Fact-Checking Inside Star Trek: The Real Story

[Melakon]

Another good one, Harvey!

I remember looking up Apella, and finding he was played by Arthur Bernard, which was the stage name of Arthur Friedman, who was a professor at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television during the episode's filming. Guess I figured professors were always in the classroom.

 

[SpHeRe31459]

Awesome, I've been looking forward to the next installment. I hope you find better employment and/or get into your PhD program of choice.

 

[Harvey]

A re-posting of Sir Rhosis' excellent review of Robert Sheckley's 'Sister in Space' today.

Tomorrow I'll be re-posting his review of 'The Surrender of Planet X.'

Wednesday I'll be posting a short article detailing the history of 'Sister in Space' based on materials found at UCLA.

 

[Warped9]

Interesting. There are indeed a number of familiar elements (in and out of Trek) in the idea, but that doesn't mean it couldn't have been massaged into something that could work well enough.

 

[Harvey]

It certainly has a lot of elements that would show up in later episodes.

Lt. Poole, after a space monster that killed his father brings to mind Lt. Garrovick and the space monster in 'Obsession.'

The derelict Enterprise-class is a story hook used three times on the series, in 'The Doomsday Machine,' 'The Omega Glory,' and 'The Tholian Web.'

Deadly space monsters, of course, were also a feature of two season one outings: 'The Man Trap' and 'The Devil in the Dark.'

 

[Christopher]

A pretty basic monster-movie premise, and rather sketchy on character. No surprise they passed on it. But it might've been interesting to learn more about that earlier "sister ship" and its mission. Interesting to see the name Saratoga being used that early on.

Sheckley seems to have mistakenly referred to the transporter as a "transicator." Wasn't that the original proposed name for the communicator/translator?

 

[Warped9]

A basic monster story can be fleshed out into something more depending on execution. "The Devil In The Dark" is a straight up monster story until things start coming to light that aren't run-of-the-mill.

I see a basic outline from which one could start asking, "What if we do this instead, and this and this...?"

 

[Harvey]

Sheckley seems to have mistakenly referred to the transporter as a "transicator." Wasn't that the original proposed name for the communicator/translator?

Correct.

I think Black and Roddenberry may have been hesitant to hire Sheckley because of his limited television writing experience. As far as I can tell, the only time he got teleplay writing credit (prior to his involvement with Star Trek in 1966) was for an episode of Armchair Theatre broadcast in 1961.

 

[Christopher]

Sheckley did eventually write a Deep Space Nine novel, The Laertian Gamble. It wasn't well-received, because stylistically it was more a Robert Sheckley novel than a DS9 novel, and thus its take on the series was too idiosyncratic and satirical for many readers.

 

[Harvey]

And here's Sir Rhosis' review of 'The Surrender of Planet X.'

Having read this turkey, methinks he is too kind.

 

[Warped9]

^^ Yeesh! I don't see anything in that remotely worth developing into a story.

 

[Harvey]

There is the idea of the Enterprise participating in war games, which shows up in 'The Ultimate Computer,' but the way it is written here isn't just bad for Star Trek -- it's bad in general.

 

[EnsignHarper]

And here's Sir Rhosis' review of 'The Surrender of Planet X.'

Having read this turkey, methinks he is too kind.

did they actually spend money on that?

holy moley

Makes TWTE look like Shakespeare...

 

[Warped9]

Yeah. The whole galaxy comes to this ONE planet just to dump their trash. And with all kinds of asteroids and other stuff just floating EVERYWHERE throughout the galaxy the Enterprise has to come to this one place to practice firing weapons.

 

[Maurice]

That reads like a summary of Act One, not an episode.

 

[Warped9]

That reads like a summary of Act One, not an episode.

Yeah. I kept trying to scroll down further wondering, "Where's the rest of it?"

 

[Christopher]

And here's Sir Rhosis' review of 'The Surrender of Planet X.'

Having read this turkey, methinks he is too kind.

Sounds like the writer expected ST to be like all the kid-oriented SF shows that preceded it.

 

[Harvey]

did they actually spend money on that?

I haven't found any documentation that says one way or another.

It wasn't one of the 45 stories given a ST# during the first season that are listed in These Are The Voyages. Although that book lists at least one outline that was purchased -- Farmer's 'The Uncoiler' -- that wasn't given a ST#, so that isn't a definitive answer. I need to edit my editor's note to reflect this.

 

[Harvey]

And the last post for this week, some behind-the-scenes details about 'Sister in Space.'

http://startrekfactcheck.blogspot.com/2013/11/unseen-trek-supplemental-sister-in-space.html

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Not really all that relevant, but the fact that he wrote a novel for DS9 reminded me that, superficially, at least, it has some resemblance to Epok Nor, although the resolution regarding the monster is obviously quite different.