Actress, dancer, and singer Nichelle Nichols was cast as Uhura. Born in Chicago, she had worked extensively as a vocalist, and toured with Duke Ellington’s and Lionel Hampton’s bands. On stage, she appeared in such plays as The Blacks, No Strings, Carmen Jones, and James Baldwin’s Blues for Mister Charlie.
With the new cast set and ready to go, “Where No Man Has Gone Before” started shooting on July 21, 1965, and was not completed until January 1966, costing $330,000 to produce. Needless to say, the network was eager to see what it had been waiting for.
Roddenberry and his team were on tenterhooks; would NBC reject this effort, too? In February, the word came through: Star Trek would debut in December, with the network committed to sixteen episodes. It was time to start producing the series. With a budget of roughly $180,000 an episode, it was going to be quite a ride.
Early on, the idea of incorporating the rejected “Cage” pilot into a two-part episode was put forward as a means of relieving the expected time-and-budget crunch. Set building, prop design, and, of course, scripts all occupied a great deal of this preparation period.
Roddenberry attended the World Science Fiction Convention in Cleveland on September 4, 1966, where he showed “Where No Man Has Gone Before” to a suitably impressed audience of five hundred die-hard science fiction fans.
“Where No Man Has Gone Before” was different from the form that Star Trek would soon assume. Uhura had not yet joined the roster, nor had Yeoman Janice Rand; the ship’s doctor. Dr. Piper, was portrayed by Paul Fix; and Sulu was a physicist, not the helmsman. Several characters in key roles appeared only in the pilot.
What the Worldcon audience saw was the story of how the Enterprise tries to penetrate a mysterious purple energy barrier in space. Strange radiations affect the crew; Lieutenant Commander Gary Mitchell seems normal, but his eyes begin to glow silver. It soon becomes apparent that the radiation has boosted his latent extrasensory perceptions to a previously undreamed-of level. Mitchell’s mental powers begin to accelerate, and Spock becomes convinced that Mitchell is a threat to the Enterprise and prompts Kirk to kill him.
But the Captain cannot bring himself to terminate an old college buddy from Starfleet Academy. Ultimately, Kirk and Mitchell battle to the death in a harsh landscape altered by Mitchell’s godlike powers. At one point, Mitchell produces a tombstone bearing the name of James R. Kirk, proving that even a nearly omnipotent being can get someone’s middle initial wrong. Finally, Kirk destroys Mitchell, but it is a hollow triumph, as he has killed the friend he once had.
The audience gave Roddenberry a standing ovation; he knew then that he was on the right track.
Finally, on September 8, 1966, Star Trek premiered on NBC. (Actually, the first broadcast was two days earlier, on Canadian television.) The episode aired was not the pilot (that was shown two weeks later) but the sixth episode filmed, “The Man Trap,” perhaps best known for its piteous Salt Vampire nemesis.
This episode was most notable for introducing audiences to a character who was not actually in the pilot, but who would quickly become an indispensable part of the Star Trek myth: Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy.
This seemingly cynical but strongly compassionate humanitarian would provide a constant counterpoint to the cold logic of Spock, and their battle of wits would soon become legendary.
Fed up with protocol, distrustful of technology (especially transporters), and wary of dehumanizing influences, in a way McCoy represents the probable reaction of an intelligent twentieth-century man cast forward into the twenty-third century. He has his roots very much in our present. Veteran actor DeForest Kelley was called upon to bring this crucial character to life.
DeForest Kelley was born in Atlanta, but bucked his Baptist minister father’s desire for him to become a doctor and opted for acting instead. Moving to Long Beach, California, he continued the radio work he had begun in Georgia, and also worked as an elevator operator.
In the navy during World War Two, he worked in training films, where he was spotted by a talent scout from Paramount. He worked as a contract player at Paramount Studios for two and a half years. About this time, a fortune-teller told him that he would not achieve success until after he passed the age of forty, which proved to be true!
Then, in 1948, he went to New York City and worked in television and on stage. Returning to Hollywood, he worked extensively in westerns, both on television shows such as Gunsmoke, Rawhide, and Bonanza and in movies such as Gunfight at the O.K. Corral and Warlock. For Gene Roddenberry, Kelley starred in two pilots: 1960’s Free. Free, Free Montgomery, in which he played a famous, controversial defense attorney named Jake Early, and the unsold Police Story (no relation to the later TV series).
With the key elements in place and the show finally in production and on the air, Star Trek was now more than a dream in Gene Roddenberry’s mind. It was a reality. Variety insisted that the series wouldn’t work; time has certainly proven the newspaper wrong.
ONWARD TO THE STARS, WITH HOPE
A week before Star Trek premiered, the Buffalo Evening News previewed new shows:
A 400-man space ship, the U.S.S. Enterprise, cruises the TV universe this fall starting Thursday night in Star Trek, NBC’s expensive full-hour science fiction adventure series about puny man exploring the wide blue yonder. Starring the talented Canadian actor William Shatner as spaceship commander Kirk, assisted by brainy, elf-eared Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy), Star Trek goes back and forth in time, jousting with alien spirits, bewildering viruses and ordinary human conflicts on a never-ending trip to other worlds.
In this article, both NBC and Shatner are already defending the show against criticism, days before it even premieres. NBC tries to cast Star Trek as action/adventure rather than science fiction. At a time when Bonanza was a hit and science fiction television was represented by Lost in Space, their concern was well-founded! Shatner insists, “We’re not going to be like the children’s show Lost in Space, where characters battle villains in eerie costumes. … We deal with human conflicts against a science fiction background.” Some of these conflicts will include Kirk’s Jekyll and Hyde battle with his own self, the attack of a bizarre virus that robs humans of will, and Mr. Spock’s battle to be a true Vulcan and control his feelings.
Star Trek promises to deliver new and exotic technology, fun gadgets, and wild special effects:
The Earth men have a few dandy tools and gadgets on display, all calculated to catch the fancy of young viewers. Captain Kirk and crew make excellent use of laser beam guns, jolting enemies with the sizzle of cutting light. They listen and understand various alien languages by way of walkie-talkie interpreters that translate foreign words in a split second.
From these clumsy attempts to describe Star Trek’s technology, it would have been hard to imagine that much of its terminology would actually one day be incorporated into common daily usage. The only clue is that according to Shatner, there is already a company working on a real-life walkie-talkie interpreter! “That’s the point of our show—science fiction projections into the future based on what is possible today.”
The Buffalo Evening News places Star Trek a step above Lost in Space and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, but calls it a Twilight Zone set in space. Of course, a show this new would be hard to categorize—Roddenberry even once tried to sell the idea as a space western!
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