a routine brawl over a girl. Hardly a great way to cap a three thousand year career.

 Before I tell you what happened next to what has come to be known as the Star Trek franchise--and a LOT happened next--I want to take a break from our narrative in order to take a closer look at that Vulcan pal of ours.

Next: Spock Reconsidered

 

Strange New World Just Ahead, or: How to Make a Vulcan Feel at Home (Part 4 of 15)

4. Gene and Gene

Gene Roddenberry's and Gene L. Coon's names appear together in the writing credits on just one Star Trek episode, from the second season titled "Bread and Circuses." In it, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy land on a Roman Empire-like planet but with 20th century technology (and, as we find out in a surprise ending, a 20th century New Testament.) Though their Starfleet weapons are far superior, the Prime Directive rule about not interfering with a planet's internal development (a rule nonchalantly disobeyed in just about every other episode) means the trio inevitably end up fighting in televised gladiatorial games. There's apparently a loophole in the Directive that allows Scotty, back at the Enterprise, to shut off the planet's electricity, and in the confusion, Kirk, Spock and McCoy beam back to safety. Now, when I say it was written by both Roddenberry and Coon, I don't know that the two were in the same room banging it out on the same typewriter. Some sources say the two split up scenes, others say they worked on entirely different drafts. In fact, there does seem to be two different narratives going on here, one a sobering drama about the oppressiveness of totalitarianism, the other a funny satire of television. I betting Coon was responsible for the latter, including the line "You bring this network's ratings down, Flavius, and we'll do a special on you!" as well as having Spock give a gladiator the Vulcan nerve pinch to prerecorded boos. This was the last Trek Coon produced, though an episode he co-wrote was shown later that season.

Why did Coon leave Star Trek? Some say it was the disagreements he had with Roddenberry during the writing of "Breads and Circuses" Others say he saw the show slipping in quality thanks to a reduced budget and tighter shooting schedule--Paramount had bought the show's previous owner, Desilu--and wanted out. He was also having health problems and going through a divorce, both of which necessitated a bigger paycheck, which he got when Universal Pictures asked him to helm the Robert Wagner series It Takes a Thief. I've never seen that show. If anyone reading this has, let me know in the comments section what you thought of it. While  producing it, Coon mentored a young writer by the name of Glen A. Larson, who went on to create his own outer space drama, the original Battlestar Galactica, which aired in the late '70s.

Even before Coon left, and despite what I have to believe was his best efforts to do otherwise, a Good vs Evil, i.e. Human vs Alien mentality had seeped back into the show. That's not to say that the second season, whether produced by Coon or his replacement, John Meredyth Lucas (who also wrote the episodes "The Changeling", about a rogue computer that wipes Uhura's mind clean, and "Patterns of Force", about a visit to a Nazi planet) wasn't tremendously entertaining. It was just a tad more reactionary, as if Dr. McCoy was now running the show. A giant amoeba? ("The Immunity Syndrome") Fascinating! Now blow it to bits and show previews for next week's episode. And whereas in the first season advanced beings were shown as being benevolent if somewhat preachy ("Arena" "An Errand of Mercy"), the highly evolved brains in the "The Gamesters of Triskelion" were inveterate gamblers who could have used a good preaching to themselves. How'd all this happen? Bread and circuses. Not the episode but real life. NBC, and the various sponsors eager to push consumer products upon the citizenry via 30-second commercials, demanded an action-adventure show, and with tight schedules and tighter budgets, that action-adventure easily became violence, violence from and violence toward any new worlds, new life, and new civilizations that the  Enterprise happened to come across. At least there was an elegiac wistfulness to the demise of aliens in both "Who Mourn for Adonais" ("They [Greek gods who were actually aliens] gave us so much .... In a way, they began the Golden Age. Would it have hurt us, I wonder, just to have gathered a few laurel leaves?") and "Return to Tomorrow" (two doomed aliens: "Oblivion together does not frighten me, beloved. Promise we'll be together" "I promise, beloved.") Now go out and buy Geritol!

Decades later, shows that Paramount slapped the Star Trek label on, such as The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, as well as Warner Brothers' non-Star Trek series Babylon 5, had relatively more freedom to do stories that were about aliens without necessarily being against aliens. With his episodes "The Devil in the Dark" and "Metamorphoses", Gene L. Coon helped pave the way.

Whatever their differences on "Bread and Circuses" Coon and Roddenberry did work together again, on the script for The Questor Tapes. Airing in 1974 as a made-for-television movie, it was in fact a pilot for a prospective new series starring Robert Foxworth as an android groping to understand humanity (a prototype for The Next Generation's Data, perhaps?), helped by his understanding human sidekick played by Mike Farrell (a few years before he got the MASH gig.) I've seen this TV movie exactly twice, as a sixth grader when it originally aired, then decades later when it popped up on some cable channel. I remember immensely enjoying it the first time, and if during the second viewing I realized it wasn't exactly Shakespeare, I liked it well enough to wish it had actually become a series. In fact, 13 episodes were ordered, but NBC scheduled it for Fridays at 10 p.m., which angered Roddenberry, as it was the same barely-watched time slot that Star Trek had been sentenced to in its final year. Roddenberry also disliked that both NBC and Universal wanted to eliminate the character played by Farrell, and so the producer himself pulled the plug on the series. As for Coon, the chain-smoker died of lung cancer several months before the pilot aired. A novelization of the made-for-TV movie by D.C. Fontana was dedicated to his memory.

Gene L. Coon 1924-1973

Gene Roddenberry 1921-1991

Strange pair, those two. So far in this series I've painted Coon as the liberal and Roddenberry as the conservative, but that's just from looking at specific episodes. When I look elsewhere, Roddenberry's views become more vague, as if he wasn't sure of them himself. I haven't discussed "Assignment: Earth", story by Roddenberry, because I don't regard it as a true Star Trek episode despite the presence of Kirk and Spock. At least it didn't start out as a true Star Trek episode but a stand-alone pilot film starring Robert Lansing as an outer space visitor sent to save 1968 Earth from its own destructive ways, and a young Terry Garr as his confused but conscientious secretary. "I know this world needs help. That's why some of my generation are kind of crazy and rebels, you know? We wonder if we're gonna be alive when we're thirty," Garr's character says. This anti-arms race episode aired only three weeks after the arguably anticommunist "The Omega Glory" and shows Roddenberry had very mixed feelings about the Cold War, and perhaps was looking for some outside guidance. Outside our very solar system it would seem. His further pilots/made-for-movies from the '70s (The Questor Tapes, Planet Earth, Genesis) reveal a growing mistrust of the military-industrial complex. Domestically, and before Star Trek, an episode of The Lieutenant featured the future Uhura, Nichelle Nichols, as the wife of a serviceman who, along with her husband, is the subject of harassment from a racist Dennis Hopper. Not wanting any controversy, NBC refused to air the episode, titled "To Set It Right", and reportedly this bit of censorship is what led Roddenberry into the more metaphorical realm of science fiction. And I've already talked about the utopian vision he tried to impose on The Next Generation.  So maybe Roddenberry was a liberal after all, but this liberalism was buried beneath so many piles of 1950s LAPD training manuals and judicial code books that he needed a Gene L. Coon to help dig it out. Star Trek belongs to both of them.

Next: Warp Driving on Empty