A Brief Guide to Star Trek (3 page)

Several of these early science fiction radio shows were transferred to the new medium of television in the early 1950s, including
Tom Corbett – Space Cadet
and
Space Patrol
. Television was welcoming to science fiction from the earliest days, despite the difficulties of visually realising spaceships, alien worlds and new high-tech gadgets. Most of the early series were broadcast in short episodes (fifteen to twenty minutes, often transmitted live) and mostly aimed at the children’s audience (shown in the early-evening ‘kid-vid’ time slots).
Captain Video and His Video Rangers
was one of the first, starting in 1949 and running until 1955. The show revolved around the adventures of Captain Video (Richard Coogan) and a space police squad who patrolled the solar system. It featured the first robot character as part of a regular television cast. Many well-known science fiction authors wrote some of the later
Captain Video
scripts, including Isaac Asimov, Cyril Kornbluth, Robert Sheckley, Damon Knight, James Blish, Jack Vance and Arthur C. Clarke. Similarly,
Tom Corbett – Space Cadet
starred Frankie Thomas, Jr. and included science fiction author Alfred Bester among the principal scriptwriters. The similar
Space Patrol
reached 210 half-hour shows and almost 900 fifteen-minute shows across that series’ five-year run.

While these shows were largely primitive, regarded as disposable and aimed at children, they did pave the way for the more adult approach of
Star Trek
in the late 1960s. Youngsters who’d enjoyed the juvenile adventures of Captain Video, Tom Corbett and Space Patrol’s Buzz Corry (Ed Kemmer) in the mid-1950s were teenagers in the mid-1960s and ready for something more substantial in their television science fiction.

There were some slightly more adult – or at least more pseudo-scientific – TV shows in the 1950s and 1960s that may have influenced
Star Trek
’s approach to the science of its fiction. Between 1955 and 1957, Ziv-TV produced seventy-seven episodes of an anthology show called
Science Fiction Theater
.
Introduced by respected former war correspondent Truman Bradley (often against a science laboratory background), the series told a different story every week with a different cast involved in a scientific dilemma, often based around new discoveries or the ways in which new technology might change society or humankind. The show purported to draw its stories from the headlines, and used realistic scientific approaches and data in formulating many of its tales. More cerebral than the likes of
Tom Corbett
or
Space Patrol
,
Science Fiction Theater
provided more thoughtful drama readily enjoyed by teenagers who’d outgrown the early kid-vid space operas.

By 1957, Russia had launched the Sputnik satellite into orbit and sparked the real-life space race between the Cold War superpowers. This gave rise to a new strain of more realistic science fiction shows based around the imagined realities of the exploration of near space. Ziv-TV’s
Men into Space
ran for a year in 1959–60 and took a more grounded approach to space exploration, dealing with the scientific minutiae of space suits, re-entry trajectories and the challenge of sustaining human life on the moon. Among the writers on the show were Jerome Bixby (who’d go on to write four episodes of
Star Trek
) and B-movie specialist Ib Melchior.

Men into Space
ran in parallel with
The Man and the Challenge
, produced by an ex-Ziv-TV creative, Ivan Tors (later respon -sible for Florida-based sea adventure series
Sea Hunt
and
Flipper
). That series took a similar tone, following a team of scientists as they tested human endurance on behalf of the US government in order to prepare astronauts for their travels into space.

Many early television science fiction dramas drew on the fantastic movie serials of the 1930s and 1940s for inspiration in their heavily serialised format and melodramatic approach to action. From the earliest days of film in the late 1890s, the medium was used to depict the fantastic. French surrealist Georges Méliès developed trick photographic effects, testing the limits of the new medium, and discovered that fantasy stories were most suitable to these explorations. From 1902’s
A Trip to the Moon
through 1912’s
Conquest of the Pole
, Méliès’ films were tales of the fantastic that also dramatically developed film techniques and technology. Fritz Lang’s
Metropolis
(1927) and
Woman in the Moon
(1929) saw out the silent science fiction era.

Episodic serials dominated the 1930s through to the 1950s, spurred by comic strip-inspired characters like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, who also fuelled the early science fiction TV shows of the 1950s. Universal horror films of the 1930s, featuring supernatural creatures like Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, the Wolf Man and the Invisible Man, led to the 1950s’ science fiction boom that was dominated by creature features in which post-war atomic fears inspired pulp thrills. Monster-dominated films included
Them!
(1954),
20 Million Miles to Earth
(1957) and
The Blob
. Aliens arrived on Earth – often set on domination of mankind – in
The Day the Earth Stood Still
(1951),
The Thing from Another World
(1951) and
The War of the Worlds
(1952). Another strand of science fiction film was based upon exploration of the unknown, whether it be
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
(1954) or
Journey to the Centre of the Earth
(1959). Prime among the films that took the outward-looking exploration of deep space as their focus was
Forbidden Planet
(1956).

Easily the biggest influence on the development of the look and feel of
Star Trek
,
Forbidden Planet
featured many elements that would become standardised by the three-year run of the original
Star Trek
TV show. Creator Gene Roddenberry freely admitted to the influence of the film in an early memo to production executive Herb Solow in which he discussed the design of his proposed TV series’ starship: ‘You may recall we saw MGM’s
Forbidden Planet
some weeks ago,’ wrote Roddenberry on 10 August 1964. ‘I think it would be interesting to take another very hard look at the spaceship, its configurations, controls, instrumentations, etc, while planning our own. We have no intention of copying that ship, but a detailed look at it again would do much to stimulate our own thinking.’

It wasn’t only the ship from
Forbidden Planet
that would be
echoed in
Star Trek
: much of the overall approach of the movie to its story, characters and setting would find a place on television in Roddenberry’s space adventure series. Like
Forbidden Planet
,
Star Trek
would also be set around 200 years in the future; the ship would have an alpha-numeric designation (C57D in
Forbidden Planet
, NCC-1701 in
Star Trek
, both Navy-inspired); and
Star Trek
’s central trio of Kirk, Spock and McCoy would reflect the core triumvirate of the earlier film’s crew: the captain, chief science officer and chief medical officer. These influences, while confessed to by Roddenberry in his memo, are more due to the creative people behind both
Forbidden Planet
and
Star Trek
looking to the American military, and in particular the Navy, for inspiration for their space exploration ships and crews. Even the uniforms, down to the departmental colour coding and insignia, on both the film and the later TV series, are uncannily similar. It should be noted, too, that as a space-set partial retelling of Shakespeare’s
The Tempest
,
Forbidden Planet
was itself far from original.

Also of interest is a now little-remembered 1963 Czech movie
Ikarie XB-1
(released in an English-dubbed version as
Voyage to the End of the Universe
). The film follows the journey of the Ikarus XB-1 starship, whose multi-national crew must cope with the rigours of deep space travel. The episodic film has the crew encounter a derelict twentieth-century space vessel carrying still-deadly nuclear weapons, a radioactive ‘dark star’ that threatens the ship and the mental dissolution of a crewmember. Similar storylines would crop up in some very early
Star Trek
episodes.

All these preceding examples of science fiction, especially those in film and TV, undoubtedly had an influence on the development of Gene Roddenberry’s
Star Trek
. Indeed, specific elements that made up
Star Trek
can be traced back to individual films and shows, mainly
Forbidden Planet
, as discussed, but also – for example – the ‘United Federation of Planets’ organisation featured in
Space Patrol
. However, the creation of
Star Trek
was not just a case of cherry-picking elements from the science
fiction that came before it. Everything had to be filtered through one creative intelligence, a unique storyteller who was a TV writer and producer, and who’d paid his dues in detective and Western shows before winning the chance to explore the final frontier of unknown space: Gene Roddenberry.

Prior to creating
Star Trek
, Gene Roddenberry had filled many professional roles, including bomber pilot in the Second World War, commercial pilot for Pan-Am, police officer (following family tradition) and jobbing TV writer, who drew on his real-life experiences to create episodic television. However, when he died in October 1991 at the age of seventy, there was only one thing that obituary writers concentrated on:
Star Trek
.

Eugene Wesley Roddenberry was born in El Paso in Texas on 19 August 1921, the son of a police officer, who would eventually become a cop himself. Before he was two years old the Roddenberry family relocated to Southern California, where this born storyteller would find his natural environment.

Los Angeles in the mid-1920s had become the centre of the growing movie industry. The famous Hollywoodland (later just Hollywood) sign was erected in 1923. Both the city and the movies were growing and changing, and Roddenberry became ideally placed to take advantage of the opportunities offered. His father secured a job with the Los Angeles Police Department: they were desperate for beat cops and his Army service made the senior Roddenberry an ideal candidate.

Young Gene did well enough at school, attending to his studies as the lively 1920s gave way to the great depression of the 1930s. By then the Roddenberry family had grown, with Gene joined by a brother and a sister. Gene and his brother were encouraged by their father to take on odd jobs (delivering newspapers, working in a petrol station) in order to earn money and discover the meaning of independence. He took them both fishing and hunting – pastimes that Roddenberry senior enjoyed, but neither of his sons did.

Gene Roddenberry attended Los Angeles City College
(LACC) from early 1939, studying the police curriculum. Through the LACC Police Club he met several figures he’d later work with after the war. Various stints of further education followed, but Roddenberry never formally graduated.

Aged eighteen in 1940, Roddenberry signed up to the Civilian Pilot Training programme, a scheme designed to increase the number of trained American pilots in the run-up to the country’s likely entry into the conflict in Europe. Having long been interested in flying and aeroplanes, he was awarded his pilot’s licence and in 1941 joined the US Army Air Corps, just before it became the US Air Force. Combat missions followed in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, including action with the 394th Bomber Squadron. In August 1943 Roddenberry’s B-17E Flying Fortress crashed on take-off due to a mechanical failure, with the loss of two lives. Despite that setback, Roddenberry claimed to have chalked up eighty-nine missions (his natural storytelling abilities would lead him to often embellish his personal achievements) and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal prior to leaving the Air Force in 1945.

Roddenberry married his college girlfriend Eileen Rexroat in 1942 and they had two daughters, Darlene and Dawn. Using the knowledge and skill accumulated during the war years, he became a commercial pilot for Pan American World Airways (Pan-Am). Following a June 1947 crash in the Syrian desert, the second of his flying career, Roddenberry was awarded a Civil Aeronautics commendation for his involvement in the rescue efforts (another account embellished in the telling). During his time as a commercial pilot, Roddenberry had become interested in the relatively new medium of television and was keen to develop a career as a TV writer. This was a new business, with opportunities for the right people – and the ambitious Roddenberry felt he could find a role.

In the meantime, to generate income, Roddenberry fell back on the family tradition and joined the LAPD at the start of 1949. He became an officer in 1951 and a sergeant in 1953, all
the while optimistically submitting story outlines to various TV shows. After six weeks of perfunctory training, Roddenberry began his police life as a traffic cop.

In mid-1950 William H. Parker became the LAPD Chief with a mandate to clean up corruption in the force. By 1951 Roddenberry realised his ambition to begin writing professionally by securing a job in Parker’s PR division, writing speeches for the Chief. Roddenberry delivered talks to schoolchildren on road safety, but it was as publicist to Parker that he became invaluable. Later in 1951 he sought permission to accept outside work, intending not to take the usual security job, but to explore whether he could make some headway as a writer for television.

For Roddenberry, television was the equivalent of the ‘pulps’ of the 1930s: a here-today, gone-tomorrow medium that provided a perfect training ground for would-be writers. He used his office at the LAPD to obtain old scripts from shows like
Dragnet
in order to learn the formal layout and techniques of teleplays, then by 1953 the hopeful TV writer began to send his own scripts to producers, believing his real-life police experience would give his writing authenticity.