Another TOS origin story?

[Pauln6]

Plus the same TOS writers axed my beloved Rand! I don't have to approve of every decision they made either!

That was due to Grace Lee Whitney's personal issues, though. It's not like the producers had much of a choice.

Well now, there have been many reasons given and I suspect the truth lies in a combination of them but they certainly had a choice.

The official reason given was that they wanted Kirk to play the field and Rand was hampering him. This was clearly bogus since he has a number of flirtations even when Rand is around and her roles in City on the Edge of Forever, Galileo 7 and, (early draft) the Trouble with Tribbles were passed on to other characters without much change in the scripts beyond the name (which may also be why Uhura is criticised for being such a girl in CotEoF).

She was an expensive central character actress and axing her saved money because Nichelle and other day players were cheaper to use.

There was an allegation of a drunken sexual assault (by one of the producers I think) which obviously didn't help her chances but if this is true then any decision to axe her could have been due to influence by someone with a grudge (and makes the Kirk analogy pale by comparison).

She was drinking quite heavily and was suffering health issues from diet pills but many other actors around that time also had similar issues and kept on working (e.g. Julie Garland).

She could have returned in a few guest roles but that idea was nixed by the producers.

Roddenberry later said he regretting losing her.

They certainly had choices and none of us will ever know the precise truth. I think I would have liked to see her return twice every season as a guest star in much the same way as Majel was used in Season one. I certainly missed her in the show and it annoys me sometimes that she is rarely acknowledged as one of the principle characters because of her early departure.

EDIT: I think Peter was established as 15 in the TWoK novel. Since we are debating another novel that seems to be of equal value. As a cadet I assume he was training to be an officer? Rand on the other hand wasn't an officer. I can't see why a 16 year old couldn't work for services in Starfleet. There might be more of an issue with a deep space exploration mission - effectively the front line. I don't know enough about naval NCO ranks to know how much experience one would need to get promoted to a CPO as Rand was in TMP as well.

 

[Christopher]

^Sure, it's possible that there could've been a 16-year-old enlisted crewperson on a Starfleet vessel. But it's impossible that Janice Rand could've been that young when Kirk took command, because that's irreconcilable with "Charlie X," in which she was clearly considerably older than the 17-year-old Charlie. And it's also irreconcilable with the appearance of Grace Lee Whitney, who didn't look remotely like a 19-year-old during her tenure as Rand, because she was nearly twice that age at the time. All in all, it was just a bizarre story choice.

 

[Timo]

...But a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. Or a case of "there's an invisible cat on that chair". After all, for McIntyre's charade to succeed, Rand would have to be everything she was in TOS - she'd have to look mature, talk mature, act mature, even if she were a teen.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Dayton Ward]

I swear, all these plot contortions make the "Trip's not dead" coverup look like an episode of Three's Company.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Simpler answer: Vonda screwed up.

 

[Timo]

...Since when have simple answers been preferable in drama?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Captain Robert April]

They're preferable in determining which stories to give weight to and which ones to take with a pinch of salt.

 

[Timo]

To be sure, I prefer salt with those stories that'd be too bland, straightforward and contradiction-free without it.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Christopher]

...But a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. Or a case of "there's an invisible cat on that chair". After all, for McIntyre's charade to succeed, Rand would have to be everything she was in TOS - she'd have to look mature, talk mature, act mature, even if she were a teen.

Easier said than done. I can buy the idea of someone who looks like a teenager passing as an adult. An old friend of mine, quite elfin of build, was often mistaken for a teenager well into her thirties. And there was a time or two in my upper twenties or so when I needed my ID to prove I was over 18. So since there are real adults who could still pass for teens, it's plausible that people could believe a teen was an adult who just looked like a teen. What I have a harder time buying is that someone who actually looked like she was in her mid-thirties could be half that age.

Also, it kind of goes against the authorial intent of "Charlie X" if Rand was only two years Charlie's senior. Not to mention that it adds a whole new layer of creepy power imbalance to Kirk-Rand if she had only been 19 at the time.

 

[Ronald Held]

Unusual flowing of this thread.
I never thought of Rand as anything other than an adult female.
At that time, thought Kirk was "married" to his ship so any interaction with females would be casual and have little long term impact on him.

 

[Saul]

The other origin story could be the Star Trek: The First Adventure script also called Star Trek The Academy Years.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Whose academy years, though?

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Star Trek: The First Adventure, or the movie-that-was-almost-VI.

 

[Therin of Andor]

It is nice to know Grace eventually sorted her life out.

I have my own special story here. Grace Lee Whitney was at a Brisbane ST convention a few weeks after ST II came out here. She hadn't already seen the movie, because she was a little distressed she hadn't been invited back after TMP, but she knew the fans would ask her what she thought of the film, so she went to a local screening with the con committee.

At the convention, I was essentially representing the Sydney club for some national convention decision-making and was lucky enough to be at GLW's table for the con banquet - and she bought champagne for the whole table, but drank only mineral water herself.

For her return trip to the US, she had to pass through Sydney and I offered to organise to pick her up from the domestic terminal and get her across to the international terminal in time for her flight.

Years later, in an interview with "Starlog", she credited her wonderful experiences with the Aussie fans at that convention with her decision to go teetotal. We had no idea we were seeing Grace's new beginning at the time! (Either that or she was so appalled by Aussies that we drove her from the drink!)

My Polaroid farewell to GLW at Sydney Airport! - 1982.

 

[Pauln6]

Lol - yeah it's easy to forget that Grace was still drinking at the time of TMP. Well done! I was disappointed that Rand and Chapel didn't make it into TWoK too, although I loved Grace's cameo in STIII. I would have liked to see either of them get a decent part in STIII & STIV (i.e. some character lines possibly working for Admiral Morrow as an aide or something).

I think I might have derailed the thread - sorry! The upshot is, it was nice to see Rand featured, even inaccurately, and I hope that somebody will treat her character as a lead character in a future novel.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I would have liked to see either of them get a decent part in STIII & STIV

You realize that they caught up with each other, and rehearsed those ST IV lines with each other, before their day filming?

(i.e. some character lines possibly working for Admiral Morrow as an aide or something)..

That's exactly what Rand got to do in the pre-ST IV comic arc by DC Comics.

 

[F. King Daniel]

That's an neat Grace Lee Whitney story, Therin. Thanks for sharing

Star Trek: The First Adventure, or the movie-that-was-almost-VI.

I loved reading about the old Starfleet Academy film and Star Trek: The Beginning at AICN a couple of years ago. I'd love to see the two almost-films novelized as standalone "what might have been" stories (told as they were- with no "fixes" to comply with current canon) with forwards giving a little info on the circumstancrs of the scripts' inception and the movies' cancellation.

I was only about eight at the time, and even I remember the anti-Starfleet Academy stuff going around. "Police Academy in space!" some called it (it wasn't at anything like that if you read the AICN write-up). I also remember an old DC Trek comic letters page where the editor was going on about how "Only Shatner and Nimoy can play Kirk and Spock". How wrong they were!

 

[Christopher]

^Yep. Sad to say, assuming the worst about new projects was a longstanding custom in fandom even before the Internet.

 

[Dayton Ward]

^ Yes, but it's the Internet that's made such things true art.

 

[JD]

That's an neat Grace Lee Whitney story, Therin. Thanks for sharing

Star Trek: The First Adventure, or the movie-that-was-almost-VI.

I loved reading about the old Starfleet Academy film and Star Trek: The Beginning at AICN a couple of years ago. I'd love to see the two almost-films novelized as standalone "what might have been" stories (told as they were- with no "fixes" to comply with current canon) with forwards giving a little info on the circumstancrs of the scripts' inception and the movies' cancellation.

Oh yeah, I'm with you there. IMO they would be perfect Myriad Universe stories. I would love to see the books show give us some of these stories that were originally planned as movies or episodes but never got made.