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Boarding the Enterprise, a review: challenging and fascinating insights into the original series
Boarding the Enterprise is an atypical Star Trek book. It is a philosophical, scientific and cultural examination of the original series’ goals, messages and influence. The brainchild of notable and noted Canadian science-fiction novelist Robert J. Sawyer, the collection of essays is a serious and analytic examination that will gift even longtime Star Trek fans with new insights.
Despite that, Sawyer told me it was not a publishing success.
I am very proud of that book. And it tanked. It came out for the 40th anniversary of Star Trek and had a nice cover reminiscent of the Star Trek: The Motion Picture rainbow and it just did not sell for some reason. I was stunned when it didn’t leap off the shelves. With that cover and David’s name…I don’t know what went wrong. Maybe around the 40th anniversary there was too much product available.
The David is David Gerrold, another science-fiction powerhouse. He came on board as co-editor.
I asked David, ‘If I pitch a book to Glenn [Yeffeth, editor at BenBella Books], will you do an essay for it?’ I said that to him one morning at a convention and he came back to me later in the day and said, ‘Oh good news, I’m going to edit that book with you.’ So suddenly it went from being my book to being David’s and my book. But I thought, ‘Well, I can’t go wrong.’ I also figured it would do better, because David has the cachet in Star Trek.
David said we have to have something from Norman Spinrad and we have to have something from DC Fontana and from some other people. So [the essayists were] two worlds coming together: the people who had actually created the show and the people who had been influenced by the show as science-fiction professionals.
Sawyer and Gerrold
And yet, it didn’t sell. That is not, I think, because there was a glut of 40th anniversary material, but rather because it didn’t fall neatly into the two categories of Trek non-fiction that do well: gossipy personal accounts written by the actors or detailed production diaries that please behind-the-scenes nerds like me. It was doomed by its uniqueness, which is really unfortunate because it is full of insights that will resonate with thoughtful TOS fans. (Interestingly, Sawyer convinced BenBella to release a slightly updated version for Star Trek’s 50 anniversary.)
Here are thoughts on just two of its essays.
No identification of self or mission
Actor, writer and civil-rights activist Eric Greene used the Prime Directive to tackle Star Trek’s relationship to the real-world events of the 1960s, primarily the Vietnam War. He wrote:
In the course of the series, the Prime Directive was often debated, occasionally derided, but rarely obeyed. The Prime Directive was not a directive as much as it was the Prime Question: how much power should a superpower use when dealing with other peoples? That very question, the central tension driving the stories of Star Trek, was at the heart of American politics and popular culture at the time.
TOS hid its Vietnam commentary in the clothing of science fiction. DC Fontana, quoted in Boarding the Enterprise, said “no one was allowed to talk about [it] on television…but under science fiction we were able to get in commentary on Vietnam.”
Among the most biting of these is Errand of Mercy. Kirk risks his life and his ship to prevent innocent and seemingly powerless people from being taken over by an aggressive, technologically superior force. That’s laudable. But it is also the same role America cast for itself in Vietnam. As Greene writes:
Seeking to “deny” Organia to the Klingons and to win Organia’s allegiance to the Federation, Kirk offered Organia medical, educational, technical and military assistance — the trademark nation-building and counter-insurgency tools the U.S. used to “deny” developing nations to the Communists.
The Organians, however, refused the proffered benefits. “…we really do not need your protection,” Claymare tells Kirk. When Ayelborne adds that they have nothing anyone would want, Kirk replies “You have this planet and its strategic location.”
The irony is that, in this at least, the Federation is the same as the Klingons. As Sawyer said:
The Federation could have shown up at any time to offer all [that help] to the Organians, but it didn’t, until Organia turned out to be strategically useful. So, it was not like this was UNESCO going out to offer aid, it was ‘We will do all these nice things for you — because we need you.’
The difference, of course, is that the Federation would not take over the planet. Kirk tells the council “With the Federation, you have a choice. You have none with the Klingons.” That crucial difference allows us viewers to maintain our esteem for the Federation good guys, but the parallels to Vietnam are clear.
Also fascinating in the Vietnam context are The Apple and A Private Little War. Spock, Greene writes, argues in The Apple that the feeders of Vaal have “the right to choose a system that works for them…Whatever you choose to call it, the system works.” This exact argument was made by those who opposed the Vietnam War. Kirk, however, sees a people yoked unwillingly to a communal ideal of service: “They should have the opportunity of choice. We owe it to them to interfere.”
Kirk opts for force, using the ship’s phasers to destroy the foundational basis of this society, an ending that always bothered me. Is that choice consistent with his oath to uphold the non-interference directive? No, which is why The Apple does not work as an episode. But it does work as allegory. Watch The Apple as a debate about the very real problems of the Vietnam War, and it is effective.
A Private Little War premiered about five months later. It presents one interpretation of the Vietnam conflict in stark and obvious terms: two superpowers fight a proxy war by arming both sides with enough weapons to fight, but not with what Kirk calls “an overpowering weapon.” Greene wrote:
The episode thus represented the roots of the Vietnam conflict as noble and necessary, [but] it also dramatized the dilemma of that policy: Kirk acknowledged no limiting principle, no stopping point and, significantly, no strategy for success, only a strategy for stalemate.
The sheer hopelessness of the tactic Kirk must adopt is grimly powerful. Robert Sawyer:
A Private Little War is a very tricky episode for me, because McCoy is right: ‘It went on bloody year after bloody year.’ And Kirk has to argue the position that we have to take an interventionist role. Now, the United States arguably started the Vietnam War to prevent lawful elections from happening in Vietnam that would have elected a Communist government. I think the most important line in the episode is when Kirk asks Scotty for a hundred flintlocks and Scotty replies ‘A hundred what?’ Kirk says ‘A hundred…serpents…serpents for the garden of Eden. We’re very tired, Mister Spock. Beam us up home.’
He gets to say they’re coming home at a time when all those soldiers in Vietnam didn’t get to say that. It’s a very powerful moment: he realizes that he is following through because he’s in it this deep and he is going to continue, but that is the moment he realizes that it is evil. A hundred serpents for the garden of Eden.
In these episodes, the two Genes — Coon in The Apple and Roddenberry in A Private Little War — presented to TV viewers the rationales and conflicts of Vietnam in a way no one else was able or willing to do. As Sawyer told me:
No one was dealing with any of these issues on TV, so the fact that they were even touching on this is so praiseworthy. This is a time when every other prime-time show tried to ignore the fact that the United States was at war and the teenagers were dying overseas, even putting aside the many, many Vietnamese who were dying. The American-as-apple-pie teenagers that we would see on other shows were being sent overseas to kill and be killed, and America just had blinders on about it.
In both episodes, there’s a lot of arguing about whether what they were doing was right. And that’s good, because there were no clear-cut answers. If I had to choose, I’d rather watch A Private Little War, although both have terrible wigs in them, because it at least shows the cost of war when Tyree, after Nona is killed, decides he wants many more guns. You see a good person just destroyed.
Kirk slash Spock: fan fic love stories
Slash fiction is fan fiction that focuses on romantic, usually sexual, relationships between characters of the same sex. The name comes from the / when people write “Kirk/Spock” or other combinations of characters.
Slash fic The Price and the Prize
If you are new to slash fic and curious about it, check out the 61,437 Star Trek stories at Archive of Our Own.
I have never been interested in slash fic. This is not because I have LGBTQ hangups; whatever consenting adults want or don’t want to do is fine with me. Rather, I have dismissed slash fic because it is not canon; there was never any hint during the series of a sexual relationship between the main characters.
Because of that, I never gave slash fic much thought, but luckily Sawyer decided to examine it. “We had to track down an expert on slash fic,” he said, “because this had never been explored.”
The expert he found was fan fiction writer Melissa Dickinson, who explained why slash fic matters to many fans.
If we look at the canon text of the show, and the weekly romantic interests…it provided for our complex, heroic, flawed characters, it becomes very quickly apparent that they lack two essential things: intimacy and equality. Those same bright, imaginative, educated female fans who identified with Spock, who admired Kirk for his ideals and courage (or vice versa), found it impossible to reconcile their admiration for the characters with the idea that Kirk could seriously fall in love with a pretty, emotionally vacant android in about fifteen minutes, or that Spock would get high on spores, leave his work and abandon his loyalty to Kirk for the vacuous Leila Kalomi, who so clearly didn’t get him at all.
These passionate fans weighed the popular 1960s images of romantic love and found them wanting. Instead, they wanted for Kirk and Spock what they wanted for themselves: an emotional unity based on shared ideals, equality, intimacy, and trust. They were busy throwing off the roles that society had tried to impress upon them — why would Kirk and Spock not do the same?
This is such a profound idea: that the deep friendship between Kirk and Spock would find expression in romantic love not because the characters are homosexual or bisexual but because specifics of sexuality are irrelevant, and that what actually matters is an intellectual and emotional bond that, perhaps, results in physical intimacy.
Buy the book
Boarding the Enterprise is a deep well of insight, and I’ve only dipped into the surface here. It offers 14 essays, including pieces on religion in Star Trek, what happened to the space race, and a hilarious take on safety equipment in the 23rd century. Each could easily be an article in itself. Sawyer posted his introduction to the book on his site. Read that and then go buy the book. It’s available for a handful of dollars on your local Amazon site and as a Kobo or Kindle e-book.
The book is a challenging, serious, even scholarly tome that requires intellectual participation from its reader, but that effort is worthwhile. It is among the most thoughtful of books on the original series.
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Inside Star Trek 7: favourite designs and fashion advice with Bill Theiss
Inside Star Trek was a semi-official newsletter, published under the guidance of Gene Roddenberry. This connection gave the writers access to the actors, production crew and sets.
I own the complete run:
- Issues 1 to 12: Inside Star Trek, edited by Ruth Berman
- Issues 13 to 24: renamed Star Trektennial News, edited by Susan Sackett
- Issues 25 to 31: again called Inside Star Trek, edited by Virginia Yable
Here are highlights from issue 7, published early 1969.
That “real now” sound of the Vulcan harp
Reader Joanne Ektarian wrote in to ask if the Vulcan harp or lytherette (a word that also appeared in some fanfiction) actually works and, if not, how its sounds are made.
Editor Ruth Berman replied that the prop does not actually work and Leonard Nimoy does not play the instrument. That’s obvious, but the question generated interesting information on its unusual sound:
The instrument used is a harp (Terran) recorded at a high volume and played at a low volume to produce the ethereal tones of the harp (Vulcan). When the harp was first used, in the first-season show Charlie X, the composer experimented with both harp and guitar, and when Elaan of Troyius was filmed in the third season, a Yamano organ was tried — but in both cases the harp turned out to give the best results.
From Star Trek: Lost Scenes I am not clear how recording at a high volume and playing at a lower volume would change the sound itself; it would only change the resulting volume. Perhaps Berman meant speed, although again one would think the two opposite approaches would simply balance out. In any case, the sound is indeed otherworldly as early as its first appearance in Charlie X.
Berman refers to the harp in Elaan of Troyius. Don’t remember that? A sequence on the recreation deck was filmed but cut before broadcast, according to the excellent book Star Trek: Lost Scenes.
The costume designer’s favourite costumes
From Star Trek Sketchbook D.C. Fontana interviewed Star Trek costume designer William Ware Theiss. She asked which of his creations were hits with the fans.
The three most popular costumes I remember off-hand were Sherry Jackson’s costume from What Are Little Girls Made Of?…Leslie Parrish’s costume from Who Mourns for Adonais? and Jill Ireland’s costume from This Side of Paradise. I was prepared for and eagerly anticipated the storm over Sherry Jackson’s costume and pleased that Leslie Parrish’s was as well liked by the audience as it was by me. The popularity of Jill Ireland’s costume was a surprise to me inasmuch as it was a rehash of a style my mother wore when I was a little boy, which just goes to show classic designs are always good.
L-R: Sherry Jackson, Leslie Parrish, Jill Ireland (TrekCore) And what were Theiss’ own favourite designs?
I would have to mention Leslie Parrish’s costume first of all…a breathtakingly beautiful girl in one of my favorite scripts. (Because I am hung up on Greek mythology, I always preferred the script in the version the studio killed, wherein the ending becomes bittersweet rather than tragic. Dr. McCoy discovers the young female officer is due to bear the child of Apollo.) I feel this design, while Greek in feeling, was a completely fresh idea, i.e. the front of the dress was held up by the weight of the train which fell over the shoulder to the floor.
Another favorite of mine is the floor-length chiffon poncho over a black lace body stocking worn by Antoinette Bower in Catspaw. The design itself is not that unusual, but through a stroke of luck the finding of just the right black and white cabalistic print chiffon enabled me to portray a sinister, sexy futuristic witch.
Antoinette Bower, Catspaw I too prefer the original ending of Who Mourns for Adonais? The screened episode ends with Kirk’s sad question, “Would it have hurt us, I wonder, to gather a few laurel leaves?” The script, however, added a closing scene in which McCoy informs the captain and first officer that Parrish is pregnant, and wonders “What will the child be? Man? Or God?” That scene is also in the James Blish novelization of the episode, as Blish was working from the script and had not seen the episode.
From the second revised final draft script The interview also includes this fashion advice for readers:
There are lots of things you can say, like “Listen to your mother.” But, of course, your mother might have rotten taste. Or “Believe in yourself.” But you might have rotten taste. Or, “Read the best teenage fashion magazines.” But they do have rotten taste — too often. I guess the only general advice is only buy things you feel very strongly about.”
Inside Star Trek is an invaluable source of early Star Trek voices. I’ll cover each issue. Click here to read other articles in this series. -
A defence of The Way to Eden: it’s better, and much darker, than you remember
Star Trek IV is called “the one with the whales” but, where that is said with affection, The Way to Eden is often dismissed as “the one with the hippies.” Viewers dazzled by the way-out costumes, the “we reach” lingo and the quasi flower-power mysticism often don’t see the warning about messianic figures and the cults they build around themselves. The Way to Eden is closer to Charles Manson than to the summer of love.
It’s not a popular episode, so you probably haven’t watched it in a while. Here are some reasons you should fire up Netflix or pull disc 4 of the Blu-ray set off your shelf.
Solid production values
The costumes are way out and also fantastic. Tongo Rad asks Chekov “Say, tell me, why do you wear all those clothes? How do you breathe?” and their outfits fit perfectly with that world view.
All episode images are from TrekCore The dialogue is often outlandish — “Oh ho, that’s now. That’s real now. I reach that, brother. I really do. Give.” — but it is always delivered realistically, as if it makes perfect sense to the speaker.
It’s also well directed. David Alexander’s only other episode, Plato’s Stepchildren, is also considered to be over the top but he gets strong performances from the actors here. And there are nice little touches throughout. As Kirk exits sickbay just after McCoy explains Sevrin’s diagnosis, for example, a security guard hears the door open behind him and hurriedly tosses one of the egg-shaped One pins back to the blond female passenger. He does not want his captain to know he had been chatting with the group. That small piece of stage direction is not detailed in the second revised final draft of the script, and so perhaps came from Alexander.
But the direction is not perfect. In the same scene, during Adam’s “Stiff man putting my mind in jail” song, the actor stops playing his “guitar” halfway through but the strumming is heard throughout.
Good character moments
One three-minute sequence gives us wonderful insights. Kirk returns to the bridge after his initial confrontation with the group. Chekov has heard Irina’s voice from the transporter room and it is clear on his face that he once loved her. Kirk tells Chekov he may leave his post, without the ensign actually asking to do so. The moment says much about the respect these officers hold for each other, and it’s a nice performance from Walter Koenig.
Spock then explains his interest in the One movement by telling Kirk “They regard themselves as aliens in their own worlds, a condition with which I am somewhat familiar.” It’s a small yet powerful statement.
Directly after that, Kirk asks Spock to explain the group’s “Herbert” jabs. Spock reluctantly defines Herbert as “a minor official notorious for his rigid and limited patterns of thought” and William Shatner’s reaction is a wonderfully understated bit of acting.
The script was written by Arthur Heinemann and Michael Richards. The latter is the pseudonym Dorothy Fontana employed after her script Joanna somehow morphed into this episode. (I wrote about that a little here.) She was clearly displeased with the screened version, but this brief scene on the bridge is reason enough to watch this episode.
The Federation doesn’t suit everyone
The Way to Eden is a rare look at people who are uncomfortable living in the Federation. This otherwise utopian society, Sevrin tells Spock, “is poison to me. This stuff you breathe, this stuff you live in, the shields of artificial atmosphere that we have layered about every planet. The programs in those computers that run your ship and your lives for you…” Spock describes the One movement to Kirk as “almost a biological rebellion. A profound revulsion against the planned communities, the programming, the sterilised, artfully balanced atmospheres.”
That no one social model serves everyone’s needs is an important message, especially for those Star Trek fans who, like Roy Neary in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, would jump at the chance to board a starship.
The social warnings
The limits of authority. The episode is an interesting examination of the limits of Kirk’s authority. Accustomed to command hierarchies, what does he do when people simply refuse to obey? He faces the same dilemma when his crew, stoned on spores, mutinies in This Side of Paradise. In Eden, when Sevrin and his followers do not accept the captain’s authority, Kirk gives up and turns to someone who will obey: “Mister Spock, you seem to understand these people. You will deal with them.”
Religious fanaticism. It’s striking that Sevrin never really explains his belief system, and his followers seem fine with that. Asked by Spock to state the group’s purpose, Sevrin says only “If you understand One, you know our purpose.” Pushed a little, he adds “We turn our backs on confusion and seek the beginning.” But that beginning is identified as the planet Eden, so at best his religious system is built on an adaptation that replaces a garden with a remote planet in Romulan space. That certainly stretches the source material, but his followers buy into it.
Cults. Sevrin is a cult leader. Like many before him, his followers are willing to die and kill for him. They barely question that requirement. When Sevrin announces he will kill all the crew on board the Enterprise, their quick acquiescence is chilling.
Sevrin: I’m using sound against them, beyond the ultrasonic. It will stun them and allow us time to leave. We’ll go in one of their shuttlecraft.
Irina: Sound pitched that high doesn’t stun, it destroys. I remember when we read in the text that it…
Sevrin: I’ve gone beyond those texts, Irina. It’s correct for you to be concerned, but be assured also.
Rad: We are in orbit over Eden, Brother Sevrin. (pause) It does destroy.
Sevrin: We cannot allow them to come after us.
The cult leader has spoken, his followers nod, and then Adam sings an upbeat song as the entire crew is dying.
Sevrin is a deep and dark character
The fun songs and crazy outfits tend to obscure the truly dark nature of the main antagonist. While Sevrin is not one of Trek’s best bad guys, he is one of the darkest. Khan tries to kill Kirk in a decompression chamber, sends Spock to die and threatens “Each of you in turn will go in there” until he gets cooperation — and all of that is bad, but Sevrin decides to flat-out slaughter every person on board the Enterprise. He does that just so he can get a ride to a planet.
His character gives us an interesting look at madness and the power of a charismatic figure to lead others to their doom.
Of course, there are problems here too
People dislike The Way to Eden for its crazy costumes, far-out dialogue and the music. Those elements do not bother me; my criticism is far more substantive.
Sevrin and his followers tried to murder all 430 people on the ship and, at the end of the episode, everyone is fine with that.
After barely escaping certain death, the landing party beams down to Eden. Sevrin and Adam are dead, all the others are horribly burned by acid, and Chekov’s response is to put his arm around Irina and comfort her. Later, the two share an emotional goodbye and a tender kiss on the bridge.
This is the woman who agreed to his death and that of everyone around him. Worse, Kirk makes this ridiculous statement to Chekov: “You did what you had to do. As did we all. Even your friends.”
What? This band of psychopaths had to kill them all? Oh well. Shrug.
If you want to hate on The Way to Eden, do it because the ending is absurd and offensive. I believe it was an attempt to say that the methods were wrong but that the basic beliefs of the group had merit. Spock outright says that to Kirk: “There is no insanity in what they seek.” This fit with the progressive thinking of the 60s that dismissed conformity, but there is no way around the fact that the episode ends on a terrible message.
Even with its faults — or, more likely, because of them — this is a deeply misunderstood episode. It is not a hippie-dippy story about a bunch of quirky malcontents who just want to sing songs and eat fruit. It is a warning about the power of cults, the discontent that even utopian conformity can create, and a cautionary tale about a society that most viewers (myself included) would embrace.
Postscript
Victor Brandt played Tongo Rad and had a small role in Elaan of Troyius, and there are two interesting bits in this interview with StarTrek.com. The first is about his legacy as an actor: “I had no idea at the time Star Trek would be on my gravestone. It will say, “Here lies Victor Brandt, who played Tongo Rad.”
He also tells a great story about his guest shot on Shatner’s T.J Hooker:
I went in and auditioned, and I got the part. It was an interesting part, a cabbie who was being coerced into ratting out a fare. I went on the set in the morning – and this is true – and I introduced myself to Bill. I said, “By the way, Bill, do you remember me?” He said, “From what?” I said, “Well, I did two episodes of Star Trek.” He looked at me and he said, “Victor, I’ve got to tell you the truth.” I said, “What’s that?” He said, “I only remember the women.” I wasn’t insulted. We both laughed. He wasn’t kidding.
Postscript the second
Overall, I far prefer to watch my TOS with its original effects, but the remastered episode features a nicely reimagined space cruiser Aurora. The ship was originally the Tholian vessel from The Tholian Web with nacelles glued on the model. By contrast, the remastered version actually looks like a ship that would exist alongside the Enterprise. Kudos to the remastering team.
The original Aurora 
The remastered version -
Waiting on Walter. My lunchbox needs him
Star Trek’s 50th anniversary was in 2016. The premiere is celebrated September 8 for the day in 1966 when Willliam Shatner introduced the US viewing public to TOS with: “Captain’s log, stardate fifteen thirteen point one. Our position, orbiting planet M one hundred thirteen. On board the Enterprise, Mr. Spock, temporarily in command.”
Those words were actually heard first in Canada, a full two days earlier, because CTV had Star Trek on its schedule for Tuesdays instead of NBC’s Thursdays. Another bit of Man Trap trivia: the opening voiceover was added at the suggestion of associate producer Bob Justman. His memo to Gene Roddenberry read:
After viewing “THE MAN TRAP” with Sandy Courage this afternoon, I am of the opinion that we need Narration for the opening of the TEASER. The TEASER starts out with a shot of the Enterprise orbiting about a planet and then we DISSOLVE FROM that to an ESTABLISHING SHOT of planet surface and then from that to a shot of Kirk and his companions materializing on the surface of the planet. These three shots take quite a bit of time on the screen.
And since this is liable to be our first or second show on the air, I think it would be wise to establish where we are and what we are doing, over these opening shots. Therefore, feel free to write a lengthy narration for Captain Kirk. It could run as much as half a minute, if you wished it.
The bridge scene from The Naked Time Justman was right. Since our introduction to all of Star Trek is a view of Spock and the bridge crew, it is important to at least hear the voice of our hero. The opening footage of the bridge and of Spock in the command chair are outtakes from The Naked Time and What Are Little Girls Made Of?, respectively. For more detail on this, see this excellent Star Trek Fact Check article.
What does this have to do with a lunchbox?
The 1968 Aladdin box My lunchbox is not the coveted 1968 Aladdin one — which I indeed covet but do not own — but rather a nice little 50th anniversary unit made for the 2016 Fan Expo convention. And this is where Walter Koenig finally enters this post. It is signed by all the main cast who are still with us: William Shatner, George Takei and Nichelle Nichols — but not Walter Koenig. The other three attended the 2016 Fan Expo but Koenig did not, and he has not visited southern Ontario since.
(Astute Star Trek fans will note that, in discussing the 50th anniversary, I am talking about the first season of TOS — and Koenig wasn’t in the cast yet. True, but Chekov was on board the Enterprise. Khan Noonien Singh told us so.)
So, I am waiting for Koenig to visit my fair city or its environs. Without him, my lunchbox is incomplete. Of course, I have his autograph — nine times, including on a program from the Toronto Star Trek ’76 convention. Sadly, that one I did not get in person in 1976, but I really like it and will write about it soon.
So why am I bothered about the anniversary box? Well, first, because it is an anniversary item and should be signed by everyone who was still with us in 2016. Second, because collecting autographs is like eating potato chips: it’s hard to stop.
The lunchbox is in your court, Mr. Koenig. Please come to Toronto.
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Inside Star Trek 6: bubble-wrap Klingons and warm Gorns
Inside Star Trek was a semi-official newsletter, published under the guidance of Gene Roddenberry. This connection gave the writers access to the actors, production crew and sets.
I own the complete run:
- Issues 1 to 12: Inside Star Trek, edited by Ruth Berman
- Issues 13 to 24: renamed Star Trektennial News, edited by Susan Sackett
- Issues 25 to 31: again called Inside Star Trek, edited by Virginia Yable
Here are highlights from issue 6, published December 1968.
What is a warm Gorn? I still don’t know
Reader Joe Rauner sent this question to the newsletter: What is a warm Gorn? Here is the complete reply:
The Gorns were hostile, reptilian aliens in “Arena.” By analogy, since they looked reptilian, they were thought of as cold-blooded. By analogy, a warm-blooded animal with a love for Star Trek is a warm Gorn. In particular, Gene Roddenberry’s assistant Rick Carter (the first man to introduce himself as a Gorn) is a warm Gorn.
So…I have no idea. I have never heard the term “warm Gorn” and Google comes up with nothing. If anyone knows what this is about, please tell me.
On a break from being Spock
In an interview with Leonard Nimoy, we learn his studio office consisted of two rooms crammed with books, scripts, magazines and letters, and that on the bathroom door he taped a poster of himself starring in Gore Vidal’s play Visit to a Small Planet. It ran at the Pheasant Run Playhouse in St. Charles, Illinois, in 1968, and before that was adapted for a movie starring Jerry Lewis.
That poster was probably this photo. Notice the Spock haircut.
Ruth Berman asked about two films Nimoy had done recently: Deathwatch and The Balcony. He noted that both were too grim to be played on network TV, but that they sometimes appeared in rep cinemas. Too grim is about right. Deathwatch, for example, opens with a hooded Nimoy being led to a small room in which he is permitted to walk in small circles for 55 minutes, rest for five, and then walk again for 55 minutes. Prison inmates walking in small rooms is the entire first 10 minutes, but the film gets a lot better as a series of flashbacks show us how the characters ended up in stir. Nimoy is actually quite good in the role.
The film also starred Michael Forest, a few years before he appeared as Apollo in Who Mourns for Adonais?
Forest and Nimoy in Deathwatch There is a good bit at the end of the interview, when Berman observes Nimoy stepping back into his role:
Nimoy pushed up the sleeve of his uniform, revealing, rather incongruously, a wrist-watch underneath. “I’m afraid I’m due back at the set,” he said. As he rose, his face and back straightened into Spock’s formality of bearing.
Bill Theiss on bubble-wrap Klingons and placemat Elasians
In D.C. Fontana’s article on Star Trek costume designer Bill Theiss, we learn he struggled to find work after serving in the navy during World War II. He designed neckties for a summer, did a stint as an artist in the advertising department at Universal, moved to the wardrobe department at CBS, worked on two movies in Europe, and then landed a job as a designer on Blake Edwards’ The Pink Panther.
Theiss and Susan Oliver, The Cage After some time in wardrobe at ABC, Theiss worked on The World of Ray Bradbury, which brought him to the attention of Fontana. They had first met at Universal and, based on this job, she recommended that Roddenberry hire him for The Cage. He then worked on a bunch of other projects in the eight months before Star Trek began its regular production schedule with Where No Man Has Gone Before.
On Star Trek, Theiss said that one of the biggest challenges is “coming up with designs that are futuristic, because in reality they are never futuristic” as he is “limited by fabrics and materials [and] must try to find design devices which spell out the future for us here and now.”
I knew the Elasian guards from Elaan of Troyius were clothed partly in placemats and that Klingon costumes employed bubble wrap, but I had always assumed those were cost-saving choices. Theiss had a far more artistic explanation:
My main approach for turning contemporary fabrics into futuristic materials and fabrics is to employ things out of context. This device can take a number of forms. One is to use a material designed for one purpose for something totally different. For example, plastic placemats became Neo-Renaissance body armor in Elaan of Troyius. In another case, I sprayed fabrics with metallic color using geometric lace as a stencil. That was on A Taste of Armageddon, where I also used upholstery fabrics on the men’s costumes. Part of the Klingon uniform is a plastic packing material called Sealed Air.
A placematted Kryton And Theiss’ famous predilection for showing a lot of skin? That too had motivation beyond the obvious:
Clothes since the mid-nineteenth century have become less and less bulky, cumbersome, protective (both physically and morally) and headed faster and faster apparently into complete nudity. This does not mean clothes of the future will be non-existent, or that people in the future will be nude… I can only deduce the future will bring literally thousands of style changes, and nudity as one of them.
Michael Forest and Leslie Parrish
Inside Star Trek is an invaluable source of early Star Trek voices. I’ll cover each issue. Click here to read other articles in this series. -
Harlan Ellison put a drug dealer on the Enterprise. That was not the biggest script problem
Harlan Ellison submitted his The City on the Edge of Forever story outline in March of 1966. Two revised outlines followed in May, with the first-draft script arriving in June, followed by revised versions that month and again in August. Story consultant Steven Carabatsos then did a script rewrite, Ellison did another draft in December, and then Gene Coon, D.C. Fontana and Gene Roddenberry all completed rewrites and polishes through February 1967 before the cameras started rolling early that same month.
Why so many writers and rewrites? Because the script, while brilliant, was also problematic. The obvious issue was that one crew member is a drug dealer and at least one other is an addict. The addict, stoned on duty, almost destroys the Enterprise. This was a much darker vision of the future than Roddenberry wanted, and he was right to reject Ellison’s versions of the story.
But this hurdle — scripts that didn’t get the tone and characters right — was a routine occurrence, especially early in the series. Freelance writers could not be expected to understand the nuances of the shows they served. But Ellison’s work contained a much more fundamental problem, one that is surprising for such a gifted writer: the prime mover is a character we don’t know and don’t like, and therefore don’t care about.
This article is about IDW’s beautiful graphic novel of Ellison’s teleplay. It is an almost word-for-word retelling of his script, and one Ellison himself endorsed, writing in the introduction “I want you to believe as deeply as you believe in anything that I am ‘over the moon’ at what has been done with my original teleplay.”
Someday I will write a longer piece about Ellison’s own book on the episode.
The story
Ellison’s story underwent some changes as it progressed, but here are the basics. I will not spoil the ending of the story.
The episode opens with Beckwith, a hulking command-division officer who deals an illicit drug called The Jewels of Sound. An addicted lieutenant named LeBeque is begging the dealer for a hit. Beckwith will give him a dose, but in exchange he wants “to know about that planet out there, what the log says about valuable commodities. I’ll want a landfall pass, and I want you to cover for me when I trade with the natives.”
LeBeque shoots back, “After the slaughter you caused on Harper Five, you’ll do it again?” He says all Beckwith wants is to “cheat aliens, get them hooked on illegal narcotics, and steal what they could trade for cultural advances.”
Again, it’s a much darker future than Roddenberry wanted, more Breaking Bad than Star Trek.
LeBeque gets his hit and is soon being admonished by Spock for mishandling the bridge controls and almost wrecking the ship. “You’ll blow the entire drive,” Spock says.
LeBeque tells Beckwith he’s decided to turn in the dealer, so Beckwith kills him and then clubs a guard outside the transporter room before beaming down to the planet.
In a captain’s log, we learn the Enterprise has been investigating strange radiation that has the ship’s chronometers running backwards. A landing party pursues Beckwith and discovers a surreal city in the distance, which Kirk calls “A city on the edge of forever.”
Kirk then derides time travel using words that must have horrified Roddenberry: “I always thought stories about time machines were the drunkstuff of lab technicians when they’ve had too much pure grain to drink.”
Beckwith then jumps through the portal and changes history. I will end the summary there, so as not to spoil the story. It really is worth reading.
What Ellison got wrong
The complete lack of humour. When Kirk and Spock arrive in New York, they encounter a virulent racist standing on a soapbox ranting about “the alien filth that pollutes our fine country.” The mob attacks Spock and the two flee to the safety of a nearby basement. Missing is the funny televised scene of Kirk and Spock encountering the policeman after they snatch some pants and shirts. Ellison’s work is unrelentingly grim, while the screen version had moments of humor that improved the viewing experience and are true to life. Even in bad times, there are bits of levity.
The drug-dealer story line isn’t necessary. The only purpose served by placing a drug dealer and mass murderer on the Enterprise is to create a character desperate and panicked enough to seek escape by leaping through a time portal. The drugs themselves and the presence of addicted crew members have no real bearing on the rest of the story.
The rewritten script instead gives this antagonist role to McCoy, in a plot much more in keeping with the Star Trek universe. McCoy does his duty and saves Sulu’s life. A fluke caused by a lurching ship sets in motion the same crisis as in Ellison’s script, but without the murders and destruction.
The end lacks punch. The episode consistently ranked as Star Trek’s best closes with a gut blow. That punch lands with far less force in the graphic novel. I won’t give away the ending here, saying only that our hero is less heroic in this version.
We don’t care about Beckwith. But the biggest problem with the original story — and one that is surprising coming from such a talented writer — is that we feel no connection to the story’s prime mover. Beckwith is a two-dimensional villain. He all-but twirls his mustache and ties Uhura to the train tracks. He is not interesting.
By contrast, the filmed version delivers one of the strongest episodes for the TOS trinity of Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Kirk and Spock are worried about McCoy, and we share that concern because we like him. It is interesting to watch them deal with Depression-era New York. It is frustrating to see the trio almost run into each other as the currents of time draw them together. And we share their joy when they are finally reunited. We are engaged by the characters. Ellison’s version has us spend a lot of time with a guy we don’t care about, but the screened version uses that time to develop McCoy’s character and deepen the bond with his friends.
What Ellison got right
There is a lot to love in Ellison’s vision.
Our crew doesn’t ignore McCoy’s pending death. It bugs me every time I watch this episode that the crew rushes down to the planet to find McCoy before the drug overdose kills him but they then immediately get distracted by the Guardian and forget about the doctor. McCoy could easily have died while they chatted with the big talking circle. Ellison wrote the same basic sequence but it makes more sense absent the pending demise of a main character.
Janice is a badass. Ellison created a fantastic role for Janice Rand. When Beckwith locks the doors to the transporter room, Kirk orders Rand to melt them with a phaser rifle. On the planet, Beckwith grabs her from behind and she sends a sharp elbow into his midriff. And after Beckwith leaps through the portal, the crew beams up to find that the Enterprise has been replaced by the pirate ship Condor. Rand beats up some bad guys and then Kirk puts her in charge of the security squad with orders to defend the room. “Yeoman Rand…can you hold this chamber?” Rand replies “I can, sir.”
It’s a role that, in the ’60s, would normally have been filled by some large guy. Ellison’s take is progressive and refreshing and Grace Lee Whitney would have had a wonderful time playing the part.
(It’s interesting to note that Ellison had a relationship with Whitney during the production of season one, so it’s possible he was following in Roddenberry’s footsteps: writing a good role for his girlfriend. But even if true, for viewers it would still have been a breakthrough episode for one of the women of TOS.)
Spock gets some great dialogue. Ellison’s dialogue is often inspired. There is, for example, a lovely moment in the graphic novel; it first appeared in Ellison’s initial script, which he called the Writer’s Work Draft, and was also present in the June 3, 1966, teleplay he published in his book on the episode. Whereas the aired episode ends with the best closing line of any TOS episode, Kirk’s despaired “Let’s get the hell out of here,” Ellison’s version has Kirk and Spock return to the Enterprise. Kirk is anguished over the death of Edith, and the episode closes with Spock comforting his friend:
No woman was ever loved as much, Jim. Because no woman was ever offered the universe for love.
That’s beautiful and should have been worked into the screen version somewhere.
Working with this production team. The graphic novel is gorgeous. As Ellison writes in the introduction, “I could not have pictured it as perfect as it has turned out.” Much of the credit must go to artist J.K Woodward, who produced stunning images.
Needlessly dark
Overall, though, Ellison’s script is needlessly dark and not consistent with the future Star Trek presented. Ellison, always voluble in his criticism of how Roddenberry handled his work, wrote in the introduction to this book that “there have been many who have excused what was done to my script by saying, erroneously, that the technology was not available fifty years ago to approximate what I had put on the page.” That was surely a concern at the time, but that analysis ignores the story weaknesses and the misfire on tone.
I am a fan of dystopian fiction, starting with A Canticle for Leibowitz in high school and on to recent TV like The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad and The Handmaid’s Tale. But we don’t need Star Trek to be dark. We need Star Trek to be inspirational. There is already precious little out there for those who crave an optimistic view of the future. Roddenberry and the creative crew were right to recognize the brilliant core of Ellison’s idea, and right to rework it into a Star Trek episode.
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Inside Star Trek 5: James Doohan said “warp drive” way back in 1953, following a change in career plans
Inside Star Trek was a semi-official newsletter, published under the guidance of Gene Roddenberry. This connection gave the writers access to the actors, production crew and sets.
I own the complete run:
- Issues 1 to 12: Inside Star Trek, edited by Ruth Berman
- Issues 13 to 24: renamed Star Trektennial News, edited by Susan Sackett
- Issues 25 to 31: again called Inside Star Trek, edited by Virginia Yable
Here are highlights from issue 5, published November 1968.
No single topic occupies a greater portion of my brain than does Star Trek the original series, and yet Inside Star Trek always teaches me something new.
Dr. Jimmy Doohan
Acting was not a flame burning within the heart of James Doohan. He sort of fell into it and, if that happy accident hadn’t happened, he was all set to be a dentist.
He told Ruth Berman:
“I was going to be a dentist, and I don’t remember being unhappy with that choice. [Then] I heard a radio show one night, and I said to myself, ‘I can do as well as that.’ So I went to a drama school in Toronto, and I won a two-year scholarship there to the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York.
“There was no burning desire to be an actor earlier in my life. It was just like fate said ‘Go on, you’re going to be an actor and that’s that.’”
After the scholarship ended, Doohan stayed at the school as a teacher for almost three years and in New York for another 18 months after that, before returning to Toronto for Christmas. On that visit he took a few small acting roles and then “before I knew it, there were so many jobs it would have been silly to move.”
He lived in Toronto for about eight years and then decided “I had gone as far as it was possible to go in Canada, and I needed new horizons.” He moved to LA and was cast in Star Trek, but he told Berman that Scotty was not his first ongoing part. “I was on a series in Canada that ran for a year.”
Space Command
That series was Space Command, a kids’ show set on an exploratory rocket. A full season was produced and aired in 1953 and 1954 by Canada’s CBC network, but only one episode exists today. Luckily, it is on YouTube. In the episode, rocketship XSW-1 is exploring space “26 thousand billion miles” from Earth. That’s 26 trillion miles or about 4.4 light years.
The episode is worth watching just to see Doohan contend with the weird bridge design that put the ship’s controls to the right of his huge chair, forcing him to twist awkwardly to make adjustments, often reaching down between the chair and the console.
Doohan plays crew member Phil Mitchell, and for TOS fans the best line in the episode is Mitchell’s analysis of a saucer-shaped alien spacecraft:
Look at the shape. That must have come from a planet with a thin atmosphere. And look, there’s no jet exhaust. That can only mean some sort of space warp drive or, better still, anti-gravity.
The concept of warp drive was apparently created by John W. Campbell in Islands of Space, which first appeared in Amazing Stories Quarterly in 1931, but it is still fun to hear Doohan say it in 1953. The Earth rocket XSW-1 is, of course, shown expelling a thick cloud of slowly rising exhaust smoke as it powers through space.
Doohan’s Phil Mitchell, asleep in his giant chair Many online sources state that one episode of Space Command featured guest star William Shatner, and Doohan confirms that in the article, stating Shatner traveled to Toronto from Montreal just to film the show. It seems no one will ever again see that historic first appearance together.
On playing Scotty
Doohan said Scotty was a weak role in the beginning.
It took a long time to build up the character. They didn’t really care about him in the first year. They knew the ship had to have an engineer, because ships don’t just run themselves, but…it’s a one-dimensional character, nothing human. The second season they started to get more in.
The honesty of Inside Star Trek is refreshing. As a semi-official newsletter, I expected a deferential tone, but here is Doohan saying Scotty initially had “nothing human” to do.
Introducing Ed Cotter, film librarian
I believe I have read every book on the production of Star Trek, but I was not familiar with the job of film librarian. A small essay written by librarian Ed Cotter set me right on this important job.
Cotter tells us that thousands of dollars were spent creating a few special scenes, notably the moving star field shown on the main viewer and the content routinely displayed on the bridge monitors.
Cotter’s work on display in Spock’s Brain (TrekCore) This material is called ‘stock’ and my job is to catalog the negatives and the interpositives (which are reproduceables)…so that they may be quickly found and reused in subsequent Star Trek episodes. I distribute a list of information on what stock scenes are available to the various editors and assistant editors who put the show together after it has been filmed, see to it that the optical houses which do the special effects work get the proper film elements to work with, and — of course — see to it that these elements are returned to the library and filed for future use.
He adds that, at time of writing, Star Trek had three editors and four optical houses constantly working on the show’s post production.
Memory Alpha does not have an article about Cotter.
Inside Star Trek is an invaluable source of early Star Trek voices. I’ll cover each issue. Click here to read other articles in this series.
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The Ebony magazine that got me a few minutes with Nichelle Nichols
I was talking Star Trek autographs recently with my friend Robert J. Sawyer. Rob is a lifelong original-series fan and has an extensive Star Trek collection, but he’s never collected autographs. He is an accomplished novelist and he follows the standard practice of his profession: you sign autographs freely for people who value your work, although he understands why many celebrities do charge.
I didn’t collect autographs early on. Paying someone for a signature seemed a waste of my meagre funds. But I watched the fans at one of the first conventions I attended and realized those dollars weren’t really buying the signature. Instead, the money bought a brief meeting with someone who was there, on the set during those few years in the ’60s. The autograph you take home is a reminder of that meeting.
That conversation with Rob got me thinking about my Ebony magazine from January of 1967, because of the pleasant chat I had with Nichelle Nichols as she signed it.
Ebony debuted in 1945, and it was an important expression of the black experience in America. That meant Nichols was thrilled to be the cover story in 1967 but, for today’s readers, the word choices and focus are outdated. For example:
The voice belongs to pretty Los Angeles actress Nichelle Nichols — or, as she is known aboard the Enterprise on the new Thursday night NBC-TV color series Star Trek, Lieutenant Uhura and, according to present-day Earth records, the first Negro astronaut, a triumph of modern-day TV over modern-day NASA.
It also tells us: “The communication officer she portrays was, in the pilot film, played by a man. Anticipating the future, however, planners decided to give the role to a woman, and a Negro at that.” And the article focuses far more on her beauty than her career or experience on the show. One photo caption reads: “In good shape for the part, the actress meets the dimensions both in talent and eye appeal.”
There is also this sentiment attributed to production executive Herb Solow: Nichols was a bonus for Star Trek as “we had hoped to (just) find a shapely broad.”
That language was, presumably, acceptable in the ’60s, and yet it actually underscores how important this role was for representation of women and black people. Uhura was an intelligent, capable professional. An oft-heard Whoopi Goldberg anecdote is testimony to this. On StarTrek.com, the multi-award-winning entertainer said:
When I was nine years old, Star Trek came on. I looked at it and I went screaming through the house, ‘Come here, mum, everybody, come quick, come quick, there’s a black lady on television and she ain’t no maid!’ I knew right then and there I could be anything I wanted to be.
That is a remarkable statement about the power of entertainment to inspire people and change society. It is also a sad reminder that only recently has that same validation begun to arrive on-screen for transgender and other marginalized peoples.
My few minutes with Nichelle
Nichelle Nichols ran a fund-raiser for the people of Japan in early 2011, following the earthquake and tsunami. She mailed out signed 8x10s in exchange for a donation of $50 or more to any legitimate related charity. That photo is currently hanging on my wall.
When I learned she would be at Fan Expo in Toronto that same summer, I debated getting her autograph again. I had her signature on other 8x10s, the cast photo from The Score Board, a restaurant menu purchased from TNG script coordinator Eric Stillwell (I’ll write about that one day) and a few other items.
But then I remembered her telling the crowd at a previous convention how important that Ebony magazine appearance had been. So I found a copy.
“Oh, Nichelle is going to love this,” her assistant said when I reached the front of the line at Fan Expo. And she did. Already smiling as she finished with the fan ahead of me, she beamed when she saw the Ebony.
My copy was in much better condition than the one she had, she said. So, of course, I immediately tried to give her mine. “I couldn’t take it,” she said, and I flashed on Uhura’s reply to Cyrano Jones’ offer of a free tribble: “Oh, I couldn’t…could I?”
But no, she refused, even though my offer was sincere. She signed the cover and told me that, even though her show business career started at 16, she had hardly any on-screen credits when the Ebony crew visited the set. That made the article and the photo shoot an overwhelming experience. She took a last look at herself on the cover and handed the magazine to me.
That autograph cost me $60 plus whatever I paid for the magazine, but it got me a few minutes with Nichelle Nichols. For me, just one of the thousands of fans who gather to see her every year, that was money well spent.
Postscript
I have asked only one non-Trek person for an autograph: Robert J. Sawyer. I have his signature on two novels — Hominids and Calculating God — and on Boarding the Enterprise, a collection of Star Trek essays. I wrote about that book here.
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I am unqualified for the 1988 Toronto Trek official trivia quiz
The Toronto Trek Celebration 2 convention was held in 1988. It was “a place where people could go to see and do all sorts of fascinating things.” (ID that for bonus points.) One of those things was the Official Star Trek Trivia Quiz.
To qualify, attendees had to answer 10 preliminary questions. The first 15 people to score a perfect 10 would be invited to compete in the big quiz.
I only got nine right. See how you do.
I list the answers below.
The quiz was sponsored by the Handy Book Exchange, a Toronto institution that opened its Avenue Road location in 1982 and closed its doors in 2018, following the sad footsteps of many bookstores.
Photo from blogTO Here are the instructions for the qualifier quiz.
I miss Toronto Trek
Toronto Trek, originally called Toronto Trek Celebration, was important to my early fandom, and I miss those gatherings. The atmosphere at a Toronto Trek was extremely friendly and collegial. The big commercial cons, like Toronto’s Fan Expo, are excellent and, yes, friendly and collegial in their way, but they really focus on parting people from their money. There were lots of opportunities to spend money at a Toronto Trek, but that’s not why you were there. You were there to meet people who love what you love. They were special gatherings.
I plan to write a number of articles detailing the history of Toronto Trek.
And now, the answers
Number 3. From TrekCore 1. Vulcan term for blood fever: plak tow, Amok Time
2. Kirk’s nephew: Peter Kirk, Operation — Annihilate!
3. The actress who played Leila Kalomi in This Side of Paradise: Jill Ireland
4. The instrument used by Zor Khan: the atavachron, All Our Yesterdays
5. The two combatants from Cheron: Lokai and Bele, Let That Be Your Last Battlefield
6. Gem’s planet: Minara II, The Empath
7. Balok’s ship: The Fesarius, The Corbomite Maneuver
8. Weapon Spock uses to “kill” Kirk in Amok Time: the ahn-woon
9. Who said “I am putting the bag on Krako” and in which episode: Kirk, A Piece Of The Action, and the quote is actually “I’m going to put the bag on Krako.”
10. Spell the name of the grain on K-7: quadrotriticale, The Trouble With Tribbles
The one I flunked: Gem’s planet. I could not remember the system named in the episode so, fair enough, I missed that one. But it’s an odd question, because I don’t think Gem was actually from Minara. The Enterprise travels to Minara II to evacuate the Federation research scientists posted there before the star goes nova, but it is presented as otherwise uninhabited.
I think Gem is from somewhere else. The episode takes place on Minara II because the scientists were convenient subjects for the Vians’ research.
I would not have qualified for that trivia contest. Gem would have tripped me up.
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The Concordance Color Book — and three fantastic surprise autographs
This was going to be an article about the Star Trek Concordance, both the initial fan version and the later publisher editions, with a bit at the end about the Star Trek Concordance Color Book 1, a small fanzine-type collection of drawings.
But that plan changed when I started flipping through the Color Book — and I found a David Gerrold autograph I didn’t know was there.
My first Star Trek autograph was Gerrold’s, on a first-edition copy of his The World of Star Trek. This foundation stone of my collection was purchased at Toronto’s Bakka sci-fi bookstore. I also have Gerrold’s autograph on a Trouble with Tribbles script (ordered online from him), a Vul-Con II convention program from 1975, and a seri-cel from the animated episode More Tribbles, More Troubles. (What is a seri-cel?)
I was thrilled to have another Gerrold autograph, especially as it was a surprise. And then I kept flipping through the book. And then this happened…
So, this was a moment to remember.
I also had a D.C. Fontana and Gene Roddenberry autograph. That I did not know about before. Wow.
All three autographs were personalized to Gennie Summers. She likely got her book signed at a convention. Roddenberry wrote “Hello Gennie, Sorry to missed you.” (He presumably intended to write “Sorry I missed you.”) I imagine she handed the book to a friend and then went off somewhere, just before Roddenberry came along.
It is impossible to definitively identify the convention. Equicon ’74 is a good candidate; Roddenberry, Fontana and Gerrold were all there (and there’s even some film from that con), although with most of the main cast in attendance and considering celebrities didn’t charge for signatures in the early days, it seems strange there aren’t more here.
Perhaps, as an amateur artist, Summers gravitated towards the writers in the lineup.
Ethel Gennie Summers
I was able to find information about Summers, as the unusual spelling of her name made for effective searches in online newspaper archives.
Summer loved art but, according to her hometown paper, the Springfield Leader and Press, she was “prevented from seriously pursuing art as a career by eye trouble a number of years ago.”
The February 12, 1967 article Cassville’s Miss Gennie Creates ‘Crazy Critters’ continues:
Miss Summers fashions all kinds of animals and birds — both real and fancied — from native nuts, gourds, pine cones, teasels, gourds, cockleburs, peach pits, acorns, sycamore balls and all kinds of seeds. Some of the results are so realistic they are described as “cute”; others so “far out” that they are fascinating.
(A teasel is a tall prickly plant with spiny purple flower heads, a cocklebur is a flowering plant in the sunflower family, and the journalist listed gourds twice — that’s not my error.)
Summers went on to create artwork for a number of fanzines, according to the site Fanlore. It reports that she won several FanQ Awards and lists more than 30 publications to which she contributed.
The fan story From Hell’s Heart used her illustration on the cover. The story is a sequel to The Wrath of Khan, according to Fanlore:
Khan’s spirit returns to haunt the Admiral, not having succeeded from getting his revenge.
“Khan’s obsession is the key that unlocks the door to Admiral Kirk… Khan vows to have Kirk chained at his feet, to serve him in HELL!”
Summers died in 2010, according to an obituary in The Cassvile Democrat.
ETHEL GENNIE SUMMERS
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Ethel Gennie Summers, 85, of Cassville, passed away Tuesday, May 25, 2010, in Red Rose Health and Rehabilitation Center, Cassville.
She was born, Aug. 2, 1924, in Nebraska, the daughter of Alvin Dale and Ethel Mae (Smith) Summers, who preceded her in death.
She lived much of her life in Barry County. She was a self-employed dog groomer, but was more known by her close friends as a graphic artist for Star Trek. She designed the posters for the movie and also drew characters for Star Trek comic books. She even had a space ship in her home, which she invited some to get in.
Cassville, Missouri
The claim that Summers designed “the posters for the movie and also drew characters for Star Trek comic books” must be a reference to fan productions, and I could find no information on the spaceship that was in her home.
D.C. Fontana had that drawing on her wall
Not a coloring book, for some reason, but a “color book,” the publication was produced in 1973 by John Trimble, husband of Bjo Trimble, the people most identified with the campaign that got Star Trek a third season. It’s a small book, folded once and held together by one staple. It reprints artwork that appeared in The Star Trek Concordance, a fan-produced show encyclopedia. Its original iteration covered only seasons one and two, and I will write an article about it and the publisher editions that followed.
The centre spread — the one Roddenberry and Fontana signed for Summers — was drawn by Alicia Austin. The biography in the book says Austin is a cytotechnician who “illustrated many fanzines, as well as books, and the new science fiction magazine, Vertex.” She has 22 pieces of art in the book and lives in LA today. Visit her site to see more of her work.
Austin’s large drawing depicts a “young Vulcan” sitting atop his pet sehlat.
Her work was the go-to reference piece for none other than D.C. Fontana, who wrote both Journey to Babel, the original-series episode that first references Spock’s sehlat, and Yesteryear, the animated series episode in which we see young Spock with his pet, named I Chaya. In a July 2016 episode of the Saturday Morning Trek podcast, Fontana told host Aaron Harvey:
I wanted it to be kind of bear-like, so that it had a lovable quality about it. And I wanted it to be faithful, because the sehlat wanted to follow Spock, and did, and of course it saved his life. I made up that reference in Journey to Babel on the original series, as “Oh, it’s a teddy bear?” says DeForest Kelley, and then I think it’s Spock who says “On Vulcan, the teddy bears have six-inch fangs.” I have a picture on my wall by Alicia Austin of a sehlat, and when people say to me “What does a sehlat look like?” I show them Alicia’s picture.
Four other artists contributed to the Color Book. Notable among them were:
Greg Bear: now better known as a novelist, with more than 50 books published, including the 1984 Star Trek novel Corona, Bear contributed three drawings.
Greg Jein: Jein went on to work on many Star Trek productions. He created the V’ger interior models for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, worked on two Enterprise-D studio models, contributed to TNG’s Encounter at Farpoint and other episodes, and worked on DS9, Voyager and many of the movies. The cover of Inside Star Trek issue 2 is his sketch of the Klingon battle cruiser; see my article on that here.
So, how did I end up with the book?
I bought the book out of a bargain bin at a Toronto Trek convention. I don’t remember exactly when because I didn’t take special note of it. It was sold in a plastic comic bag and I never took it out, so I did not know the autographs were inside. Clearly, the dealer didn’t either.
I paid $10 for it.
I bought it because it’s a quirky piece of Star Trek memorabilia from the 1970s, and I am a big fan of quirky Star Trek memorabilia from the 1970s. But at the time I wondered if it was worth $10.
A few months ago, I recommended that collectors go through their boxes of stuff after I was surprised to find some View-Master reels. That was fun, but it can’t touch the thrill of turning a page and finding a Gene Roddenberry I didn’t know I had. So, go through your stuff. Open boxes. Turn some pages. Seriously. You might find something wonderful.
And thank you, Gennie. I don’t know how your book got to that bargain box in Toronto, but I am glad it did and glad too to learn a little about your life.
Bjo Trimble, D.C. Fontana, David Gerrold, Equicon, Gene Roddenberry, Gennie Summers, Greg Bear, Greg Jein, I Chaya, John Trimble, Journey to Babel, More Tribbles, Sehlat, Star Trek, Star Trek Concordance, Star Trek Concordance Color Book, The Trouble with Tribbles, Toronto Trek, View-Master, Yesteryear
Collecting Trek
A TOS collection 40 years in the making
Collecting Trek 