Re: FWIW: ST Enterprise Cancelled

From: OM (om_at_our_blessed_lady_mary_of_the_holy_NASA_research_facility.org)
Date: 02/05/05 

Date: Sat, 05 Feb 2005 04:00:37 -0600

On Fri, 04 Feb 2005 23:27:08 -0600, Pat Flannery <flanner@daktel.com>
wrote:

>Okay... here's one for you...since it didn't cost too much to film, and
>since the characters were apparently acting in, rather than out of,
>charecter...why didn't they just film it the way Harlan wanted them to?

...There were several things Harlie whined about regarding the
changes:

1) Harlie originally had the Guardian of Forever being a light effect
between two Greek columns leftover from some Desilu warehouse. His
arguement was that by using two set pieces already paid for, Desilu
could afford to have an elephant dressed as a wooly mammoth charge
through the Guardian while they were playing with it.

2) Harlie was eternally pissed about having his two drug-smuggling
crewmen, Beckwith and LeBeqque - no, really, that's what the Midget
with a Mouth named them - dropped totally and having McCoy be the one
who goes back in time. The way his story played out, the two get
busted by Spock and a team of redshirts, only one of them gets away
and beams down to the planet. Kirk leads a landing party down to
search for the doper, finds the Guardian, and while they're playing
with it Beckwith jumps through the Guardian to escape. Events unfold
in the episode pretty much as they did after Gene's tweakings, only we
discover that the reason time gets fucked up is that not only did
Beckwith save Keeler, he winds up telling her about WWII, which
galvanizes her into the Peace Movement, which in turn causes global
society to stagnate and collapse because WWII brought the world out of
the Great Depression, etc, etc. Kirk allows Keelter to die, the
Guardian retrieves everyone to the present, and time is restored to
it's normal course. However - and rest assured Kirk will be having one
hell of a talk with the Chief of Security over these two clods - the
guards let Beckwith get away again, and he jumps into the Guardian
once more. But the Guardian is a fair judge of character, and sticks
Beckwith in a temporal loop where he's eternally dumped into the heart
of a sun, where he's deep fried, restored and sent back in again, over
and over again.

...The big hole in this is that, according to *both* Genes, as well as
Bob Justman, Starfleet training and pre-Academy screening, as well as
standard security procedures would have prevented the dope from being
smuggled on board, much less having two crewmen pulling the smuggling
op on a Starfleet vessel. Gene's rules stated that *** wouldn't
happen. But Harlie, ever the person to ignore script guidelines, wrote
them in anyway, and went off on a tear when it was found that he'd
been rewritten.

3) Furthermore, Harlie whined about being pressured to write the
script in far too short a timeframe. According to Desilu bookkeeping
records, as well as the personal notes and records of Gene
Roddenberry, Herb Solow and Bob Justman, where most writers got six to
eight weeks to submit a final draft, Li'l Harlie took *32* weeks to
turn in what wound up being only a half-assed attempt at a final
script. It got sent back to him some 5 or 6 times before he submitted
the script that he sent in for the Hugo.

4) Finally, what's Harlie's most infamous complaint is that he was
rewritten without first option of doing the job himself. The problem
there was that a) Gene was on a shooting deadline, b) Harlie couldn't
be reached before said deadline - and quite a number of Desilu
switchboard logs show numerous attempts by both Genes and Gene's
secretary, Susan Sackett , having the switchboard operator place
person-to-person calls to Harlan, all of which were unsuccessful - and
c) besides, Harlan was notoriously slow, and most likely could/would
not deliver by deadline, and had proven it repeatedly with this
particular script in its myriad forms.

>There doesn't seem to be any problem with it, so why didn't they just go
>for it? If you're writing for a episodic television series, then the
>producers of the series have the right to tell you what you will and
>will not do with their continuing characters and overall storyline, as
>they are the ones who have to live with how their characters and overall
>feel of the show get modified in any particular episode, and how that
>will affect future episodes of the series.

...Which is why so many of the TOS 3rd Season eps fall flat. Fred
Frieberger failed to keep a tight reign on characterization as Gene
Roddenberry did, which allowed for Spock's flirting with Droxine and
his jam session with Adam (*).

(*) There is a theory that Adam was descended from the lead singer of
The Good Old Boys, a country band whose career and Winnebago
headquarters were demolished by ones Joliet Jake and Elwood Blues.

>If they had it all to do over again, I doubt there would ever be an
>Organian Treaty, as it screwed the whole Federation/Klingon rivalry up
>royally...in fact, that's why they were very careful to tell the writers
>for STTNG just what they could and couldn't do so as not to paint
>themselves into a corner like that again.

...Actually, had TOS made it to a fourth season, Gene had signed
William Campbell to a half-season contract to reappear as Koloth,
where the Organian Treaty would be explored, pursued, and eventually
gotten rid of, but not until we'd had several episodes of Kirk and
Koloth placed into situations where one had to save the other if only
to make sure that nobody else killed the other before they got the
chance.

>You have an anthology series like Twilight Zone, and you can have far
>more room to do what you want, but when you come to a series like Star
>Trek, then you should realize that they, not you, have the final say in
>how things should be done. You can run your car in the race- provided
>you are going the direction everybody else is, and don't start pouring
>nails on the track.

...And even then writing for an anthology series doesn't guarantee a
free hand. "Demon with a Glass Hand" originally never took place in a
10-story building, but in several buildings all across town. Harlie
fought the change to the 10-story building until it was explained that
a) it was cheaper and b) either it's in the 10-story building or you
can take your script and shove it.

>Okay, you prove to me that he's a nice guy. This ax can swing both ways.

...I've yet to see one iota of proof that Harlie's anything but a
jerk.

>Tearing somebody's reputation apart (and I know full well that
>Roddenberry wasn't a saint by any standard) after there is no way he can
>defend himself is a low thing; particularly when you do it around thirty
>years after the presumed crime, rather than when your opponent can't
>speak for himself in regards to your criticisms. Using terms like
>"Great Pretender" "El Supremo" and "an outright naked liar" is pretty
>rough by any standards, and the sort of language I'd expect from the
>likes of Bill O'Reilly more than someone who considers himself a
>thoughtful author.

...Actually, it made me think of a certain former Lockmart janitor
with delusions of SRB conspiracies.

>You're right...I won't spit on Harlan if I ever meet him...I'll wait
>till he's been dead for five years, and then pee on his grave.

...You'll have to stand in line behind me first, Pat. The dwarf's so
small that there'll be not enough room for two people to piss on his
grave without the arc streams crossing and causing more damage to the
pissers than the pissed upon.

"Papa Smurf! Where do Baby Smurfs come from?"

"Why, the Stork brings them, Clueless Smurf!"

"But how do you explain Harlie Smurf?"

"Oh, that was the week that the Stork was on vacation, and Beaky
Buzzard was filling in for him..."

                                OM 

-- 
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 poor dumb *** die for his country."    | Human O-Ring Society
 
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