The Unauthorized History of Trek. James Hise van
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abounded for nearly twenty years, and 1987 finally brought the debut of the Enterprise D, a Galaxy-class starship, in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Launched on Stardate 2363, some one hundred years after the last voyage of the now legendary Captain Kirk, the new Enterprise was a sleek beauty that never forgot her roots in rough-and-ready adventure. Captained by Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard, the new Enterprise would have strong ensemble acting by Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, LeVar Burton, Denise Crosby, and Michael Dorn. Like their predecessors on the bridge, the names of this crew rapidly became household words, their characters and actions debated, analyzed, applauded, and criticized.
The launch of the Enterprise D set off a raging, still-unresolved debate about which captain and crew best exemplified the dream of Star Trek. Fans took sides immediately and began fantasizing about a meeting, and an inevitable fight, between the two captains. If some fans found the new product unpalatable. Star Trek: The Next Generation widened the fold, and in its seven-year run garnered its own acclaim, awards, and admirers.
Gene Roddenberry’s dream continued to explore strange new worlds, and in 1993, two years after its creator’s death, Star Trek gave birth to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, a new weekly series set in a permanent orbiting space station. The world of Trek met Avery Brooks as Commander Sisko, with actors Rene Auberjonois, Nana Visitor, Terry Farrell, Siddig El Fadil, Armin Shimerman, and Colm Meaney to man the station.
Two more movies, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1988), and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), kept fans in the theaters, when they weren’t home watching Picard in first-run shows and Kirk and Spock in popular reruns.
Star Trek: The Next Generation saw its final broadcast in 1994, but fans had been promised a movie. The autumn release of Star Trek: Generations may have been weak critically, but fans were treated to a long-awaited meeting of Picard and Kirk. The long-debated “battle of the captains” did not materialize, as the movie showed the two Enterprise captains working together in a spirit of cooperation, not conflict. Like other Trek movies, Generations itself was born in conflict, and fans missed the presence of Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley.
If Kirk seemed to be passing the torch, although with chagrin, to Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation found its own child in the launch of yet another weekly series. In January 1995, Paramount launched its own broadcast network, UPN, with the maiden voyage of Star Trek: Voyager. The starship Voyager is thrown nearly eighty million light-years from home, and the new series chronicles the ship’s travels as it makes its way back to Federation space. Captain Kathryn Janeway has already been compared to both James T. Kirk and Katharine Hepburn. Actress Kate Mulgrew and crew, confident and excited, are gearing up for the inevitable scrutiny of Star Trek’s legendary fandom.
On inheriting Gene Roddenberry’s formidable responsibility and vision, Executive Producer Rick Berman told TV Guide in the spring 1995 special edition, “We would be crazy if we always sat around saying to ourselves, ‘Now what would Gene have done about this?’ I owe him a great deal, and part of that debt is to keep his vision as true as I can—but not so rigidly that Star Trek doesn’t grow.”
All Star Trek fans owe Roddenberry a great deal of love and admiration for his creativity, dedication, and integrity. While Star Trek began as a concept that few thought would ever get off the ground, the starship Enterprise became the flagship of a fleet of wondrous ships and stories that after nearly thirty years continue, almost unbelievably, to boldly go where no one has gone before. This book will take you on that journey, from Roddenberry’s first idea to the final frontier.
GUS MEYER
Gene Roddenberry was a science fiction aficionado from childhood. It all started with a battered copy of Astounding magazine and took off from there. Still, he never considered writing in any genre or medium until much later in life.
In the late forties he worked as an international airline pilot for Pan Am, and it was at this time that he began to write pieces for flying magazines. In 1948, he was one of only eight survivors of a plane crash in the Syrian desert, an experience that profoundly shaped his attitude toward life.
The writing bug soon led him to quit the airline and move to Los Angeles, where he met with absolutely no success in the new field of television writing. The industry was, at the time, still centered on the East Coast. This led him to become a Los Angeles policeman, a job which would provide him with insights no office job could ever hope to offer. At the same time, he continued to write, and sold his first script, pseudonymously, in 1951.
More sales followed, including “The Secret Defense of 117,” a science Fiction story which aired on Chevron Theater and starred Ricardo Montalban. During the same period, he wrote speeches for L.A. police chief William Parker, and even ghosted most of Parker’s book Parker on Police, still regarded today as a classic of police philosophy.
Roddenberry managed to slip a bit of his own more liberal views into right-wing Parker’s texts; Parker was often perplexed when people he regarded as left-wingers would enthusiastically applaud his Roddenberry-penned speeches. Despite Parker’s strong political stance, there was a side to him that impressed Roddenberry even more: he was always open to new ideas, and had wide-ranging intellectual interests, traits which Roddenberry would later incorporate into the character of Spock.
By 1954, Roddenberry’s moonlighting was earning him four times his policeman’s salary, leading him to resign from the force and devote all his energies to writing. After freelancing for a variety of series, including Dragnet, Naked City, and Dr. Kildare, he became head writer of the Richard Boone Western series, Have Gun Will Travel.
He began to realize that freelancing left the final product of his mind in the hands of others. To retain control over his ideas (and to retain greater profits), he decided to become a producer. He had seen too many pilots written but left unmade; it was time for him to see one all the way through to completion.
His first series was thus created: The Lieutenant, which ran for the 1963 television season. Starring Gary Lockwood as a newly commissioned officer in the peacetime Marine Corps, this was an intelligent, dramatic series which unfortunately failed to draw much of an audience. (Ironically, another Marine-centered series which premiered the following year was successful enough to last through the rest of the decade. Gomer Pyle was not, however, noted for its intelligence!) One episode featured an actor named Leonard Nimoy as a flamboyant Hollywood director; Roddenberry would eventually employ him again in the new series he was already creating.
By the time The Lieutenant went off the air, Roddenberry had submitted a proposed Star Trek format to MGM, the studio behind The Lieutenant. The basic premise was the one now familiar to millions, but the characters were radically different.
The Captain was one Robert T. April, his executive officer was the logical female Number One, and the navigator was one José Tyler. The doctor was nicknamed Bones but was otherwise an older, completely different character. Mr. Spock was in the proposal, but was described as having “a red-hued satanic look” and, according to one source, absorbed energy through a red plate in his navel!
The Enterprise and its mission are perhaps the only things that made it to the screen unchanged from this original format. One other thing Roddenberry insisted on was that the science fiction in the show be ordered and logical, without falling on convenient fantasy resolutions having no basis in reality.
MGM said it was interested, but not at the present time. Other studios followed suit, providing Roddenberry with a fileful of politely worded brush-offs. A shift in the prevailing winds occurred when he learned that Desilu Studios was looking for series ideas. Desilu, the studio behind I Love Lucy and Lucille Ball’s later shows, was hurting financially;