Anyone receive "These Are The Voyages..." Season 2 yet?

[davejames]

It cracks me up to see that even back then, the writers and producers were fully aware of just how silly and overused many of the famous Star Trek cliches were (like Kirk talking the computer to death, or having all the senior officers beam down to a planet).

And as much as I love Shatner, it's becoming more and more clear that the characterization of him as a vain, self-centered, and insensitive dick was totally justified. Even if there's also no denying that his great energy and charisma was a huge part of what made the show work. And yeah, as expected it looks like he did indeed hit on and try to sleep with nearly every guest actress who showed up. Lol

 

[cbspock]

Another thing I like about these books, they have sort of put a lot of the stories on the TNG blu-rays into perspective with the problems going on behind the scenes, and the conflicts in their writing room. They were dealing more with a stubborn Gene Roddenberry who really locked in the concept of what TNG was going to be, and the show suffered for it.

I think out of all the modern series, DS9 was the one that closely resembles the original series. It allowed for conflict between the main characters, it also threw the TNG vision under the magnifying glass. What would this "utopian" society do in an extreme circumstance.


-Chris

 

[cbspock]

It cracks me up to see that even back then, the writers and producers were fully aware of just how silly and overused many of the famous Star Trek cliches were (like Kirk talking the computer to death, or having all the senior officers beam down to a planet).

And as much as I love Shatner, it's becoming more and more clear that the characterization of him as a vain, self-centered, and insensitive dick was totally justified. Even if there's also no denying that his great energy and charisma was a huge part of what made the show work. And yeah, as expected it looks like he did indeed hit on and try to sleep with nearly every guest actress who showed up. Lol

There was a lot going on during the second season, and I think the book did a fair job of capturing why Shatner was acting the way he did. Nimoy though seemed to be the most stand-offish. I can see why some of the other actors took it to Shatner later on in their own books, but I think some of their criticism was a bit of overblown.


The one thing I hope that gets corrected in the JJ Trek 3 is the portrayal of Kirk as a immature skirt chaser, because he wasn't that person on the series. I hope we see a more mature Kirk compared to the close to parody version they have made him out to be so far. I hope that is the character arc they are going for. I think Pine has been doing a great job with the character so far, I just want to see the character grow.



-Chris

 

[JoeD80]

I do agree the Justman felt rightly slighted when John Meredyth Lucas was brought in to replace Coon instead of Justman simply being promoted. We haven't gotten any explanation for that.

That is a little at odds with what I remember from the Inside Star Trek book. I thought it was when Freiberger was brought in and Justman was only promoted to co-producer in season 3. I believe he was expecting Lucas to come back, and when that didn't happen it was the events after that didn't go the way he thought they would.

 

[Warped9]

Warped9, so what did Gene Roddenberry intend for Star Trek to be, anyway? I tend to think Roddenberry didn't really know himself completely. I mean, during the first season, he hadn't even come up with 26 whole plots before going into production, they saved themselves by splitting the Cage into a 2-parter to fill up his schedule.

I dare say it's because of Coon's brilliance that he had a different vision for Star Trek where the concept COULD be slotted into a great many storytelling genres (horror, thriller, revenge drama, comedy, satire, etc.). I give respect to Roddenberry, but I don't know if they would even have finished a second season of episodes had they kept to his narrow original concept.

Whether one agrees or not Roddenberry's ideas are pretty well summed up in the first season. That really seems to be the overall sensibility he was looking for. It wasn't that he wasn't against humour, but that he wanted it contextual. His feelings seem to be that the jokey episodes of second season went too far where comedy was the overall mindset as opposed to having it be more contextual.

An episode like "The Trouble With Tribbles" could be taken as a lighter moment in the TOS universe. Kirk's attitude generally represents the silliness of the events. He was the Captain of a frontline starship and here he was being ordered to guard a load of grain as well as having to deal with furry critters and Klingons wanting shoreleave.

You might let that one fly, but then you see "I, Mudd" and "A Piece Of The Action" and they really go for the camp and laughs. All three stories started out as more serious minded pieces, but Coon allowed them to go further and become outright comedies where one doesn't really get a tangible sense of jeopardy for the characters. Roddenberry felt a line had been crossed. It was after that Roddenberry told his producers "Star Trek is not a comedy." And he wasn't the only one who felt that way.

The other thing that happened in the second season is the parallel Earth society stories became too blatant and with not nearly enough nuance: the gangster planet, the Nazi planet, the Roman Empire planet and the Yankee and Communist planet. The parallels were too obvious and after that they pulled back from it. NBC didn't care for "Bread And Circuses," not because of the Roman Empire idea but because of the obvious dig at network television and more pointedly NBC themselves. One could see how NBC could see this as biting the hand that feeds you.

Robertson's memos appear to indicate he was aware of some of the ideas Star Trek was tackling and he didn't seem to mind much as long as they weren't blatantly obvious.

The fact the show could delve into light comedy could be seen as something Roddenberry didn't consider. One might think he was blind to it or it just never occurred to him at the time. Or he could simply have wanted his show taken seriously and didn't want to risk something overly comedic giving critics more ammunition besides just dismissing all SF as kid's stuff.

 

[cbspock]

They also wanted to differentiate themselves from Lost In Space, that always was in the back of his mind. I haven't gotten up to a Piece of the Action yet, I just finished Journey to Babel, but I really don't see how I Mudd was an all out "comedy". They were playing all the illogic to screw with the androids. Either way it's not one of my favorite episodes. Tribbles has some great lines in it. That is one of my favorites. Coon and DC seemed to be really great at writing the character interactions. I just realized that the conversation between Bones and Spock in Circuses was sort of similar to the discussion between Uhura and Spock in Into Darkness.


-Chris

 

[Maurice]

Honestly, I've never understood how Justman could have expected to become the Producer of Star Trek a la Coon, Black or Frieberger, since the Producer in that regards was always a writer, and Justman wasn't a writer, good and incisive as his memos could be.

 

[Warped9]

"I, Mudd" is all out absurdity. It is essentially a variation of "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" in that androids were to replace human beings only as masters rather than all out replacement of indivduals as biological people.

Note also how the androids are depicted. They act and speak like cartoon robots, like humorous cliches as opposed to the nuanced depiction seen with Roger Corby's androids or the Rayna android in "Requiem For Methuselah" Any genuine sense of menace in "I, Mudd" is completely undermined by the overt camp and humour. This was originally supposed to be a more dramatic treatment, but somewhere along the way Coon allowed it to become comedic. When Roddenberry got back (from some other assignment) he was not pleased. And this on the tail of feeling "The Trouble With Tribbles" went too far.

It's around this time that he lay down the law and ordered no more all out comedy. Humour, fine, but keep it in context and more lowkey. Knowing this it really undermines a long held myth that "Spock's Brain" must have been originally intended as a comedy, but was botched in the process. No, Coon had an off day and wrote a bad script and it was further botched in execution. It's a pity that the episode wasn't given another rewrite or two to fix some of the worst problems in the story because there's a genuine science fiction story at the heart of "Spock's Brain." Can't wait to read about that episode's development.

 

[BillJ]

Honestly, I've never understood how Justman could have expected to become the Producer of Star Trek a la Coon, Black or Frieberger, since the Producer in that regards was always a writer, and Coon wasn't a writer, good and incisive as his memos could be.

Is that suppose to be Justman?

 

[Maurice]

Honestly, I've never understood how Justman could have expected to become the Producer of Star Trek a la Coon, Black or Frieberger, since the Producer in that regards was always a writer, and Coon wasn't a writer, good and incisive as his memos could be.

Is that suppose to be Justman?

Yeah, I fixed it.

 

[Harvey]

If Cushman is suggesting Justman felt slighted by Lucas, that contradicts Justman's own account in Inside Star Trek. What's his evidence? Also, if Justman had been promoted midseason, that would have meant pulling in a new associate producer midyear. In many ways, I think that would have been more damaging than Coon's departure.

On the subject of the producer needing to be a writer, it's worth pointing out that Freiberger, despite his writing background, didn't get a single writing credit on Star Trek.

 

[davejames]

Given the snark and criticism Justman leveled at many of the stories in the first two seasons, I can't WAIT to see his reaction to the cheesy and two-dimensional stories of Season 3!

 

[Warped9]

It doesn't say Justman felt slighted by Lucas.

 

[Harvey]

But Cushman claims Justman felt slighted by Lucas getting the job, yes?

 

[Warped9]

But Cushman claims Justman felt slighted by Lucas getting the job, yes?

That's what I got out of it. It didn't sound like Justman had anything against Lucas. So his beef doesn't really seem to be with Lucas himself since obviously the Lucas didn't hire himself.

Who knows? Maybe it's just a matter of Justman miffed somewhat not even being asked if he'd have been interested in the job. Such things do happen. Hell, it's happened to me.

 

[Harvey]

It's certainly possible. It's just not what Justman wrote in Inside Star Trek.

 

[Hober Mallow]

I know NBC has always been cast as the villain in every Star Trek story, but I've never been convinced that they were out to "get" Star Trek. It wasn't in their interest to have a failed series. Every action ascribed to NBC in the narrative has either turned out to be untrue (that execs weren't enlightened enough to handle a woman in authority, that NBC refused to promote the series) or perfectly reasonable (not giving a preferential time-slot to a series that wasn't performing, shuffling things around behind the scenes). If NBC really wanted Star Trek dead, they could have cancelled it at any time, or, better yet, not have commissioned the series in the first place. Can anyone point to anything NBC did that was absolutely outrageous and proved how much they "hated" Star Trek, something they did not do with other series which weren't performing up to expectations?

 

[davejames]

Well it wouldn't be the first series that a network invested millions of dollars in and then abandoned and left to die in a crappy timeslot.

 

[Maurice]

Sometimes shows with mediocre ratings are left on the air for a while because the network doesn't have anything in the wings which they are convinced will do better.

As to Frieberger not penning any scripts, that's not to say he didn't have meetings with and direct the writers they used. My point was simply that all the other producers on Star Trek had writer's chops, which Justman did not, and that possibly is why he wasn't offered that job on the original Trek.

 

[Harvey]

Once again, a fair point. My attempt to make a more nuanced point was thwarted by my laziness when it comes to posting from my phone!