William Shatner’s Finest TOS Performance?

[Maurice]

A number of adventure shows that had gone a tad silly recoiled from that after the Batman boom went bust. The Man From U.N.C.L.E. sure did in its final truncated season. Roddenberry sold Trek as an adult sci-fi action adventure. While his memos demonstrate that he liked humor that was appropriate to the story and in character, he was always concerned that the show not get silly or ridiculous.

I think the third season was a bit of an overcorrection, but the show was moved to an adult-time timeslot, and Freiberger was trying everything he could to retain viewers and grab new ones, which included the Melvin Belli stunt casting and the interracial smooch (that he advertised in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter).

 

[willa6276m]

But I dunno where people got the idea Roddenberry disliked comedy. ...

I think people got the idea because it's true.
David Gerrold, screenwriter of "The Trouble with Tribbles," is one source.

Gerrold discussed the Tribbles controversy on the Enterprise Incidents podcast for that episode. He was on set for filming of many scenes, and was very clear on the podcast that Roddenberry was furious at the comedy in Tribbles. Quoting:

"[The scene where hundreds of tribbles fell on Kirk] "was the beginning of the falling out [between Rodenberry and Coon]. There's no question in my mind that 'The Trouble with Tribbles' was the reason Gene L. Coon got fired.... He loved Star Trek. And being fired off Star Trek was a major issue for him, major blow."

 

[willa6276m]

IIRC, NBC had the option to pick up a few more episodes, but didn't exercise it, and the show would have known that in advance. The network could often be slow to give orders, but that's beyond last-minute. And I'm pretty sure there were no other scripts in the production pipeline, but I could check.

A thread in this forum said the name of the episode Shatner was scheduled to direct was "The Joy Machine."

https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/unfilmed-3rd-season-episodes.310313/

According to Memory Alpha:

"The Joy Machine" was set to be produced as the 25th episode of the season, and the directorial debut of William Shatner. However, NBC cancelled the series after only 24 episodes of the third season, thus making "Turnabout Intruder" the last episode produced.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Undeveloped_Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series_episodes

 

[Maurice]

@willa6276m, we're coming at things from two very different trajectories.

Spoiler: Details about Fact Trek most longtime members here know

Us: Anecdotes are not fact. Hence "Fact Trek".

That's a mantra we've repeated in many of the articles we've published. Human memory is faulty. Oral history is subjective. Deborah Arakelian (assistant to the producers on Star Trek II and a production assistant on Star Trek III) told a story about John Belushi visiting the Trek II set the day before he died, and we thoroughly debunked that (link). That Gerrold has had an ax to grind with the Great Bird since TNG makes anything said since caveat emptor territory.

Memory Alpha is a wiki that often doesn't cite sources, and it's only as accurate as the people who write/edit it; people who are mostly fans. (For years the entry on Madlyn Rhue contained a story about her that was based on a fan anecdote and ended up being a case of citeogensis).

Here's what we know about "The Joy Machine" from primary sources:

The last writers report in the Roddenberry papers at UCLA from 3/28/68 (wrapping up the second season reports—there are none for the third) indicates Sturgeon delivered a "The Joy Machine" script on 11/13/67, and the status for that is "rewrite needed."

The last extant memo we've found on the subject is two days after Sturgeon turned in his script. To wit (emphasis ours):

[To:] John Meredyth Lucas
[From;] Bob Justman
cc: Gene Roddenberry
D.C. Fontana
November 15, 1967
REVISED TELEPLAY
"THE JOY MACHINE'
by
Theodore Sturgeon

(Dated: 11-8-and
11-13-67)

Dear John:

I have read Ted's re-write of this property. I still must say that the concept contained within the story idea is marvelous. However, this teleplay lacks some things. And they are logical construction, correct characterizations, and believability. There are a few fascinating sequences contained within the teleplay, but they are fascinating in and of themselves. They do not blend correctly within the framework of what the story is in its present shape, A "STAR TREK" cannot be a succession of individual vignettes, which are like pearls on a string. Each sequence, I feel, should develop out of the preceding sequence and should build toward the climax at the end of the story. The conflict contained within this show is more like a "non-conflict". It seems as if whenever Captain Kirk pushes against a situation, the situation gives and there is no resilience to it.

I fear that we shall not be able to get a revision on this property in time to shoot this season, since there is evidently so much to do. Hopefully, we will have a third season of "STAR TREK", in which case we can put someone on it to re-write it from scratch.

Regards,
BOB

That bolded sentence means, in so many words, Sturgeon's assignment was cut off, and they planned to give the story to someone else to rewrite the following season.

The known paper trail ends with a Meyer Dolinsky rewrite dated October 21, 1968 (I have it open right here, and it's awful), but it's just a writer's draft. Nothing in the extant record suggests it went any further than that. In short, there appear to be no scripts ready or even close to ready for additional episodes beyond the 24 NBC already ordered, Joan Winston's account of her set visit to "Turnabout" notwithstanding.

 

[willa6276m]

@willa6276m, we're coming at things from two very different trajectories.

Spoiler: Details about Fact Trek most longtime members here know

Us: Anecdotes are not fact. Hence "Fact Trek".

That's a mantra we've repeated in many of the articles we've published. Human memory is faulty. Oral history is subjective. Deborah Arakelian (assistant to the producers on Star Trek II and a production assistant on Star Trek III) told a story about John Belushi visiting the Trek II set the day before he died, and we thoroughly debunked that (link). That Gerrold has had an ax to grind with the Great Bird since TNG makes anything said since caveat emptor territory.

Memory Alpha is a wiki that often doesn't cite sources, and it's only as accurate as the people who write/edit it; people who are mostly fans. (For years the entry on Madlyn Rhue contained a story about her that was based on a fan anecdote and ended up being a case of citeogensis).

Here's what we know about "The Joy Machine" from primary sources:

The last writers report in the Roddenberry papers at UCLA from 3/28/68 (wrapping up the second season reports—there are none for the third) indicates Sturgeon delivered a "The Joy Machine" script on 11/13/67, and the status for that is "rewrite needed."

The last extant memo we've found on the subject is two days after Sturgeon turned in his script. To wit (emphasis ours):

That bolded sentence means, in so many words, Sturgeon's assignment was cut off, and they planned to give the story to someone else to rewrite the following season.

The known paper trail ends with a Meyer Dolinsky rewrite dated October 21, 1968 (I have it open right here, and it's awful), but it's just a writer's draft. Nothing in the extant record suggests it went any further than that. In short, there appear to be no scripts ready or even close to ready for additional episodes beyond the 24 NBC already ordered, Joan Winston's account of her set visit to "Turnabout" notwithstanding.

You'll believe what you want to believe regardless of evidence. I'm not interested in a prolonged debate about the facts I posted. It's easy enough to put people on ignore.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Before you dismiss @Maurice out of hand, you should visit Fact Trek, which is an offshoot of the earlier Star Trek Fact Check.

Maurice and Michael Kmet do the good work of combing the actual files and conducting first person interviews (when possible) to deflate some of the myths, misconceptions and plain falsehoods which have been spread for the past 60 years. You'll see that Maurice's credibility is more than earned.

Just food for thought.

 

[1001001]

You'll believe what you want to believe regardless of evidence. I'm not interested in a prolonged debate about the facts I posted. It's easy enough to put people on ignore.

Since you're fairly new here, I'll give you a break this time.

Going forward, know that announcing you're putting someone on ignore is not allowed (considered trolling).

Finally, like Ssosmcin says, you probably won't find anyone more well-versed in the facts about TOS than Maurice.

That's kind of his thing.

 

[korblborp]

fan wikis are as subject to fandom misconceptions and inertia as anything, and should not be put before the people who are doing original research in hopes that the facts make their way into the wider.. thingy.

 

[Maurice]

Thanks, guys. We're such sticklers for detail that our recent piece about colloquial titles has 51 citations.

re evidence: not all of it is created equal. Generally, oral tradition < oral history < production documents in the reliability chain.

To wrap up the topic of "The Joy Machine," I read Dolinsky's draft last night, and it's utter garbage. The characterization is all wrong, and there's almost no plot progression and no surprises. The problem is all set up in the first scene in act one, and it just thuddingly lands the same beats over and over. There's a couple of good ideas in there, but this needed a page one rewrite.

EDIT: And I just read Sturgeon's June 23, 1967 story outline, and it's actually better than the Dolinsky script in a lot of ways. It's still not good; the ideas are, but the execution isn't.

 

[Phaser Two]

Gonna be a dissenter: I don't like Shatner's delivery of the "risk is our business" monologue. When I was first aware of it, I had only read a transcript of it, and hadn't actually seen the episode. When I finally got around to it I found it very underwhelming because I thought Shatner played it way too big. "THAT'S WHY WE'RE ABOARD HERR!"

"Return to Tomorrow", like many episodes from S2 and S3 were one of the last I ever got to catch up with. So when I initially watched TOS, it was mostly S1 episodes, and I had gotten used to Shatner's performances in those. If I were to pick his best performance, it would probably be from S1. So when I would finally catch those later episodes, it kinda took me aback how Shatner would GO BIG a lot. I'm really not a fan of that, and not sure why he went that direction in later episodes.

I haven't seen "Return to Tomorrow" in a long time. It's in my bottom half (or whatever half of 79 is—I guess my mental list has a midpoint neutral episode or uses 80) for sure. And that's for my usual reasons—minimal or inconsequential use of Scotty, recurrent themes that are done better elsewhere in the series**, and pretty restrained or limited use of the Enterprise.

For that reason, I think I'm going to watch it again soon just to see how this speech hits with me. But I will say that I get your take. Every time I've seen this episode, "risk is our business" doesn’t quite land for me like maybe it should. The music is fantastic and some of the word choices in the soliloquy/monologue are amazing, but it's just a bit . . . jarring, like we somehow got interrupted and beamed into a stage production with largely immaterial secondary characters. And this comes from quite the Kirk/Shatner fan. Time to give it another shot.

Anyway, I would never pick this episode as Shatner's best because of the delivery and blocking of "Your captain has an excellent body, Doctor," which I always found pretty silly.

I think I contributed above, but I'll offer up another episode as an underrated Shatner tour de force: "By Any Other Name." The ending is abrupt and indeed arguably one of the worst in the series, but I think Shatner's performance is amazingly wide-ranging and carries the installment.

**See, e.g., Alien Body Takeovers and the related Kirk and Spock Are Not Themselves; Immortal Androids; and All-Powerful Extraterrestrials.

 

[Maurice]

I've always thought the "Risk" speech was not Shatner's finest acting moment. It's too big.

 

[BK613]

Re: Shatner and him not directing. IIRC, Joan Winston references the moment when GR tells Shatner in her account of visiting the ST set during Turnabout Intruder (found in Star Trek Lives!)

 

[willa6276m]

Re: Shatner and him not directing. IIRC, Joan Winston references the moment when GR tells Shatner in her account of visiting the ST set during Turnabout Intruder (found in Star Trek Lives!)

Yep. FWIW, since some don't find These are the Voyages credible:

"Day 4, the first of two on the Bridge. Gene Roddenberry visited the set, bringing O.J. Simpson as a guest. He also brought bad news. NBC had decided this would be the last episode of the season. Everyone had been hoping there were still two more to come.

According to fanzine writer Joan Winston, who was also visiting the set, Roddenberry took Shatner aside and quietly spoke with him. Shatner’s face fell. Roddenberry later remarked to Winston, “I just told Bill and he was quite disappointed. He was to direct the last episode.”
...
Roddenberry made no formal announcement to the crew or the rest of the cast about the news from NBC. He told Shatner because Shatner was expecting to begin preproduction on the episode he was to direct. After watching the last of the Bridge scenes filmed, “GR” and his guest departed."

 

[Maurice]

There's a whole 'nother thread about Good Behind the Scenes Books, and rather than further derail this topic, I'll be happy to discuss matters of the accuracy of various accounts of what happened on the show over there.

 

[Qonundrum]

Shatner never spared himself when the script called for Kirk to go big, even when it was something big and abysmal, like the uniquely terrible turbolift scene in "And the Children..."

When the big writing was any good at all, he was fantastic:

• Miri: he's an action star, a girl's charming crush, and then the disease starts pulling the rug out from under him and he's desperate to get through to the children.

• Return to Tomorrow: the Risk is Our Business speech. Known to this day, known to non-fans, an enduring classic.

• The Omega Glory: his passionate reading of the Preamble in reruns really started to stand out in the post-Vietnam period, when it became hip to be contemptuous of American patriotism. M*A*S*H and the Norman Lear sitcoms were hip, but Kirk's unabashed admiration for our Constitution was profound and I loved it.

• The Paradise Syndrome: I won't get unanimous consent, but I think Shatner was pitch-perfect throughout. It's a top-tier episode in my book.

I'll second those! I haven't watched much TOS lately or else I'd have a yet-unsaid example, so it's time to circle back...

"Risk is out business" became a meme and would have regardless of who uttered the lines. But Shatner added the extra spice to elevate it. Indeed, for all the claims of "ham", it's too easy to notice how much more often that there's more nuanced acting that fits and complements the scenes perfectly, especially when retakes were not cheap to do. That also helped less-impactful or even dumb and/or potentially contentious lines (esp. early on). Shatner could do for a role what a good compose does for an accompanying music score - looks into it and pulls the best out of it.

"Omega" may have been a pilot to appease the suits who made the decision that ultimately got sidelined until late-season 2, but Shatner no less nails it and the only thing about the story is "yet another parallel Earth development contrivance". The sci-fi aspect is one of the few times that "fountain of youth" is genuinely compelling and explained, and Kirk really took that scene with as equal sincerity as he had for rest of the series. It was an acting job, but I can't think of a time when "wooden" ever described his style and that's important.

"Paradise" also required a level of investment, one Shatner nails perfectly. Whatever the reasons people like or not about the story, Shatner and Sabrina Scharf also have on-screen chemistry integral for this story to even begin to engage. And, damn, that ending proves that even OG Trek would not always end on corny laughter to compensate for an otherwise morbid story.

Hell, it would be too easy, in "Children", to camp it up, break the 4th wall, etc, as if addressing the audience to consciously apologize for a crap script. But not even "Spock's Brain" had anyone doing that and they'd be rendered worse as a result. Plus, if people complain about acting in green screen with nothing around them, how do you act being possessed or reacting to mental influence like that with nothing around you as an example to go on? There's easily worse in other shows. Shatner knows when to go big but keep it from going over the top, making the performance that much more compelling and even helps sitting through... a crap script.

Plus that episode has another Kirk flying drop kick…

Great example! And you just reminded me of "The Omega Glory" when Captain Tracy (Morgan Woodward) and Kirk fight. There's no stunt double, and it's very impressively done. Possibly one of the most realistic and well-timed fights in the show.

 

[Poltargyst]

I know it's not strictly TOS, but I remember when my dad took me to see TMP in the theater. You get to the final scene, the final line of the movie:

DIFALCO [OC]: Heading, sir?
KIRK: Out there. Thataway!

And Shatner gets this little smirk as he says it that I can't really describe.

My dad's opinion was that Shatner wasn't a great actor in general, but he was great at being a starship captain, like that was the role he was born to play, and no one could do it better. He really liked Shatner's delivery of that line, saying "he knows what he's doing." I like it too.

 

[Commander Troi]

Yeah, that's a terrific bit.

 

[Qonundrum]

Or, “I…AM…KEE-ROK!!!”

Next on my rewatch list after "Spectre of the Gun", Shatner has a lot of moments - with Miramanee in particular - including the heart-wrenching ending - that really elevate this. The level of sincerity in the acting was needed to make ANY of that story work is 9 out of 10 on the difficulty scale, as the story could easily have been complete hokum. It's rendered less hokey as a result, and with some strong scenes that really counterbalance others that are hokum. (Plus, Salish makes for a fantastic villain. Who also wins...)

 

[Qonundrum]

"Spectre of the Gun" has an incredibly strong scene between Kirk and the Sheriff and Shatner just draws you in with the increasing tempo that leads to the following:

BEHAN: You can talk that way after what the Earps did to Billy today? Nobody in this town will deny you your right to your revenge.​

KIRK: Yes, I want revenge. I want to crush the life out of the Earps! But I can't just kill them!​

BEHAN: You listen to me. Get down to the OK Corral. Keep out of sight. When the Earps come looking, you bushwhack them.​

KIRK: Can't I get it through your stupid head? I can't just kill them!! I can't murder them!!!​

BEHAN: It's the only way.​

KIRK: I can't kill them!! I can't kill them!!!​

​

There are bound to better, but that scene is surely a contender?

 

[Ssosmcin]

"Spectre of the Gun" has an incredibly strong scene between Kirk and the Sheriff and Shatner just draws you in with the increasing tempo that leads to the following:

BEHAN: You can talk that way after what the Earps did to Billy today? Nobody in this town will deny you your right to your revenge.​

KIRK: Yes, I want revenge. I want to crush the life out of the Earps! But I can't just kill them!​

BEHAN: You listen to me. Get down to the OK Corral. Keep out of sight. When the Earps come looking, you bushwhack them.​

KIRK: Can't I get it through your stupid head? I can't just kill them!! I can't murder them!!!​

BEHAN: It's the only way.​

KIRK: I can't kill them!! I can't kill them!!!​

​

There are bound to better, but that scene is surely a contender?

I love that scene. Shatner is on fire here and every time I watch this episode, I replay that one scene like three times before moving on.