BUY THIS BOOK. READ
IT AND LEARN AND SMILE!
This is a
great book, with flaws (like Captain Kirk!).
It is a reference book for the ages.
It’s always written interestingly, even in the potentially dry
recitation of cast and crews’ early careers.
As a
first-generation Star Trek fan, and one who’s been paid for his nonfiction about
the series, I consider myself fairly well-read on Trek, with a reasonably wide
general knowledge about the show.
But
Cushman’s research takes us deep down, underground, into the origins of the
show and EVERY individual episode. Most
of this information is stuff we fans in the general public wouldn’t know,
because we were “on the outside.” But
Marc Cushman was granted access by the Great Bird himself and producer Bob
Justman into archives of scripts, memos, story conferences, and the like. Cushman performed dozens of in-person
interviews himself, along with plowing through tons of books, magazines, and newspaper articles.
Another
important new angle in this book is the listing of the TV ratings of Nielsen
and other rating services. These all
prove that most of the time, first-season Star Trek was a solid second place
in its oddball time slot (starting on a half-hour and not on the hour). Sometimes one half of an episode would pull
first-place ratings while the other half came in second to whatever sitcom
might have outpulled it. This gives the
lie to a longstanding position that the show “wasn’t that popular anyway.”
The
behind-the-scenes stuff is so absorbing! Trek
nerd that I am, I loved reading through all the possible permutations of
stories before we ended up with the one final version that we now think of as
“the episode.” At every turn, a few
changes, or the delay of a memo or a draft or a script page could have brought
about a finished episode very different from what is now canonized.
Somehow
Cushman shows some of the many conflicts (unavoidable in TV production) without
potshotting at the writers or producers or actors or whomever -- although there
are certainly many times when Roddenberry or others come across in less than
flattering ways. But, this revelation of
behavior or character is in their own words.
After
reading a few chapters, I became amazed that ANYTHING AT ALL got produced, much
less the fairly consistent characters and format that are familiar today. How the heck did they get anything done, when
it all had to pass through multiple layers of dictation, typists, mimeographs,
carbons, and so on? Writers could keep
all that character stuff and interplay in their heads, and remember
version-to-version what changed, and how?
As somebody might say, “Fascinating!”
The
sections on episodes’ reception by critics, and letters sent in concerning
differing episodes, could have been pages longer for each show, in my opinion. I could handle another couple of pounds’
worth of extra pages! I would have kept
on reading, and smiling.
One
intriguing bit of knowledge came to me in the background for “The Man Trap,”
which became the first episode to air (mainly because it was the first one
finished). On pages 165-168 the
discussion includes George Clayton Johnson’s early title for the episode,
“Damsel with a Dulcimer.” On page 168,
Johnson is quoted, “Yeh, she was a man trap.
Whereas ‘Damsel with a Dulcimer’ was somehow trying to romanticize the
dismal creature…” And author Cushman
concludes the discussion by saying, “Then again, would most audience members
even know what ‘Damsel with a Dulcimer’ meant?” (page 168)
Not from
Cushman, they won’t! He doesn’t mention
it again. Well, for the benefit you
readers who were NOT English Majors (as I was), here’s the deal: poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote a poem in
1797, published in 1816, called “Kubla Khan.”
It was a wild vision in his imagination of the savage Khan’s
establishment of a “pleasure dome.” But
the last few lines change gear and tell, “A damsel with a dulcimer in a vision
once I saw,” and says that if the writer could only reproduce her beauty and
song, the world would go wild for it, and say that HE was crazy for carrying on
so.
So, the
critter in “The Man Trap” had the power to drive men mad (that’s a line from
the 1936 film The Charge of the Light Brigade), and writer Johnson wanted to
get a vibe from Coleridge’s poem going in the mind of a perceptive Star
Trek viewer.
In the
chapter on “Space Seed,” I’m surprised that Cushman doesn’t mention the mistake
that made it on-air at the end of Act 1 of this episode. When Bill Shatner breaks the glass on Ricardo
Montalban’s sleeping unit, Shatner’s phaser falls off his belt. For the rest of this scene, DeForest Kelley
keeps looking back and forth between his scripted line-of-sight -- Khan’s bunk
-- and the floor, where the phaser fell.
As Khan’s drawer slides out, Kelley squats down as if to grab the phaser
or push it away. I’m pretty sure that
this was unscripted!
In the
chapter on “The City on the Edge of Forever,” on page 518, Cushman says that
“The score of this episode was almost all tracked music.” Yes, but it’s also
true that Fred Steiner composed some original music for this episode. These eight selections, including the song
“Goodnight, Sweetheart,” run for almost nine minutes on the “Season One” set of
La La Land Records’ 2012 CD release of the original TV soundtracks.
Perhaps
Cushman felt it out of the reach of his focus on the production of the series, but
a strange thing happened to “City” in a later home video release when a
different song than “Goodnight Sweetheart” was cut into the episode, and
Steiner’s use of its melody was cut also.
This is worth a research article in itself! Although judging by other fans’ reactions
when I mentioned it to them, I may be the only one who cared.
In one
episode commentary, Cushman writes that “ ‘The Devil in the Dark,’ while an
important episode with a profound message, is far from perfect. But, with thought-provoking material such as
this, who needs perfection?” (p 483)
And that’s
exactly how I feel about the faults of this book. They’re mistakes, but in a great book like
this, be happy for the wondrous book we have!
Nevertheless,
MY QUIBBLES:
Besides typographical
errors to be seen anywhere (probably in this review!), there are some important
mistakes that need to be corrected in future editions. This is an important book; it and companion
volumes will be primary resources for researchers for decades to come. That’s why corrections need to be made for
future editions.
Some names
of people and institutions are misspelled.
In the lists of references at the back of the book, the name of
publisher Ballantine Books is mostly misspelled “Ballentine.” Fred Freiberger, Star Trek producer,
consistently has his name misspelled “Freidberger.” Here and there, names like Windom and van
Vogt and Kenney are misspelled -- gotten correct in one place and wrong
somewhere else. It’s one thing to have
typos -- it’s another thing to spell people’s names wrong! As Shakespeare said, sometimes a name is all
you’re got (paraphrase there, folks).
This is an important topic because this is a crucially important
book! It will be used as a reference by
hundreds of other researchers, so there’s a double obligation to get proper
names right!
Another
observation I have is that many times we are told how much a special effect or
costume cost in 1966 or some other date from olden times. Then Cushman says, “or XXX dollars today.” This needs to be changed to refer to the
equivalent in 2013 dollars. After all,
“today” changes every day. Such a change
will help make this book as timeless as it deserves to be.
The
bibliography doesn’t use standard form, and this is a failure. Instead of having resources listed
alphabetically by author and so forth, they’re listed alphabetically by the
title of the work. Why not follow
established scholarly standards since this is a valuable reference work?
A second
puzzling failure is the lack of an index. Again I say: This is a valuable, important, necessary
book. A big part of its value lies in
its use as a primary research tool. Why
sabotage this value by not having an index?
Additionally, the process of producing an index for this wonderful book
might have ironed out many of the name misspellings that are present.
To sum up: If you love Star Trek, this book is a
must. It tells the known things like
airdates and guest stars; and it lays out innumerable lesser-known things, such
as the various stages taken by a story or casting or special effects, on the
way to the episode we saw onscreen. And
the fact of its worthiness as a base for future research and
information-gathering -- this fact is what makes it imperative to fix as many
errors as possible, to provide a firm and accurate foundation for future
students.
News flash -- I’ve been talking with
author Marc Cushman and he tells me that “dat ol’ Debbil,” Time, was behind a
lot of the missteps that got onto the printed page. Locked into a certain press date and a
certain page count, eventually he and all concerned had to “lock it and
go.” This hard page count also meant no
room for an index IN THIS EDITION of THIS VOLUME. Marc has assured me that a thorough
sweeping-out will be performed for future e-editions (and we hope paper
editions) of Volume 1. Volumes 2 and 3
may get another pair of eyes to help track down niggling errors, too. So hope lives!
BUY THIS BOOK. READ
IT AND LEARN AND SMILE!
