The Making of the Star Trek Pilots, Part 3: “Assignment Earth”

The second season of STAR TREK concluded with a pilot for a proposed spin-off series that would have starred Robert Lansing as Gary Seven, a human captured by alien beings and trained to save mankind from destroying itself. Helping Seven is secretary Roberta Lincoln (Terri Garr), though the two of them first have to convince the time traveling Kirk and Spock that they are there to save the future, not destroy it.

“Assignment Earth” was written by Gene Roddenberry and the late Art Wallace (who is also the creator of the storyline for the soap opera DARK SHADOWS). “It’s interesting in a sense,” said Wallace, “because I had gone to Paramount and pitched a series idea to them. They had said that Gene Roddenberry had come up with a very similar idea. So I saw Gene and we decided to pool the idea, which was about a man from tomorrow who takes care of the present on Earth. That was intended to be the pilot, although it was never made into a series. It was a very good pilot and it’s a shame, because I think if they had done it as a series with just Gary Seven, it would have been a very successful show. I believe Gene and I split the credit on that one.”

Guest star Robert Lansing told STARLOG magazine, “What Gene had done was go to futurists and scientists and ask them what advanced societies out in space might do towards more primitive societies like ours. One of the futurists said that they would probably kidnap children from various planets, take them to their superior civilization, raise them, teach and enlighten them and then put them back as adults to lead their worlds in more peaceful ways. That was the idea behind Gary Seven.”

“It was interesting trying to balance the episode between the regular crew and Robert Lansing,” said the late director, Marc Daniels. “It was also difficult because we came back to the present and it’s always a dangerous idea to take the STAR TREK characters into the present. Suddenly you’re in a very tangible situation. The show’s reality becomes that much harder to sustain.

“We were simulating Mission Control, which, on our budget, was not easy. You had to make do with very abbreviated sets. In terms of the story’s physical demands, this is a problem of any kind of science fiction. For example, the original STAR TREK set, the Enterprise, was practically nothing; corridors we kept using over and over again, a few basic cabins which were constantly reused and, of course, the engine room. With the exception of those and the bridge, it was extremely limited.”

Gary Seven and his mission is another element of the original series that has found significant after-life. Writer Howard Weinstein included the character during his run on DC Comics’ STAR TREK title.

“With Gary Seven,” he muses, “there’s the intrigue of a character about whom so little was revealed in the TV episode. Since we really knew nothing about who he was, who he worked for, and how he knew what he did, it just begged for expansion. Fortunately, Paramount pretty much let me do whatever I wanted in establishing details of Gary Seven’s organization (which I called The Aegis), and how and why they wielded knowledge and technology far beyond what the Federation had. The goal was to take readers and the Enterprise crew inside Gary Seven’s universe – to discover that the greater the power, the bigger and more dangerous the conflicts. And even though I’m a dog person, I loved writing more of his interplay with his cat-associate, Isis. One year, when my pal and TNG comic writer Michael Jan Friedman and I bounced around ideas for a big story which would span both the TOS and TNG annuals, we wanted to do something involving both Enterprise crews. And Gary Seven’s Aegis organization came back into play. But we took the bold, shocking step of killing Gary Seven early. That probably surprised some readers, but killing off a familiar guest character raised the stakes and made the bad guys even badder.”

Ignoring those events was comic book writer John Byrne, who wrote and drew a six-issue ASSIGNMENT EARTH series for IDW, with plans to do a follow-up. When the first series was announced, he sat down for an interview with Newsarama.com, noting, “As a kid, I just thought [‘Assignment Earth’] was really neat. First, I was a Robert Lansing fan from his other work. Also, I am a sucker for time-travel stories (which the ongoing Assignment Earth would not have been, but the TOS episode was). And Terri Garr was so darn cute.

“There is no set timeline,” he continued. “I will cover a number of years – toward the end I want to touch on Nixon’s visit to China, which was in 1972 – but I am not going to be setting clear dates. Anyone who is not familiar with those years might well think all the stories take place in the same year, same week, even. The main indicator of time passing will be Roberta having a different hairstyle in each issue. Possibly a different hair color, too, playing off the Beta V’s comment that her hair was ‘presently tined honey blonde.’”

Author Greg Cox had fun with Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln in his novel ASSIGNMENT: ETERNITY and the two-book THE EUGENICS WARS. Of these efforts the website www.assignmentearth.ca offers, “ASSIGNMENT: ETERNITY is fun and involved, and we get to see a possible outcome for the team of Seven and Lincoln. THE EUGENICS WARS pair open in 1974. Gary Seven watches with growing concern as the children of a top secret human genetic engineering project called Chrysalis grow to adulthood. In particular, he focuses on a brilliant youth named Khan Noonien Singh. Can Khan’s dark destiny be averted, or is Earth doomed to fight a global battle for supremacy?”

“Part of the appeal is the ‘60s spy-fi vibe of the whole thing,” says Cox. “I was always into James Bond, THE AVENGERS, MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. and all that. Basically Gary Seven is Our Man Flint of the STAR TREK universe. Also there’s the fact that they teased us at the end there would be many interesting adventures to come, and I wanted to know what those adventures were. I also had this theory that as STAR TREK is to FORBIDDEN PLANET, ‘Assignment Earth’ is to THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL. It’s basically THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL: THE TV SERIES. Gary Seven is basically Klattu. It made an impression on me as a kid and I was obsessed with bringing it back.”

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Smallville – Michael Shanks Audio Interview on “Absolute Justice, Part 1″

In its ninth season, Smallville has done an impressive job of rebounding creatively, with the show more fully embracing the Superman legacy. This Friday night, February 5th, the CW will present the two-hour “movie” event, Absolute Justice, in whick Clark encounters members of the Justice Society of America. Among those heroes is Carter Hall/Hawkman, portrayed by Stargate’s Michael Shanks. In the first part of a four-part conversation, the actor discusses his appearance on the show.

Look for part two on Tuesday.

NOTE: The player may need to load for a minute.

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Check out the Superman-inspired hero, Fleischer:

The Weekly Round-Up for Jan. 25 to 29

Here are the sci-fi based entertainment news items for this week:

CONDOLENCES

Legendary author J.D. Salinger (The Cather in the Rye) passed away this week at the age of 91.

Petite actress Zelda Rubinstein, who played the psychic in the classic movie Poltergeist passed away at 76 this past week.

NEWS

The new FOX drama Past Life will be airing one week earlier than originally planned and rather than a two-hour debut, the show will have a one-hour premiere at 9 PM on February 9 with the show moving into its regular time slot of Thursdays at 9 PM on February 11. The series should finish on March 11.

The film Avatar has officially become the biggest-grossing movie of all time even over former king of the movie world Titanic.

TV SERIES NEWS

Mark Pellegrino and Titus Welliver will reprise their roles of Jacob and his nemesis on Lost when it returns for its final season.

ABC Family Channel has picked a one-hour drama:  Pretty Little Liars:

The series will follow four estranged best friends who are reunited one year after their best friend and queen bee of the group, Alison, goes missing only to discover they are receiving messages from an anonymous “A” who knows all their secrets. The drama stars Lucy Hale (Privileged), Troian Bellisario (NCIS) Ashley Benson (Eastwick), Shay Mitchell, Laura Leighton (Melrose Place), Nia Peeples (The Young and the Restless) and Bianca Lawson (The Vampire Diaries).

The second season of the UK series Being Human has yet to air here in the States, but is nearly at an end on the BBC and has been renewed for a third season with the regular cast returning.

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

One of the new shows in development at ABC includes:

NO ORDINARY FAMILY (ABC) – This pilot come from Greg Berlanti and Jon Harmon Feldman and is about a typical American family whose members have special abilities. ( Kind of like Brothers & Sisters x Heroes?!)

A spinoff of Supernatural, called Ghostfacers, which revolves around a group of ghost hunters who film their adventures (who have appeared in several episodes of the series in the past) will initially run as three-minute episodes online on TheWB.com and on the CW’s website and will star A.J. Buckley, Travis Wester, Brittany Ishibashi, and Austin Basis.

NBC has picked up the drama The Cape, which is a light drama with a comic book sensibility set in a fictionalized version of Los Angeles, centering on a former cop framed for a crime who becomes the Cape, a masked hero, to clear his name and reunite with his son.

BOX OFFICE NEWS

James Marsden will star in the live-action/computer-animated hybrid comedy I Hop that follows an out-of-work slacker (Marsden) who accidentally injures the Easter Bunny (voiced by Russell Brand) and must take him in as he recovers.

Naomi Watts and Daniel Craig will star in the psychological thriller Dream House about a family that relocates into what appears to be the ideal residence in small town Connecticut only to discover that their beautiful new home was the site of another family’s slaughter, believed to be at the hands of the husband who survived.

The production group behind the film The Spiderwick Chronicles have optioned Kat Falls‘ underwater adventure novel Dark Life, which is set in a near-future world in which rising ocean levels and natural catastrophes have led some people to homestead on the ocean floor. The action centers on an underwater teenage boy and a surface girl who join forces to uncover a government conspiracy.

British actor Nicholas Hoult (Skins) has joined the movie Mad Max: Fury Road, which is to be set a short while after events in 1985’s Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy are set to star in lead roles.

Guy Pearce and Mary-Louise Parker will star in the thriller The Well that revolves around a well-to-do Manhattan couple whose obsessive pursuit of salvation ultimately leads to destruction. Actor Tim Guinee wrote and will direct the movie.

CASTING SCOOP

Newcomer Odessa Rae will appear on an upcoming episode of Smallville as DC villain the Silver Banshee, aka Siobhan McDougal who is a vengeful spirit of a fallen Gaelic heroine. She’s accidentally released from the underworld, and takes out her vengeance at an unassuming country bed and breakfast.

Michael Shanks has landed a role on Supernatural where he will portray a character named Rob, who is part of a local militia. He is married and has a son – but a loss will force Rob to dedicate himself solely to a cause.

Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger himself) will terrorize Booth and Brennan in a slasher-themed episode of Bones that is to air this spring.

RUMOR PATROL

Mel Gibson is in negotiations to star in the spy thriller Cold Warrior about a Cold War spy who comes out of retirement to confront a domestic terrorism threat from Russia by joining with a younger agent.

Sam Worthington (Avatar) is the frontrunner to star in movie Dracula Year Zero that will be part historical fact and literary fiction that centers around the life of young Transylvanian Prince Vlad, better known as Vlad the Impaler, leading the charge to fend off the Ottoman Empire’s attempts to use Romania as a foothold to conquer the rest of Europe.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

The following movies and special will air this weekend and throughout next week:

The Syfy movie Meteor Storm will air on Saturday, January 30 at 9 PM. The movie is about meteors that strike San Francisco, causing a city official to evacuate the populace while a scientist tries to determine the cause of the strikes. Stars include Michael Trucco and Kari Matchett.

Also, Lost will return for its final season on Tuesday, February 2 for a 2-hour premiere, starting at 9 PM.

NEW EPISODES OF EXISTING SHOWS

Here are the new episodes of returning and new series that will be airing this coming week:

Saturday, January 30:
Demons on BBC America at 8 and 9 PM

NOTE: Legend of the Seeker will be back with all new episodes in syndication starting this weekend. Check your local listings for date, time and channel.

Sunday, January 31:

NOTE: Legend of the Seeker will be back with all new episodes in syndication starting this weekend. Check your local listings for date, time and channel.

Monday, February 1:
Chuck on NBC at 8 PM
Heroes on NBC at 9 PM

Wednesday, February 3:
Being Erica on SOAPNet at 10 PM

Thursday, February 4:
Fringe on FOX at 9 PM
The Vampire Diaries on The CW at 8 PM
Supernatural on The CW at 9 PM

Friday, February 5:
Smallville on the CW at 8 PM (Two-Hour Special)
Ghost Whisperer on CBS at 8 PM
Medium on CBS at 9 PM
Caprica on Syfy at 9 PM

NOTE: Please check your local listings for the correct air dates and times for all of the above.

Have a great weekend!

Please note that I will feature a weekly round-up of general news items at our sister site located at http://nicegirlstv.com.  Please visit there as often as you can. Thanks!

The Women of Sci-Fi (1970’s)

Earlier this month, SciFiTVZone provided a list of women who paved the way in science fiction within the world of television. This next installment continues in that path, focusing on the actresses from 1970’s TV:

• Lynda Carter was legendary Diana Prince aka Wonder Woman in the 1970’s cult-classic series. In her red, white and blue costume she saved mankind from themselves on a daily basis.

• Lindsey Wagner as the one and only Jamie Sommers in The Bionic Woman in the 1970’s series was the first female cyborg, who was saved after a near-fatal parachuting accident and worked as a secret agent masquerading as a school teacher.

• Joanna Cameron in the short-lived series Isis was Andrea Thomas, a high school teacher, who, on an archaeological dig, found a mythical amulet given to an Egyptian Queen. After using an incantation, the amulet bestowed on the wearer great strength, the ability to move inanimate objects and fly at super speed, making her Isis.

• Deidre Hall and Judy Sturgis were Electra Woman and Dyna Girl for one year in 1976 in the series of the same name. While they were seen as gorgeous superheroes in skintight outfits, they battled a bevy of villains and worked out of the Electrabase that featured sophisticated equipment.

• Anne Lockhart starred as Lieutenant Sheba on the original sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica during its one and only season on the air from 1978 to 1979. Sheba was the daughter of Commander Cain and the leader of the Silver Spar Viper squadron.

• Maren Jensen also appeared in the original Battlestar Galactica series, appearing as the only daughter of Commander Adama, serving as both a bridge officer and as a pilot. She was also seen working as a teacher to the children of the Colonial Fleet.

• In the classic comedy Mork & Mindy, Pam Dawber starred as Mindy McConnell, the comedic foil, eventual love interest and wife to extraterrestrial Mork who arrived on Earth from his home planet of Ork.

• British actress Jan Chappell appeared in the UK series Blake’s 7 as Cally for all three season for which it aired. She was a guerrilla fighter for the anti-Federation resistance forces for the planet Saurian Major; she was also a telepath who could transmit thoughts silently to the rest of the crew.

• Belinda Montgomery appeared in the short-lived series The Man from Atlantis as Dr. Elizabeth Merrill, who nursed Mark Harris (played by Patrick Duffy) an amnesiac man believed to be the only surviving citizen of the lost civilization of Atlantis.

• Barbara Bain appeared as Dr. Helena Russell on the UK series Space: 1999 during the mid-1970’s. The series centered on the plight of the inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha following a calamity, where nuclear waste from Earth stored on the moon explodes in a catastrophic accident, knocking the moon out of orbit and sending it and the inhabitants of the Moonbase uncontrollably into outer space.

• Lucy Fleming starred as Jenny Richards in the UK series Survivors also during the mid-1970’s. The premise of the show was the plight of a group of people who survived an accidentally released plague that kills nearly the entire population of the planet. Jenny was the only character to survive all three seasons of the show.

The next installment of this article series will focus on the women of sci-fi from the 1980’s.

Interview: Voice Director Andrea Romano on “Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths”

You need a voice echoing the All-American trust of Superman? Andrea Romano
gets Mark Harmon for his maiden voyage in animation. You’re seeking a
subtly evil performance as the intelligent-bordering-on-insane Owlman?
James Woods is willing to do it from a little booth in Rhode Island.

Whatever the role, no matter the production, actors push aside their
Oscars, Emmys and Tonys to step behind the microphone and “play” with
Romano.

Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths is the seventh entry in the
ongoing series of DC Universe animated original PG-13 movies, and each
has featured all-star casts with Romano at the reigns. From Neil
Patrick Harris, Brooke Shields and Alfred Molina to Virginia Madsen,
Nathan Fillion and Kyra Sedgwick (to name but a few), Romano’s casts
are packed with the faces normally reserved for lead roles in feature
films and primetime television series.

In addition to Harmon (NCIS) as Superman and Woods (Mississippi
Burning) as Owlman, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths features the
voices of Chris Noth (Law & Order, Sex and the City) as Lex Luthor,
William Baldwin (Dirty Sexy Money) as Batman, Gina Torres
(Firefly/Serenity) as Superwoman and Bruce Davison (X-Men) as President Wilson.

Romano has been one of the driving forces in animation voiceovers for
more than a quarter century, amassing a list of credits that range
from dramatic (Batman: The Animated Series) to silly (Animaniacs) to hip (The Boondocks) and timeless (Smurfs). The six-time Emmy Award winner (and 20-time nominee) has not only set the standard by which industry veterans measure the art, but she has become a household name to animation fans across the globe, regularly drawing standing ovations and endless applause during her annual Con appearances.

Warner Home Video will distribute the full-length animated Justice
League: Crisis on Two Earths on February 23 as a Special Edition
2-disc version on DVD and Blu-Ray™ Hi-Def, as well as single disc DVD,
and On Demand and Download.

Romano found time in her busier-than-you’d-ever-believe schedule to
discuss the cast of Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths. The
questions are simple, but the answers are pure Andrea Romano. Take a
read …

QUESTION: James Woods has quite the resume, including plenty of animation
experience. How is it that you had not worked with him until now?

ANDREA ROMANO: I’ve been a huge fan of James Woods and wanted to work with him for
years. We actually had a Justice League production about five years
ago that we had him booked for, and then the plug got pulled on the
project. I’ve been waiting for something else for him ever since – and
then Owlman came along, a perfect role for him.

We had to record him long distance, and his performance was very, very
subtle – so much so that I was worried that it wasn’t going to play
when it came back with animation. But it was perfect. It was subtle
and nuanced and scary without being broad in any way, and it was
wonderful to see such a subtle performance work in a big action piece.
I can’t wait to meet him in person.

QUESTION: On the flipside, the star of one of primetime’s top rated series –Mark Harmon of NCIS – had never previously done animation. How did he
do?

ANDREA ROMANO: I fell in love with Mark Harmon. I have admired his work for many
years, but he had not done this kind of work before, and so you always
run the risk of several different situations occurring when you bring
in someone who is new to animation. But Mark Harmon completely put
himself in my hands, and totally let me show him how this work is
done. I certainly didn’t have to teach him acting, but he was
completely agreeable to trying options, had ideas of his own, and had
complete trust in my process. So it was a terrific experience for both
of us. I think he’s a wonderful Superman. Although he’s older in years
than how we typically portray Superman, his voice with the model was
right on.

QUESTION: Gina Torres is another Joss Whedon alum making an appearance in the
Timmverse. What made her right for Superwoman?

ANDREA ROMANO: I’ve had the great pleasure of working with Gina over the years, and she is as beautiful to work with as she is visually. What makes this particular performance so great is that she plays a truly evil
character and, if you didn’t know her personally, you’d think that was
what she was like in real-life. She wore this role like a glove.

We recorded Gina separately from James Woods, and their characters are
love interests. Without the benefit of being in the same room, let
alone the same coast, Gina brought an energy that matched his
perfectly. She’s such an instinctual actress. And especially for
Superwoman, Gina really put herself into the role. She is sexy. She
doesn’t have to play sexy – she IS sexy.

One of the interesting things about Gina’s performance is that when
she first recorded, she had a cold and it manifested itself as kind of
deeper and textured. But when she came in for ADR, she was perfectly
healthy, and much more pure and clear – so we had to make a little bit
of an adjustment to make sure she didn’t sound too sweet.

QUESTION: Did William Baldwin have any trouble mastering Batman?

ANDREA ROMANO: I thought he did great – I love the texture of his voice. The performance is spot-on. The only issue was that William hasn’t done a lot of voiceover work in this genre. We do a lot of impact sounds that come with this kind of an action piece, and being the method actor he is, he insisted on actually striking his own body physically when he
had to do “umphs” and “ohs” and impacts. By the time he was done, he
must’ve been bruised. We were a little worried for him. When we
brought him back in for ADR, we asked him to please not hit himself,
and we showed him how to do those grunts and ughs In this film,
Batman wasn’t a big role, but it’s an important role, and I think
William really filled it well. Someday I’m going to get all the
Baldwins in the same room.

QUESTION: Chris Noth is another animation novice. Did he enjoy his time as a “good” Lex Luthor?

ANDREA ROMANO: Chris Noth thought he was going to be playing the evil Lex, and I think he was disappointed he didn’t get to play a villain. Still, he came through and gave a really good performance. What was funny was
that at the end of the entire recording process, Chris was our absolute last session of ADR – on a late Friday afternoon. To celebrate, they brought in a tray of Cosmos, and our own Susan Chieco had a very “Sex in the City” moment of walking a Cosmo in to Chris Noth. He cheered up considerably at that point.

QUESTION: How did you end up promoting Bruce Davison to President?

ANDREA ROMANO: I met Bruce at a wedding about 20 years ago and have admired his acting for so long anyway. It was another one of those perfect matches of voice and character. We had this nice role of the President that needed some gravitas to it and, at the same time, this particular President was a bit of a coward. Bruce was able to give us both of those aspects in just the right doses.

New Moon: Chaske Spencer and Alex Meraz, Part 3

In the final part of SciFi Media Zone’s exclusive audio interview with New Moon wolfpack members Chaske Spencer and Alex Meraz, the duo discuss the ways they’re attempting to stay grounded despite the phenomenon they find themselves a part of, as well as their own recognition of the responsibility their newfound fame brings to them as Native Americans.

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The Making of the Star Trek Pilots, Part 2: “Where No Man Has Gone Before”

With Jeffrey Hunter departing, taking over the center seat of the Enterprise in the second pilot would be Canadian-born actor William Shatner, whose career had included highly acclaimed roles on stage (THE WORLD OF SUZIE WONG, A SHOT IN THE DARK), screen (THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV) and television (TWILIGHT ZONE, THE OUTER LIMITS, FOR THE PEOPLE, and the pilot for the unsold series ALEXANDER, THE GREAT).

“I was offered the part in a rather peculiar fashion,” Shatner related to the English press in the 1970s. “They had made a pilot of STAR TREK with an actor who is now deceased, Jeffrey Hunter, and NBC did not like the pilot but they liked the idea. They said change the cast, change the story but give us another pilot for STAR TREK and we’ll pay a certain amount of money. So they showed me the first pilot and said, ‘Would you like to play the part and here are some of the storylines that we plan to go with; you can see the kind of production we have in mind. Would you care to play it?’ And I thought it was an interesting gamble for myself as an actor to take, because I’ve always been fascinated by science fiction. I liked the production; I liked the people involved with the production, and so I decided to do it. But it was under these peculiar circumstances of having a first pilot made that I did it.

“I then talked at great length with Gene Roddenberry about the objectives we hoped to achieve, and one of those objectives was serious drama as well as science fiction. His reputation and ability, which I knew first-hand, was such that I did not think he would do LOST IN SPACE. And I was too expensive an actor, with what special or particular abilities I have, to warrant being put in something that somebody else could walk through. So I felt confident that STAR TREK would keep those serious objectives for the most part, and it did.”

Bob Justman, who would go from assistant director on “The Cage” to Associate Producer on “Where No Man’s Gone Before,” explained, “Gene was very happy that he was able to get Bill Shatner, who was highly thought of in the industry. I had worked with Bill on OUTER LIMITS and he had a good reputation in the television and entertainment industries even at that time, well before the second pilot of STAR TREK. He was someone to be reckoned with and we certainly understood that he was a more accomplished actor than Jeff Hunter was, and he gave us more dimension. The network seemed to feel that Jeff Hunter was rather wooden. He was a nice person, everyone liked him, but he didn’t run the gamut of emotions that Bill Shatner could do. Shatner was classically trained. He had enormous technical abilities to do different things and he gave the captain a terrific personality. He embodied what Gene had in mind, which was the flawed hero. Or the hero who considers himself to be flawed. Captain Horatio Hornblower. That was who he was modeled on.”

Enthused Leonard Nimoy, “Bill Shatner’s broader acting style created a new chemistry between the captain and Spock, and now it was quite different from that of the first pilot.”

In the pages of I AM SPOCK, he elaborates, “Bill’s Captain Kirk was a swashbuckling Errol Flynn type of hero, he played the with a great deal of energy and élan, and wasn’t afraid to take chances. That élan has cost him at times; people have made fun of his exuberance because it made it easy to do a caricature of Kirk. His attack on a line of dialog, his unique way of pausing before blurting out the final word or phrase, were readily captured by imitators. But that energy was vital for the show, and made it possible for me to finally find a niche for my role. I don’t think the Spock character would have worked as well with Jeff Hunter, because Jeff’s Captain Pike was introverted and soft-spoken, so that there was no contrast between the two.”

And the relationship between the two characters and actors–despite whatever ego problems would arise later–positively sparked. David Gerrold, famed author, STAR TREK scholar and author of the episode “The Trouble With Tribbles,” notes, “All of the movies and all of the episodes hold together because Shatner holds it together. Spock is only good when he has someone to play off of. The scenes where Spock doesn’t have Shatner to play off of are not interesting. If you look at Spock with his mom or dad, it’s very ponderous. But Spock working with Kirk has the magic and it plays very well, and people give all of the credit to Nimoy not to Shatner.”

While Shatner was hired, the three NBC-requested scripts for a second pilot were finished, including the Samuel A. Peeples’ effort “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” which chronicled the metamorphosis of Enterprise crewmember Gary Mitchell into a God-like being.

“My vague memory is that there had been several problems with ‘The Cage,’” reflected the late James Goldstone, who had been signed to direct STAR TREK’s second pilot. ” NBC was skeptical that a series could be manufactured, so to speak, on a weekly basis. One of the requisites put on the second pilot was to shoot it in, as I recall, eight days, which would then prove to them that a weekly series could be done in six or seven days. The other requisite, I would guess, it being television, is that NBC very much wanted something that could be ‘commercial’ against the police shows and all the other action things that were then on television.

“A combination of NBC, Gene, perhaps other executives at Desilu and I, read all three [scripts], discussed them in length, decided on what became ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before,’ and then embarked on a great deal of polishing and rewriting on a conceptual and physical level, so that we could make it in eight days. This one just seemed to have the potential to establish those characters on a human level. The only gimmick is the mutation forward, the silvering of Gary Mitchell’s eyes, and it works because it’s simple, as opposed to the growing of horns or something. Ours was a human science fiction concept, perhaps cerebral and certainly emotional.”

Samuel Peeples, who has written more segments of episodic television than anyone could ever keep track of, had actually had some connection with Gene Roddenberry and STAR TREK prior to “Where No Man Has Gone Before.”

“Gene Roddenberry and I had known each other from writing HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL” Peeples recalls. “He was trying to start a science fiction series and he knew that I had one of the largest science fiction collections in the world. He was researching his show and asked if he could go through my magazines and get some ideas for the Enterprise. Gene went through all the covers, and that’s really how the Enterprise was born.”

In Peeples’ script, the starship Enterprise comes across a charred metallic “black box” (similar to what is used today on airplanes) from a long-lost space vessel. Captain James R. Kirk (the middle initial eventually changed to T. once the pilot led to series) has the device beamed aboard. In the meantime strong ties are established between the captain, Lieutenant Gary Mitchell, and first officer Mr. Spock. The Enterprise approaches an energy barrier at the edge of the galaxy and attempts to make its way through, resulting in the ship nearly being destroyed and metamorphosizing Mitchell’s natural ESP abilities. Those powers grow to the point where he becomes a god-like being, manipulating everything around him.

Spock listens to the black box and learns that the captain of that vessel was desperate to learn anything he could about ESP, and shortly thereafter ordered that his ship be set for self-destruction. Now Kirk is faced with one decision: kill Mitchell before the Enterprise is crushed by the man’s ever-increasing power.

“We were intrigued with the corruption of power theme manifesting over the ordinary individual,” says Peeples. “that was the basic premise, and we had to put in extrapolations of known scientific principles. At that time, the radiation belt had been discovered around the Earth, and my premise was that galaxies themselves might be separated by this type of barrier.

“Gene and I were trying to avoid the space cadet cliche,” he elaborates. “We were both very concerned about it being an adult show. One thing, as later episodes proved, was the problem which never should have existed: the bug eyed monsters. We both discouraged the idea, believing that we should keep things as realistic as possible. If a person was different physically, then explain the reason for that difference. In a particular atmosphere, he might have a larger lung. If it was a planet with an extraordinarily bright sun, he would have different eyes. We were actually trying to project reality against an unfamiliar background. In other words, we would deal with reality according to the environmental background we encountered.”

“Where No Man Has Gone Before” went into production soon thereafter. Joining Shatner, Nimoy and Gary Lockwood was Paul Fix as Dr. Mark Piper, George Takei as Physicist Sulu, James Doohan as Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott, Lloyd Haynes as Communications Officer Alden and Andrea Dromm as Yeoman Smith, with Sally Kellerman “guest starring” as Dr. Elizabeth Dehner. As fans of the show recognize, the final STAR TREK cast was slowly taking shape.

NBC viewed the pilot in early 1966, and gave Roddenberry the green light for his series, much to the delight of everyone, as they were proud of what they had achieved.

“I was very happy with it,” enthused James Goldstone. “From a director’s point of view–or this director’s point of view–you have certain targets and certain problems which have to be overcome in any picture, whether it’s a $20 million feature or a television show. A director measures his success in two ways. Obviously, like everybody else, you measure it by whether or not it’s a critical and commercial success, but you also measure it in terms of overcoming obstacles. The obstacles were temporal, budgetary, but they were also conceptual. I was very proud of the work we were able to do. When I say we, I don’t mean it in a generous sense. I mean that it was a very collaborative effort, as are all pilots. We, being Gene, especially; Bobby Justman and the main actors who later became the main stars. Everything was planned in detail, and Bobby and I knew if we didn’t move from one set to another or one scene to another by a certain hour, we were in trouble.”

At a convention appearance, Roddenberry expressed, “The second pilot seemed to have great concepts: humans turning into gods. But they were nice safe gods, gods who go ‘Zap! You’re punished.’ Kind of like the guys you see on those Sunday morning shows…The biggest factor in selling the second pilot was that it ended up in a hell of a fist fight with the villain suffering a painful death. Then, once we got STAR TREK on the air, we began infiltrating a few of our ideas.”

Actor Gary Lockwood, who portrayed Gary Mitchell and who would later go on to portray astronaut Frank Poole in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, recalls working on STAR TREK’s second pilot.

“To tell you the truth,” he smiles, “I thought it was a little bizarre and I thought it was kind of embarrassing, and I hoped it worked out because everybody was excited about it. It was a very hard job to do. You couldn’t see the other actors. I’d rehearse and get everything all ready, but I couldn’t see the actors because of the contact lenses that changed my eyes. They didn’t blind me for the first few days, but after a few days the eyes swelled up and got sore. Then to have them on for just two or three minutes was agonizing. Scenes were rehearsed without them. The other thing about it, people always thought I was kind of egotistical so when I got to play that part, a lot of people laughed and said, ‘He’s finally found his niche.’ That’s been a joke among my friends.

“That character was tough to reach, because there’s no prototype character to look at. So you create a mental image and try to fill that slot. All I tried to do was downplay the mechanics and not be too dramatic. It’s the same thing I did in 2,001. Try to play the part very quietly and very realistically, and later on people don’t think you’re pushing. That’s the way to sustain it. There was a natural progression to the character. In order to do that, you have to think it out. Let me say one thing to you that I can say about American actors I don’t like and who don’t like me. You have to apply a certain amount of intelligence to your role first, and then you can apply the emotion after you’ve made an intellectual decision. Too many young kids I work with are all trying to figure out how to make the line comfortable. You work in Europe, they’re trying to bend to the line. Here they’re trying to bend the line to them. It’s a different approach. With Gary Mitchell, the idea was trying to go to the character and not make the character comfortable to me. I’m not Gary Mitchell.”

In the early 1980s when the second STAR TREK feature, THE WRATH OF KHAN, was in development and word had leaked out that an enemy from Kirk’s past was reaching out to him in vengeance, many believed that that person was going to be a resurrected Gary Mitchell. More recently, visual effects supervisor Darren Doctorman, who works on the independent web series STAR TREK: PHASE II, mused that he thought that the fifth film in the series, THE FINAL FRONTIER, would have been far more interesting had the Enterprise’s quest to meet God resulted in Kirk confronting Gary Mitchell.

Although neither came to pass, the character DID return, albeit in print form. Author Michael Jan Friedman chronicled Mitchell’s life in a pair of novels published in 1998 under the umbrella title MY BROTHER’S KEEPER. Volume one was called REPUBLIC, followed by CONSTITUTION. The character was also resurrected in the one-shot 1996 comic book STAR TREX, which serves as a crossover between the original series and (believe it or not) Marvel Comics’ X-Men. The special was written by Scott Lobdell (an integral writer of the X-Men comics) and drawn by Marc Silvestri.

As the Star Trek Comics Checklist describes: “Investigating a spatial rift near Delta Vega, the planet where Dr. Elizabeth Dehner and Lt. Cmdr. Gary Mitchell mutated and died, the Enterprise encounters a ship in distress. Before exploding, seven life forms are detected and another ship comes through the rift. A being named Gladiator leaves the second ship and claims Delta Vega in the name of the Shi’ar Empire, punching Scotty’s shields for emphasis. Meanwhile, the seven life forms have teleported to a cargo hold in the Enterprise – Cyclops, Phoenix, The Beast, Wolverine, Storm, Gambit and Bishop. With the crew of the Enterprise, the X-Men must face Deathbird and Proteus, who has bonded with the essence of the long dead Gary Mitchell and a potentially inexhaustible supply of psionic energy.

In an interview with ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, Lobdell offered, “It’s a perfectly natural crossover. At heart, they’re both stories about a handful of people facing the unknown. They both hit the same nerve in American consciousness. Isn’t that what we’re in the business of doing – going where no one has gone before?”
Admitted Silvestri, “It was a challenge, putting realistic [human] characters next to one that are idealized forms. But it was fun just getting these characters into the same panel.” — Retrospective by Edward Gross

COMING SOON IN PART 3: “ASSIGNMENT EARTH”

Exclusive Interview: Bruce Timm on “Justice League: Crisis on Two Earth”

In February Warner Bros. releases its latest DVD animated adventure from DC Comics, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths. Utilizing the parallel world theory, the plot has the Justice League from “our” earth being recruited by a parallel earth’s Lex Luthor (who is a hero there) to take down their evil counterparts, the Crime Syndicate. In this exclusive audio interview, producer Bruce Timm discusses the film, sharing on its connection to the Justice League Unlimited TV series.

Click To Play

New Moon: Chaske Spencer and Alex Meraz, Exclusive Audio Interview Part 2

The Twilight Saga: New Moon wolfpack members Chaske Spencer and Alex Meraz continue their exclusive audio interview with SciFi Media Zone. In this installment, they discuss shooting Eclipse, the marketing of New Moon and how they are taking the fandemonium around them and parylaying that into other areas of their careers.

NOTE: You may have to give this a minute or two to load up once you click play.

Click To Play

The Weekly Round-Up for Jan. 18 to 22

Here are the sci-fi based entertainment news items for this week:

NEWS

The annual PaleyFest held by the Paley Center for Media will be held from February 26 to March 14 and the full schedule was announced this week. It is as follows:

Friday, February 26 at 7 PM – Modern Family
Saturday, February 27 at 7 PM – Lost
Monday, March 1 at 7 PM – NCIS
Wednesday, March 3 at 7 PM – Community
Thursday, March 4 at 7 PM – Dexter
Friday, March 5 at 7 PM – Cougar Town
Saturday, March 6 at 7 PM – The Vampire Diaries
Tuesday, March 9 at 7 PM – Seth MacFarlane & Friends
Wednesday, March 10 at 7 PM – Breaking Bad
Thursday, March 11 at 7 PM – FlashForward
Friday, March 12 at 7 PM – Men of a Certain Age
Saturday, March 13 at 7 PM – Glee
Sunday, March 14 at 7 PM – Curb Your Enthusiasm

President Obama will have his State of the Union speech on Wednesday, January 27.

TV SERIES NEWS

It looks like funding came through, after all, for the UK series Primeval to get a fourth season on BBC. The new season is expected to have 13 episodes.

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

Summit Entertainment and E1 Entertainment announced they plan to develop a television series based on the 2009 paranormal action movie Push.

FOX and BBC Worldwide shocked TV viewers with the announcement of an American remake of the UK hit series Torchwood, which is a spin-off of perennial series Doctor Who. The only good thing about this possibility is that this version will include the original UK production team – including Russell T. Davies and his producing partner Julie Gardner. Davies will write the pilot; but how it will all work out is unsure at this time.

The Gene Roddenberry-created classic series The Questor Tapes, which originally aired as a 1974 TV movie, is being developed by Imagine Television and Roddenberry Productions as a TV series. The original series was about android with incomplete memory tapes who searches for his creator and his purpose. Tim Minear is said to be in discussions to join the project as a producer.

TNT has greenlit the following original series:

• The as-yet untitled alien invasion series executive produced by Steven Spielberg and starring Noah Wyle as the leader of a rag-tag group of soldiers and civilians struggling against an occupying alien force. The show is to co-star Moon Bloodgood (Terminator Salvation), Drew Roy (Lincoln Heights), Maxim Knight (Brothers & Sisters), Jessy Schram (Crash) and Seychelle Gabriel (Weeds). There have been 10 episodes ordered and the show is expected to debut in 2011;

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Matt Damon and Brad Pitt are set to join Elijah Wood and Robin Williams in the Happy Feet sequel.

Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer) will be the director of the retooled Spider-Man which is set to pick up in 2012 with Peter Parker in high school

Kate Mara, Eric Balfour and Laz Alonso have joined the supernatural thriller Skyline which is about what happens when an otherwordly force swallows much of the human population off the face of the Earth, and a band of survivors must fight for their lives as the world unravels around them.

Samuel L. Jackson and Josh Duhamel will appear in the supernatural thriller Sympathy for the Devil, playing lawmen caught in a cosmic confrontation between Heaven and Hell after stopping an assassination attempt of a charismatic preacher.

Jason Momoa (Stargate Atlantis) has landed the title role in the Conan the Barbarian remake

CASTING SCOOP

Both Annette O’Toole and Michael McKeon will be returning to Smallville for this season penultimate episode.

RUMOR PATROL

Mark Strong (Sherlock Holmes) is in negotiations to star as the villain Sinestro in the movie Green Lantern.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

The following movie will air this weekend:

The movie Sea Snakes will air on Saturday, January 23 at 9 PM on Syfy and is about a submarine commander (Luke Perry) and his crew who face off against monstrous genetically altered snakes. The movie co-stars Krista Allen and Tom Berrenger.

NEW EPISODES OF EXISTING SHOWS

Here are the new episodes of returning and new series that will be airing this coming week:

Saturday, January 23:
Demons on BBC America at 8 and 9 PM

NOTE: Legend of the Seeker will be back with all new episodes in syndication starting this weekend. Check your local listings for date, time and channel.

Sunday, January 24:

NOTE: Legend of the Seeker will be back with all new episodes in syndication starting this weekend. Check your local listings for date, time and channel.

Monday, January 25:
Chuck on NBC at 8 PM
Heroes on NBC at 9 PM

Tuesday, January 26:
NOTE: If you want to remember what happened on last season’s finale of Lost, you can rewatch the 2-hour finale tonight at 9 PM on ABC. You can also rewatch the 2-hour pilot of Caprica on Syfy at 8 PM tonight.

Wednesday, January 27:
Being Erica on SOAPNet at 10 PM

Thursday, January 28:
Fringe on FOX at 9 PM
The Vampire Diaries on The CW at 8 PM
Supernatural on The CW at 9 PM

Friday, January 29:
Smallville on the CW at 8 PM
Dollhouse on FOX at 8 PM – Series Finale
Caprica on Syfy at 9 PM

NOTE: Please check your local listings for the correct air dates and times for all of the above.

Have a great weekend!

Please note that I will feature a weekly round-up of general news items at our sister site located at http://nicegirlstv.com/. Please visit there as often as you can. Thanks!

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