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FACT TREK's Back…& That's A Fact

About the only person on the ship who can joke with Mister Spock at all is the Captain's Yeoman, Janice Rand. Perhaps beneath her swinging exterior is a motherly instinct for lonely men -- at any rate, Yeoman Janice can mention things few others would dare to say to Spock's face. And in return, guessing logically at some of her secrets, Spock will give (if you'll excuse the expression) tat for tit. But if the conversation has him looking at her too intently or too long, she will feel the hypnotic quality and beg off -- and Spock will look away. They have an unspoken agreement that the joke will only be carried so far.
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I have read this exact quote before. If it's not in World of or Making of, I don't know where I read it. But I read exactly this.

I also find it interesting that Spock's 'hypnotic effect' in The Omega Glory has been explained away (since the '70s!) as nothing more than his telepathically suggesting she bring him the communicator, much as he made suggestions to the guard on Eminiar or to Kelinda in By Any Other Name.
 
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FormerLurker said:
I also find it interesting that Spock's 'hypnotic effect' in The Omega Glory has been explained away (since the '70s!) as nothing more than his telepathically suggesting she bring him the communicator, much as he made suggestions to the guard on Eminiar or to Kelinda in By Any Other Name.
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I think that's how it was interpreted from the start, since the "hypnotic effect" memo wasn't publicly known at the time, I believe. (At least, I never learned about it until the past decade or so.) As I said, I think the whole idea had been abandoned by the time "Amok Time" was written, since that episode interprets Vulcan sexuality quite differently. It was in "Glory" because that episode was written back in 1965 as a candidate for the second pilot, and it presumably survived in the final episode because it could be interpreted as the kind of telepathic suggestion we'd seen before.

The Star Trek Concordance said that Spock used "mind touch" to get Sirah to give him the communicator. The James Blish adaptation (which was probably actually by J.A. Lawrence, as it was in the 10th volume) doesn't clearly explain what Spock is doing, but it has him say "Do as my mind instructs you, woman," which sounds more like telepathy than hypnotically irresistible sex appeal.
 
I am reading through the numerous "Dagger" story outlines, and the first two versions are almost entirely unlike what follows and what we got. Anyway…

I don't have all the script drafts handy, but I can tell you how the trajectory went with the hypnosis…
  • 1966-3-(day not marked) story outline: Van Gelder is beamed down with Kirk and Yeoman Xenia Todhunter
  • 1966-3-30 story outline: Van Gelder is beamed down with Kirk and Yeoman Colt
1966-4-14 memo: NBC & Staff Comments, "Dagger of the Mind", p.4.: "It gives us a chance to explore Mr. Spock's logical turn of mind, his enormous shrewdness, perhaps even introduce some other traits such as an ability at some alien form of hypnosis which may be not only interesting but useful to us in future stories."
  • 1966-4-25 story outline: Van Gelder is beamed down with Kirk and Yeoman Rand
Henceforth, Van Gelder remains on the Enterprise when Kirk beams down
  • 1966-5-2 story outline: Van Gelder agrees to hypnosis, but who performs it is not specified
  • 1966-5-9 story outline: Van Gelder agrees to hypnosis, performed by Spock
1966-5-20 NBC's program standards chimed in regarding the May 9 story outline and Spock being a hypnotist:
In accordance with our precautions to avoid hypnotizing a viewer, the act of hypnotizing must be either out of context
or done off-camera. Further, since you are portraying hypnotism as a legitimate medical tool Van Gelder should be hypnotized by Doctor McCoy rather than Mister Spock unless Mister Spock can be established as being qualified in the use of this technique.

If you would like a clinical reference, please feel free to contact the local representative of the Society of Clinical
& Experimental Hypnosis: Newton W. Bernauer, Ph. D,
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1966-6-27 "revised screenplay": Spock uses some "goggles" to get through to Van Gelder. There's a handwritten "hypnogenic" .

1966-06-28 memo from Bob Justman on this "revised screenplay": He writes, "Luckily, on page 35, Spock goes into his famed hypnotic routine. He sure is a handy sort of fellow to have on board a space ship."

There are undated later handwritten notes for the 1966-6-27 "revised screenplay" that mention Spock "painfully charges up his resource of psychic energy for the ordeal he is about to under go".

1966-07-22 NBC program standards reiterates what they wrote on May 20 regarding hypnosis, so the mind joining must not have been in the 1966-7-6 yellow cover script.

1966-08-09 NBC program standards memo on the 1966-08-05 red cover script does not mention hypnosis, but mentions Helen Noel, which confirms Rand was out of the script by this point.
 
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Probably a name S&P found a real-life reference to when doing a review of the script and recommended it be changed.

EDIT: Maurice's explanation makes more sense.
 
I think that's the only time I've ever come across the name "Todhunter" outside of Red Dwarf. I always kind of thought it was a name they made up.
 
And I'll bet the entire reason the Alexander The Great series concept was pitched was because of the 'success' (IE Yes it nearly bankrupt the studio - and the runtime limited the number of showings possible but lines to see it were around the block for a long time), and that's 1962's Cleopatra.
 
Noname Given said:
And I'll bet the entire reason the Alexander The Great series concept was pitched was because of the 'success' (IE Yes it nearly bankrupt the studio - and the runtime limited the number of showings possible but lines to see it were around the block for a long time), and that's 1962's Cleopatra.
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Probably a combo of the successful run of ancient world epics in the early 60's, including Ben-Hur, Spartacus, and King of Kings. Cleopatra didn't come out until the summer of 1963 (after Alexander was produced, I believe), and had been generating a lot of negative controversy in the trades - not exactly something a network would be willing to emulate.
 
Firebird said:
Probably a combo of the successful run of ancient world epics in the early 60's, including Ben-Hur, Spartacus, and King of Kings.
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Regarding what spurred the making of Alexander the Great, yes to that, and not only their success but the affordable supply of leftover "ancient world" costumes and props that must have been on-offer in Hollywood at the time. Renting ready-made items would save a lot of money.

Funny thing about Alexander the Great is that it's so obscure it doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. I couldn't see what studio produced it. But I found circumstantial evidence that it was made by Selmur Productions, a subsidiary of the ABC network. The connective tissue was Production Executive Richard Caffey. Then an AI inquiry confirmed it, and I got out of that rabbit hole. What am I doing?
 
Shatner and West would briefly be together again on a memorable intro for POLITICALLY INCORRECT. The skit was called ''The Interrupters'', and West interrupted the Shat after talking to the voice of Bill Maher in a rest room.
 
Christopher said:
After all, Rand was long gone from the show by the time David Gerrold came along, so why would he have any inside knowledge about the character?
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Presumably David Gerrold met Grace Lee Whitney at some con or another by the time he wrote The World of Star Trek in the 70s, so I'd imagine he knew her at least a little bit. It's not like the production of TOS would be the only time their paths might have crossed.

About the only person on the ship who can joke with Mister Spock at all is the Captain's Yeoman, Janice Rand. Perhaps beneath her swinging exterior is a motherly instinct for lonely men -- at any rate, Yeoman Janice can mention things few others would dare to say to Spock's face. And in return, guessing logically at some of her secrets, Spock will give (if you'll excuse the expression) tat for tit.
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Eww. God, Roddenberry's notes about the female characters on his shows are just SO creepy. From his notes about Yeoman Colt/Rand wishing she could "serve the Captain in more personal matters" to Lt. Ilia having sex be part of every interaction she had on Delta to Beverly Crusher having "a walk like a striptease queen," it seems like GR's only ideas about female characters were about how they related to the male characters sexually. GR writing "tat for tit" (reversing the common expression just so he can make a sex pun) is par for the course for him.

Christopher said:
I think that's the only time I've ever come across the name "Todhunter" outside of Red Dwarf. I always kind of thought it was a name they made up.
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The first place I ever encountered the name was in the Steve Englehart/Marshall Rogers run on Detective Comics, where Prof. Hugo Strange used "Dr. Todhunter" as an alias. It's certainly an unusual name.
 
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