Original subtitles

(narrator) For more than half a century and counting,

"Star Trek" has beamed its way

into our living rooms, and into our hearts.

- Warp one, Mr. Sulu.

- With a staggering quantity of high quality science fiction,

a fact that's proven with nine TV series,

13 movies, countless books,

comics and toys.

It's safe to say as a human collective,

we love "Star Trek."

- (chuckling) - And in this series,

we'll cover all 55 years worth.

We'll hear the stories of the pioneers who blazed a trail

and upended television as we know it.

♪♪

So beam aboard and hold on tight

as we boldly go into the depths of "Star Trek."

♪♪

And you can see it all from here...

in "The Center Seat."

Since the USS Enterprise blasted to space in the '60s,

it's been on a five-year mission exploring strange new worlds,

seeking out new life

and new civilizations, and, of course...

(William Shatner) To boldly go where no man has gone before.

(narrator) And that five-year mission

has turned into a 55-year one,

which is, of course, why we're here.

But before we loved "Star Trek,"

we loved Lucy.

And we really can't tell the story

of "Star Trek" without her.

- Lucy absolutely is the reason "Star Trek" exists.

- She was the one who put

her studio on the line for "Star Trek."

- But Lucille Ball didn't invent "Star Trek."

That honor goes to this guy-- no, not him.

This guy, Gene Roddenberry.

But long before the stars aligned

for Roddenberry and "Star Trek," Lucy was busy

becoming a star in the Golden Age of Hollywood.

- Lucy went out to Hollywood to be a Goldwyn girl.

- Aw, cut it out, fellas! - (narrator) However,

Lucy was destined to be more than just another leggy blonde.

After a stint at MGM, someone had a bright idea.

- They dyed her hair red and that became her trademark.

- And somehow a carrot top

made her perfect for television comedy,

even in black and white.

- In the '50s, television was still inventing itself.

- In fact, Lucille's radio show at the time,

"My Favorite Husband,"

was pegged as a possible TV show starring Lucille.

- Lucille, she said to CBS, I will only do this TV show

if you cast Desi as my husband.

- Honey, I'm home. - (narrator) Lucille Ball's

real husband was Cuban bandleader Desi Arnaz,

and people were lining up to work with him.

- Desi introduced the conga line.

And so that became a craze.

- And Desi Arnaz became

Lucille's onscreen husband, eventually.

- They kind of didn't like the idea of a Cuban

being married to, you know, a red-blooded American gal.

- And redheaded, of course, not that you could tell.

- Now, look, I'm serious. - (narrator) And so was CBS,

because that pilot for a show called "I Love Lucy"

was a legitimate hit.

- "I Love Lucy" became number one

six months after it debuted in 1951.

- When I'm out in the street, people point me out and say

"There he goes!" - (Tom) And it was huge.

It was like, 67 million people are watching this.

You know, at the time, not everyone owned a television set.

I mean, people were watching in appliance stores.

- She was a big star, and she ran the show.

- It's so tasty too!

(narrator) The taste of success was sweet.

Lucille and Desi and their aptly named studio

Desilu were now producing the biggest show in America.

But what Desi planned to do next would be one of his greatest

contributions to television,

even more so than the conga line.

Desi Arnaz wanted...

- The rerun rights. - To which CBS said...

- "What's a rerun?"

- No one thought of reruns,

there was no such thing. Something aired,

and it was disposable, you never saw it again.

(narrator) Unless, of course, it's "I Love Lucy."

And suddenly, reruns were a very valuable commodity.

- CBS doesn't want to stop airing it during the summer.

They say, can we have those reruns back?

- Lucy! - Yeah?

- Lucy, guess what? - What?

- Look! - (Marc) And they had to pay

Desi Arnaz a million dollars

to get the rerun rights back for that summer.

(narrator) And with that cool million, Desi and Lucy...

Used that money to buy RKO.

(narrator) Much more than three little letters,

Lucy and Desi now owned...

(Tom) It was 35 soundstages

in three locations, it was huge.

(narrator) And ultimately important

to "Star Trek," but not quite yet.

Because before the USS Enterprise could get

its NCC registration number,

Desilu needed another kind of enterprise.

The moneymaking kind.

(Tom) Once "I Love Lucy" was off and running,

they had all of this equipment to shoot "I Love Lucy."

And money was to be made if they could come up with another show.

(narrator) Either that or...

- Everybody came to film at Desilu.

"The Andy Griffith Show..." - "My Three Sons."

- "Dick Van Dike Show."

(narrator) Which generated a lot of money.

- I don't discuss money anymore.

You'll have to talk to my business manager.

- Just not for Desi and Lucille.

(Tom) People just automatically assumed that Lucy

owned the world because she had all these shows

on the air with the Desilu logo,

but they weren't necessarily owned by her.

(narrator) But on the home front,

Lucy was feeling owned by Desi,

and that arrangement wasn't working.

- '58-'59, Lucy and Desi divorce.

- So I'll see you later.

(narrator) And suddenly, Desi didn't want

to own much of anything.

- And he gave up the presidency of Desilu

- And so Desi had to sell his part to her.

- Keep the change. - Lucille Ball,

divorced from Desi, but still calling it Desilu.

Lucy's queen of TV.

- But Lucy wanted to be more than television royalty.

- Their stages were very busy filming everybody else's shows.

- She wanted to be in charge of it

because Lucy knew...

- That the true way to have success is to own it.

She said, bring me a show that can rerun

as long as "I Love Lucy."

(narrator) The USS Enterprise was about to take flight.

But before we get to that, where did this obsession with

flying ships come from in the first place?

To answer that, we need to touch down in Texas, but only briefly.

- Eugene Wesley Roddenberry

was born on August 19, 1921, in El Paso, Texas.

- Like any genius, he's a complicated individual.

- Oh, we'll definitely get to that.

But first, we have to get him out of Texas.

- He would find his escape inside of science fiction books,

adventure books, the stories of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells.

(narrator) He dreamed of faraway airborne adventures.

And a certain major conflict was about to make that a reality.

- He was a bomber pilot in World War II.

(John) He flies in 89 combat missions

and wins numerous awards.

(narrator) And when the war ended,

Gene continued to spread his wings

as a pilot for Pan Am,

where his career was set to change course dramatically.

(Marc) He was on a Pan Am jetliner

that crashed in the Middle East.

He wasn't flying that one.

He was riding with the passengers

and everybody in the cockpit was killed.

- So Gene gravitated towards a more grounded uniform.

- And then he became a Los Angeles police officer.

But Gene was less interested in arresting people

and more interested in arresting stories.

So much so... - Gene Roddenberry,

this budding writer-producer,

wrote a script for "Have Gun - Will Travel."

♪♪

He's like every other up-and-coming writer,

he's trying to get his own show, that's where the money is.

He wrote a ton of scripts, and he does land his own show

called "The Lieutenant."

It's about a Marine Corps officer who's a lawyer.

- It's not fiction, Mr. Sanders.

I mean, you just don't rewrite history.

(Larry) Gene Roddenberry, he wants to do

hard-hitting, adult themes.

One of his episodes is about racism.

- But the world has gotta change first!

It's got to be made to change.

- It brings him a head-to-head battle

with the network, with the studio.

(narrator) This hard-hitting episode

was ahead of its time.

NBC wouldn't give it the time of day,

or even a time of day in its schedule.

- It winds up not being even shown.

- You can't say, well, let's not really talk about anything

serious on television.

That, that is a criminal statement.

- He's in trouble for writing this racism script.

So he's like, fine, guys, fine, I love science fiction

and that's how we'll get it out to people.

- Here was a chance to do the kind of drama

I had always dreamed of doing.

(narrator) A sophisticated sci-fi drama that could

ask the big questions of the time.

- Questions about who we are

and what we're up to in the world.

(narrator) Deep questions like...

- Was it you who spoke?

(narrator) What if vegetables could talk?

- He doesn't want "Lost in Space."

- Sure, that's what they all say!

- Gene had higher goals for the fledgling TV sci-fi genre.

- Be able to talk about love, war, nature, God, sex,

all those things that go to make up

the excitement of the human condition.

- Dazzling display of logic.

- And maybe the TV censors would let it pass

because it all seems so make-believe.

- He actually wanted to address some social issues.

(narrator) But he couldn't do it alone.

- 1965, he finally puts the ideas to paper.

He's going around to the networks.

- Which didn't take long actually, because...

- In the early '60s, there were only three networks.

(narrator) And they all passed.

- He gets turned down everywhere.

- But just when all hope seemed lost,

Gene landed a meeting with Desilu, remember them?

Lucy was still looking for the next big thing to own.

- This frumpy guy, very soft-spoken,

very mild-mannered, he came in with his single piece of paper

and his memo about what "Star Trek" is.

- And then he delivered the killer blow.

- Gene's famous pitch line...

- A wagon train to the stars.

- Which he might not choose today, but back then...

- Westerns were big.

- "Wagon Train" being a very popular

Western Anthology series.

(narrator) This was right on point.

- It was a big wagon train slowly going west...

- Headed to the New Frontier...

(grunting)

And running into different obstacles.

- It's gonna be a western.

(gunfire)

But it's gonna be in outer space.

(zapping) - (Gene) Zap guns

instead of six-shooters, spaceships instead of horses.

(narrator) Lucy liked what she heard,

and Desilu decided to board this wagon train.

- So that put Desilu back in business

as far as owning properties.

(narrator) Hoping it lead not just

to the stars, but to riches.

- This wasn't just for Gene Roddenberry.

This was something that could be the salvation of Desilu.

(narrator) In the fall of 1964, a pilot for

what would become "Star Trek" was commissioned.

NBC finally agreed to back Desilu's production,

because who could say no to this face?

- They wanted to do business with Lucille Ball

because Lucille Ball was CBS's golden girl.

- Oh, and there was one other little

sweetener for the network.

(Tom) Lucy had a development fund.

She gave the money from the development fund

to develop "Star Trek."

(narrator) With Lucille's own money,

Gene began scripting his wagon train to the stars,

starting with his lead character...

- James Kirk. - No... (laughs)

- In the original drafts for "The Cage,"

the captain of the Enterprise was going to be called

Robert April. - (narrator) Robert April?

- That fact isn't in the history texts.

- And it was just a matter of finding the name

the network responded the most to.

(narrator) For some reason, they preferred the name...

- Christopher Pike. - My name is Christopher Pike.

- Now, if Christopher Pike looks like

a completely different captain,

that's because he's a completely different captain.

But more on that later. Whatever his name,

NBC thought this captain needed more

than just the right name.

- NBC was saying you've got to find a way to make Americans

feel comfortable in space.

Well, let's build something around them

that all America's familiar with.

- That was something the entire nation had lived through.

- World War II was less than 20 years earlier.

- And it was now a part of the American story.

(Marc) We've all seen movies on American submarines.

Half of the American men fought in that war.

(narrator) Including Gene himself,

who drew from experience to design the costumes

and even the radio signals. (radio beeping)

- Mr. Spock here. - 'Cause that's what

you would hear on ships and aircraft carriers

when they would signal the captain.

- This is the captain. - He wanted the terminology.

- Evasive maneuvers, sir? - Steady as we go.

- And of course, a ship... - Enterprise.

- Which is a whole story unto itself.

But for now, Gene had to find the right man to take the helm.

- He had his wish list of who he wanted to play

the captain of the Enterprise.

And right at the top of that list was William Shatner.

(narrator) So cast as Captain Pike--

- No, they couldn't get William Shatner

because William Shatner had another series on at that time

that he was starring in on CBS.

- Do you want facts, Jamison? I'll give you facts.

- Well, the fact was they had to look elsewhere.

- And so they had to look down the list,

and that's when they found Jeffrey Hunter.

(narrator) Jeffrey Hunter was a dreamboat leading man

for the matinee era.

- So they were happy to get him.

- But Captain Pike could hardly make sense

of the universe without a science officer.

- Spock here. - (Marc) Roddenberry

always wanted Leonard Nimoy to play Spock.

That was the first person he thought of

'cause Nimoy had been in an episode of "The Lieutenant"

which Gene Roddenberry produced.

- Not that Mr. Nimoy cares to recall.

- There was stuff before "Star Trek"?

- There sure was. - (chuckles)

- Nimoy had just finished perfecting

his contemplative demeanor on "The Lieutenant."

(Leonard) I did the job.

A week or two later, my agent called me and said,

Gene Roddenberry is interested in you

for a science fiction pilot that he's going to produce.

He said, a character with pointed ears,

and that that set me back a bit.

- If Spock's ears raised an eyebrow,

what Gene had planned for his first officer

was positively revolutionary.

- Can't get used to having a woman on the bridge.

No offense, Lieutenant, you're different, of course.

(Tom) Majel Barrett was a student of Lucy's

at the Desilu workshop

where she would train them and give them experience.

- And although she had little experience taking orders,

featuring in an episode of "The Lieutenant"...

- Aye-aye, sir. - Casting a woman

as second in command, even in an imagined future,

was ahead of its time.

(Sandra) That was a position of authority

and women just didn't have that position.

It's very much a man's world in those days.

- Yes, it is, isn't it?

- It is remarkable that a woman is the first officer

of the flagship of the Federation in 1966.

That is unbelievable.

(narrator) Oh, don't worry.

If you think that's unbelievable...

- (laughs) I'm Sandy Gimpel,

or Sandra Gimpel, I played a Talosian.

- That's Sandra on the left,

and Meg Wyllie on the right.

- I think they hired women because they wanted

a sleeker line and they can make us look tall and thin,

so we'd look more alien. - And that they did.

Now, last but not least, Gene sent for the doctor.

- Gene Roddenberry wanted DeForest Kelley.

- "Bones," of course. Oops, or not.

- That was because DeForest Kelley

had over ten years working as the heavy in westerns.

(narrator) So the only cure for this ailment was a stiff shot

of veteran actor Jon Hoyt.

- Who wants a warm martini?

(narrator) So with the cast in place,

Desilu Studios began filming the pilot

on November 27, 1964.

But instead of delivering a space western,

the first episode entitled, "The Cage,"

dealt with more abstract things.

- The enormous power of imagination.

- We didn't quite understand how it was going to work

as a television show. - But despite

the muddy plot, the special effects were crystal clear.

- "Star Trek" was the first TV series

to shoot against a blue screen.

- And although it seems primitive now, back then?

- Nobody was doing moving stars.

- Providing a sense of realism that was missing

from other sci-fi shows.

- He doesn't want "Lost in Space."

(narrator) We remember.

But one of "Star Trek" 's signature special effects

was actually a cost-saving measure.

- The reason we have the transporter is because

they couldn't afford to land the ship in every episode.

- But the pilot didn't look cheap,

and that's because it really wasn't.

- The pilot had cost I think almost $600,000,

which would be like six million today.

Then NBC only put up half the money,

Desilu put up the other half.

(narrator) An excellent investment.

Or maybe not, because NBC rejected the pilot.

- Some of their executives were outraged.

- They didn't like the pointy-eared guy.

- What do you call those? - I call them ears.

- They feared parts of America might think

Spock's pointy ears pointed to Satan somehow.

- Hello, 1964. - (narrator) But mainly...

- They felt the plot was too cerebral.

(Talosian) It appears that the intelligence of the specimen

is shockingly limited.

- Aliens using illusion to do what they want to do.

(narrator) It was simply too brainy, too wacky,

and too much for advertisers.

- We can't use this to sell it to advertisers

'cause it's not reflective of what we would

want the series to be. - And that's it.

(narrator) "Star Trek" 's first brave sortie

to the television cosmos had failed.

The door was closed on "The Cage,"

but the network wasn't ready to abandon the mission.

- It's very rare for there to be a second pilot.

- But money talks.

- They actually funded a second pilot.

- And once again, Lucy was happy to put

her money where her famous mouth was.

- Lucy reached into her pocket

to refinance the pilot to a new one.

(narrator) The network was only too happy

to split the bill, with conditions.

- This one had better be familiar

action adventure, or else.

- They didn't just take issue with the plot.

They also had problems with the personnel.

- Gene does famously say, "Well, I had to give up the woman...

- No offense, Lieutenant.

- Or the guy with the pointy ears."

(narrator) And when push came to shove,

Gene gave in to his Vulcan side.

- Gene really liked the character of Spock.

He would find something else for Majel later on.

- The job of casting was a matter of military precision.

- Steady as we go. - Thanks to a military drama.

- That is real drama. - Gene and I

really were in sync on the casting because...

- Stealthy approach. - The easiest place to go

was people that we were both familiar with

that we had both used in "The Lieutenant."

- And then... whammo!

- And if he couldn't have a female first officer,

there had to be another way to get a woman on the bridge.

- Nichelle Nichols was a true discovery.

- Thanks again to "The Lieutenant."

- Because Gene said that he wanted

a woman in the command center.

- Meanwhile, Gene suddenly found himself in need of a doctor,

because John Hoyt had gone off to do movies.

- Ah, sounds exciting.

- Opening the door for Gene's first choice,

DeForest Kelley, who finally landed the role of "Bones"

by giving execs a look beneath his hat.

- Fill me in. - (Maria) Gene had the idea

that if he got a haircut that would subliminally say

"good guy," that the studio would come around

and warm up to having Dee on the show.

- You look just fine, Doctor.

- Well, I don't doubt it.

- That haircut was based on John F. Kennedy.

(narrator) He nailed it.

Just like the good doctor's hair, Jeffrey Hunter

would also be brushed aside.

- Jeff Hunter was offered a movie.

- And so the door slid open for the guy he wanted all along,

William Shatner.

- Because "We the People" had just been canceled.

(narrator) But his new captain would need a new name.

- This is Captain James T. Kirk.

- But we wouldn't find out

what the T stood for until much later.

- There'll be no discussion of this.

(narrator) Evidently, NBC wanted the T to stand for tough.

- They wanted something a little more action-orientated.

- So "Star Trek" started to get physical like the Olympics.

- And then NBC said, we love it!

(narrator) With boxing.

Karate, wrestling,

and possibly shot put.

Oh, and target shooting,

But then came the twist.

- They also wanted to see if you can make it a little cheaper.

- The pilot cost a whopping $450,000.

NBC felt the budget should be more in the orbit of 185,000.

- Very low budget, it was undersold.

- And even at that price, the network wouldn't be

footing the entire bill.

- It's deficit financing. The networks do not pony up

all the cost of a show.

- NBC would only back "Star Trek" to the tune of

100 grand per episode.

- So Desilu's going into the hole 85 grand

with every episode they're making.

(narrator) At such a heavy price,

the board of Desilu convened to consider its options.

The old guard, so-called...

- Told Lucy, "Don't do it."

It'll put the studio out of business.

- But Lucille Ball still held the deciding vote.

She said, "Let's go ahead and produce the whole thing."

She's like, "I'm putting the fate of the studio

in your hands, guys." - With all that pressure,

Gene decided to recruit a Gene 2.0,

coincidentally also called Gene.

- Here comes Gene Coon, a great writer.

He'd written some scripts on "Have Gun - Will Travel"

that Gene Roddenberry had worked on.

Didn't have a big science fiction background,

but he could tell a story.

- He was really in charge of the writing room,

and he was very interested in making sure that the characters

were the most important essential thing.

(narrator) Evident from the very first episode to air,

which placed its diversity of characters at the forefront.

- Tell me how your planet Vulcan looks on

a lazy evening when the moon is full.

- Suddenly, network television had a glamorous new look

and a breath of fresh air.

- I was born acting, my father said.

- Nichelle had come from the theater, and since

her episode of "The Lieutenant" never made it to air,

"Star Trek" would be her first on-screen credit.

- Thank you, God. (chuckles)

- And as the communications officer, she was sending

a clear message, which had the execs screaming.

- "What are you doing?"

- Gene believed in diversity.

- He said, "I want all ethnic choices

to be considered, period."

- And he was happy to test the limits by casting

a Japanese American, even as memories

of the Second World War remained fresh.

- He says, "By the time we're out in space,

"borders have disappeared,

people interact in a natural, comfortable way."

(narrator) When "Star Trek" finally broadcast,

it confirmed that America was ready for a fresh vision

of the future... (laser blasting)

And a bit of action, of course.

- The very first episode, "The Man Trap,"

47% of the TVs in America were tuned in.

- Nearly half of America was seeing something

they'd never seen before. - It was a pioneer show

that was creating things every inch of the way.

- But delving into whole new worlds every week

soon took a toll on its cast and crew.

- Yeah, I'm here usually about 6:30 in the morning.

We actually start shooting at 8:00.

The crew arrives around 7:30.

It takes me about an hour and a half to get into the rig.

(Larry) It was an uphill battle.

They were under the gun constantly.

It was taking a toll mentally.

(Gene) Our schedule was 12 to 14 hours a day

and the production staff worked six days a week.

During the first two years, there was not a member

of our production staff that was not in the hospital

at one time or another from exhaustion.

- It was the hardest show to make on television.

(narrator) Along with monsters, the original series ranged

across monster themes...

- Pain! - Colonization...

- Cry...

for the children. - The ethics of war...

- We have the right-- - To wage war, Captain?

To kill millions of innocent people?

- Hairdressing.

Along the way, Spock fell in love...

- I love you. - And almost fell out of a t.

- I told Leonard to grab hold of the branch

and hang from it like a monkey and play the scene that way.

The first line of Kirk's was--

- You were told to report to me at once!

- And then Spock with this glorious grin on his face said--

- I didn't want to, Jim.

- And it just worked beautifully.

- Yes, I could see that. - It became

an iconic Spock scene.

(narrator) But one iconic episode above all

would come to embody "Star Trek" as top-shelf science fiction.

And it came from one of sci-fi's finest practitioners.

- Harlan Ellison. - Who has written

some of history's most important science fiction books.

- Harlan pitched an idea for a time-traveling

"Star Trek" episode, which he called...

- "City On the Edge of Forever."

(deep voice) I am the guardian of Forever.

- I wrote that script before

the show ever went on the air.

- But Harlan's gritty story was not

what Gene Roddenberry thought "Star Trek" should be.

- Harlan's original version of

"The City On the Edge of Forever"

involved a drug dealer on the Enterprise named Beckwith.

- He was trying to escape. - And escapes through

a portal to the planet Earth.

- And I wrote what I thought was a dynamite script.

- Which, by the way, everybody said

was a great science fiction story.

It just wasn't a "Star Trek."

(narrator) So Roddenberry ordered rewrites.

- It needed to be hammered into that formula, that box.

- Just like his time-traveling script,

Harlan was on a different timeline, too.

- It was hard to get Harlan to discipline himself,

to turn out pages at the rate that you need it.

(narrator) So Gene Coon made a bold executive decision.

- Producer Gene Coon locked him in a room...

- So he couldn't get out. - (narrator) A defiant Ellison

began to blast music, as he was known to do while he wrote.

- And at one point, the record started skipping.

- They got suspicious.

- So they opened the door only to find...

- The window was open and Harlan had gone out the window.

And he was on the set, taking pictures with Shatner and Nimoy.

- "The City on the Edge of Forever" took forever.

But Harlan's long overdue script was considered brilliant...

- It's a brilliant script. - In more ways than one.

- It's brilliantly overwritten. - His script would've cost

as much as a major motion picture.

- Science fiction writers very often are people who have

wonderful imaginations and wonderful ideas

which cannot be expressed in other forms.

- Gene Roddenberry finally had the kind of serious

science fiction script he always wanted to make,

(narrator) While Harlan Ellison's magnum opus

created a headache for "Star Trek" producers,

it created an opportunity for the young story editor

tasked with fixing it.

- I worked on the show, obviously, from the very

beginning as Gene Roddenberry's production secretary.

- While also moonlighting as one of the show's writers.

- I had written, at that point,

two scripts and had rewritten "This Side of Paradise."

- But sensing potential

in his young writer, he gave her a challenge.

- "If you rewrite "This Side of Paradise" to my satisfaction

and NBC's satisfaction I will hire you as my story editor."

And I did, and he did.

(John) When she's working on "Star Trek," she's actually

the youngest story editor in the history of television,

and she's one of the very few female story editors

(narrator) Which made her job even more intimidating.

- 'Cause Harlan scared her to death.

She was just terrified.

She said, "I'll do a rewrite, but don't tell him."

- She didn't tell him for like, three decades

that she had done the rewrite on it, she let him blame Gene.

- One of the things she did was take each character

and do something special.

- That included doing a special

on the character of "Bones."

- Better risk a few drops of Cordrazine.

- Dorothy Fontana came up with the part about McCoy

accidentally injects himself.

♪♪

- Bones! - And goes deranged.

- (shouting) - Which is how D.C. feared

Harlan would react when he found out

that they changed the script.

- No, he couldn't be mad at her,

nobody could be mad at Dorothy.

- But that didn't mean he was happy about it.

- The core of it is that the Joan Collins character...

- I'm Edith Keeler. - Is going to prevent

the United States' entry into World War II.

This would allow Hitler to take over the world.

(narrator) And if that wasn't horrifying enough...

- I'm in love with Edith Keeler.

(narrator) This was history versus love.

- Harlan was probably one of the greatest romantics

in science fiction. - Although let's just say

it doesn't end well for the lovebirds.

- Kirk has to let the woman he loves die...

(tires screeching) to save the world.

- Which might be why Gene felt the need to soften the blow.

- Of course, he wrote that speech for Edith.

- Now, I don't pretend to tell you

how to find happiness in love.

One day, man is going to be able

to harness incredible energies.

(narrator) If nothing else, it was a speech about...

- Hope. - But Gene's two cents

gave anything but hope to Harlan Ellison.

- It's the old, uh, French joke about the chef who has made

the great soup, and all the other chefs come in, they say,

"Well, we must make it just a little bit better."

And they all piss in it. Everybody pissed in my script.

- Which naturally... - Pissed Harlan off.

- So Harlan washed his hands of it.

- So by the time they filmed it,

Harlan didn't want his name on there.

- Which Gene couldn't afford to lose.

- If you lost the name Harlan Ellison,

he would have lost all legitimacy.

- So Gene gave Harlan an ultimatum.

- If you don't let us put your name on this,

I'm gonna do everything I can to see that

you never work in this industry again.

- And surprisingly, that line worked.

- They ended up putting Harlan's name on the screen

with Harlan's permission, but it took a lot of fighting.

- But Harlan Ellison's "The City on the Edge of Forever"

would come with a hell of a price tag,

putting the whole series on the edge of forever.

- It was the most expensive episode of "Star Trek" ever.

- That meant season two of "Star Trek"

really needed to turn those thrusters on.

(TV announcer) William Shatner stars as

Captain Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as Science Officer Spock

on "Star Trek" in color.

- Luckily, it was not only in color, but in a prime slot.

- NBC had promised Gene the 8:00 time slot on Monday.

And then they gave it to "Laugh-In."

- Hey, you got anything on tonight?

- I certainly hope so.

- Because "Laugh-In" had gotten such strong ratings,

they didn't wanna lose the time slot.

- And so a comedy sketch show sent "Star Trek"

to a distant galaxy. - 10:00 on Friday nights.

- That was a bad time slot for "Star Trek."

- Gene knew, nobody stays home and watches television

on Friday night, that's movie night, that's date night.

- But it was still their top-rated show of the night.

- Partly because Gene Roddenberry's

characters had started to click.

- You have something very magical with

Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Kirk is the decider.

He's the action, but over here you have the logic.

The rationality, and over here you have the emotions.

- And although the cast was shaping up nicely,

NBC wanted to add one more piece.

- Navigator?

- We should be there in seconds.

- The network wanted a young character

to appeal to the younger audience.

- You know this man, Captain?

- So they brought in Walter Koenig apparently

due to his passing resemblance to a monkey.

- Yeah. - Or more precisely,

Davy Jones of the Monkees.

- "The Monkees" was the only show that was getting

more fan mail than "Star Trek" at that point.

- With one clever difference. - This is "wodka."

- Thanks to a classic Roddenberry twist.

- Let's make him a Russian. - Just like Russia.

- And this was huge... for 1967.

- It was the Cold War going on.

- The Garden of Eden was just outside Moscow.

A very nice place.

- Right now, the thinking is that

"Star Trek," you mixed

all races, erased all borders.

- If all nationalities could get together, we could all

work together and bring that sense of humanity

which was really what "Star Trek" was about.

- And so Walter Koenig became an unwitting ambassador for peace,

right from the first episode of season two.

- I do not understand.

- Gene felt if we're gonna survive,

we have to learn to work with our enemies.

- There was some social commentary going on,

particularly on issues that were current at that time.

The late-- the mid to the late '60s.

The Civil Rights situation, uh, Vietnam War.

- But Gene's appetite for the big issues

was causing big issues with NBC.

- Let's put it this way. The network did

not love Roddenberry. He was difficult to deal with.

- He had no concept in his mind

of why it shouldn't be the way he saw it.

- If there is a truism in television, it is that, uh...

no successful show ever gave a network

exactly what it wanted.

- In fact, Roddenberry was giving NBC

exactly what it didn't want.

- "Private Little War" is all about

the hopelessness of Vietnam.

- If this planet is to develop in the way it should,

we must equalize both sides again.

- Jim, that means you're condemning this whole planet

to a war that may never end. It could go on for year after

year, massacre after massacre! - All right, Doctor!

- Obviously about Vietnam.

- We were the only show that ever talked against Vietnam.

- NBC didn't like it. - But a much bigger fight

was in the cards. - There was some concern

that the show might not be renewed.

- Fans were aghast, none more so than...

- Bjo Trimble and John Trimble.

- And they had a question for the creator

of their favorite TV show. - Is there something we can do?

Perhaps we could organize a letter campaign.

- Gene saw an opportunity to marshal his troops against NBC.

- He was girding for a fight, and he wanted to have as much

public support behind him and the show as possible.

- And so the letters started coming in,

and then this thing ballooned.

- With "Star Trek" seemingly on life support,

thousands of fans picketed NBC

demanding they not pull the plug.

- We got a million letters.

- A million letters was one thing.

But with production costs

approaching a similar number,

fan fury wasn't enough.

- It was much more expensive than the average show.

- They were trying to shoot half

a science fiction movie every week.

- The financial pain was unbearable for Desilu.

They were now making the two most expensive shows on TV.

- It was actually a tie between

"Star Trek" and "Mission: Impossible."

- With "Star Trek" now one of the most expensive shows

on the air, Desilu had a mountain

to climb with every episode.

- Lucy's big gamble, Lucy's big risk

did break the studio. It did break Desilu.

- But here to help was a studio that knew

a thing or two about mountains.

- Paramount didn't have a real presence

in the television industry.

- But they really wanted to.

- Because now, that old wall between movie and TV

has come down, and all the big movie studios

are getting into content creation.

- So Paramount decided to shop around for a studio.

And they didn't have to look far.

Right next door, here is Desilu. - Physically next door.

- And Desilu was ripe for the picking.

- Paramount makes them a plum offer.

- Even though it was a sweet offer,

Lucille Ball was reluctant to take it.

- The day she was supposed to sign the contract, she ran away

And they found her in Miami Beach.

That's how torn she was. Because this was the studio

that she and her husband built,

and it's all she had left of her marriage.

- But ultimately, this was an offer she couldn't refuse.

- Tears in her eyes, she signed the contracts.

And she flew back and cut the ribbon merging the two studios.

- But no sooner had Lucy cut the ribbon,

then Paramount began cutting something else.

- And then the first thing

Paramount did was cut the budgets.

They slashed everything across the board.

- On top of increasing budget constraints,

Gene Roddenberry found himself

falling out of love with his own show.

(laughing)

- What is it?

- What is it? Why, lovely lady,

it's a tribble.

- There was trouble, and it had something to do with tribbles.

- Roddenberry had been away for a few weeks.

And he came back, and he heard laughter coming

from stage nine which is the Enterprise stage.

- Now why would people be laughing during

a serious thing like a "Star Trek" taping?

- He went in there, and again, a big burst of laughter.

The scene where Kirk gets to cargo bay

and all the tribbles bury him up to his neck.

The crew couldn't help it. The tape was so funny

and Shatner was so funny. - But to Gene,

this was no laughing matter.

- Gene never wanted "Star Trek" to become silly.

- This is my chicken sandwich and coffee.

- Fascinating. - He didn't want it

to feel like they were acting camp.

- This project is ruined.

- But not everyone saw it that way.

Just ask the writer. - I thought it was pretty good.

I set out to write the very best "Star Trek" I knew how to do.

- And the episode did connect with a broader audience.

- "The Trouble with Tribbles" is a very different episode.

Very carefully contrived. Instead of saving the galaxy

this week, Kirk's problems are the minutiae

of everyday life which is how most of us live life.

- Now if you'll excuse me,

I have a ship to tend to. Au revoir.

- "Star Trek" was exploring new directions, and Gene wasn't

happy to find his writers dancing to a different tune.

- And Roddenberry said I can't let "Star Trek"

become like "Lost in Space."

- Moisture! I need moisture!

- So he called in his showrunner to course correct,

but Gene Coon wasn't exactly receptive.

- Gene Coon said if I can't run the show, I'm walking.

- However, Gene wasn't going to let one of "Star Trek" 's

most creative voices just walk out the door.

- The original series wouldn't have been

what it was without Gene Coon.

Everything from Klingons... - Ridiculous.

- To General Order Number One.

- The prime directive is in full force, Captain.

- No identification of self or mission.

No interference with the social development of said planet.

- Gene knew that "Star Trek" was on thin ice with the network.

So he struck a deal with his other Gene.

- So Roddenberry said I'll let you out of your contract.

- But if we get renewed for a third season,

you have to come back and write four episodes.

- And Gene Coon agreed to that.

- Given the problems with NBC and Gene Coon's departure,

many of the writers weren't optimistic

about keeping their jobs.

- We believed "Star Trek" was in trouble.

- That was until NBC announced...

- "Star Trek" is coming back next year.

- And no one was happier than the fans

who had written in to save the show.

- Really, the point of that announcement was to get people

to stop writing letters. You know what?

More letters came in saying "thank you."

- Having survived the kiss of death from the network,

Gene pull out all the stops for season three

with a kiss of his own.

- I'm so very frightened.

- This is the first interracial kiss on television.

- That's the way they want you to feel.

- And everybody was nervous about it.

- That included the studio heads in New York.

- They were worried about the South.

- While embracing a chance to make history,

Gene Roddenberry was facing some pushback.

- The head of the studio came out from New York.

Big deal.

I wish I could stop trembling.

When he came out, they said are you coming out because of--

He says, "No, I wanna meet Nichelle Nichols.

"She's one of my favorite actresses and I wanna see her.

I wanna meet her."

- Surprising even Nichelle herself.

- He just adored Uhura.

And that settled that.

- And so "Star Trek" made history with a simple

if slightly awkward meeting of the lips.

- Where I come from,

size, shape or color makes no difference.

- However, there was still no meeting of the minds

between Gene Roddenberry and the network.

And when NBC decided to move "Star Trek" to Friday night,

Gene drew a line in the sand.

- If you put it at this time slot, I am gonna step back.

I'm not gonna be as involved as I was.

- He drew a line in the sand like Picard would do later on.

- This far, no further!

- But they still did it. - And said, well,

okay, they called my bluff. I'm out of here.

- NBC had drawn its own line in the sand around ratings.

- And if you didn't get a 30 share as big as that was

you faced possible cancellation.

- So with "Star Trek" stuck in

the gallows of Friday night...

- That's date night.

- "Star Trek"'s ratings suffered.

- And so that made it more inviting

for NBC to wanna cancel the show.

- Thus, after a lackluster third season...

- Here's "Star Trek" being cancelled, 1969.

The last episode airs 47 days

before Apollo 11 lands on the moon.

- But as they say in the business, timing is everything.

"Star Trek" the original series

comprised just 79 episodes.

And although no longer on NBC,

its television run was just beginning.

"Star Trek" gained momentum after it went off the air.

It's a really unique situation.

- And it was all thanks to Desi and Lucy's revolutionary idea.

- The rerun rights. - Which by now

had become standard practice.

- The model for television in the '60s was syndication.

And that is once your program had come off of the first-run

network, it would then go into syndication

and be sold to local stations.

- Freed from the clutches of NBC,

"Star Trek" went forth to seek out

new civilizations... of viewers.

- It was immediately picked up by about

50 stations across America.

A few years later, it was on 100.

A couple years later, it's on 150, then up to 200

by the end of the 1970s.

- But as program manager, Lucie Salhany

wouldn't just play it once a week.

- We ran it Monday through Friday, and sometimes

Monday through Friday and Saturday.

- It was as if it was on all the time.

- And we kept running it and rerunning it.

- This shocked everyone.

- Gene used to tell a story of how the ratings people

come running into the suits at Paramount TV and say

"My God, you've got the perfect show!"

And look at this, it's hitting all the demos.

Everything we wanna hit, it's getting to the right audience.

- And the name of the show was...

- "Star Trek." Oh, we cancelled it last year.

- As the number of stations that carried "Star Trek" grew,

so did Paramount's profits.

- Paramount was going, oh my God we've got this moneymaker here.

- So much so that secondhand "Star Trek" was proving

more valuable than brand-new TV shows.

- The ratings were actually better,

and it continued to grow.

And people were watching the show now

for the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh time.

- Redefining how television worked for everyone.

- And if somebody loves a show,

they're just gonna keep watching this thing.

- But it wasn't just old fans who flocked to "Star Trek."

- "Star Trek" captures a whole new audience.

Even when they were up to their fifth and sixth reruns,

"Star Trek" was pulling in ratings of 375,000 people.

Beating the first-run network television shows.

- "Star Trek" became one of the first entertainment properties

to transform from a show to a show of force.

- The very first "Star Trek" convention in New York,

3,000 show up. It's on the front pages

of "Variety." It's in "TV Guide."

- It's in the New York papers.

It makes the term Trekkie a household word.

- And its stars began a legacy that would

define their careers and their lives.

- When I look at all the fans and the people that I talk to

in signing autographs, it's just amazing to me

what an impact it's made on so many people.

I'm just so proud of that, I can't tell you.

- It sounds funny for saying this.

But it's never been cancelled.

We were just off longer than we wanted to be.

- "Star Trek"'s popularity stems from Roddenberry's

revolutionary take on a genre leading to an epic franchise

that's showing no signs of slowing down.

But without the bravery and determination

of Lucille Ball who defied Hollywood and expectations,

well, "Star Trek" probably wouldn't exist at all.

- So she's the hero behind "Star Trek."

She deserves that credit.

- Lucy took a risk on two TV pilots--

"Mission: Impossible" and "Star Trek."

They wind up being the two huge franchises

in Paramount's back pocket, that in some years

were the two franchises, especially "Star Trek"

that kept the whole damn studio afloat.

- But back in 1969, the studio was in a bit of a quandary.

Having killed its golden goose, Paramount was left wondering

how it could be resurrected. - What do you do with that?

Do you pull all those actors back?

What would that take? Do we do a movie?

Do we do a TV movie? Do we launch a season

with a TV movie? - The answer to that

was destined to be drawn out.