Fact-Checking Inside Star Trek: The Real Story

[Christopher]

A new post, written by our own @Sir Rhosis, details Jerry Sohl's first draft story outline for "The Corbomite Maneuver," which at stage was known as "Danger Zone." Plenty of similarities to the final version, but also a number of differences.

Wow. The seeds of the story are there, but it featured a lot of extraneous stuff that would've gotten in the way. A Kirk-vs.-commodore conflict was unnecessary -- keeping it between Kirk and a hotheaded young officer worked better, since there was enough conflict between Balok and the crew without bringing in another outside antagonist. And having Enterprise crew killed in the initial attack worked against the final "It was all a test" revelation.

Obviously a lot of the specifics about Balok and the interactions with the aliens were simplified a great deal for budgetary reasons, but I feel that was to the episode's benefit, since it kept things more mysterious and kept the focus more on the shipboard tension, the crew under siege by a strange, implacable force.

I'm more ambivalent about the Albion plot point. On the one hand, answering a distress call provides a clearer incentive for Kirk to ignore a "No Trespassing" buoy and intrude into First Federation space than pure exploration. But on the other hand, one thing I love about "The Corbomite Maneuver" is how well it establishes that pure exploration is the Enterprise's primary mission, how well it defines the optimistic principle of seeking out the unknown to befriend it.

 

[Maurice]

A new post, written by our own @Sir Rhosis, details Jerry Sohl's first draft story outline for "The Corbomite Maneuver," which at this stage was known as "Danger Zone."

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[mb22]

They could have hired Jim Henson.

Or used this guy again.

 

[plynch]

Don't crystals and minerals form on cubic shapes? I think they're found in nature. But anyway, yeah, the producers who take rough ideas esp. from genre writers and form them into good teleplays: kudos. I like using genre writers rather than a writer's room btw. Just sayin' the story editors et al. can really be integral.

 

[Christopher]

Don't crystals and minerals form on cubic shapes? I think they're found in nature.

Some do, including salt crystals. I was at a science museum a while back and I was struck by how many almost perfectly cubical formations they had in the geology exhibit.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

A new post, written by our own @Sir Rhosis, details Jerry Sohl's first draft story outline for "The Corbomite Maneuver," which at this stage was known as "Danger Zone." Plenty of similarities to the final version, but also a number of differences.

Interesting draft to be sure, although Kirk telling the young officer--

Kirk reminds him that their mission is to peaceably contact alien life

--thankfully, by "Errand of Mercy", this idea was amended to Kirk clearly saying--

"I'm a soldier, not a diplomat."

--which extends to the mission of the Enterprise, meaning exploration is not the lone purpose of the ship on its 5-year mission.

For reference, this is what everyone's favorite historian has to say about this iteration of the story:

Haha! If Cash is a historian, then Jeffrey Dahmer was the head chef of a 5 star restaurant. That's how upside down the idea of Cushman being a historian.

 

[Harvey]

Haha! If Cash is a historian, then Jeffrey Dahmer was the head chef of a 5 star restaurant. That's how upside down the idea of Cushman being a historian.

My snarky remarks aside, I wish hacks like him could be easily ignored. Unfortunately, a Google Scholar search shows These Are The Voyages being cited in 5-10 peer-reviewed, academic papers, and his "expertise" has been consulted by countless journalists and documentarians without, it seems, much vetting. My work continues.

 

[Tallguy]

My snarky remarks aside, I wish hacks like him could be easily ignored. Unfortunately, a Google Scholar search shows These Are The Voyages being cited in 5-10 peer-reviewed, academic papers, and his "expertise" has been consulted by countless journalists and documentarians without, it seems, much vetting. My work continues.

More snark aside, please continue that work.

Cushman is a great example of "wishing makes it so" I guess. "I SAID I wrote a scholarly work, so it must be a scholarly work."

 

[Phaser Two]

Good to know I can self-publish a book and become a scholarly authority.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

My snarky remarks aside, I wish hacks like him could be easily ignored. Unfortunately, a Google Scholar search shows These Are The Voyages being cited in 5-10 peer-reviewed, academic papers, and his "expertise" has been consulted by countless journalists and documentarians without, it seems, much vetting. My work continues.

The one bright spot is that historically, other "scholarly" resources once embraced by academia have been exposed as either filled with errors, sloppy or easy to dismiss once accurate information comes forward in a significant way. On that note, Cushman's run could be short, if objective historians continue to push the truth, like the work you're doing.

 

[Harvey]

The one bright spot is that historically, other "scholarly" resources once embraced by academia have been exposed as either filled with errors, sloppy or easy to dismiss once accurate information comes forward in a significant way. On that note, Cushman's run could be short, if objective historians continue to push the truth, like the work you're doing.

If Cushman had self-published a book about Alfred Hitchcock, for example, this would definitely be the case. There are so many professionally-published Hitchcock scholars that baseless, amateurish crap about his work tends to have a short shelf-life.

Television studies is a much more nascent field than cinema studies, however, and although there are a few bright spots in terms of academics who have done good work on Star Trek (Catherine Johnson, Roberta Pearson, Máire Messenger Davies, Daniel Bernardi), none of them are specialized early Star Trek (roughly 1963-70) historians in the mode that Cushman claims to be.

On top of that, no academics (to my knowledge) have written 200 page books or dissertations on a single episode of Star Trek in the same way that single films by directors like Hitchcock, Chaplin, Kubrick, etc. have been studied relentlessly.

As a result, it's easy for self-published hacks to fill the market with shoddily-researched histories of their favorite television shows. Cushman is far from the only offender here, though he's the one I'm most familiar with, given his program of choice. He may have the most uniquely colorful history of anyone who has turned to these kinds of nostalgia-driven works, though.

 

[Maurice]

My biggest problem with Cushman and his ilk is something I consider more insidious than sloppy scholarship: it's their tendency to "fill in the blanks" and write supposition—logical or otherwise—alongside supported facts, rarely bothering to call these out as what they are with a "it may be possible that", thus giving mere guesses equal weight with items of the historical record.

I have to give kudos to Dave & Curt for their upcoming book because Dave would ask, in effect, "is this something we can state as fact or not?" and would be careful to include caveats in the text when something was uncertain. That's how you do it.

 

[Joe_Atari]

On top of that, no academics (to my knowledge) have written 200 page books or dissertations on a single episode of Star Trek in the same way that single films by directors like Hitchcock, Chaplin, Kubrick, etc. have been studied relentlessly.

We have to be coming close on "The Alternative Factor" though, right?

 

[Phaser Two]

I wonder why Cushman had no copyright infringement issues. The fact that he published always led me to believe he was authorized to do so. Compare Phil Farrand, who (I thought I heard) had to stop publishing his excellent books due to legal issues.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

My biggest problem with Cushman and his ilk is something I consider more insidious than sloppy scholarship: it's their tendency to "fill in the blanks" and write supposition—logical or otherwise—alongside supported facts, rarely bothering to call these out as what they are with a "it may be possible that", thus giving mere guesses equal weight with items of the historical record.

People presenting their personal opinions as incontrovertible facts has become a definite pet peeve of mine.

 

[Maurice]

I wonder why Cushman had no copyright infringement issues. The fact that he published always led me to believe he was authorized to do so. Compare Phil Farrand, who (I thought I heard) had to stop publishing his excellent books due to legal issues.

If Wikipedia is to be believed Del Rey just stopped printing them. A lot of long in print Trek stuff suffered the same fate, probably due to declining interest and sales.

 

[plynch]

You can write about a TV show that existed in real life, in a historical, reportorial way, and you are ok, copyright-wise, generally speaking. Fictional works based on ideas created for that show (IP), generally not. Copyright rulings can be gray and sometimes contradictory.

 

[Harvey]

I wonder why Cushman had no copyright infringement issues. The fact that he published always led me to believe he was authorized to do so. Compare Phil Farrand, who (I thought I heard) had to stop publishing his excellent books due to legal issues.

Cushman's books are plastered with notes that they are "fair use" and "unauthorized." It also helps that, unlike Farrand, Cushman had no publisher other than himself. He likely escaped any legal issues because what person or estate is going to sue over such a tiny book quoting from unpublished correspondence?

 

[Phaser Two]

Hm. Then I guess my question is more who chased Phil out of business, and why. He was offering fair use commentary as well.

 

[Harvey]

Hm. Then I guess my question is more who chased Phil out of business, and why. He was offering fair use commentary as well.

I was working on a Star Wars Nitpicker’s Guide in mid-May of 1998 when Steve called with bad news. There had been some lawsuits in the industry and while they had nothing to do with the Guides, Dell no longer wanted to publish them.

And that was that. Steve tried to find another publisher but publishers have a well-defined “herd” instinct.

http://www.philfarrand.com/biography/