The network refused to pay the $600 required to give Leonard Nimoy’s character the proper ears. At the last minute, a producer dug into his own pocket, drove over to the makeup studio at MGM and paid a friend to design and cast Mr. Spock’s pointy ears.
NBC simply wasn’t sold on the show, Nimoy says. “They never did believe in it.”
That’s one of many memories evoking the hard-luck beginnings of what turned out to be TV’s most influential science-fiction show ever. “Star Trek,” a three-season flop, didn’t succeed until it got to syndication. The reruns spawned an industry and became a pop-cultural landmark. Hopeful, humanistic and progressive when it debuted in 1966, the series succeeded in transmitting Gene Roddenberry’s vision in spite of the production’s dorky props and primitive special effects.
Ten movies and 700 hours of television later, “Star Trek” the phenomenon connects multiple generations of fans.
For the 40th anniversary, the original 29 episodes are getting the reverential treatment followers would expect. “Star Trek The Original Series — The Complete First Season” ($135.95 Paramount Home Video) was released as a DVD set this week, along with a wealth of supplemental data, interviews, clips and reminiscences. Truly, the cleaned and updated digital version looks much better than the original.
Set phasers to stun and curl up with a slice of TV history.
The original pilot, “The Cage,” with Christopher Pike (Jeffrey Hunter) as the captain of the Enterprise, is not included in this set, although fresh commentary covers the evolution of that and the subsequent James T. Kirk (William Shatner) pilot.
A 1988 interview with the affable Gene Roddenberry is recycled here, and producer Robert Justman relates Roddenberry’s desire to base the Kirk character on a combination of Hamlet and Horatio Hornblower, a man plagued by self-doubts and willing to suffer for others.
The episodes themselves are as cheesy, cheap and awkward as we (fondly) remember. Yet, while the mechanics were primitive, the ideas were progressive. Thoughts on religion, militarism, diversity and human potential are all represented amid the clunky machinery and stretch fabrics. Even the casting was a breakthrough for television.
Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura, recalls that Roddenberry told the network he wanted to “add a little color” in recasting the communications officer. The network thought he was talking about the wardrobe and went along, only to be outraged by the casting of Nichols.
“Gene battled bitterly for it,” she recalls. Later, Nichols and Shatner as Uhura and Kirk famously shared TV’s first interracial kiss.
In extra tracks, Shatner chats about his life after “Star Trek,” specifically his love of horses. George Takei talks about the series’ messages of diversity and multiculturalism.
Film-music historian Jon Burlingame discusses the importance of re-creating the 29-piece orchestra to play Alexander Courage’s arrangement of the theme, and the camera captures the recording session complete with soprano vocalist. Shatner’s 1966 narration is set against the newly minted music.
The visual artists dutifully achieved their goal of improving on the techniques while respecting the original material.
Beyond performing digital restoration magic on the scratches, tears and stains on old work prints, the artists have deftly woven a certain dimensionality and fluidity into the visual effects. Originally, for instance, artists had only 17 stock shots of the Enterprise in space. That number was vastly increased, with a multitude of angles, action shots and clever movements.
It looks now “the way the show should’ve looked when it first went out,” Justman says.
Some of the DVD set’s extra material is as flimsy as the papier-mache boulders that turned up on various planets the crew visited in the first season. Nimoy has the odd job of recounting Christie’s public auction of “Star Trek” stuff.
The memorabilia babble is easily skipped. Most of the additional material is a treat, boldly going just where we hoped it would go.
Follow the onscreen command and, “Engage episode.”
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
