A Brief Guide to Star Trek by Brian J Robb Read Free Book Online

for every episode of
Star Trek
as an ongoing series, everything would have to be re -invented, with the exception of the starship
Enterprise
, the ‘police precinct’ of this new show. Every new world, alien encountered and spaceship discovered had to be created from scratch, meaning a huge design workload and a thoroughly complex production process, much more so than any regular doctor, cop or lawyer show (the staples of American television in the 1960s, as today).
    That burden would largely fall on set designer Walter ‘Matt’ Jefferies, an artist and designer who’d also been a pilot, so was aware of industrial and technical issues concerning aircraft that could be applied to the
Enterprise
and other starships. Roddenberry’s only instruction to him was to avoid the Flash Gordon look that had previously defined movie spaceships. Histask was to come up with something unknown to present-day science, and definitely not rocket powered. The result, based on images from the pulp magazine covers supplied by Samuel A. Peeples, was the saucer propelled by tubular engines, all tethered to a main body like a sailing ship. Star Trek’s iconic
Enterprise
was born, and Peeples’ first contribution to the
Star Trek
legend had been made . . .
    Similarly, costume designer William Ware Theiss faced a series of unusual challenges. The crew of the
Enterprise
needed uniforms, and while there might be plenty of historical and contemporary earthbound military and civilian uniforms to draw on, Roddenberry wanted his crew clad in something viewers had never seen before. Like Jefferies, Theiss was also toiling under severe budget restrictions. Also like Jefferies, Theiss was given a clutch of Peeples’ pulp magazine covers as reference, although instead of spaceships these largely featured scantily clad women being menaced by alien monsters, not really reflective of
Star Trek
at all. They were to function as inspiration for Theiss’s costume choices.
    Effects were a whole other problem. It was fine to build sets and create costumes, but it would be necessary to show the spaceships flying and the alien worlds hanging in space. Luckily the Desilu lot in Hollywood was home to the Howard Anderson Company, an experienced optical effects house. Roddenberry didn’t have to go far to find the team who could put the ‘special’ into his effects requirements. Darrell Anderson, who ran the company, would be on set to ensure that any sequences needing added optical work were shot in such a way as to be suitable (and economic) for his team to apply their visual magic. Similarly, Anderson ran an off-stage model studio where the miniature spaceships designed by Jefferies could be shot separately. The model shooting stage was often entirely filled by the dominant, almost 14-foot-long model of the ‘miniature’
Enterprise
.
    The decision-making process involved in creating
Star Trek
’s first pilot meant that the many questions that came up during production came back to Roddenberry to be answered. It wasundoubtedly a stressful time, but
Star Trek
was his vision and as the key storyteller behind the show, he was the only one who could clearly instruct the many practitioners hired to make it a reality. It was Roddenberry who dictated that everything aboard the
Enterprise
, from the uniforms through to how the crew conducted themselves, should have a US Navy feel. It was in the casting of the characters, however, that Roddenberry truly made his mark. Matching his draft descriptions in his series outline to suitable actors drew on all his television experience and resulted in characters that would go on to become international icons.
    Key to Roddenberry’s vision of the forward-looking, optimistic characters he wanted exploring deep space in his ‘
Wagon Train
to the stars’ was the captain of the
Enterprise
. This character was a leader, a man’s man, but one who had human weaknesses and frailties that he carried with him out to the final frontier