Trek Review: “The Menagerie” Part 2

Part Two of “The Menagerie” is mainly dominated by the bulk of the first Star Trek pilot, “The Cage.”  As is standard practice here, I am going to assume that you, the reader, are already familiar with the show and have seen it.

The frame story here is not meant to be thrilling at all, but maybe rather just compelling.  Sure, Spock is on trial for his life (I could go off on a whole side rant about why the death penalty still exists in the 23rd Century…), but I guess we’re just intrinsically supposed to worry that Spock might get obliterated before the hour is over.

In hindsight, the whole experience of this two-part episode is really good.  I enjoyed it the first time I saw it, and I continue to enjoy it to this day.  The 1966 version of me would no doubt have felt the same way.

Next Thursday, Star Trek was preempted on NBC for a Jack Benny special.  So, in my attempt to restore the original look of the previews that aired each time, in this case, “The Conscience of the King,” I think it might have looked like this:

By the way, I will be writing a blog post next Thursday (at least.)  Stay tuned…

Trek Review: “The Menagerie” Part 1

It wasn’t cheap to make Star Trek, even by 1960’s TV budget standards.  Fairly early on, the show was running into not only a money crunch, but was also coming dangerously close to not meeting their airdates.  It got to a point to where they probably would have to consider doing the show live, or even worse, in a gestational phase that is beyond description.

(That last sentence is not meant to be taken seriously.)

I have always thought that while Star Trek had its ups and downs in its first season on the air, it wasn’t as big of a struggle as it was to just get NBC to buy the show altogether.  As you probably well know, the first pilot, “The Cage was rejected for not being the series pilot they had hoped for.  That pilot cost over $600,000 to make and yet it was sitting around, collecting dust.  So, Gene Roddenberry devised an ingenious idea, to write a new frame story around the existing footage, and thus, you end up with a dynamic, excellent two-part episode.  Essentially, two episodes for the price of a lot less than one.

So, fast forward to November 10th.  The broadcast of “The Corbomite Maneuver” is on NBC, and at the end, the preview of next week’s show goes out on the air at approximately 9:28pm Eastern time.  The 1966 version of me, along with a lot of other people in the audience upon seeing the clips of the first pilot at the end of this preview, would have more than certainly been saying, “Who were those characters!?” 

I, the 1966 viewer, after seeing that promo most assuredly would have been locked in on this:  The frame story as written is a thing of beauty, giving a great added layer to the already great drama that was inherent in “The Cage”.  What you see of the first pilot (in this case having never seen it before) makes you want to see it again so you can see all of the nuances of the show that were different at this stage of the game.  My drive for information about what this pilot actually was would have been at the forefront.  Keep in mind however that the internet obviously wasn’t around then, so the best way I probably could have determined what that first pilot actually was and the story behind it would have been to take a trip to the local library and possibly look up Variety or Daily Variety.  However, a local library in Knoxville, TN probably wouldn’t have been getting that publication.

So, onward to Part 2, and take note here of some obvious differences between some things you hear in this Next Week preview and what you will hear in the show. More on that next week!

 

Trek Review: “The Corbomite Maneuver”

We have arrived at the first Star Trek episode to be filmed after it was sold to NBC. This episode (and to a lesser degree, “Mudd’s Women”, the next episode filmed after this one) stands out as different from the episodes that followed in very subtle, and some not-so-subtle ways.

The story takes place almost entirely on the Enterprise, and involves Kirk having to outsmart and outguess a would-be enemy known as Balok of the First Federation ship, the Fesarius. What ends up happening is a test of Kirk’s intuition and resiliency. Thankfully for everyone involved, he passes with flying colors.

Now about those differences. First up:

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Check out that huge collar on Spock’s uniform.  Leonard Nimoy’s costume had to be in two halves so it could be taken off without damaging his time consuming makeup job.

Next:

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Uhura’s gold uniform.  She also wore this in “Mudd’s Women” before she changed to her red uniform with her appearance in “The Man Trap” (the 4th episode filmed in season one.)  I don’t know why they changed the color.  The best reason I can think of is that the red complemented her beauty more than the gold did.  Or at least that’s what I think.

Finally, from the “Before They Were Stars” department:

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Yes, that’s Ron Howard’s brother Clint as Balok.  I guess it pays to know people at Desilu.  After all, they did film “The Andy Griffith Show” at Desilu in Culver City.

The 1966 viewer in me would find this whole episode riveting and very fascinating.  It’s a great “ship in a bottle” bottle show.  It’s more emotionally intriguing in many aspects, albeit Kirk, McCoy, Spock and guest star Anthony Call as the navigator, Bailey.

Next week, we come upon an episode, which at least from the preview, made a lot of people probably say, “What the heck is that footage of those characters I don’t recognize!?!?”

Trek Review: “Dagger of the Mind”

When I first saw this episode, it scared the living heck out of me.  There wasn’t necessarily anything scary on the screen, it was the story and the possibilities that were being discussed that scared me.  How very astute of a 12-year-old boy to think that such high concepts would scare him.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, just watch the preview of this episode and you’ll see what I mean.

In just that one minute preview, you realize the terror that a machine like the Neural Neutralizer can cause.

For my money, Morgan Woodward’s guest performance as Dr. Simon Van Gelder is arguably one of the best in the entire first season.  To just think of the depths of one’s talent you have to go to to play a tortured scientist who has been forced against his will to hide pertinent information, lest be subjected to great pain.  For someone to have to act that out is very, very tough for any actor.  I have read that Woodward had to take four days off after the filming of this episode because he probably was very drained from this.  Those were well deserved days off!

I, the 1966 TV viewer, would have been very mesmerized and impressed by what I would have seen.  This episode is a classic, at least as far as my standards are.  Top notch television.

One other thing:  during the script development for this story, Dr. Helen Noel wasn’t the one going to the planet, but one Yeoman Janice Rand was.  Even your more modest fans could see that that was a bad idea.  As has been noted by others, why in the world would you have a Yeoman go down to a rehabilitative colony?  The production staff wisely changed it to a specialist instead.  It made more sense for the overall plot.

That’s all for this week, next week, we go back to the very first episode filmed after the pilots:

Trek Review: “Miri”

Life is a funny thing. Human bodies are constantly deteriorating, and one day, our mortality catches up with us and we perish. On a distant planet, one which for some reason is an exact duplicate of our planet Earth, some crackpot scientists tried to prolong the inevitable… only to create a biological disaster instead.

This is a very good story with some very interesting questions to ask about mankind and the constant search for the so called “Fountain of Youth.” We are a culture, as much today as in the 1960s, of trying to look, act, feel and preserve being as young as we can. Some people get caught up in pursuit of vanity that, while it’s not the worst thing in the world about mankind, sometimes some people can go a little too far.

Kim Darby plays Miri, just another girl on this planet that befriends the landing party, particularly Captain Kirk. She takes a liking to him of course. She handles the role with great sensitivity. Darby would, or course, go on to play a more famous film role in the John Wayne movie “True Grit” in 1969. Michael J. Pollard plays Jahn, a rather old looking pubescent teenager. His later claim to fame was in the Warren Beatty classic “Bonnie and Clyde.”

But, there is always one baffling thing for me in this episode. It’s the shot of the duplicate Earth:

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Look at that. Not a cloud or any sign of weather at all on this planet.  That… is very odd.  Now, granted, the special effects are a bit primitive and were the best they could do at the time, but come on, don’t you think they could have figured out a way to get some clouds on the planet?  Now, for comparison sake, here is what they did in the “revised visual effects version” of this episode:

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This is probably a rare thing in that revisionist history version of Star Trek that I think is an improvement.  I however have to stick to my laurels as a purist and live with it.

Now, there is one more thing to mention.  Me, the 1966 TV watcher, would have a tough time on this one.  Yes, it’s a good story with potential.  But, the first 30 minutes I would more than likely have been watching a special over on CBS (in place of the regular program My Three Sons)…

When I talked this programming decision quandary over with my husband Greg the other day, he said that he would watch the Peanuts special and hope for a repeat of Miri in the summer. I reminded him that that’s a risky chance as not all series episodes will get a summer repeat. In hindsight, luckily he was right, as Miri was indeed repeated on June 29, 1967.

The Great Pumpkin notwithstanding, this was a very memorable Trek, if not for the diseased adults, but certainly for the inane and annoying children saying BONK! BONK! BONK! repeatedly.

Next week, we delve into the mind and chew the scenery in one of the great guest starring performances in the whole series:

Trek Review: “What Are Little Girls Made Of?”

This episode has always been kind of a hit-and-miss for me personally. It really shouldn’t be, given that it’s written by a great science fiction novelist in his own right, Robert Bloch.

How it comes across for me is that it’s a story that’s 80% there, but just missing a couple of things that could make it an all-out classic episode.

What always bothered me is having Christine Chapel in this story. She just happens to have signed onto a starship and this mission just happens to come up? Talk about convenient! If you were to go back and read some of the ideas suggested by Bloch in the earlier drafts of the story, you might find a potentially better tale, but the story is still a little problematic.

What shines in this episode is the guest starts, Michael Strong as Dr. Roger Korby and Ted Cassidy (whom you may remember as Lurch on “The Addams Family”) as Ruk, the android who doesn’t remember how old he is.
Their performances are quite stellar in this episode.

A cute moment I’ve always liked is the real Kirk planting the insult of Mr. Spock in his android duplicate’s mind…

“Mind your own business, Mr. Spock. I’m sick of your half-breed interference, do you hear?”

I’m not sure if that was suggested by Bloch or if that came in later script rewrites that Gene Roddenberry did on this episode, but nonetheless, it’s ingenious Kirk logic to set the wheels in motion to get out of the peril at hand.

If I were around in 1966, I would have felt the same as I do now after seeing this episode for the umpteenth time. It’s 80% good, but there’s still room for the story to be a little more solid.

That’s all for this week, next week… BONK BONK! BONK BONK!

Trek Review: “Mudd’s Women”

Ah, that intergalactic pimp and no good swindler, Hartcourt Fenton Mudd, deftly portrayed by Roger C. Carmel.  Mudd has always been one of my favorite Trek characters.  As the story goes, he’s trying to take three women and marry them to lonely husbands, and of course, profit form it.  Even though that isn’t specified in the script, you’d be a fool not to assume that’s what he’s after.

This was one of the stories that was being considered to be the second Trek pilot.  With the raciness and sometimes raunchiness (by 1966 standards) of this story, I am fairly confident that this was never actually going to be made as the second pilot.  Nor would it be considered an appropriate series premiere or an early series episode.  I think airing it 6th is a good decision by all involved.  At this point, you’re familiar with the characters, who they are, what they do, and a plot like this is just the different kind of story that all Trek series would come to be known for over the years.

In other words, play out your more typical stories first and then go for the “way out there” stories.

So, what would I have thought then?  I honestly would have thought the story was a bit hokey, but overall it’s passable because of the character interaction that is going on.  The guest cast certainly drives this show, especially Maggie Thrett as Eve.  She deserves major props for playing the most outspoken of the three women in this story.  It should be put on the record that a story like this was very much of it’s time and would never fly as-is on today’s shows.

As you probably know, this isn’t the first appearance of Hartcourt Fenton Mudd, we’ll catch up with him again real soon.  Even in 1966, you had a feeling that it might be a recurring character.

Next Week, androids appear for the first time!

Trek Review: “The Enemy Within”

Take a person, split them into two, one good and one evil, and you will see something about yourself that you probably would never want to see.  Take a hero like Kirk and do that same thing, and you have “The Enemy Within,”  the first great opportunity in the Star Trek series to watch William Shatner absolutely chew up the scenery in a classic, riveting performance.

Just to recap the rest of what was going on:  the transporter malfunctions, splits Kirk and a funny looking animal in two, and Mr. Sulu and three other crew members are trapped on a planet where the temperature drops way below zero at night, so they will freeze to death unless the transporter is repaired.  Ardent fans of the series will no doubt ask themselves, “Why don’t they just use a shuttlecraft to pick them up?”  This is an easy trap to fall in.   The concept of the shuttlecraft hadn’t been invented yet (that comes later in the season.)

I got to thinking about if, *if*, you took the men trapped on the planet out of the equation, how could you sustain the story?  Well, there is a scene in the episode in which the Evil Kirk is obviously in pain, and Good Kirk asks if his other half is dying, McCoy confirms that he is.  That simply is it.   It’s still a race against time to reassemble the Captain as a whole person.  Neither can survive without the other.  You might lose some moments, however, like the scene where Kirk is wanting someone else to make a decision on whether to go ahead and try to put him back together or not.  Honestly, the story is probably fine the way it is.  It’s a unique dilemma in retrospect, to say the least.

Now, what would me, the 1966 viewer think?  Shatner. Emmy nod?  Perhaps.  His performance drove this story home.  Without that, the story would not be believable and campy.  He makes it work.  Leonard Nimoy certainly has a great contribution here as well trying to support his Captain.   Also you have to give major props for Grace Lee Whitney as Yeoman Rand.   Depiction of attempted rape was something you didn’t see on TV during the late 1960s, and this show is bold for tackling the issue.  Her performance proves just how much supporting characters can contribute to the overall continuity of a show.

That’s all for this week.  Next week: Space Pimping!

 

Trek Review: “The Naked Time”

A person’s inhibitions can be very revealing. We all probably say things we regret whilst intoxicated. “The Naked Time” taps into that side of a person’s very essence with the spread of a virus found on planet Psi 2000. This leads to some very revealing characteristics being examined of most of the principal actors on the Starship Enterprise.

This is a great episode, hands down. If I wasn’t hooked on the series by this point, this is surely the episode that would force me to make the show appointment television every week.

I have always admired Leonard Nimoy’s solo scene in the briefing room towards the end of the episode in which he is trying not to succumb to the effects of the virus. The story of how that scene came to be is the stuff of legends. Go look it up for yourself, because I won’t dwell on it here. That scene gives the first really great insight into the Spock character. When I was first watching the series in 1991, this was the scene that made me love Spock more than any other character on the show. That still remains true to this day. It would have been no different in 1966. I would bet that a lot of people would have felt the same way.

Of another note: Bruce Hyde as Kevin Riley. Only he could make “Kathleen” the most annoying song in years! 😛

Next week:

Trek Review: “Where No Man Has Gone Before” (the air version)

As everyone knows, there are two Star Trek pilots.  You don’t need the history lesson from me, that has been said many, many times.  It also goes without saying that in a good number of TV shows in history, there are major differences between a pilot or pilots and the actual series, such as casting changes, set changes, costume changes, etc.

What’s interesting about watching either of Trek’s pilots against the actual series is these not so subtle differences.  The uniforms were quite different (no red shirts, no mini skirts) and Spock looked different as well.  Note the more up-swept eyebrows that made him look more devilish than later on.

The tale of Where No Man itself is a very straightforward action-filled moral dilemma… does the Captain liquidate his best friend who has mutated into a god-like figure?  I wouldn’t want to have to make that decision, I can assure you.  But James Kirk has to do it, to save the ship and save the crew.

I would have loved this story in 1966 or 2016, no matter when I would have seen it for the first time.  This is the story that sold the show to NBC to make it into a weekly series.  You can definitely see why.  All of the great elements of a great show are present, even if all of the characters aren’t here.

I wonder how many people noticed in 1966 and said the following…

“Hey, where’s Dr. McCoy???  Who’s that old fart playing the Doctor here?  Where have I seen him?”

Of course I am referring to Dr. Piper played by Paul Fix, who was a veteran of many, many movies and TV shows.

And you movie buffs will know that perhaps the roles Gary Lockwood and Sally Kellerman are better known for are ahead of them. It helps that they bring great charm and charisma to this pilot.

All in all, a memorable hour of TV that is significant on so many levels. I could go on for days about it, but I’ve said enough. 🙂

By the way (and I might include these every week, because I like them), here is a look at next week…