Star Trek 365....

[Therin of Andor]

This is debunked b.s. as we have long known...

As with any historic fact, there are aspects that will vary according to the reteller, and depending on whose barrow is being pushed. GR's anecdote is immortalized on his LP and was told to live audiences in universities and at conventions for decades. He told a version of the truth that guaranteed him laughs (he kept the Vulcan and married the woman, because he couldn't legally do it the other way) and didn't embarrass his former wife (and Majel) publicly by discussing his marital indiscretions.

The alternative story, that NBC objected only to GR's mistress being cast, is in a book by Justman & Solow that attempts to debunk many GR anecdotes. They had nothing to lose and who knows how acurate their memories were, or what opposing-view memos weren't preserved. I'm sure the truth is both versions, plus something in between. IIRC, Solow eventually married the writer of "Gene Roddenberry: The Last Conversation". What interesting honeymoon arguments they must have had.

Paula reports the version she heard from the horse's mouth. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[Captain Robert April]

If memory serves, the way it went in the lectures was, "they asked me to get rid of the woman, because they didn't believe her to be in command of anything, and then, to show the intelligence behind that decsion, they also said to 'get rid of the guy with the ears.' We were having so many arguments at the time that I felt that I couldn't save both characters, so I saved the Spock character, gave him some of Number One's characteristics, her logical, analytical mind, developed the Vulcan mystique, and so on. I then married the woman, but obviously I couldn't have legally done it the other way around!"

Majel often commented that she was sure that Leonard appreciated the fact that Gene didn't try it the other way around. Or something to that effect.

 

[Ssosmcin]

I like the book, it's a cool curio and I don't visit the various Trek History sites, so the pictures work for me. Also a number of anecdotes were kind of fresh. I also spotted a few apparent attempts to put Roddenberry back on his pedestal above some of the criticism he recieved over the years. Not to mention saying that Gene Coon used his pen name "Lee Cronin" on "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" because he didn't like the script changes. In actuality, he was producing It Takes a Thief at Universal and, being under contract, he couldn't write other studio's scripts under his real name. I doubt he was even aware of how the episode turned out at that point.

This is all related to the one real pet peeve I have about people reporting Star Trek history these days; the complete erasure of Fred Frieberger from the equation. Every other producer is mentioned by name at some point. Not Frieberger. Not once (check the index). "New, less attentive management" is all he gets. Look, I don't care if people liked the season or not, he still deserves as much credit for the sucesses of that year as the failures. He once said that when an episode came out like crap, his name was mentioned. But when something good came out of it, Roddenberry got the plaudits. He was absolutely right. Yet it's pretty common knowledge that Roddenberry was nowhere near the show, other than to wring money out of it from merchandising through Lincoln Enterprises and contribute some pretty poor scripts.

The commentary and interviews in the 3rd seaosn DVD sets also never mention him by name. I'm not saying he was an amazing writer and producer, he honestly wasn't - at least not for Star Trek (or Space:1999). But he was the showrunner during a season which still provided fans with a lot of concepts and characters they took to heart: Surak, Gem, the Tholians, Kang, and oh yeah, the First Interracial Kiss. Like him or hate him, Fred Frieberger deserves mention - by name - when discussing the history of Star Trek in any authorized reference material.

Sorry this turned into a rant, but it bugs me.

 

[Saxman1]

I like the book, it's a cool curio and I don't visit the various Trek History sites, so the pictures work for me. Also a number of anecdotes were kind of fresh. I also spotted a few apparent attempts to put Roddenberry back on his pedestal above some of the criticism he recieved over the years. Not to mention saying that Gene Coon used his pen name "Lee Cronin" on "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" because he didn't like the script changes. In actuality, he was producing It Takes a Thief at Universal and, being under contract, he couldn't write other studio's scripts under his real name. I doubt he was even aware of how the episode turned out at that point.

This is all related to the one real pet peeve I have about people reporting Star Trek history these days; the complete erasure of Fred Frieberger from the equation. Every other producer is mentioned by name at some point. Not Frieberger. Not once (check the index). "New, less attentive management" is all he gets. Look, I don't care if people liked the season or not, he still deserves as much credit for the sucesses of that year as the failures. He once said that when an episode came out like crap, his name was mentioned. But when something good came out of it, Roddenberry got the plaudits. He was absolutely right. Yet it's pretty common knowledge that Roddenberry was nowhere near the show, other than to wring money out of it from merchandising through Lincoln Enterprises and contribute some pretty poor scripts.

The commentary and interviews in the 3rd seaosn DVD sets also never mention him by name. I'm not saying he was an amazing writer and producer, he honestly wasn't - at least not for Star Trek (or Space:1999). But he was the showrunner during a season which still provided fans with a lot of concepts and characters they took to heart: Surak, Gem, the Tholians, Kang, and oh yeah, the First Interracial Kiss. Like him or hate him, Fred Frieberger deserves mention - by name - when discussing the history of Star Trek in any authorized reference material.

Sorry this turned into a rant, but it bugs me.

It bugs me, too, especially in light of burned-out Braga and Berman (later Voyager and a lot of Enterprise). Compared to them at that point in their involvement with Trek, Frieberger doesn't look all that terrible.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Freiberger does get an inordinate amount of crap thrown his way, but he was also far from blameless.

In any case, I recommend folks track down the home video version of "Inside Star Trek". Among the interviews are a couple from Freiberger.

 

[Warped9]

I'm about halfway through now and I've uncovered one little interesting tidbit that (to me) could contribute to a years old ongoing discussion: was Star Trek's "reality" and history supposed to be our own?

Intent, of course, does matter, but when intent clashes with what gets contradicted onscreen then I have to defer to what's onscreen. In "The City On The Edge Of Forever" Kirk and company travel back to New York of 1930. At one point Kirk and Edith are walking on the street and they hear a song on the radio called Goodnight, Sweetheart. Well it does poignantly set the mood and stage (for what's to come), but what's interesting is that the song Goodnight, Sweetheart wasn't released until 1931. So before McCoy's arrival on Earth in the past someone releases their song a year before it happens in our reality. This little nugget rather cements what we get out of "Space Seed" that our reality and Star Trek's is not the same.

In the 1990s we had nothing remotely close to a DY500 type of spacecraft or suspended animation for space travelers. Nor did we have anything to allow a Colonel Sean Geoffery Christopher to go to Saturn. Actual history thirty years later played out Star Trek's reality isn't ours, but even when the show was in production there were clues their reality wasn't ours. It mighn't have been intentional, but there it is.

Now back to our scheduled subject...

 

[Therin of Andor]

Kirk and Edith are walking on the street and they hear a song on the radio called Goodnight, Sweetheart. Well it does poignantly set the mood and stage (for what's to come), but what's interesting is that the song Goodnight, Sweetheart wasn't released until 1931.

Edith also mentions "a Clark Gable movie" at a time when he was barely more than a supporting player.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000022/

 

[Ssosmcin]

Freiberger does get an inordinate amount of crap thrown his way, but he was also far from blameless.

Oh absolutely, he really wasn't the right choice for the series and he had no idea how to handle the actors. I just feel he should be mentioned by name and also given credit for the good shows from the third season. I actually like a bunch of episodes from that year.

In any case, I recommend folks track down the home video version of "Inside Star Trek". Among the interviews are a couple from Freiberger.

I didn't know that, I'll look for it. Thanks.

 

[Gary7]

Hasn't it all "been done" before? I can't see the point of releasing more books like this...

 

[Joker]

Most people who don't loiter here probably won't know most of it.

It's a Christmas present for average non-obsessive Star Trek fans.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Hasn't it all "been done" before? I can't see the point of releasing more books like this...

All the old TOS books are long out of print so, to satisfy the interests of new fans of TOS (the DVDs sold very well after the release of JJ's movie, so it's still finding new audiences), this kind of coffee table book has great appeal. But even for me, who's been collecting ST books since 1980 (and found all the previous "out of print" books then, after some searching), this book was a must-have, with plenty of new material to bring me some smiles.

 

[Warped9]

this book was a must-have, with plenty of new material to bring me some smiles.

Sorry, but no. Anyone following Star Trek closely enough (since the '70s anyway) will find very little, practically nothing new in this book besides a handful of new photographs. A newcomer could find it interesting, but pretty much all the information repeated in the text has been done before over the years.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Well, to be fair, I had no idea AMT built the full scale mock up of the shuttlecraft when they did the model kit. A shame they didn't make the kit more accurate then. But really, I didn't know all the Trek guys paid for was the shipping of the prop.

You're right, for the most part, there's very little left that's "new" to learn and anything brand new would be suspect at this point. But for the fans who haven't memorized every bit of Trek lore, it's a cool enough book. I don't mind owning it.

 

[Warped9]

^^ I'm pretty sure I knew about the shuttlecraft sometime back in the mid '70s.

 

[Ssosmcin]

I was like 10, so I knew nothing then.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Sorry, but no. Anyone following Star Trek closely enough (since the '70s anyway) will find very little, practically nothing new in this book besides a handful of new photographs.

Sorry, but yes.

As I said, I have every ST book ever written, and have read most of them many times, esp. those old, dog-eared factual books, such as "The Making of ST", "World of ST", "ST Lives!", "The Making of the Trek Conventions", "Trek or Treat", and "Letters to Star Trek" - and I was thrilled to find text and several pics that was all-new. I really didn't expect to find anything new, and I wrote to Paula to tell her so.

A few others were almost new, or had been pics that had only ever been online, or little anecdotes I'd only ever heard at conventions, not actually written down in any authorized (or unauthorized) books. For example, that wonderful pic of Nimoy as Spock, guesting on "The Carol Burnett Show", which had been posted on this very BBS only a few months earlier and gobsmacked a lot of regular posters here, asking "What episode was this?"

Now, I probably saw that episode on TV as a kid, long before ever seeing ST itself. But I well remember the excitement, right here, as people tried to challenge that it was probably a Photoshopped prank. Now, if you can tell me a previous ST book that has featured that pic, I'll be happy to defer to your superior geekiness.

Do you really want me to go through the whole thing and prepare a list?

 

[Warped9]

^^ Name something new to you in that book and I'll tell you if I'd already known about it or not. I've also found few of the photographs new to my eyes.

I'm not saying there is nothing new, but I haven't come across anything of real substance. The only thing I found new (so far) was the bit about the song Goodnight, Sweetheart played in "The City On The Edge Of Forever." Apparently in our reality it was released in 1931 while in TOS' reality it was already playing in 1930.

 

[Ssosmcin]

I don't honestly think there is much of anything that nobody had ever heard before, ever. But there was some stuff that just isn't all that commonly mentioned. Some people are just more familiar with certain things than others. Obviously the superdy-duperdy die hards who've absorbed everything and anything aren't going to get much out of it (I'm about a notch or two below that). This is the price we pay for continually watching a show 41 years after it left the air.

But, as someone said, the book wasn't necessarily aimed at us.

 

[Therin of Andor]

But, as someone said, the book wasn't necessarily aimed at us.

Me, I believe.

 

[Captain Robert April]

I consider myself a tad more knowledgeable than the average Trekkie (some know more, most don't ), and while I didn't see a whole lot that was completely new and previously unknown, there are enough obscure bits that I'd forgotten about, or had heard about from a different perspective, that it's nice to see the whole big mass of data plopped down in one hefty volume.

If nothing else, it helps to have some documentation for that half-remembered tidbit ya heard at a con back in '82...