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Captain's Logs

by Edward Gross & Mark A. Altman

- book review (1992)

This is a very impressively produced book styling itself 'The Complete Trek Voyages', and it is, indeed, just that, although its publishing date means that its overview of the Trek saga to date finishes at the end of ST:TNG's fifth season with ST:DS9 just appearing over the horizon. As an 'unofficial' publication (i.e. produced without Paramount's specific input) this book goes further than any other in giving the real warts and all story behind the development and continuing success of Star Trek. Read in conjunction with other official books such as Allan Asherman's "Star Trek Compendium", Michael & Denise Okuda's "Star Trek Chronology" and "The Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion" by Larry Nemecek, this will become a definitive history of the most successful television series of all time.

Many long-time Star Trek fans will be shocked by some of the contents, others may feel that some central tenets of the Star Trek "legend" have been challenged. Many of the myths about the origins of Trek are dispelled and several of the main movers and shakers are shown to have feet of clay. That said, this is not a revisionist hatchet job. Far from it. The authors have bent over backwards to be scrupulously fair, and the book has an air of rigorous scholarship and truth about it.

The basic format of the book is to devote a chapter to the beginnings of Trek, with an examination of the backgrounds of all those involved with its inception; chapters for each of the seasons of original Trek; the animated series; the second TV series that never was; each of the movies; the development of ST:TNG; each of the seasons of TNG; and finally a look at ST:DS9 and the future.

Chapter one describes the long and tortuous journey that Trek had in order to make it to the screen. Trek's precursors are described, with particular reference to the involvement of the major players in Trek's beginnings in such programmes as "The Outer Limits" and "The Twilight Zone". There are also some fascinating glimpses of projected series that never made it to the screen, including one which would eventually become Roddenberry's made-for-TV movie "The Questor Tapes". Here, as throughout the book, the story is mainly told through direct quotations from interviews with everybody involved, a technique which provides a very interesting glimpse of the conflicting ideas and memories of the various interviewees. The writers throughout allow the reader to form his or her own opinion of where the "truth" lies between the sometimes acrimonious views. One of the more interesting things that comes to light is how heavy-handed Roddenberry's control of "his" programme could sometimes be. While in no way detracting from Roddenberry's extraordinary vision, without which Star Trek would never have existed, it is apparent that already, even at this early stage, the potential existed for a somewhat destructive input. There exists a consensus that his rewrites of scripts (often taking a writers credit that was essentially undeserved) very often diluted, and in worst cases, wrecked the original premise. One wonders how much better individual episodes of Trek might have been had he pursued a slightly more "hands off' approach. Certainly, in this writer's view, the episodes which have a sole writing credit to Roddenberry are some of the weakest.

Further, this book goes further than any other in giving credit to Gene Coon for much of what we now consider to be the "classic" aspects of Trek - the humour, the Spock/McCoy relationship, the Prime Directive. In fact, all that makes Trek Trek locked into place in the second half of the first season under Coon's reign. It is also interesting to note that when he left the series took a downhill path, leading to the undoubted loss of quality in the third series. All this is fascinating stuff and the "straight from the horse's mouth" quality of the interviews gives a real sense of what it must have been like "behind the scenes" during those three years of the original series.

The individual episodes themselves, with credits and a brief synopsis, are each explored through the same use of interviews with the writers, directors and actors involved, a technique which really does give an insight into the creative process, and sometimes provides a reason for the episode's success or failure. The process of getting a TV series on the air within the limited time and budget available is also well brought out, with all the backstage rivalries and squabbles as well as the laughter and camaraderie.

The next chapters deal with the gap between the cancellation of the original series and the opening of "Star Trek: The Motion Picture". For the first time we are told the various outlines - from Harlan Ellison, Robert Silverberg and John D.F.Black - for the projected movie. There follows an in depth examination of the political and economic manoeuvring that led to the cancellation of the movie, the development and cancellation of the new TV series, and the eventual reviving of the movie. There is an interesting interview with David Gautreax who would have played Xon, the replacement Vulcan for Spock (he eventually turned up as Commander Branch of the Epsilon 9 space station that is destroyed by V'ger at the beginning of the "Motion Picture"). There is also a brief rundown of the projected episodes for the first season of "Star Trek: Phase Two", two of which were eventually rewritten and became episodes of ST:TNG ("The Child" and "Devil's Due") and one ("In Thy Image") that formed the basis of "Star Trek:The Motion Picture". There is also an episode guide to Filmation's (much under-rated) animated Star Trek.

Each of the movies gets a chapter of its own, and the writers once again use the interview format to describe the background and development of each film. It is amazing how much backstage powerbroking and manoeuvering went on, and the real story behind the complex web of producer credits is at last told. Harve Bennett is given the credit he deserves for bringing a new dimension to Trek on the big screen, allowing it to address such universal truths as loss, friendship, death, aging. As Roddenberry was eased into an Executive Producer role new inputs gave a greater depth to both storylines and scripting. Some of the most interesting interviews show the real feelings of the cast towards one another - Walter Koenig, in particular, gives some very strong hints at the resentment felt by the supporting characters towards their leading man. It also becomes apparent how Leonard Nimoy was gradually taking over from Roddenberry as Trek's "mentor" (even barring Harve Bennett from the set on "Star Trek IV"). Shatner, too, is particularly interesting on "what went wrong" with "Star Trek V". Harve Bennett, of course, left the movie series after "Star Trek V" when his idea for "Star Trek Vl:The Academy Years" was rejected after fan outcries (orchestrated, it suggests here, by some of the original cast members who felt their jobs were on the line). There is an interesting interview with Bennett and others about the projected film and how they would have handled it, and the direction the series might have taken had "The Academy Years" been produced. The section concludes with the cast talking about their feelings at the end of their association with Trek and their feelings towards the upstart newcomer ST:TNG (not all of them positive or well-wishing).

As with the original series, there is a detailed examination of the development, casting and production of ST:TNG, and each of the seasons has a chapter to itself in which each episode is summarised and the writers, actors and directors reminisce (not always happily) about their involvement. One of the interesting elements of the book in general is that the photographs of guest stars that have appeared in the episodes are always of them as they appeared in other TV shows - often other "genre" shows. As Rick Berman and Michael Piller rose to pre-eminence as producers of the show a much greater continuity from one episode to another became apparent, something that was never a feature of the original series. This led to such continuing sagas as the "Klingon succession" storyline and the "Borg" storyline, giving a great depth and realism to the background events. It is interesting to see which episodes were considered "successful' and which were not - often not the ones one would expect. Although the backstage dramas are described here to the same extent as they were in the original series (particularly in the second season which was riven by internal dissent and turmoil - much of it due to the departure of several staff writers owing to creative differences with producer Maurice Hurley), one glaring omission is the background to the unceremonious firing of Getes McFadden and her replacement by Diana Muldaur, which is dealt with in two lines - obviously there are some things still "not talked about"!

At the end of the fifth season, ST:TNG had reached perhaps its apogee, and the time was right for a new departure. The producing team of Berman and Piller had been developing a second offshoot of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine". The final chapter of the book deals with the development and casting of the pilot for this new series - a grittier Star Trek environment (many people felt that the world of ST:TNG had become a little too cozy - a result perhaps of Roddenberry's essentially optimistic view of the future where there was little conflict). DS9 is now achieving its own success, and it will be interesting to see how it develops in the future.

Finally, as a postscript, there is a synopsis of "Ferengi Gold" an as-yet-unfilmed episode of TNG (by the inclusion of Dr. Pulaski it is apparent that it was written prior to or during the second season) which was the last writing that Gene Roddenberry did for Star Trek before his death.

As a source-book for Star Trek in all its various incarnations, this book is on its own. It is a fascinating history, an endless source of trivia as well as hard information, an intriguing insight into the feelings of all those who have been involved in Star Trek over the years, and will I'm sure be seen as the definitive Star Trek reference work for quite some time. All Star Trek fans should have a copy of this volume both as a source of information and an extremely enjoyable read in itself. Highly recommended, "Captain's Logs" is published by Boxtree, and retails at £12.99.