Star Trek 2, by James Blish

This second volume of prose adaptations of TV episodes was first published a year after the first, in February 1968. So says the indicia of my 3rd printing of the US edition, which is marked 50 cents on the spine but bears a sticker giving the UK price of 3/6. According to trade paper the Bookseller, it was issued in this form in the UK in August 1969, a month after Star Trek starting airing on the BBC — and three years before Corgi printed the first UK-specific editions of these Star Trek anthologies.

It looks quite different from the first Star Trek anthology, which boasted artwork by James Bama which had been commissioned to promote the TV show. Rather than commission — and have to pay for — new artwork, this volume features a photograph of what were surely considered the two leads of the series: Mr Spock and Captain Kirk (in that order). The photo is small, contained within a vertical strip of black down the centre of the otherwise white frame. The black strip includes the title “ALL NEW STAR TREK 2 adapted by James Blish”, the photo, and then the boast, 

“THE ULTIMATE TRIP! WORLDS BEYOND TIME! WORLDS BEYOND KEN! BASED ON THE EXCITING NBC-TV SERIES CREATED BY GENE RODDENBERRY”.

The back-cover blurb of the first book focused on three leading characters (Kirk, Spock and Rand), but the back cover here doesn’t name anyone:

“A GALACTIC TICKET TO INFINITE ADVENTURE! Eight journeys into the unexpected with the crew of the starship Enterprise. Travel to the unexplored reaches of outer space, to worlds where Humans are an alien race and the unusual is routine. Astonishing new worlds of strange beings, bizarre customs, unknown dangers and awesome excitement. * A world where war is fought by computers! * A world inhabited by great lizard-like creatures of conquest! * A world ravaged by a relentless plague of madness and death! * A world where life has developed beyond the need for physical bodies! * TRAVEL NOW TO THE BOLD NEW WORLDS OF TOMORROW.”

There’s a second blurb, inside the front page, largely cribbed from the first volume, but now the three leads are Kirk, Spock and Lt Uhura. The latter has usurped Yeoman Janice Rand in her shipmates’ affections but is described in almost all the same words:

“Easily the most popular member of the crew, the truly ‘out-of-this-world’ female has drawn the important assignment of scan engineer on her first mission in deep space.”

There’s no mention that she’s black, or Bantu (the word used repeatedly about her in the first book). Did the publishers fear that mentioning this, or showing the third-lead on the cover, might affect their sales?

The book is dedicated,

“To my new-found relative BARBARA BESADNY and all the other Star Trek fans who wrote to me about the first book”

In later books, Blish referred to extensive correspondence he received about Star Trek, not least once the TV series was cancelled. The first book had been dedicated to Harlan Ellison, a writer on the series, but from now on when Blish dedicated a book it was to female fans. Spock Must Die! (1970) is dedicated “to Kay Anderson”, Star Trek 4 (first published in the US in July 1971) is dedicated.

“To DONNA WOODMAN and the the other new English Star Trek fans”,

Star Trek 9 (1973) is dedicated “To Maire Steele” and Star Trek 10 (1974) “to KARIN who also wanted to set Spock to music”. It gives the impression, at least, of an active, engaged and female-led fandom.

Star Trek 2 boasts the same page count as the first volume (128pp including unnumbered pages), but comprises eight stories rather than seven. They are: Arena (12pp); A Taste of Armageddon (13pp); Tomorrow is Yesterday (15pp); Errand of Mercy (15pp); Court Martial (16pp); Operation — Annihilate! (18pp); The City on the Edge of Forever (17pp); and Space Seed (17pp). 

The original plan had been to pack eighth stories into the first volume, too, and I wonder if Blish and the publishers felt it represented better value to feature more stories. The result, of course, is that the adaptations here are even breezier than before.

The running order seems determined by ascending page count rather than broadcast order or the continuity of the TV series, such as in the use of star dates. Even so, Blish includes a few references in later stories to earlier ones (and to events in the first volume), so there’s a sense of a continuing saga. 

We gain some new information, and some corrections to statements in the first volume. We’re in the 23rd century (p. 114) not the 27th and we’re told more than once that the Enterprise can’t land on planets (not the implication in the first book). Blish also moves events of Tomorrow is Yesterday from the 1960s, as on screen, to 1970 — which he gives as the year of the first Moon landing (p. 28). The same story, but the setting bumped along so it is / was still in the near future.

The Enterprise has a crew of 430 (p. 1), where before the figure was a vague 400+. A quarter of the crew are female, and there are 12 ships like Enterprise in the fleet (both facts from p. 30). Warp Four is 64 times the speeds of light, or “64c” (p. 26), while,

“Warp Eight [is] two factors above maximum safe speed” and “over a hundred times the speed of light” (p. 2).

However, Warp Eight is used only in emergencies and not for long, as it would damage the ship (p. 38).

In one story, Scotty refers to the Enterprise’s protective “screens” (p. 22), but in the next story it’s the more familiar “deflector shields” (p. 31). A single star date is given in the whole book: Lt Col Ben Finney “died” in 2947.3 (p. 59).

Not everything is taken from the TV episodes, or from draft scripts containing extra or contrary details. It’s been fun to spot things that are surely all from Blish. Tomorrow is Yesterday features a character called John Christopher; here, Spock refers to the “popular author” or the same name (p. 33), whom Blish surely knew in person.

Later, in Space Seed, Kirk is annoyed at being asphyxiated twice in the same hour (p. 120), Blish rather hanging a lantern on the repetition in the TV story. He also gives Kirk’s perspective a wry humour, such as his response — in the narration but from his point of view, when Spock tries to use telepathy on a guard holding them both prisoner:

“Nothing seemed to happen for at least five centuries, or maybe six” (p. 16).

I’m sure that scholars before me have dissected these anthologies by what’s in the TV episode, what in a draft script and what Blish threw in for his own amusement. He opens City on the Edge of Forever with a seven-line footnote explaining that it draws from both TV version and draft script (p. 89), apparently the only example where he consciously mashed up the sources. 

My suspicion is that the TV episodes are riddled with continuity errors, where a fact given in one episode doesn’t quite match a fact given in another. We might not notice on first viewing, not least with a week between each episodes. But the brevity of the adaptations here, the speed we can hare through several episodes at once, means we’re more likely to pick up on this stuff. 

The most striking bits of continuity, for me, are those that overlap with the later Star Trek movies of the 1980s — the bits of Trek with which I’m most familiar. In Tomorrow is Yesterday, the suggestion that a pilot from 1970 could travel with the the Enterprise into the future is quickly dismissed as he would be,

“archaic, useless, a curiosity” (p. 35).

But that’s in no way the fate of cetologist Dr Gillian Taylor in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), who finds a useful role in the future. That’s all the more striking because that film clearly drew directly from this episode in its method of time travel by flying the Enterprise close to the Sun (p. 36).

Likewise, in Operation — Annihilate!, the Enterprise fires “two fully armed planet-wreckers” that explode with “atomic fire” and destroy a whole plant, leaving behind a nebula (p. 87). This seems to be standard if rarely used artillery on board but in another episode, The Doomsday Machine (adapted in Star Trek 3) and the movie Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, the very idea of a planet-destroying weapon is a new, horrific kind of menace.

The final story here is Space Seed, which ends with Kirk sending a gang of villains to settle a new world. He worries that this crop from this seed (his words) might one day come looking for him again, which is exactly what happens in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. But in that, the villains are found dwelling on the planet’s surface in their old ship Botany Bay. Here, Kirk sends them down to the planet without their ship, and keeps Botany Bay in tow, thinking it might be of interest to historians. 

Space Seed, of course, involves villainous eugenicist megalomaniac who hails from the 1990s, here called Sibyl Khan Noonien— Blish working from draft scripts — and “dictator of his own breed” (p. 116). Our first sight of him presents an exotic mix of different racial characteristics:

“bathed in a gentle violet glow was a motionless, naked man. He was extremely handsome, and magnificently built. His face reflected the sun-ripened Aryan blood of the Northern Indian Sikhs, with just an additional suggestion on the oriental. Even in repose, his features suggested strength, intelligence, even arrogance.” (p. 108)

Here and elsewhere, what a person looks like is an indicator of their character and inner thoughts, which is all a bit racist for a story about eugenicists being bad. Blish also uses “oriental” as a synonym for “alien”:

“The Klingons were hard-faced, hard-muscled men, originally of Oriental stock” (p. 44). 

That surely implies they originated on Earth. In the next book Spock’s quarters are “simple, sparse and vaguely Oriental” (Star Trek 3, p. 106) and here, at the end of Tomorrow is Yesterday, in a sequence not in the TV version, he quotes from “Omar” (Star Trek 2, p. 39); Spock is not only familiar with the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, but on first-name terms with its author.

Dr McCoy refers to “basic humanoid stock” and to the “genetic drift” of a population of colonists who left Earth centuries previously (p. 95). He’s not exactly tactful in his choice of words: elsewhere, he refers to people afflicted by alien parasites as “vegetables” (p. 74). 

The same page features oddly vernacular phrasing from Spock, when he refers to the alien parasites:

"they wanted to brain us” (p. 74).

I also thought Kirk saying “Blooey” and referring to “Miss Uhura” (both p. 27) oddly out of character. It’s from Kirk’s perspective that we first see Edith Keeler in The City at the Edge of Forever. 

“The girl … was simply dressed and not very pretty” (p. 96)

That’s extraordinary for a character played by Joan Collins and with whom Kirk is about to fall in love. Indeed, “No woman was ever loved as much”, we’re told at the end of the story. There’s a tender moment between Spock and Kirk, when the former offers to take his grieving friend to Vulcan, where the nights are long and restful. Kirk responds that they have “all the time in the world” (p. 105).

This isn’t in the broadcast version so must come from Harlan Ellison’s original draft. (I thought, initially, that “all the time in the world” might be Blish linking these tragic events to another grieving hero, but the James Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was released in 1969, a year after this book. ETA Steven Flanagan points out that it is the last line of the novel, published in 1963, so perhaps Blish did have that in mind...)

Blish also says that these closing moments are the first time Spock calls Kirk “Jim” (p. 105), a key moment. It’s all a much more emotional scene between the two men than the TV version. I wonder: was Blish responding to those active female fans and what they saw — and wanted to see — in the relationship?

The adventure will continue in Star Trek 3...

Doctor Who Magazine #628

The new issue of the official Doctor Who Magazine is out today, featuring an exclusive extra comic and a  preview of the two episodes of The Daleks' Masterplan thought lost since 1965 which will be up on iPlayer from tomorrow. Exciting.

I've also contributed the first of a new series, "Who Connections" (pp. 30-33), this initial one inspired by a the chance discovery of an extraordinary connection between Stooky Bill - the puppet seen in The Giggle (2023) - and a character from a Doctor Who story more than 40 years before. There is also mention of Star Trek and EastEnders.

Star Trek (1), by James Blish

Who are the leading characters in the original Star Trek? The front cover of this breezy paperback adaptation of seven early TV adventures boasts artwork showing good likenesses of two leads, Captain James Kirk and Science Officer Spock, plus four generic officers from Star Fleet. 

This is repurposed publicity art apparently by James Bama, commissioned by TV network NBC to help sell the series. (Thanks to Adam at Withnail Books for this fact!)

The back cover then adds a third leading character:

CIRCLING THE SOLAR SPHERE IN SEARCH OF NEW WORLDS AND HIGH ADVENTURE

CAPTAIN JAMES KIRK — Assigned to the top position in Space Service — Starship Command — Kirk alone must make decisions in his contact with other worlds that can affect the future course of civilisation throughout the Universe.

SCIENCE OFFICE SPOCK — Inheriting a precise, logical thinking pattern from his father, a native of the planet Vulcanis, Mr Spock maintains a dangerous Earth trait… an intense curiosity about things of alien origin.

YEOMAN RAND — Easily the most popular member of the crew, the truly “out-of-this-world” blonde has drawn the important assignment of secretary to the Captain of her first mission in deep space.

WITH A CREW OF 400 SKILLED SPECIALISTS, THE MAMMOTH SPACE SHIP ENTERPRISE BLASTS OFF FOR INTERGALACTIC INTRIGUE IN THE UNEXPECTED REALMS OF OUTER SPACE.

It’s just possible that this blurb was written by someone not wholly familiar with Star Trek. These three leads — Kirk, Spock and Rand — are aboard the Enterprise when it “blasts off” (like a rocket) to circle the “solar sphere” (surely meaning to orbit the Sun). Kirk has a top job in “Space Service” not Star Fleet; Spock is from “Vulcanis” not Vulcan and his curiosity is dangerous (like a cat); Rand is the most popular member of the crew (because she’s pretty?) and has lucked out in getting a job as Kirk's secretary.

Of course, Star Trek and its iconic crew weren’t so well established when these words were written. James Blish was approached to write this book before the first TV episode had even aired. According to David Ketterer’s Imprisoned in a Tesseract — a biography of Blish quoted in his Memory Beta entry — the opportunity to adapt eight scripts was first mooted on 26 July 1966, while the first TV episode, The Man Trap, aired on 8 September.

In fact, this book adapts seven of the first 14 episodes, all of which had aired in the US by the time this was published in January 1967. Perhaps a story was dropped from the book because of the speed at which it had to be written: mooted in July, it was on shelves six months later. Perhaps it lost a story because Blish wrote longer adaptations than expected and they had a set page count.

But then there’s the intriguing dedication: 

“to Harlan Ellison, who was right all the time.”

What is that about, then?

Ellison was, like Blish, an established and well-known science-fiction writer, and he was also engaged on this early run of Star Trek. His story The City on the Edge of Forever was first broadcast on 6 April 1967, after publication. It was and is much acclaimed, winning a prestigious Hugo award in 1968. But as Blish explained in his preface to a later anthology of Star Trek stories:

“This award was given, however, not for the script as it ran on Star Trek [on TV], but for Mr Ellison’s original version, which had to be edited for the show—for one thing, it was too long.” (Blish, “Preface”, Star Trek 3 (Bantam, April 1969), p. viii). 

Blish adapted The City on the Edge of Forever in the second anthology, Star Trek 2 (February 1968). According to Marc Cushman’s These Are The Voyages — TOS Season One (2013), Ellison sent Blish the draft script hoping it would be used in preference to the rewrite, but Blish, “with all due apologies to Eliison”, based his adaptation on the rewrite while incorporating some elements from the draft (p. 590).

That implies that it was Blish who made the decision to stick largely to what had been seen on screen. But the dedication in this first volume perhaps suggests something different, that Ellison sent the draft script to Blish for inclusion in this volume, and that Blish agreed that it was better than what would make it to the screen. 

So, did Blish want to adapt Ellison’s draft script for this first collection, only to be told “no” by the producers? That would explain why eight stories were cut back to seven. Was he then able to adapt the story for the second volume on the basis that he stuck closer to the TV version? I find these mechanics of adaptation intriguing, and really ought to read Ketterer’s biography of Blish. I shall add it to the list.

One other thing cited in the Memory Beta entry on Blish, also sourced from Ketterer, is that the experienced, accomplished science-fiction writer was unsure whether to take on the Star Trek anthology at all as the deal was a buy-out rather than royalties. In 1966, the flat fee was $2,000. Today, that’s about $20,000. I am available for writing on similar terms, please and thank you.

According to the indicia, Star Trek was first published by Bantam in the United States and Canada in January 1967. My edition is a 6th printing, the cover and spine printed with the US price of 50 cents. A sticker has been added to this for sale in the UK at three shillings and sixpence, or 3/6. According to trade paper the Bookseller, it was issued in the UK on 21 April 1967 and then again on 18 July 1969, the latter to tie in with the first broadcast of episodes on British television, which began six days previously.

The cover says this is “a chilling journey through worlds beyond imagination … adapted by James Blish.” That got me thinking about what to call this kind of book. It’s not, I think, a “novelisation”, which would imply the different episodes relayed here told a single story. It’s quite common in science-fiction to collect stories originally published separately and, with judicious editing and perhaps some extra scenes, reform them into the chapters of a single narrative.

There are also collections, such as Stalky & Co by Rudyard Kipling — which I shall blog more about in due course — where what seem to be separate stories involving the same characters are revealed, in the closing instalments, to be thematically connected, the sum of parts having Things To Say. This Star Trek book isn’t doing anything of that sort: it’s an anthology of adaptations of TV episodes.

Fitting seven of them into a slim paperback means they are very breezily told, which makes them quick and engaging — this is a book to hare through. It’s all largely action and dialogue, with little of the inner thoughts of characters or the narrator interposing their view. This is the “Detached Author” as defined by Ursula le Guin in Steering the Craft (p. 58), but it’s also the information you get from a script: what people say, what people do, not what they might be thinking.

The Memory Beta entry speculates on how much, if any, Star Trek Blish might have seen when he wrote this, given that he offers next-to-no description of the regular cast or their ship. Even if he didn’t know the series well, reference photographs could have been provided and the cover art was already available. Rather, I think, this is another sign that Blish worked chiefly from the scripts — which would describe guest characters but not the regulars. In the book, we get a whole paragraph describing Dr Tristan Adams in Dagger of the Mind (p. 28) but Spock’s ears get mentioned once and relatively late, when we’re told a Romulan has ears of the “same shape and cant” (p. 66). 

The only regular to get more description than this is Uhura. Her physical features are often described as “Bantu”, for example:”

“her Bantu face intent as a tribal statue’s” (p. 6).

But, as I noted in my post on Blish’s (later) original Star Trek novel Spock Must Die!, “Bantu” is the name of a group of languages spoken in central and southern African, and used of the people who speak them. Blish uses it as a label for racial characteristics. Later in the same book we’re told that “Uhura has the impassivity of most Bantu women” (p. 56) and also has “large hands” (p. 64).

There’s something a bit more liberated and interesting later on, when a possessed Sulu refers to Uhura as “Fair maiden” and she responds, “Sorry, neither”. But this excellent reply is in the TV version, too. 

There are clearly some differences between events depicted here and as seen on screen, which seems to be because Blish worked from draft scripts not the final episodes. But my nerdy interest is less in how the adaptations differ from the TV versions as the things Blish adds to the lore himself.

The first story in the book, Charlie’s Law — the working title of the TV episode Charlie X— says Kirk has spent “more than twenty years in space” (p. 1). This comes up again in the final story in the book, The Conscience of a King, where we’re told that Kirk was on the planet Tarsus IV 20 years previously (p. 118), when he was a midshipman (p. 128). You currently need to be 17 to join the US Navy; if that still holds whenever these Star Trek adventures are set — see Miri below — Kirk must be about 40, a decade older than actor William Shatner in 1966.

We don’t learn much about Kirk here. In the first story, when he advises precocious, all-powerful teenager Charlie that exercise will keep his mind off girls, Blish adds that this idea was introduced in Victorian England (p. 9), as if Kirk knows all about efforts by 19th century public schools to tackle masturbation by codifying the rules of football.

Second story, Dagger of the Mind, includes Kirk swearing: “Forget the Enterprise [?] Not bloody likely!” (p. 35). His other swears include “Great Galaxy” (p. 89), “Damnation” (p. 103), “Baloney” (p. 105) and “damn well” (p. 123). But there are no bollixes, as in Spock Must Die!

There’s an odd moment where a kind of faucet touches Kirk’s head (p. 35). The word Blish uses instead of faucet is “petcock”, but it’s right at the end of a line and is split on to the next one, with the hyphen after the “t”. That leaves Kirk with a,

“cock on his skull”.

More troubling is how Blish envisions the implanted memory of Kirk’s relationship with Dr Helen Noel. On screen, she says she wishes he cared for her, he says he won’t lie, she says she prefers honesty; then they kiss. In the book, 

“all he had was the memory of having carried her to her cabin that Christmas, of her protests, of his lies that had turned into truth” (p. 33).

Yes, the point is that it’s a false, implanted memory — a violation in itself — but it’s all a lot grubbier and nastier than the fun flirtation on screen.

Third story The Unreal McCoy, the working title of The Man Trap, reveals — I think for the first time — that Spock’s homeworld of Vulcan is in orbit round the (real-life) star 40-Eridani, something I’ve since cited in my own books. Odder is the claim that,

“neither Scotty nor McCoy liked the Vulcanite [ie Spock ... and even Kirk was] not entirely comfortable in his presence” (p. 62).

Also, most of the crew of the Enterprise “had never heard a shot fired in anger” (p. 59).

In the adaptation The Naked Time, which is not nearly so exciting a story as the title suggests, we get our only reference to what the crew of Enterprise wear, as Sulu’s usual,

“velour shirt was off, revealing a black tee-shirt” (p. 80). 

This and a towel round his neck leads Kirk to conclude that Sulu is just back from the gym, suggesting that all the crew do to work out is take off their uniform jumpers. That ship mustn’t half pong.

In Miri, we learn that “the fourth planet of 70 Ophiucus, the computer said, had been the first extrasolar planet ever colonised by man… more than five hundred years ago” p. 92. This was in “the early 2100s” (p. 93), so events of this story take place in the 2600s, some 300 years later than the series on screen.

A conversation also takes place between Kirk and another character that doesn’t happen on screen. I will have more to say about that elsewhere.

Finally, there is The Conscience of the King, where 19 year-old Lenore’s interest in Kirk and his kissing her is a bit less ick on screen with 30 year-old Shatner than the older c. 40 year-old Kirk here. But what also really strikes me is that the book ends without a coda promising more adventures. 

But the story continues in Star Trek 2…

Spock Must Die!, by James Blish

A matter transporter in Star Trek works like a fax machine that destroys the original. That, effectively, is the case put by Dr Leonard McCoy at the start of this original Star Trek novel:

“Every time we put a man through the transporter for the first time, we commit murder” (p. 6).

The adventure that follows seems to suggest he is right. The crew of Enterprise is alerted to an emergency on the planet Organia (previously seen in the TV episode Errand of Mercy, the first to feature Klingons). Our heroes are keen to investigate but even when travelling at a breathless Warp 6, Organia is six months’ flight time away. 

Scotty and Spock plan to get round this by extending the range of the transporter using tachyons and hand-waving. If things go to plan, the person who steps into the transporter will remain on Enterprise but a perfect duplicate will be created on Organia, able to carry out reconnaissance and report back. They will then remerge with the tachyon universe for reasons of plot convenience — we wouldn’t want two versions of the same person, would we?

However, something goes wrong and there ends up being two identical Spocks on Enterprise. Captain Kirk names them “Spock One” and “Spock Two” and determines that one must be destroyed. That decision is made before we realise that one of the Spocks is evil and working with the Klingons, but we don’t know which. Both Spocks behave in ways that seem out of character, so how can Kirk deduce who to kill?

This is a fun, fast-moving and exciting adventure. For all it is told on an epic scale over a six-month period (from star date 4011.9 to 4205.5), it feels like a TV episode of Star Trek from the original series. The high-concept idea at the heart of it, the high-emotion stakes and the, ahem, questionable science and ethics all feel authentic. It presumes we are familiar with the TV show, too, as there are no descriptions of characters — not even mentioning Spock’s ears.

This may have been in response to the first original Star Trek novel, Mission to Horatius by Mack Reynolds (1968), which was written expressly for children and is generally considered to be not very good. More than that, the then producers of Star Trek complained about the racially coded ways in which Sulu and Uhura were described. I wonder if in writing Spock Must Die!, the second original novel, James Blish was instructed not to describe them at all.

Referring to Uhura as “the Bantu girl” (p. 9) conveys something of her ethnic background, though it’s not very specific — Bantu languages are spoken over a very wide area. It’s not a connection gleaned from TV episodes, either, but lore surely added by Blish based on “uhura” being a Bantu word (for “freedom”). Yet the same reasoning would make Kirk and McCoy both Scottish. Even so, other writers seem to have picked up on this and referred to Uhura as Bantu in later novels etc. 

That’s also true of another bit of lore here. On p. 2, Kirk recalls McCoy’s reasons for joining Star Fleet (a divorce) and the name of his daughter, Joanna. This isn’t from a TV episode; the character Joanna McCoy was devised for TV and then not used, yet she was added to the series “bible” issued to writers and is mentioned on p. 124 of The Making of Star Trek by Stephen E Whitfield and Gene Roddenberry (1968). Blish must have drawn from one of these sources and decided to make Joanna canonical. She has since appeared or been referenced in various novels and other media. Spock Must Die! might not be the first original novel of Star Trek but it is the first that other writers then built on. 

Then there’s stuff where Blish applies fixes to things seen and heard on screen. For example, he tells us that Montgomery Scott’s Scottish accent, “came out only under stress” (p. 3). On another occasion we’re told that Scotty’s,

“English [accent] was as high, white and cold as his terminology” (p. 71).

I’m not sure Scotty ever sounded English on TV. Besides, Blish pointing out the inconsistency made me spot when he is inconsistent himself, such as when Scotty starts all Brigadoon and then trails off:

“An’ it’s oft before lang an’ lang that I’ve cursed the designer who thought it’d be cute to put no pockets in these uniforms” (p. 99).

The plot of Spock Must Die! is woven from the established lore of the TV series, so that there are frequent footnotes telling us to refer to specific novelisations (also written by Blish). He shares a number of facts about the operations of Star Fleet, such as that there are 17 Federation starbases (p. 8), the Enterprise has a crew of more than 430 (p. 22) and that more than a third of them are female (p. 109).

We learn that Uhura is fluent in Eurish, the language of James Joyce (pp. 48-49), that Kirk practices his quick draw in the mirror (p. 61) and that, according to McCoy,

“The retraining of left-handed children to become right-handed — in complete contradiction to the orders the poor kids’ brains are issuing to their muscles — badly bollixes up their central nervous systems, and, among other bad outcome, is the direct and only cause of habitual stuttering” (p. 64).

Scotty also uses the term “bollixed”, on p. 99 and p. 103, a term never used on screen (until Miles O'Brien says “bollocks” in an episode of Deep Space Nine). Spock has a a gift for “telempathy” (p. 115), i.e. picking up on someone else’s feelings from a distance, predating Counsellor Troi’s own similar gifts in Star Trek: The Next Generation. At the end of the book, the Klingons and their worlds are banned from spaceflight for a thousand years (p. 112), and Uhura learns that a lieutenant at Star Fleet wants her to teach him Eurish. Her response is:

“I hope he’s cute” (p. 117).

It’s a cheery note on which to close this perilous adventure, and we leave the Enterprise to continue its voyages. The irony is that on screen these had already ended; the last episode of Star Trek was filmed in January 1969 and the series was formally cancelled the following month. The indicia of this battered paperback says it was first published in the USA and Canada in February 1970, and that this is a second printing. Mine is a US edition, with the price of 60¢ printed on the spine. Yet I think it may be a UK-issued edition.

I’ve seen some accounts say that this novel and Blish’s novelisations of multiple TV scripts of Star Trek were not available in the UK until the Corgi editions first published in 1972. So I was a bit surprised by the author’s note at the start of Spock Must Die! First, he suggests that this original novel,

“might make a television episode, or several, some day. Although the American network (bemused, as usual, by a rating service of highly dubious statistical validity) has canceled the series, it began to run in Great Britain in mid-June 1969 [actually, 12 July], and the first set of adaptations was published concurrently in London by Corgi Books. If the show is given a new lead on [sic] life through the popularity of British reruns, it would not be the first such instance in television history.” (p. -1)

I don’t think Corgi published new versions of the book at this stage; instead, they seem to have distributed Bantam-published US stock with a sticker added giving a price in shillings and pence. I’ve got a copy of the first novelisation, with 50¢ printed on the cover and a sticker for 3/6 to one side (see image, right). 

So, when were Star Trek books available in the UK, exactly? I looked up the details in trade magazine the Bookseller:

Star Trek (aka Star Trek 1) by James Blish, comprising 7 TV stories

• Published in the US by Bantam tab 50¢, January 1967
• Issued in the UK by Bantam at 3 shillings and sixpence, 21 April 1967 (source: Bookseller, 15 April 1967, p. 1,938).
• Issued again in the UK by Bantam at 3/6, 18 July 1969 (source: Bookseller, 12 July 1969, p. 134), to coincide with Star Trek first being aired in the UK for the first time, from Saturday 12 July.

Star Trek 2 by James Blish, comprising 8 stories

• Published in the US by Bantam at 50¢, February 1968
• Issued in the UK by Bantam at 3/6, August 1969 (source: Bookseller, 16 August 1969, p. 1,384), alongside Star Trek 3.

Star Trek 3 by James Blish, comprising 7 stories

• Published in the US by Bantam at 50¢, April 1969
• Issued in the UK by Bantam at 3/6, August 1969 (source: Bookseller, 16 August 1969, p. 1,384), alongside Star Trek 2.

Spock Must Die! by James Blish, an original novel

• Published in the UK by Bantam at 60¢, February 1970
• Issued in the UK by Bantam at 4 shillings, April 1970 (source: Bookseller, 25 April 1970, p. 2,174).

Star Trek 4 by James Blish, comprising 6 stories

• Published in the US by Bantam at 75¢, July 1971
• Issued in the UK by Bantam at 25p, October 1971 (source: Bookseller, 23 October 1971, p. 2,076).

Star Trek 5 by James Blish, comprising 7 stories

• Published in the US by Bantam at 75¢, February 1972
• Issued in the UK by Bantam at 25p, June 1972 (source: Bookseller, 24 June 1972, p. 2,696).

New, Corgi-editions of these books were then published in the UK 1972, with Corgi editions of Star Trek 6-11 to follow.

We know Doctor Who script editor Terrance Dicks — about whom I'm writing a biography — had a collection of Star Trek books which he loaned to his writers. For example, on 8 March 1972, he wrote to Bob Baker and Dave Martin with notes on a storyline and added, “Where are my Star Trek books?” (source: p. 102 of the “09-04 The Mutants Production Documentation” PDF included on the Doctor Who Season 9 Blu-ray box-set).

Now I know what books those were, I can better trace the influence of Star Trek on Doctor Who in the early 1970s. More on this to follow.

• See also: me on Doctor Mirabilis by James Blish (1964)

The Making of Doctor Who, by Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke — I

The Making of Doctor Who by Malcolm Hulke and Terrance Dicks — their names in that order — was published in paperback by Piccolo on 20 April 1972. It was the first book with Terrance’s name on the cover, but I decided not to begin this series of posts on his 236 books with it because it’s not really his “first book”. 

Terrance certainly didn’t think so:

“The Auton Invasion [published in January 1974] was the first book of any kind I’d written, and I worked very hard on it.” TD interviewed by Peter Griffiths, “Author! Author!”, Doctor Who Magazine #273, cover date 12 January 1999, p. 46.

In April 1976, Terrance mentioned in a letter to Harvey Unna — the agent he shared with Hulke — that royalties on The Making of Doctor Who had always been split 3:1 in Hulke’s favour. But that doesn’t mean Terrance did 25% of the writing. So what did he do on this book?

Hulke mentioned in a letter while working on The Making of Doctor Who in September 1971, that Terrance was due to interview the show’s original producer, Verity Lambert, about the early days of the series. Hulke, meanwhile, interviewed Donald Wilson and corresponded with Sydney Newman and David Whitaker. (The correspondence with Newman survives, and includes a transcript of the interview with Wilson.) 

That suggests that the bulk but not all of the material here on the origins of Doctor Who was researched and compiled by Hulke. In the process, Newman’s account of first conceiving the Doctor as, “a senile old man 745 years old from an un-named planet” (Newman to Hulke, 28 September 1971) was changed to the kinder, more heroic, “Let’s make him a crotchety old man … at least 745 years old” (p. 3). We don’t know if it was Hulke or Terrance who made the substitution, but Terrance used “crotchety” again in both The Doctor Who Monster Book (1975) and the revised version of The Making of Doctor Who (1976).

I suspect that Terrance also conducted the interviews with then-current cast members Jon Pertwee, Katy Manning, Roger Delgado, Nicholas Courtney, Richard Franklin and John Levene, as well as with former Doctors Who William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton, and with Jack Kine of BBC Visual Effects. Their contact details would have been kept on file by the Doctor Who production office, where Terrance worked as script editor, so it would have been relatively quick and easy for him to ring round — perhaps a morning’s work.

(Hulke interviewed Donald Wilson and made contact with Newman in September 1971, so Terrance probably rang Hartnell and Troughton around this time, too. One of them, surely, mooted the idea that perhaps the actors might like to reappear in the series. Then, at the end of February 1972, writers Bob Baker and Dave Martin attended studio recording of their Doctor Who story The Mutants and Terrance must have raised with them the prospect of a new adventure involving all three Doctors. On 3 March, they duly sent Terrance an outline for Deathworld, eventually made as The Three Doctors.)

As well as conducting a share of the interviews, Terrance facilitated some of Hulke’s research, such as loaning him the production office’s scripts of all previous Doctor Who stories — Terrance wrote to ask for them back on 23 November 1971, in a letter included among the PDFs on the Season 9 box-set (10-03 — Frontier in Space production documentation, p. 2). Hulke’s sometime partner Lauraine Palmeri worked through these scripts, making summaries of plots from which Hulke then wrote his in-universe narrative of all of Doctor Who so far, as recounted by the Time Lords and by Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart in the 24-page chapter “The Travels of Doctor Who”. 

This is by far the biggest chapter in the book, accounting for just over 20% of the 115 pages. Add to that the in-universe chapters on everything we’ve learned about the Doctor (13pp), an account of his trial (4pp) and a doctor’s report on his physiology (3pp), and just over 38% of this non-fiction guide to the making of Doctor Who is, er, fiction. 

What’s more, this stuff is riddled with small errors. The first chapter quotes a line of dialogue written by David Whitaker that was never used in a broadcast episode (p. 8). The book claims that the Cybermen originate from Telos and “first appeared on television on February 11th, 1967 in a Doctor Who story set on the moon” (p. 14), entirely ignoring the existence of and events depicted in The Tenth Planet (1986). The “Travels of the TARDIS” section correctly says Cybermen feature in The Tenth Planet, but adds that events take place in the year 2000, not 1986 (p. 49). 

On 30 May 1972, fan Richard Landen wrote to Hulke and Dicks listing such errors over two pages, in the hope they could be corrected in the next edition. Terrance kept a copy of this letter and, indeed, corrections were made to the manuscript of the 1976 version. This is the first example I’ve found of fans advising Terrance on Doctor Who history and lore.

Hulke was on steadier ground writing the 19-page chapter “Diary of a Production”, since its about the making of his own story, The Sea Devils, which was in production at the time he wrote this book. He provides information not found in other sources — exactly what he was briefed to write by Terrance and producer Barry Letts, the changes made at different stages of commissioning, details of elements that were lost such as the Doctor waterskiing. He also shares passages from otherwise now-lost original storyline and scene breakdown for the story. 

It’s a shame there isn’t more of this — longer excerpts from paperwork, more detail on exactly what happened and when, with dates. There’s an interview with Jack Kine about making monsters (4pp), but it might have been nice to hear, directly, from director Michael E Briant and other members of the cast and crew about what was involved day-to-day, in the thick of production.

Instead, we get a chapter exploring some real science and philosophy suggested by Doctor Who, entitled “Could It All Be True?” (9pp), in which Hulke — an atheist — cites the books of Joshua and Ezekiel. This is followed by what’s basically a sermon, contributed by the Rev John D Beckwith AKC, Chaplain to the Bishop of Edmonton. This has caused me a bit of a headache.

The see of Edmonton was new, having been created in 1970, with Alan Rogers appointed as first bishop. Prior to his appointment as chaplain, the Rev Beckwith, born c. 1933, had been senior tutor of Ijebu-Igbo Great School and Molusi College in Nigeria (1960-62), assistant curate of Bedale (1962-63), Mottingham (1965-69), house tutor at Eltham College (1964-69), and chaplain of St Andrew’s Gothenburg, with Halmstad and Jönköping, Sweden (1969-70) — source. 

He had worked in schools, so had some qualification for contributing to a book aimed at children. But he doesn’t seem to have made a habit of this sort of thing, such as writing for other publications or appearing in the media. Sadly, the current Bishop of Edmonton doesn’t hold records going back to 1971 (I did ask!), so I’m a bit stumped as to how Hulke might have known the Rev Beckwith. Do please write in if you know.

(I’d also be grateful for any information about Charles Bowman and Catherine Dale, who are named at the top of the page of Thanks.)

While I don’t know the connected between Hulke and Beckwith, I can guess why Hulke might have wanted a closing word from such a figure. In early 1971, Doctor Who had been widely criticised for being too scary and unsuitable for children. Then, as Barry Letts detailed in his memoir, his boss Ronnie Marsh, Head of Serials at the BBC, objected to the “blasphemous” use of a church in The Daemons, requiring last-minute rewrites to a story already in production. I think Hulke effectively tried to head off this kind of criticism by obtaining the church’s blessing for Doctor Who.

I also think he was keen to show the scientific and social value of the series because The Making of Doctor Who had originally been conceived by science-fiction writer George Hay in light of the success of two books published in the US: The Making of Star Trek by Stephen E Whitfield and Gene Roddenberry (1968), and The Making of Kubrick’s 2001 by Jerome Agel (1970). These were both aimed at adults. Subsequent editions of the Star Trek book sought to reach more widely than fans of science-fiction by claiming to be,  

“The book on how to write for TV! … The only book of its kind! The complete history of a top TV series — how a television show is conceived, written, sold and produced.”

The book on 2001 also took a broad view, digging into the ideas in and related to the film — at once making-of and quest for meaning. Jerome Agel had form in this, having previously worked with Marshall McLuhan on both The Medium is the Message and War and Peace in the Global Village, as well as cowriting I Seem to Be a Verb with Buckminster Fuller. 

Hulke, I think, fancied some of this chin-stroking stuff. His final, short chapter, “The Shape of Things to Come”, shares some hints about that might be coming up in future stories, hinting that the Doctor might recover the use of his TARDIS. But the title of the chapter is from HG Wells, a 1933 novel — then a film — that laid out a future history spanning hundreds of years, in some ways a kind of fictional sequel to his non-fiction A Short History of the World. 

There’s something of this long view of history in Hulke’s approach to “The Travels of Doctor Who”, which is largely related by the Time Lords — who are very like the super-elites favoured by Wells.

George Hay was, like Wells, interested in the idea of using fiction as a kind of blueprint for the future. I recently wrote about the book he edited, The Disappearing Future (1970).

So all of this stuff went into the mix, and I think helps explain the structure. But the result is not very much about the actual making-of Doctor Who. The cover, showing a photo of Jon Pertwee and a Sea Devil, is from a TV story that had only finished being shown on TV on 1 April 1972; the book was published just over two weeks later. It promises Doctor Who of the immediate now but that isn’t what this book is.

It also isn’t exactly a how-to guide for wannabe writers or crew. There’s no tacit encouragement to readers to try and get into the industry, no tips for young readers who might write their own adventures. That’s notable given Hulke ran a course for writers, had edited two editions of the Writers’ Guide for the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain and would go on to write the hugely influential guide Writing for Television in the Seventies. 

But I’ve spoken to a whole load of people who now work in TV and publishing for whom this book lit a spark. For them, it was a blueprint for the future. Job done.

And then Terrance rewrote it, without Hulke, for Target. We’ll get into that in Part II — but maybe not for a few days as I’m off doing things this weekend.

The Official Doctor Who Fan Club vol 2, by Keith Miller

This second volume of correspondence and fanzines covers the period 1974 to 1978, and most but not all of the era of Tom Baker as the Doctor. It also charts the burning out of the author's passion for Doctor Who, increasingly frustrated with the direction of the series, the more strained and/or “business-like” attitude of the production team towards him, and the activities of other fans.

As with the first volume, it is absolutely fascinating, sometimes very funny and sometimes cringe-inducing. The best thing about it is how honest and raw it all is, the source documents reproduced in full.

There are reports from the set of three Doctor Who stories - Genesis of the Daleks, Terror of the Zygons and The Masque of Mandragora - as well as various bits of interview with cast and crew, alongside letters they sent Keith. We hear what he thinks of episodes and novelisations as they came out, and follow the exhausting business of running an officially sanctioned fan club that the BBC continued to support but at ever more of a remove.

For my purposes in researching the life and work of Terrance Dicks, a number of things are really striking. First, there's Keith's description of the Doctor Who production office in Room 505 of Union House, Shepherd's Bush Green, on 16 February 1975. Keith had been there several times before (as detailed in the first volume, the last occasion in April 1974), when it was the domain of producer Barry Letts and script editor Terrance. 

The scene he describes here gives a vivid sense of the dramatic change brought in under new producer Philip Hinchcliffe and script editor Robert Holmes:

“The whole place looked totally different. Gone were the piles and piles of paper. Where walls had once been covered in newspaper-clippings, notes, white-boards etc, now there was barely anything covering them. All the props had been removed. The office reflected the new occupant — very business-like. Ordered.” (p. 18)

What paperwork I wonder, what treasure, got chucked in the bin? 

Miller then shares a transcript of the conversation over lunch at the BBC restaurant, where he spoke to Hinchcliffe, his secretary Ann Burnett and actors Tom Baker, Elisabeth Sladen and Ian Marter. In among the gems here, Hinchcliffe claims that Target books were at the time printing, “25,000 [copies of each Doctor Who novelisation], then a reprint of 50,000”, but that the publishing company had not been aware until he told them of the two Doctor Who exhibitions - at Blackpool and Longleat. This was missing a big opportunity to sell books as, according to Hinchcliffe, 

“Something like a quarter of a million boys and girls went through the exhibition [singular] last year!” (p. 22)

Miller responded to this by saying that Jon Pertwee had hired the London Planetarium a couple of years previously, for a well-organised event involving him answering questions posed by attendees. Hinchcliffe thought this was worth putting to Tom Baker (who Keith tells us was absent for this bit of the conversation, having gone to the loo).

But it seems that by this point Miller already had plans for an in-person event at the Planetarium, because he reproduces a letter sent to him that same year from Juliet Simpkins, Press Officer at Madame Tussaud's (of which the Planetarium was part), responding to “your letters [plural] of 12th February”. That is, four days before he raised the matter with Hinchcliffe (p. 45).

Simpkins had spoken to Hinchcliffe, who wrote to Miller on 22 May 1975, saying that both the Doctor Who production team and the Planetarium were too booked up through the summer to organise an event, but that he would consider the idea again either later in the year or perhaps in early 1976. Note the word Hinchcliffe used for any such event:

“I have heard that you have been in touch with the Planetarium about the idea of a Doctor Who Convention as we discussed when you came down earlier this year” (p. 46).

There had been science-fiction conventions for decades. But the idea of a Doctor Who event being called such a thing was surely inspired by the success of the UK's first Star Trek convention, held at Abbey Motor Hotel in Leicester over the weekend of 28-29 September 1974, with guests George Takei and James Doohan (source). 

In fact, that event directly inspired a group of other Doctor Who fans to organise something similar: the Doctor Who Appreciation Society '77 Convention was held on 6 August 1977, with both Pertwee and Baker in attendance (but not at the same time). It's interesting to see the idea for this first ever Doctor Who convention in the ether so early, and being considered by the production team.

I'll note two more things of particular interest to me. On p. 92, Miller reproduces a handwritten list of Doctor Who novelisations in preparation, supplied to him by Graham Wellfare. The first title listed is [Doctor Who and] The Green Death by Malcolm Hulke, to be published August 1975 at 35p [in paperback]. That implies that this list was written before publication of that book on 21 August but after publication of the previous Target novelisation, Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons by Terrance Dicks, on 15 May.

At this point, 15 books were in preparation, with a schedule of monthly publication up to October 1976. (No book was listed for December 1975 but two were listed for February 1976, and no publication date was given for the last book in the list.) In fact, the books were published at a slightly less rapid rate, and not in the order given here. The suggestion is of issues with particular titles, and perhaps authors. I'll address some of this in my forthcoming post on Doctor Who [and the] Revenge of the Cybermen.

Lastly, thrillingly, Miller shares a letter from Liz Godfray, Children's Editor at Wyndham Publications, with responsibility for the Doctor Who novelisations. On 24 August 1976, she responded to a letter from Miller, answering his questions. That included a query about the author of the very first Doctor Who novelisation. She replied:

“David Whitaker has been in Australia for the last two or three years - in fact he was back on a visit to this country only two months ago, and he called in to the offices here” (p. 91).

Whitaker had been living in Australia for a little longer than that, since early 1971. But the mention of a visit to London matches another source. On 28 July 1976, the Daily Mail reported that Whitaker had been seen dining with his ex-wife, actress June Barry, and asked what his new wife might think. 

June lived in a large house on the Barnes side of Hammersmith Bridge. I'm struck by the thought of David seeing - perhaps even staying with - her, then ambling over the bridge to pop in and see the Target team at 123 King Street, on the off-chance of some work. 

On the way, he'd pass Riverside Studios, where lots of his BBC work had been made, including several Doctor Who stories. Among them were The Dalek Invasion of Earth, David's final production as story editor, and which he helped adapt for the big screen. Indeed, the TARDIS materialised under his feet, in the shadow of the bridge.

According to the “in preparation” list mentioned above, the novelisation of this story was due for publication in July 1976, the month David was in London. In fact, the book wasn't published until March 1977. 

So I like to imagine David turning up at Target, unannounced, and politely asking how the team were getting on. 

“Oh, fine, but we're having a spot of bother with one particular story...”

Deep Space Nine: Outside In Can Live With It

I am one of the 171 authors in the newly announced Outside In Can Live With It, an anthology of perspectives on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The book is out on 24 July and available to pre-order now, with proceeds going to the charity Against Malaria.

My contribution, “Red Flags”, is focused on episode #168, ’Til Death Do Us Part. By chance, I wrote it while working on the script for our documentary Terror of the Suburbs, which refers to the BBC sitcom Till Death Us Do Part (1965-71), and I had to pay close attention to the order of the “us” and the “do” in each case.

Which has got it right? 

Well, in fact, neither. I mean, both appear in the solemnisation of matrimony, depending which editions of The Book of Common Prayer and other prayer books you check. But if you’re an awful nerd and feel compelled to trace the phrase back to earliest historical source, you reach the 1549 edition of the Book of Common Prayer, and it says something else.

I N. take thee N. to my wedded wife, to have and to holde from this day forwarde, for better, for wurse, for richer, for poorer, in sickenes, and in health, to love and to cherishe, til death us departe: according to Goddes holy ordeinaunce: And therto I plight thee my trouth.

The suggestion is that it was written as “departe” but heard as “do part”; the sense of being together until death mutating into one of being together until death forcibly separates us from each other. That is subtly different but I think slightly more romantic, which may explain why it caught on.

The “do us part” is surely a latter correction so as not to split the infinitive. 

I decided this wouldn’t do for my entry in the Deep Space Nine book so inflict it on you here.

The DNA of Doctor Who - The Philip Hinchcliffe Years

I've just received my copy of this handsome new book, to which I contributed an essay on the 1975 Doctor Who story Planet of Evil and what it draws from classic works of science-fiction.

The obvious influence, of course, is the 1956 movie Forbidden Planet, which the BBC broadcast at 6.35 pm on Wednesday 6 November 1974 - just right to inspire the development of the Doctor Who stories that became Planet of Evil and The Brain of Morbius. I dig into that and also how the same film influenced early Doctor Who as well as other sci-fi such as Star Trek (citing the excellent ‘Gene Roddenberry’s Cinematic Influences’ by Michael Kmet from 2013) and Star Wars (see the 2012 Wired interview, ‘Ben Burtt on Star Wars, Forbidden Planet and the Sound of Sci-Fi’ y Geeta Dayal).

Hinchcliffe says on the documentary made for the DVD release of Planet of Evil (by my friend Ed Stradling) that he suggested the ‘flying eye’ drone seen in the story, having read of something similar in a science-fiction story at the time. The Dictionary of Surveillance Terms in Science Fiction at the Technovelgy site helped me suggest some candidates for that story.

I also mention Isaac Asimov’s own timeline-of-the-future for his various short stories and novels, which I drew from ‘A page from Isaac Asimov’s notebook’, Thrilling Wonder Stories, vol. 44 #3 (Winter 1955), p. 63.

Edited by Gary Russell and published by Gareth Kavanagh at Roundel Books, you can buy The DNA of Doctor Who - The Philip Hinchcliffe Years from the Cutaway Comics site.

Doctor Who Magazine #602

The new issue of the official Doctor Who Magazine is out in shops now, with lots of information about the TV series starting next month. I've written a bunch of things for this issue, too:

pp. 26-27 Who crew: A head of schedule

An interview with executive assistant Sophie-May Twose.

pp. 28-34 Script to screen: Stooky Bill and family

An in-depth feature on the development of the puppets seen in last year's special episode The Giggle, in which I speak to executive producer Joel Collins, production designer Phil Sims, head of department modeller and fabrication manager Barry Jones, director of Automatik VFX Seb Barker, puppeteers Olivia Racionzer and Eliot Gibbins, and actress Leigh Lothian who played the voice of Stooky Sue.

pp. 36-37 Gallifrey Rises

My report on last month's Gallifrey One convention in Los Angeles, including interviews with programme director Shaun Lyon, Star Trek writer David Gerrold, and fans Erika and Katarina.

The Trouble With Tribbles, by David Gerrold

As with Craig Miller, I chatted to David Gerrold at the GallifreyOne convention last month and bought his book when I got home. The Trouble With Tribbles charts the development of the first script he sold to TV, which is a classic episode of the original Star Trek. We follow how David first approached the production team, the initial story ideas he sent in, the more detailed storyline and notes he got back, and continue on through to a shooting script - reprinted here in full. There are then his notes on what happened during filming and the response his episode got.

First published in 1973 (mine is a reprint by Virgin Books in 1996), it's naturally of its time, the jokes on set between filming include cast members playing their roles effeminately, while David tells us which women in the cast and crew he thinks beautiful. At one point, he blushes during lunch shared with star Nichelle Nichols when,

"she dropped some cottage cheese down into the cleavage of her skimpy costume." (p. 235)

But this leads to something more insightful as he discusses how meeting Nichols changed his sense of how to write characters from other races and cultures, and the significance of featuring Sulu and Chekhov in this prime-time American show - though not in the same episodes, because Chekhov was brought in while actor George Takei was away filming The Green Berets. This is admirable though I suspect David wouldn't phrase some of this in quite the same language today. Of course, that's inevitable in a book written 50 years ago - and about events from five years before that. But I'm struck by this juxtaposition of an imagined, progressive future couched in a language so much of the past.

Another detail from history is the problem of David's IBM Selectric Typewriter typing 12 characters to the inch when most TV scripts were typed in what he calls "pica", or 10 characters to the inch. The effect was that David typed,

"an extra three words per line, of fifty words per page." (p. 134) 

When his first draft script was copied into the correct format, it came out at 80 pages rather than the required 66 and needed extensive cuts. In my first professional jobs as a scriptwriter, duration was still generally judged by number of pages, and a couple of my early scripts which had lots of quick-fire exchanges, each speaker saying just a few words at a time, ended up running short. Now I'm much happier with a word count: 9,500 words pretty much always comes out as an hour of audio drama.

In fact, a lot of David’s other comments on writing chimed with me, too. On page 10, he tells us he was effectively prepping for his work on Star Trek long before the series was even created, as he'd been a devoted reader of sci-fi for years. Such prep, he says, is essential because it means we're ready to respond when opportunity arises. As he says (p. 15), opportunity knocks only softly - his allusion is to a moth at the window - so we need to be alert as well as ready to respond. I wish I'd read this when I was starting out.

Then there's what he says is the key to breaking into television:

"You're competing with the pros now. You have to be better than they are. ... You have to do something outstanding to make the producers notice you. You have to do it on merit alone, because you have no previous credits and nothing else working for you." (p. 49)

On Star Trek specifically, and ongoing series more generally, he says the usual rules of storytelling don't apply. He'd learned before working on Star Trek that, in movies, novels and plays,

"the importance of the story was that the incident it tells is the most important event that will ever happen to this character."

But heroes having weekly adventures can't sustain this kind of drama.

"You can't run your characters in emotional high gear all the time. You'll burn them out, they'll cease to be believable." (p. 47) 

The trick, he says, is to avoid falling into formula stories; by doing something different, you stand out. But I wonder if your story can be about the most important event in someone's life - that's what your guest characters are for. 

Another telling insight into Star Trek is producer Gene Coon's note on David's story premise, dated February 1967, for what became the Tribbles episode. David originally envisaged it involving a new company on an alien planet going into competition with a huge, well-established corporation over the production of grain. The grain element survived into the broadcast story, but Coon wrote in pencil:

"'Big business angle out. One planet against another.' Translated, this meant: 'On American television, big business is never the villain. Make the conflict between two different planets instead." (p. 55n)

In addressing this, David suggested involving aliens from an episode in the first year of Star Trek; the producers decided to include Klingons in three episodes of the second year, including David's episode. The veto on bad business therefore led to a major development in the wider lore of Star Trek.

On the whole, this is a fascinating and insightful deep dive into the making of Star Trek, and gives the impression of a really fun and supportive show to have worked on. David is an enthusiastic, witty guide, honest about his own shortcomings so that we might learn from his mistakes. He's awe-struck by his experience - and the result is that so are we.

Two additional thoughts. First, this particular edition includes a plate section of black-and-white photographs that is really odd. Two of the photos are from The Trouble with Tribbles itself, and there are a few from other episodes of the time and of cast members more generally. But there are also some pictures of cast members out of character - William Shatner seen with his wife, Leonard Nimoy seen with his wife and with his son. There are then photos from the movies Star Trek V, Star Trek VI, the casts of spin-off series The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, and a picture of the USS Voyager - none of which get mentioned in the text. I suppose the intention was to make the book appeal to fans of contemporary Star Trek in 1996, but I think they might have felt a little short-changed. It's odd, because David wrote a new introduction to this edition but doesn't mention his work on the first Star Trek movie (in which he briefly appears) or as a writer on The Next Generation. There's no mention of that year's Deep Space Nine episode Trials and Tribble-ations (in which he again cameos), with which this edition was surely meant to coincide. I wonder what happened - and will ask David the next time we meet.

Secondly, via Genome, I looked up when The Trouble With Tribbles first aired in the UK: on Monday, 1 June 1970 (two days after Episode 4 of the Doctor Who story Inferno). It has been repeated on the BBC 10 times since then, on the last occasion in 2007. 

Of little interest to anyone else but I think I first saw it at 6pm on Thursday, 28 November 1985, when I was nine and a half. That's brought back vivid memories of being sat with my brothers at the kitchen table eating jacket potato and having special permission from my mum to have the TV on at the same time. I remember saying to my dad, though probably not about this particular episode, that Star Trek didn't seem old like episodes of Doctor Who that sometimes got repeated. It felt on the same level as new episodes of The A Team and every bit as glamorous.

This wasn't my introduction to Trek. Earlier in the year, for my ninth birthday, we rented the VHS tape of The Search for Spock which had just come out, because (to me) the cover looked like Star Wars. While I was captivated, my two school friends got bored and went out to the garden to play. My mum told me join then, reminding me that this didn't mean I'd miss the film; I could watch it later. Video was still a novelty. 

Anyway - all a bit self-indulgent but this book has given me a bit of a rush, my own ancient past woven into this vision of the future.

The Autobiography of Mr Spock, edited by Una McCormack

My last night out in London before lockdown in 2020 was to attend a signing for my chum Una's book Picard: The Last Best Hope, which ably bridges the gap in events between the movie Star Trek: Nemesis and the TV series Star Trek: Picard. Last month, back in London for the first time in more than a year, I met up with Una and got her to sign a copy of her latest genius effort.

The Autobiography of Spock is another extraordinary thing, perfectly weaving together the different threads and revelations from a great multiplicity of texts on screen: stuff revealed about Spock's background in the original Star Trek TV series, all the stuff about his dad in Star Trek: The Next Generation, the never-previously mentioned brother in the movie Star Trek V, the never-previously mentioned sister in Star Trek: Discovery, the stuff in the 2009 reboot movie and bits gleaned from Star Trek: Picard. In the acknowledgements, Una mentions a number of Star Trek books and novels she's borrowed from, too, and the essays on Romulans by Michael Chabon and on James T Kirk by Erin Horakova. I'm sure there's more, and part of me would love to see a version of this autobiography with footnotes that cite all the sources.

But that would perhaps break the spell. Given so much material to choose from, some of it contradictory or at least inconsistent, it's remarkable how cohesive this book is. That's partly due to the structure, each chapter focused on someone that Spock loved, enabling Una to focus on particular, telling moments in the long life in which Spock prospered. Given such a famously logical, aloof character, a focus on his love life is initially surprising but it really works, in part because this is love in the broadest sense - the subjects include Spock's parents, his sparring partner Dr McCoy and even the starship Enterprise. But it also works because it's at the heart of what the book is addressing: Spock coming to accept his hybrid nature as half-human, and his emotional side. There's a lot on searching for and accepting the truth - of situations, or events, of ourselves. Spock is honest about failure, about when he's got things wrong. There are passages in this that change my sense of what's happening in the things I've seen on screen.

The point is that it doesn't feel like a jigsaw. There's fun to be had in spotting the sources - when mention is made of the expression on Kirk's face on seeing Spock mind-meld with a whale, I know exactly what that's from and exactly that expression. But this is not simply a list of references to events in episodes and movies. It's a story, Spock's story, full on fresh insight and perspective - and lots of original material. We find out what happened to other characters from these episodes and movies, the aftermath of events seen on screen. I'd love to see more of Saavik and Valeris on screen after what we're told about their later lives here.

Una says in her acknowledgements at the end that, for all the many actors who have portrayed the character,

"There would of course be no Spock without Leonard Nimoy, and I hope his voice sounds true upon these pages."

It really does, and the result is like hearing again from an old friend. In spending time inside the head of this beloved character, I've come to know him better, and to feel his loss all the more.

ST:TNG 3.16 The Offspring

This is the third of 12 episodes of Star Trek: the Next Generation recommended to me. First there was 1.13 Datalore, then 2.9 The Measure of a Man.

We start with a very effective trick: Geordi, Troi and Wesley walking and talking through the corridors of the Enterprise, making the place feel big and busy and real. The dialogue isn’t as crisp and effervescent as Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing - but then that started nine years after this episode was broadcast. The point is how fresh and exciting the direction feels here. I looked it up, and this is the first episode directed by Jonathan Frakes, better known as the actor playing Riker. That explains why the captain’s log at this start feels the need to tell us that Riker is away on personal leave. Frakes js still directing episodes of Discovery and Picard, and clearly has a knack for sci-fi given this panache with corridors.

Since the last episode in my list, there’s been a makeover of the Enterprise wardrobe. Uniforms now have collars, are more formal and less like gym-wear, and seem to zip up at the back. I wonder if that means the crew need assistance putting them on, and imagine them having to pair-up before breakfast, the pairings carefully coordinated around their rostered shifts.

Anyway, Wes, Troi and Georgi are the three people Data trusts enough to confide what he’s been up to: making himself a child. This he presents as a fair accompli rather than at 12 weeks, directing our attention to an odd-looking small person in a machine. The being has neither clothes nor gender, but Data is clear that this is, “my child” and calls the process “procreation”. Apparently, this new project - and progeny - is the result of Data having just been at a cybernetics conference where a “new submicron matrix transfer technology” was introduced that Data “discovered could be used to lay down complex neural net pathways … I realised for the first time it was possible to continue Doctor Soong's work.” No one else has been able to make this leap because it needed Data to transfer stuff from his own brain into the child. For reasons we’re not given yet, and which no one asks at the time, Data has named his child “Lal”.

Our heroes report the matter upwards to Picard, who is not does not delight in the news. Yet, as Data tells his captain, no one else on board is required to ask permission to procreate. There’s an implicit, insidious question over Data’s right or worthiness to have children, a moral judgement based solely on the fact that for him procreation is more complex than a fuck. It brought back the cruel interrogations the Dr and I went through during IVF and adoption. Anyway, Picard’s response is in stark contrast to the position he took in 2.9 The Measure of Man - just note his use of pronouns:

“I insist we do whatever we can to discourage the perception of this new android as a child. It is not a child. It is an invention, albeit an extraordinary one … I fail to understand how a five foot android with heuristic learning systems and the strength of a ten men can be called a child.”

Data is, understandably, surprised by this denial of personhood but Picard goes on to explain that a “real” child is not just for Christmas and can’t be deactivated simply. Given Picard’s previous empathic management style, this is massively tone deaf is not outright offensive. I suppose there’s a case that Picard is just wary of the consequences of this “stupendous undertaking” and knows the trouble it will bring; his reaction comes of trying to help and protect his friend. But it’s a fundamental right that he’s daring to question.

Meanwhile, Lal can identify crewmembers as male and female, and says, “I am gender neutral [which is] inadequate.” Data, meaning well, responds, “you must choose a gender, Lal, to complete your appearance.” He has always tried to emulate humanity but this conversation sounds a lot like it’s making a moral judgement: that it is wrong to be different. Data also tells Lal to, “Access your data bank on sexuality, level two. That will define the parameters.” But gender and sexuality are not the same thing. When Troi says that whatever Lal chooses will last for Lal’s lifetime, that clearly isn’t true either - even if Star Trek fails to acknowledge transitioning, Lal can evidently choose once so why not choose again? “This is a big decision,” says Data - and it is, which is why it’s so alarming Lal is so badly advised.

They narrow the options down from several thousand composites to four physical specimens, which Lal then seems to be expected to choose from based on visual appearance. Yes, it’s Naked Attraction but with clothes on, which doesn’t seem the most brilliant idea. There are three different species represented by the four specimens on show and it’s meant to be Lal’s free choice. Yet Troi can’t chipping in that she finds the human male attractive and likes the human female. We’re told that Lal taking the form of an Andorian female would make her the only one on the Enterprise, while as a Klingon she’d be one of just two (“a friend for Worf,” says Troi, dictating how Lal should behave and bond). It’s concerning these made the final four given that the point of the exercise is to help Lal better integrate with the rest of the crew. How much less suitable were the other composites?

What Lal has decided to be a human female, Data attempts to home-school her. This is (he says, staring wearily away into space) not easy, but getting Lal to define the meaning of “home” is uncomfortably like the students groomed by Thomas Gradgrind to define a horse. Victorians reading Hard Times were horrified by such crude, old-school education. As well as learning the facts by which to judge the artistry of a painting, Lal is taught to blink so that she can better fit in with the flesh lot onboard. That’s stepped up when she goes to the school on the Enterprise, where things are handled in what Offsted would surely deem inadequate. The other, fleshy children are wary of this much new student who looks so much older than them but is so far behind them. They are mean and laugh at her. But the schools of the future don’t seem prepared for students with special educational needs, and when Data is called in to discuss what has happened, the teacher - Ballard - clearly feels that Lal is the one at fault. The new girl excelled academically but, “Lal couldn't understand the nuances of how [the flesh kids] related to each other.” For this first offence, in a crime so heinous as social etiquette, she is invited to leave full-time education.

The emotionless Data fails to be outraged by this. Unlike his tribunal, there are no fleshy friends to defend him or be angry on his behalf. There’s no sense that perhaps the “normal” children need educating in etiquette, and the adults, too. Lal doesn’t even get a formal warning. There’s no tribunal, no sense of the dangerous precedent being set, and that’s traumatic for Lal. This tyranny of normalisation is especially concerning given that the next episode on my list is all about the horror of assimilation. We can’t all be individuals if we must all be the same.

Data claims not to be affected, and says he’s incapable of love - but Beverly Crusher doesn’t believe him and there’s evidence that she’s right. The name he’s given his daughter is, we’re told, a Hindi word meaning “beloved”. But unlike her father, Lal is affected by emotions - and the difference between her and Data is underlined by the fact that she can use contractions. I mentioned my misgivings about this cliché of sci-fi last time, but now wonder what else Data can’t do: does he insist on pronouncing the “h” in herb, too, and is it “a” or “an” before “hotel”? But it’s a shame to be distracted from the point of this difference between them, which is profoundly sad: Data was unique and alone so built himself a daughter, but she is alone, too.

Since they’ve been failed by the educational establishment, Data instead enrols Lal in work that might teach her something, in the bar on the Enterprise where she can observe the behaviour of humans and other flesh-based life forms. This meets with surprise and resistance from Data’s friends, and he asks if they're questioning his ability as a parent - and, in effect, his rights as a sentient life form. That there are concerns at all made me wonder what kind of den of iniquity they think Ten Forward is. That line of thinking isn’t helped Riker’s makes a cameo appearance and cops off with this child. It’s fun to see Frakes direct a scene at his own expense, but blimey. As a general rule, don’t do light comedy about grown men hitting on children.

Then Data and Lal talk together, and Lal takes her father’s hands, trying to copy the behaviour of those round them - and, in doing so, to please him. We’re told that Data has already, “Mastered human behavioural norms.” Has he? So often the joke is that Data hasn’t understood an idiom or behaviour, that he isn’t normal. It’s still an issue decades later in the series Picard, questioning Data’s ability to love.

Just as in 2.9 The Measure of a Man, an admiral turning up on the Enterprise can only mean bad news. This one, in rather fetching gold braid to show he’s either someone important or on his way to a disco, underlines the puritanical view hinted at before, that it’s really not suitable for a young woman to be work in a bar, even the corporate-feeling one on the Federation’s flagship? I hanker for Guinan’s reaction to this slander. But I don’t think Admiral Haftel is one for considering the views of woman. When Lal tells him he’s not very respectful, Haftel ignores it to talk about her - while she stands there - with Picard. He then tells Lal that Data hasn’t taught her enough selective judgment, and when she responds he starts to say that he hadn’t meant to ask her opinion. Picard now cuts in: “In all these discussions, no one has ever mentioned her wishes. She's a free, sentient being. What are your wishes, Lal?” It’s about time someone asked.

This is, then, a return to the moral debate in 2.9 The Measure of Man, which was clearly not settled in the finding of the tribunal. In that episode, the discomfort was felt by Data’s crewmates while Data - for all he protested his rights - was unaffected emotionally. Here, though, Lal is a victim, made so anxious by her predicament that she seeks help from the ship’s counsellor. “I feel it,” she tells Troi. Troi, I think, she be the one to defend Lal to the authorities, reminding the admiral that feelings matter in this version of the Enterprise. Sadly, she doesn’t get a chance.

Meanwhile, the boys are still arguing about Lal’s best interests - without her. There’s another curious argument when Haftel says it is dangerous for Data and Lal to remain on the same starship together. The implication is that the Enterprise is a precarious place forever facing the risk of destruction. True, 26 weeks of the year it does seem to have some crisis going on, but it’s weird to hear that acknowledged - especially when there’s a school with young children on board. Again, I find myself wondering about Star Fleet’s duty of care. (Note, too that Haftel says Data and Lal are the “only two Soong-type androids in existence,” meaning everyone assumes Lore is dead and gone.)

Really, Haftel wants Lal for himself to study, just as Maddox did with Data. All this philosophical footwork is about depersonalising her, making her an it, a thing. Data argues against this persuasively, expressing his and Lal’s wishes clearly but politely. Picard backs him, and will go over Haftel’s head if need be. “You are jeopardising your command and your career,” Haftel tells him, which seems odd given the precedent of the tribunal. But Picard holds his ground:

“There are times, sir, when men of good conscience cannot blindly follow orders. You acknowledge their sentience but you ignore their personal liberties and freedom. Order a man to hand his child over to the state? Not while I am his captain.”

Surely, surely, Haftel doesn’t have a leg to stand on, and I wonder what his superiors would make of his predatory interest in this child. As before, Data is willing to work with Starfleet on research into the workings of his own brain, if only they’d proceed in less unseemly haste.

But it’s not to be. Troi calls Data and the others to an emergency. Lal’s anxiety - exacerbated by the admiral but as much the result of the Enterprise crew - has caused her to malfunction and break down. Haftel has literally broken a child and realises his mistake, offer to help Data try and fix the problem. He’s the one who tells us that Data’s hands move too quickly to see in his efforts to save his daughter. Haftel is clearly devastated by the loss of Lal but his words - “It just wasn’t meant to be!” - hardly acknowledge his own role or culpability. I wonder if the death of Lal will jeopardise his command and career. (I checked, he’s not seen again in the series.)

Everyone is upset except Data, who absorbs his daughter’s memories and goes straight back to his job on the bridge of the Enterprise. It’s a really affecting ending, but I think because it’s so wrong. Star Fleet has (again) badly served Data. It failed him. The most haunting thing is that emotionless android expects nothing else.

Next episode: 3.26 The Best of Both Worlds