These Are The Voyages, TOS, Season One by Cushman Marc & Osborn Susan

Author:Cushman, Marc & Osborn, Susan [Cushman, Marc]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2013-11-13T00:00:00+00:00

Like any good series’ creator/producer, Gene Roddenberry was doing all he could to build a buzz for Star Trek. For the June 7, 1966, issue of Daily Variety, he told staff writer Dave Kaufman, “There have been two types of sci-fi series -- about gadgetry, and fantasy. Rod Serling did a helluva good job on Twilight Zone, but basically it was a fantasy series. This is the first attempt to translate science fiction literature into TV. We have people stories. Too many series put gadgets first, people second. We put people first. Sci-fi in TV and pictures has usually consisted of monsters, or a gorilla destroying Tokyo.”

Roddenberry boasted how he had nabbed such science fiction notables as Harlan Ellison, A.E. van Vogt, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Theodore Sturgeon, and Robert Bloch. He also talked about how he worked with RAND Corporation and CalTech in designing his spaceship, saying, “There is nothing about the ship that doesn’t have its roots in science, that can’t be done from what we know. It’s practicable science; everything we do is possible by what we know today, therefore is believable. It’s the most ambitious, difficult production ever attempted, because everything we do is new.” (145-14)

And then Roddenberry got his first of many digs in against NBC, although a small and seemingly harmless one. Kaufman wrote that “the producer kids they talked about doing a story about a planet populated only by ad agency and network people [but] rejected it because it was too unbelievable.”

On June 19, for his syndicated newspaper column, Bob Mackenzie wrote, “We used to call it science fiction, but television producers are now calling it ‘science fact.’” Quoting Roddenberry, Mackenzie wrote:

If only one star in a billion is a sun, and only one sun in a billion has a planet with conditions similar to our Earth, then there is a minimum of three million worlds inhabited by living creatures…. Star Trek will concern the intergalactic meanderings of a giant space ship, “a huge star cruiser with displacement of 390,000 tons.” This behemoth of the stratosphere contains a crew of 400 and is equipped with laboratories, libraries, offices and recreation rooms. It travels considerably faster than light, speeding between far-flung star systems to carry out “scientific investigations, diplomatic courtesy calls, and enforcement of the laws that regulate Earth colonies.”

Word was out: Star Trek was going to be bigger than the one-year-old Lost in Space.

For the July 15 issue of Daily Variety, Army Archerd quoted Roddenberry, saying, “Outer space is the new west.” And then Roddenberry told how he was determined to not lower Star Trek to the expectations of children, but “to bring kids up to the level of the show.” He added, “And this is a point under discussion right now with NBC.” Indicating that the needs of a network and the assembly line approach used in cranking out episodes was counterproductive when striving for excellence, a fatigued Roddenberry said, “We’re at the point of crisis in TV -- of how much we can do weekly and produce a quality show.

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