Exactly 50 years ago, Star Trek premiered on Thursday, September 8, 1966.
It lives long and continues to prosper!
In 1999, I lived for about half a year in Cheyenne, Wyoming (a long story that will have to wait for another time) and while working at the Chili’s at the Frontier Mall, I also wrote entertainment articles for the local newspaper, The Wyoming Tribune Eagle.
Always a Star Trek fan, I also really liked the science-fiction TV series Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict (1997 – 2002), which was based upon notes the late Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had left from an unproduced TV pilot called “Battleground: Earth” in the 1970s (Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda was similarly created from another unmade Roddenberry project and used a character name (“Dylan Hunt”) from a pair of produced Roddenberry TV movie pilots Genesis II in 1973 and Planet Earth in 1974).
Earth: Final Conflict was in it’s second of five seasons when I interviewed Majel Roddenberry in Spring of 1999.
The recorded and transcribed interview was edited down somewhat for the paper, so I thought while celebrating the Roddenberrys’ Treks, I’d post the full version of that interview.
Majel Barrett Roddenberry is the First Lady of Star Trek. Created by her husband, Gene Roddenberry, Majel has been a presence on every version of Star Trek since the original pilot, “The Cage” in 1964, where she appeared as the second-in-command First Officer of the starship Enterprise called “Number One”. Mrs. Roddenberry would return as various characters throughout a growing multitude of Star Trek TV series and feature films including Nurse (later Doctor in the Trek films) “Christine Chapel”, the voice of “Lieutenant M’Ress” (a lioness-like Caitian communications officer) in the animated Star Trek of the 1970s and Councilor Deanna Troi’s “Aunty Mame-esque” telepathic Betazoid mother, “Ambassador L’waxana Troi” in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Majel’s voice as the Federation computers in Star Trek has continued beyond her 2009 passing (appearing in the alternate-reality reboot movie series and no doubt beyond that soon…).
Outside of the Trek universes, Mrs. Roddenberry has also appeared in the films Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, As Young as We Are, A Guide for the Married Man, Westworld, Teresa’s Tattoo and Hamlett A.D.D. Majel appeared in episodes of Leave It to Beaver, Bonanza, The Lieutenant (created and produced by Gene), Here Comes the Brides, and J. Michael Straczynski’s Babylon 5 (as “Lady Morella” in the season 2 episode “Point of No Return”) and several TV movie series pilots created by Gene Roddenberry: Genesis II, Planet Earth, The Questor Tapes and Spectre. Mrs. Roddenberry’s interests carried beyond film, television and the Earth herself as she supported real-world space exploration.
The character that you played in the original Star Trek pilot, “The Cage”, the First Officer (only referred to as “Number One”), was she ever going to have a full name?
No. She wouldn’t have, because she’s an alien, they didn’t name their names, they had them by litters. It’s just an advanced form of cloning.
I had no idea, I thought that she was meant to be human…
Well, she is human, I mean, she’s humanoid.
A-ha! No wonder I could never find out what that character’s name was meant to be…!
Well, she was never, you know, given too much attention to, after all, she was gone [NBC wanted the female First Officer and the “evil-looking” guy with the pointed ears dropped from the series, but Roddenberry was able to at least keep Spock] and Gene never developed her [as a character].
Number One was a main character in the last batch of Star Trek comic books from Marvel (in the mid-to-late 1990s, after DC’s ’80s reign of Trek comics, Marvel and Paramount Studios created Paramount Comics).
Oh, they did?
Yes, she was featured in Star Trek: The Early Voyages, which features the adventures of Captain Christopher Pike (played by Jeffrey Hunter of King of Kings fame in the first produced Star Trek pilot, “The Cage”).
Oh, she was an incredibly good character, she was one of his [Gene’s] best.
The idea of having a woman as an executive officer was a great idea, because it’s the future after all…
Yes and then along comes Star Trek: Voyager…
With Captain Katheryn Janeway (played by Kate Mulgrew). The first female Federation starship captain depicted in Star Trek came nearly a decade early than Voyager with Madge Sinclair playing the captain of the USS Saratoga in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (Sinclair would later play another Starfleet captain, Silva La Forge (also Geordi of the Enterprise’s mom) in Star Trek: The Next Generation) of the USS Hera, a ship named for the Queen of the Olympian gods). It should be noted that Lieutenant Uhura temporarily took command when the other (male) officers were unable in the 1970s animated Star Trek.
Right!
Was it true that Gene Roddenberry originally wanted Llyod Bridges (then of SeaHunt fame) for his starship Enterprise captain, meant to be named Robert T. April?
Oh, his name was in the group [list], yes, but you saw that we ended with Jeffrey Hunter and there were an awful lot of people [on that casting list] at that particular time. And when it didn’t go [as a series] the first time, they had to make a last minute decision [when Hunter opted out of doing the second Trek pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before”]. And actually, the minute decision how [William] Shatner got on board.
When you found the original notes for Earth: Final Conflict (written circa 1976) were there any major changes made before the series finally premiered in 1997?
Well, I think that almost anything would be a major change. I mean, after all, we were over in London at the time they said, “Now speed this thing up”. He [Gene] got another writer in, because he couldn’t do it [at the time]. The pilot script was written off of Gene’s story. And, of course, some changes would have been made then. And after Gene read the first draft, then he made a bunch of changes and then it’d go back to a writer again. The thing went through probably three or four writers – I don’t even know where some of those last full scripts and everything are, but what he did was have was a whole mess of notes and everything [the final televised premiere of Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict lists Gene as the episode writer] and that’s all we needed [to bring the series to TV], because 20 years had passed and things had changed [such as advances in special effects technology]. So, we just wrote it really from the outline he gave us. [The Roddenberrys’ son, Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry has written a first season episode titled “Infection”].
Are most of the characters from Gene’s original concept or are they more recent creations?
No, I’d say that most of them now are [more recent] creations, now that Boone [season 1 lead “William Boone” was played by Kevin Kilner] is gone. Boone, Lili and Da’an – so, those were about the only ones that were there [in the original notes for the show].
For the original concept, I read that Da’an (the alien Taelon played by Leni Parker) was originally meant to be a combination of two characters named Dan and Dana…
(Laughter) Yes, that was mine. I wanted to have a character in there who was a male/female. When he became upset or something, he turned into Dana and she could use her feminine wiles and get him out of trouble. When she was at peace, she would, of course, turn back into Dan and all would be right.
All the Taelons are performed by women, but the characters are androgynous, reminiscent of the telepathic Telosians of Telos IV in the original Star Trek pilot, “The Cage” (they were also played by women, but spoke with distorted male-like voices.
No, they’re uni-sex.
I’m glad that Earth: Final Conflict has survived the departure of season 1 lead Kevin Kilner as “William Boone” and is doing really well with new lead character “Liam Kincaid”, played by Robert Leeshock.
It’s doing okay, we have a long way to go.
[At this time, E:FC was airing in 94% of the U.S., was being seen worldwide and months before the final batch of episodes of season 2 aired, the series had already been renewed in 85% of the U.S. for the next two years – assuring a third and fourth season of the five-season plan for the show].
I’ve always considered television a work in progress anyway. So this year, we’re going to be doing a whole lot of changing, much of it will be “copied” after the first year, but we’ll try and keep some of Gene’s original intent, which it kind of got away from last year.
MORE… MORE COMING… STAY TUNED…