Boldly going

Trekkies - fans of the Star Trek series - are an odd lot.   I should know, since recently I attended what was described as The First Annual Bellenden Star Trek Convention, a day-long extravaganza involving video replays of about seven episodes.  It proved a curiously moving experience.

Along with the shows themselves, there was a screening of Leonard Nimoy's "Star Trek Reminiscences".  This hour-long programme featured the man behind Mr Spock with some insights - though rather biased ones - into the making of the series.  One of the most interesting facts revealed was that the 78 episodes of the series were produced in just three years; it was only later, with the three Star Trek films, that the old cast was re-assembled.

And yet our memories are of Star Trek as a kind of recurrent, timeless event, part of being young itself.  The first shows were broadcast in the U.S. 20 years ago, and a little later in the U.K.  Such is their very special production values that they do not seem rooted in this epoch by any external signs.  With each re-run they asserted their timelessness.

Partly this is a reflection of the almost unique endeavour the programmes represented.  A full-scale science fiction series of this type was without precedent at the time.  The costs of the pilots were the largest-ever; perhaps to compensate, the episodes themselves are often dangerously close to being threadbare.  This explains the extraordinary fudges in scenery and models; it was simply a case of not being able to afford better.

The films show that this was no tragedy.  Placed against convincing backdrops, the actors begin to look dangerously exposed.  The fact is, Shatner, Nimoy, and above all the splendid DeForest Kelly were not great actors.  Often they were distinctly ham.  But it is precisely this stilted, almost ritualised acting which lends such coherence to the whole series.  That and the fact that they were produced at a pell-mell rush.  Like Haydn in his isolation at Esterházy, the writers and producers of Star Trek were almost forced to become original.

This is particularly noticeable with the plots.  There is a lot of dross; and yet there are also some striking storylines  - as if they had run out of bad and hackneyed ideas, and so were forced to make up some good ones.  Pressure of time meant that again and again, the actors fall back on the same stock phrases and expressions; everything becomes formulaic, like some Noh play on speed.
 
The second-rate nature of the actors, aided by their obliviousness of the fact, enabled them to take these near-unpronounceable lines, and make something very special and personal out of them.  In a touching way, they really believed in what they were doing.  In the Nimoy reminiscences it is clear that the role of Spock provided an abiding sense of fulfilment.

Never mind the huge improbabilities of half the galaxy speaking English; never mind that a crew of 400 is generally represented by 4; never mind the crass American nationalism and unsubtle racism.   Star Trek boldly went where no series had gone before; today it still boldly goes. 

(10.8.86)

Index