A Brief Guide to Star Trek (13 page)

More traditional is the second season episode ‘Journey to Babel’, which sees various alien races transported aboard the
Enterprise
to a diplomatic meeting on the planet Babel. A murder mystery is the backdrop for the introduction of Spock’s parents, the Vulcan Sarek and the human Amanda. The diplomacy-as-drama storytelling approach would be hugely expanded by
The Next Generation
, reflecting the era in which the show was made.

The
Enterprise
crew intervened in events more proactively in ‘Friday’s Child’, an episode that saw the Klingons involved with the political development of a primitive culture. The battle for control of the planet is made personal, with Kirk, Spock and McCoy protecting the dead leader’s pregnant widow from aggression until she can give birth to a rightful heir. Kirk’s
action results in the Klingons being driven out and the
Enterprise
winning the valuable mining rights on the planet, an analogy for US foreign adventures.

There’s more Federation-driven diplomacy in ‘Elaan of Troyius’, in which Kirk ferries Elaan to her arranged marriage to the leader of an antagonistic planet in order to avert a war. The involvement of the Klingons – again – highlights the role of diplomacy in finding solutions to conflict.

Another 1960s hot-button topic regularly revisited by
Star Trek
was prejudice and racism. At a time when the civil rights movement was progressing in America, Roddenberry felt it was important to tell stories in
Star Trek
that showed in the future such issues had been resolved within humanity, even if sometimes Kirk had to show the various peoples of other races a more enlightened way of relating to each other.

The most blatant example was ‘Let That Be Your Last Battlefield’, a third season episode that sees the
Enterprise
involved with the last two representatives of a warring race. Lokai of Cheron is half black on one side of his face, half white on the other. Bele of Cheron is his mirror image, and his pursuer. Originally conceived by Gene Coon as a story about two beings – one angelic, one satanic – in conflict, the story was revised to be not just a comment on surface appearances being deceiving, but the futility of hatred motivated purely by physical (or social, religious or ethnic) difference.

Star Trek
’s belief in ‘infinite diversity in infinite combinations’ – the Vulcan philosophy of tolerance outlined by Spock in the episode ‘Is There in Truth No Beauty’ – extended to nonhumanoid life forms. In ‘The Devil in the Dark’, the
Enterprise
comes to the aid of a mining colony planet where miners are being killed off by a mysterious beast. Kirk and Spock discover the ‘beast’ is a sentient, silicon-based life form called a Horta. Spock mind-melds with the rock-like creature, discovering its intelligence. Communicating with the pair, the Horta carves the words ‘No Kill I’ into the rock, either as a plea for mercy or a statement of intent. The
Enterprise
pair learns that the creature
is a mother, who has been attacking the miners in order to defend its eggs (not recognised by the miners as such). In a neat solution, the natural rock-carving ability of the Horta is harnessed to aid the mining activities of the colonists while the creature and its progeny are protected. The point expressed by the episode is that life can come in the most unexpected forms, and limited perceptions can blind people (like the miners) from recognising it. It’s quintessential
Star Trek
, and one of the series’ best episodes.

Patrick Stewart, captain of the
Enterprise
on
The Next Generation
, was one of the speakers at Gene Roddenberry’s memorial ser -vice in 1991. Despite the solemnity of the occasion, he addressed an issue that continued into the spin-off
Star Trek
TV series: the show’s sometimes controversial depiction of women. ‘[
Star Trek
] wasn’t always consistent, especially where it concerned women’, noted Stewart. ‘Infuriatingly,
Star Trek
remains simultaneously liberated and sexist. Maybe even in that, Gene remains, sadly, a visionary.’

Stewart’s phrase ‘liberated and sexist’ is the perfect, seemingly contradictory way to describe
Star Trek
’s attitude to and depiction of women. Much of it seems to be rooted in Roddenberry’s own private life and his womanising ways: he idolised and loved women, believing them capable of as much, if not more, than men. This resulted in a series of strong, independent, clever female characters throughout
Star Trek
, but also the infamous short skirts and revealing outfits of the series that replaced the more sensible trouser suits seen in the original pilot. While Kirk may be seen as a stand-in for Roddenberry, seemingly with a woman on every planet, those women themselves are often depicted as irresistibly alluring (even if such allure is sometimes chemically assisted). Both Kirk and Spock have sacrificed the possibility of relationships to their careers: Kirk in his obsessive connection with his ship (best displayed in the early episode ‘The Naked Time’) and Spock in his devotion to logic and duty (he gives up his long-promised Vulcan bride in ‘Amok Time’).

Women in
The Original Series
often find themselves in thrall to powerful men, whether it be Marla McGivers with Khan (‘Space Seed’) or Carolyn Palamas and faux-god Apollo (‘Who Mourns for Adonais?’). The spectre of rape, or at least forced physical contact, seems to haunt some of these relationships. In ‘Shore Leave’, the men’s fantasies revolve around whimsy (McCoy sees Alice and the White Rabbit, Kirk encounters Finnegan, a joker from his past, and old flame Ruth), while Tonia Barrows’ fantasy involves a violent seduction at the hands of Don Juan. Similarly, Carolyn Palamas is ravaged by a violent storm of Apollo’s making when she rejects his advances. Both encounters leave the women traumatised and in torn clothing, yet both events are depicted as being a result of their own wishes or desires.

Through the years
Star Trek
has often shown women as the equal of men, from the quickly axed Number One of ‘The Cage’ to Captain Janeway in
Voyager
. In
The Original Series
even the strongest female characters were often reduced to mere romantic interests to service the story of the week: Nurse Chapel would occasionally be seen to moon over the unobtainable Mr Spock, while Yeoman Janice Rand seemed to have a thing for the heroic captain. Even Edith Keeler, a woman who gives Kirk more than a run for his money in ‘The City on the Edge of Forever’, must perform the role of a tragic, lost love interest. Kirk has a string of ex-lovers littered around the galaxy (including Areel Shaw in ‘Court Martial’, Ruth in ‘Shore Leave’, Janice Lester in ‘Turnabout Intruder’ and Dr Carol Marcus in
The Wrath of Khan
), but he always puts his career in space ahead of any lasting relationships. The temptation of casual liaisons was seemingly ever-present for the captain of the
Enterprise
, as evidenced by the number of women Kirk would seduce – and be seduced by – during the three years the show aired.

Sex between aliens and humans was never explicitly tackled by the show, although it was implied in many of Kirk’s relationships. Perhaps the most explicit case was that of Zefram Cochrane and the amorphous, alien companion who loved him (in ‘Metamorphosis’): he rejects the creature, until it adopts the form
of a shapely female. While science was shown to have made great steps forward on
Star Trek
, the role of women still more often fell into stereotype occupations, especially among the regular characters such as Nurse Chapel and Communications Officer Uhura – a failing highlighted in the
Star Trek
movie satire
Galaxy Quest
.

Seth McFarlane, inducting Roddenberry into the TV Hall of Fame in 2010, summed up much of Roddenberry’s success in making
Star Trek
’s stories mean something: ‘[
Star Trek
] made you think. Roddenberry was the closest thing you could get in television to an actual philosopher. He had a point-of-view and he was not afraid to express it. He believed that making a statement with regard to political or social issues in the form of televised narrative was not being “preachy” but rather the responsibility of a thoughtful writer. Gene did not offer us the murder of the week or the disease of the week, he offered us the idea of the week. The messages Roddenberry was sending were timely and important.’

However, these added layers of social and political comment were not enough to save
Star Trek
. Within weeks of the series concluding on television, a real-life space opera reached its climax in July 1969 as Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. It appeared that real-life space adventure had finally outstripped television science fiction.

‘
It turns out that the Trekkies have been right all along, on nearly everything they have tried to tell us
.’ Gene Roddenberry

By the middle of 1969
Star Trek
was dead. Yet the show that had battled for survival for each of its three years on air was about to sow the seeds that would allow it to, in the immortal words of Mr Spock, ‘live long and prosper’. The show’s fans were about to become
Star Trek
’s newest storytellers.

After the cancellation of his TV show, Gene Roddenberry finally achieved what he’d hoped for all along: a transition into motion pictures. While
Star Trek
continued for its final year without his regular input, he’d been scripting a film version of Edgar Rice Burroughs’
Tarzan
. In keeping with the ethos of the 1960s (and his personal interests), Roddenberry had created a more sexualised Tarzan than had been seen before, while attempting to stay true to Burroughs’ original. However, the budget was slashed, the theatrical film downgraded to a TV movie, and Roddenberry’s script rejected, as its sexual content was now unsuitable for TV.

Roddenberry’s first completed post-
Star Trek
project was the script for an adaptation of Francis Pollini’s novel
Pretty Maids All in a Row
, about the dalliances of a schoolteacher with his female students. The film was produced by Roger Vadim (
Barbarella
) and Roddenberry, but was not considered to be a success upon
its release in 1971. The job had been a favour to Roddenberry from
Star Trek
producer Herb Solow, now also working successfully in movies. Roddenberry then scripted the fifth episode of Glen A. Larson’s comedy Western series
Alias Smith and Jones
, ‘The Girl in Boxcar #3’, which aired in February 1971. Professionally, things were rather quiet for the
Star Trek
creator in the immediate aftermath of the show’s cancellation.

During this period there was a dramatic change in Rod -denberry’s personal life: he divorced his wife Eileen in 1968 and married Majel Barrett in a Shinto-Buddhist ceremony in Japan in 1969. The marriage had to be legalised later in the US in December once Roddenberry’s divorce was finalised.

At the dawning of the new decade, Paramount seemed keen to divest itself of
Star Trek
. As the show’s creator and executive producer, Roddenberry was apparently offered the opportunity to purchase all rights to the show for a figure in the region of $150,000. This was, however, beyond Roddenberry’s means, both personally and in terms of commercial fundraising or bank loans. There was little sign that
Star Trek
would ever recover its original investment, so Roddenberry didn’t feel he was missing out on a potential future windfall. Others, however, such as
Star Wars
creator George Lucas, would later learn from Roddenberry’s mistake. Roddenberry would continue to benefit from the show to the tune of one-third of any future profits, but without any guaranteed creative input into the show’s future direction (if, indeed, it were to have any).

Certainly,
Star Trek
did not seem to have an immediate future, consigned to the television graveyard of off-network syndication where old series went to die. This meant entire seasons of shows being sold to many individual local TV stations, often at knockdown prices. It was seen as a way of generating additional revenue, especially for shows such as
Star Trek
that had not made a profit during their first-run network screenings. Over 100 was the ideal number of shows required for successful syndication in the 1960s and 70s because that allowed daily ‘stripping’ of the show five days a week with the same episodes
only coming around twice a year or so.
Star Trek
had fallen short of the 100-episode target, but at seventy-nine episodes, the package of three years worth of shows was considered just about worthwhile for syndication. By January 1972
Variety
reported that
Star Trek
was airing in over 100 local markets in the US and another seventy overseas.

This move into syndication would not only prove to be the saviour of the original show, but also the jumping-off point for the revival of
Star Trek
as a fully-fledged franchise of several more spin-off TV series and a hugely successful run of movies.
Star Trek
found new life and new viewers in syndication. Airing every day, often in an after-school slot, the show attracted school kids in their millions, as well as teenagers and students who had missed the first run of the series on NBC (especially in its third series’ 10 p.m. Friday graveyard slot).
Star Trek
slowly but surely began to embed itself in American and then worldwide popular culture. Although the show had enjoyed a burst of popularity when it first aired, that had quickly faded during the lacklustre third series and
Star Trek
was on its way to being forgotten. Characters and phrases (including the iconic ‘Beam me up, Scotty’) became commonplace thanks to syndication, while the show was increasingly referenced in other TV programmes, newspapers and magazines.
Star Trek
fandom was building, and this would be instrumental in Paramount eventually reviving the concept.