The Trouble With Tribbles Part 4

Indeed it has. Before, Jones was perceptible as a human being, with colored fringes. Now, he is three overlapping phantoms, and his speech overlaps so badly that he is unintelligible.

Jones' brother blames Kirk for it. "If you hadn't ordered us into warp drive, he'd still be all right."

Kirk says, "Jones, I realize you're upset. You'd better go to your quarters before you say something that you'll later regret."

Jones stares at Kirk, almost hatefully, then he turns on his heel and walks away. Kirk nods to McCoy. "Keep an eye on him."

Back on the bridge, they discover that because Jones is stretched across a longer span of time, he is also using more power. They have also discovered that he drains more power from the matter-antimatter generators when he moves than when he stays in one place. The farther apart the three phantoms are in physical s.p.a.ce, the more power they need to hold them together in the time continuum.

By now, the power drain is so severe that all functions of the s.h.i.+p are on emergency power.

"We've got to subdue him and keep him in one place," Kirk orders, but McCoy reports that Jones cannot be subdued by ordinary means.

"He can't be touched. He's just like so much fog."

"We'll have to use phasers then. Lowest level, stun him only."

A security squad is a.s.signed to catch Jones and stun him. Meanwhile, Spock has come up with a solution to the problem. "Bring Jones to the transporter room."

But they cannot bring the man to the transporter room if they cannot .nd him. Jones sees the squad coming after him with phasers and he panics. To him, they look like multicolored phantoms-an army of them.

All crewmen are alerted to stop Jones. "Use phasers. Shoot to stun."

Jones' brother arrives on the bridge, angry. He confronts Kirk. "You're trying to kill my brother!"

"It's him or us. We have no power left as long as he's moving around," Kirk answers. "You decide. Do we live or die?"

Jones doesn't speak for a long moment. Finally, he says, "Let me do it, then."

He takes his phaser and goes after his brother. Kirk orders all other crewmen to return to their quarters.

The Enterprise now becomes the scene of an eerie con-frontation. The crewman confronts his brother, who is three bright colored phantoms.

"Robert," he says to the phantoms. "You've got to trust us." (His voice is being fed into the computer and garbled so that the protracted man can understand it.) With that, he pulls out his phaser and .res. One by one, the three phantoms collapse into each other. The protracted man lies unconscious on the .oor.

Quickly, he is brought to the transporter room, where Mr. Spock is waiting. "Do we have enough power?" he asks.

"Not nearly enough," answers Mr. Scott.

Kirk orders all s.h.i.+p's functions shut down-everything except the transporter room. All available power must go into the transporter beam.

Spock is going to try an experiment. The clue to it is that when Jones materialized, he materialized not as one person, but as three different phantoms that had to reunite.

Spock feels that the transporter mechanism is able to differentiate between the different levels of Jones' time protrac-tion and that they can use the transporter equipment to hold each plane of Jones' existence in a kind of limbo, then they can superimpose the three phantoms over each other and reunite them in the same time plane.

Spock explains, "We'll hold them apart until they've all dematerialized, then we'll adjust the phasing and try to materialize them all together in the same time orientation."

The command is given by Kirk to energize. Jones starts to dematerialize. He .ickers through all kinds of different colors as each phantom is dematerialized out. When the last one disappears, Spock says, "Now!"

-And Jones reappears normally. He is no longer a protracted man. The desperate experiment has worked.

The tag for this one takes place in the bridge, as always. Kirk allows himself the luxury of a bad pun. He congratulates Spock on a timely solution.

Spock almost winces, and perhaps he complains that he will never understand an Earthman's concept of humor. "After all, there was a solution to the problem. It was only a matter of time."

Kirk gives him a look. "Mr. Spock, was that a joke you just told?"

"Who me? Captain!"

FADEOUT.

Obviously, a premise is a very sketchy telling of the story. Continuity and characterization are overlooked. (We know who most of our characters are anyway, and there's no sense in developing continuity until the story is more fully .eshed.) In general, a story premise presents the problem to be solved, some of the complications, and its eventual solution-plus the writer's thoughts on how he intends to handle the material.

There's no point in doing any more than that until you know if the producer is interested. A story premise is to show him that your idea is feasible for his television show.

The origin for the idea of "The Protracted Man" is easy to trace. One of Hollywood's better special effects experts (and d.a.m.n me for not remembering his name) had spoken to one of the cla.s.ses I had taken while at U.S.C. He had also shown a reel with some of his more impressive tests and effects. Among them were matte shots from It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and the overture/t.i.tle from Hawaii which was never used with the picture. Also shown were some of the color tests he had made for West Side Story.

Remember all those shots in West Side Story of the juvenile delinquents dancing down the streets? Well, he had taken a couple of those and printed them with the color negatives out of synchronization. The backgrounds stayed the same-grim brick walls-but the people moving in the shots shattered into their component colors like an acid-freak's delusion. It was a startling and impressive effect-and he had tried it in a number of different ways, varying both the timing and the ordering of the negatives so that the spread of the images could be either more or less p.r.o.nounced, and the order in which the color-images sepa-rated could be altered.

The effect was used only once in West Side Story (a truly commendable example of self-restraint on the part of someone), but in a way that never failed to make audiences gasp in surprise and delight. Remember, just before Maria, Anita, Tony, and Chino leave for the high school dance, Maria puts on her white dress and looks at herself in the mirror? She starts twirling for joy-and as she twirls, she fragments into brilliant colors, which further fragment and dissolve into the dance itself. If you've seen the picture, you remember the shot.

Anyway, it was that effect which triggered "The Protracted Man." I wanted an idea which could make full use of such a startling visual technique. STAR TREK was the natural place to use it, and the story grew out of the question, "What does this effect suggest?"

As a story, it is not perfect. Yet. If ever. That kind of battering and badgering of an idea is the result of the interaction between a producer and a writer, with a lot of memos from other people thrown in.

As an idea, "The Protracted Man" could be a good exploration of a spectacular special effect-but to make it a good STAR TREK episode too would require a level of personal con.ict. Much more emphasis would have to be put on the con.ict between Kirk and the protracted man's brother than is suggested here.

A greater danger to the Enterprise itself might also be suggested to heighten the overall tension of the show. Perhaps the long-distance warp that the shuttlecraft came through does not completely shut down-and the Enterprise is drifting toward it; they must destroy Jones' time protraction in order to destroy the power-drain on the matter-antimatter generators, and thus have enough power to avoid drifting into the dangerous warp.

Of particular advantage, I thought, was the fact that "The Protracted Man" took place entirely aboard the Enterprise and used only already existing sets. The shuttlecraft had already been established in previous episodes, and a special effect on the warp would almost be routine. (Routine for STAR TREK, that is.) Thus, the cost of the episode would have been well within limits. The only real problems would have been those of the director and the .lm cutters.

Actually, there are any number of ways that this idea could have been explored. A premise is only a jumping off point-a place from which to start the long process of developing a story into an episode.

The following premise, "Bandi," is a little simpler in concept, but the same basic conditions apply: Is it a good story? Is it for STAR TREK? And can we afford to do it?

*I suppose this should be explained. Being theatre arts students, we were conscious of what all the extras-or "atmosphere people"-in any shot were doing. We had come to the conclu-sion that they were "nattering" and "grommis.h.i.+ng." That is, in order to fake a conversation in the background, you mumble softly: "natter, natter, natter..." And your partner replies: "grommish, grommish, grommish..."

Bandi (A story premise by David Gerrold, February 1967.) Kirk suddenly discovers that the Enterprise has a stowaway. It starts out with a couple of minor incidents: crew members claiming to have seen a three-foot teddy bear pacing up and down the corridors, or food disappearing from the galley, or strange noises.

Kirk disregards these stories as pranks until he and Spock meet the intruder face to face-or rather, face to muzzle. It is indeed a three-foot teddy bear. His fur is a lovely shade of golden brown and his eyes are big and soft and moist.

Kirk and Spock blink in surprise. The little creature stares at them for a long moment, then turns and runs, disappearing around a corner.

They follow it and .nd it hiding in the cabin of one of the crewmen. The cabin of crewman Jones.* (As convenient a name as any.) Jones has already come to Kirk's attention several times because of his laxness at his post in the transporter room.

Kirk asks for an explanation. Jones explains that at their last stop-an uninhabited pastoral planet-he discovered the little furry creature. He calls it Bandi.

Because they were there for some time, surveying the planet, he had time to grow attached to his pet and he could not bear to leave it behind. Working in the transporter room, he was able to bring Bandi up and hide him in his cabin. A couple of other crewmen also know about the little creature and have been sneaking food out of the galley for it.

Kirk's immediate reaction is one of anger. The creature will have to be destroyed. They are days from any convenient planet.

"Can't we keep him as a mascot?" asks the crewman.

"No. There are regulations against it." Kirk starts to order that the little beast be destroyed, but he .nds it looking at him with its big soft brown eyes and...

For some reason, Kirk hesitates. There's no reason why they can't keep the animal as a specimen. He shrugs. "We'll lock him up in the biology section. There should be some cages there that will hold him."

Later, Spock asks Kirk why the sudden urge to save the creature's life. It is a disgusting show of emotionality. Kirk says that he hadn't planned to, but he had a sudden feeling of "strangeness." Something about the little creature kept him from ordering it put to sleep.

Spock shakes his head. He does not understand it. Although Kirk has ordered that the creature be kept caged, for some reason, Bandi keeps getting out. The little furry keeps turning up in all parts of the s.h.i.+p. He is quiet and purrs when he is happy, which is nearly always. He is eager for attention and affection. (Think of Billy Barty in a mink coat.) Kirk keeps .nding the creature in the galley, or in the engine room, and even on the bridge. Each time, he insists that the creature be locked up again. He even goes along to make sure-but somehow, people keep letting him out of his cage.

And other strange things are happening: minor mis-calcula-tions by crew members, careless accidents, and a la.s.situde that is infecting almost the whole s.h.i.+p. Kirk thinks it is the effect of Bandi.

But others disagree with him. Everyone thinks the little creature is harmless. He purrs, he's clean, he's neat, and he eats very little. Even McCoy is surprised at the creature's lack of ill habits.

Yet Kirk is convinced that the creature's presence is a disturbing in.uence on the crew and he harbors a mild distaste for it. He will not allow Bandi to sit on his lap.

After one particularly dangerous accident-and Bandi, of course, was in the room-Kirk orders it locked up in a solitary cell in the s.h.i.+p's brig.

Bandi looks at Kirk for a long time. But this time, Kirk wills himself to not like the little furry beast. Bandi senses this dislike...Kirk is the only man on the s.h.i.+p who will not tolerate the little creature and keeps insisting that it be locked up.

That night Kirk has a nightmare. His sleep is troubled and uneasy; he is bothered by strange and unpleasant dreams. He wakes in a cold sweat- -and .nds Bandi, perched on the edge of his bed, staring at him. That's all, just staring...a baleful, malevolent stare.

Later, Kirk tells Spock about this and says: "I could swear that little beast knew I was responsible for it being locked up. And I had the strangest feeling that he was reading my mind."

But Bandi is not intelligent. McCoy's tests have shown that his mind is about the same as a cat's.

Kirk knows that the creature is a menace. After the incident of the nightmare, he decides that Bandi must be destroyed, or Bandi will destroy the Enterprise.

Bandi is an empath.* He vibrates on the basic emotional levels, and causes the people around him to do so too. He is a parasite, a quasi-telepathic leech; he is an emotional mirror. As long as he is fed and sheltered and loved, he will purr and give off warm empathic vibrations of love in return. In fact, his vibrations of love are so strong that they are hypnotic and have caused crewmen at their posts to grow lackadaisical and careless and-and an accident happens and a crewman is killed and Kirk decides that Bandi must go. But, when Bandi is menaced, he gives off waves of fear and anger. These waves of fear and anger are directed at Kirk. Kirk is the hate-object.

These semi-telepathic vibrations affect every member of the crew. Suddenly Kirk .nds himself confronting not just a three-foot teddy bear, but an armed and angry crew of the Enterprise, all reacting on their basic emotional levels. They don't know why, but they know that suddenly they hate their captain very much.

Fortunately, Spock is unaffected by Bandi. Bandi's vibrations splash off him like so much water. Spock is able to kill Bandi, before the crew kills Kirk. (Saved in the nick of time!) Immediately, the crew snap out of their emotional trances and sheepishly realize that they have done a no-no.

Order is quickly restored aboard the stars.h.i.+p. Kirk reminds the crew: "I need not remind you that in the future we will leave all specimens where they belong. The Enterprise is not a zoo."

Spock turns to the captain, "This is just an example, Captain, of what uncontrolled emotionality can do."

"Is it?" asks Kirk.

Spock nods. "Fortunately, Captain, I am not burdened by such a disrupting in.uence."

"Watch it, Mr. Spock. You're gloating. Pride is an emotion too!"

Spock looks at him, shocked.

FADEOUT.

The "Bandi" premise was particularly skimpy, and would have needed a lot of .es.h.i.+ng out, perhaps a whole second plot to make the story work. It needs a reason why Kirk cannot just kill Bandi outright-perhaps he is a valuable specimen that Kirk must transport from one planet to another.

I wouldn't want to superimpose an arti.cial danger onto this story; rather, I want one that is derived from the concept itself; thus, the old stopgap of the Enterprise being attacked by Klingons, or Scotty having trouble with the doubletalk generators, would not be satisfying. The characters should have to cope with only one uni.ed con.ict, the tension must be compressed into as concise a problem as possible.

So suppose we also postulate that Kirk has had to make a series of highly unpopular decisions-actions that particular members of the crew are bridling at. These decisions are allied with Bandi's presence in some way-thus Bandi would already have the crew's resentment of Kirk to feed on.

The whole idea is very touchy though-for one thing, the crew of the Enterprise is a loyal crew; to even suggest a capacity for mutiny seriously damages the overall concept of the show. So-try it this way: suppose Kirk has to temporarily take command of another stars.h.i.+p on which Bandi is already established as a mascot. The reason for the a.s.signment would be to investigate the reported laxity aboard that s.h.i.+p. Naturally, that crew might resent his presence and interpret his every command as an implied rebuke.

The name of the creature, Bandi, was chosen because it was halfway between Bambi and Banshee. I wanted to suggest a cute menace. Frankly, I don't like the name, I never did- and if the story had gone into development, I would have spent a lot of time trying to think up a better one.

What is interesting about the premise, though, is that it is a variation of the basic premise of "The Trouble With Tribbles," i.e.-a cute furry little creature that is actually a menace. I wanted to show that not all aliens would be horribly ugly,* and further, that if they are dangerous, the most dangerous aliens will be the cute ones-because human beings will not be able to recognize their inherent danger.

"Bandi" was one way to tell the story-who could resist a teddy bear? And who would believe him to be a menace to the s.h.i.+p?

Again, the story was written to be as inexpensive as possible. No exteriors-unless you want to show the planet Bandi came from, and all the interiors are sets that are already in existence. The show would be fairly easy to shoot. The only costume that would have to be built would be the Bandi suit I imagined that a midget would be best to play the part.

Like the other premises, I believed this to be a suitable idea for STAR TREK. In fact, I was kind of proud of all of them. They met the conditions imposed by the television medium-a set of limits that many writers do not understand-and I was trying to suggest con.icts that n.o.body else was thinking of.

I wanted very much to sell a story to STAR TREK, not just to break into television-but to write good science .ction for television. I wanted to do the best possible job.

I was determined to do the best possible job, because I was beginning to understand what I was up against. Not just six thousand other hopefuls, but also the three thousand members of the Writers' Guild of America, West-at least those of them who wanted to write for STAR TREK.

Gene c.o.o.n had a decision to make. I was trying to out-think him.

Let me digress for a minute and explain something. Gene c.o.o.n was STAR TREK'S producer. Gene Roddenberry was the executive producer.

This means Gene Roddenberry created the show, decided who the characters would be, what actors would play them, what the Enterprise would look like, and what the general format would be.

Gene Roddenberry envisioned STAR TREK as "Hornblower in s.p.a.ce," the adventures of a kind of interstellar Mary Worth, traveling from planet to planet, solving problems and exploring the universe-and most important, because the vast distances of s.p.a.ce have largely cut the Enterprise off from communication with its home base, the captain of the s.h.i.+p is an independent ent.i.ty, making his own decisions for each situation.

(This concept was partly unworkable. A s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p captain does not put himself in the forefront of the exploration and scouting teams-any more than an aircraft carrier captain takes a plane up himself. Many fans objected to this one aspect of STAR TREK-they would have preferred that the captain stay on the bridge and we follow a team of professional scouts down onto the planet. But William Shatner was being paid a star's wages, so you don't waste him...) Roddenberry developed the show through most of its early episodes, shaping and guiding and making decisions-then he turned it over to Gene c.o.o.n. Roddenberry was still the boss, so to speak, but c.o.o.n was the guy who rolled up his sleeves and got his hands dirty; think of him as the foreman.

It helps if you understand what a producer actually does: He makes decisions.

If they're the right decisions, he's a good producer. If not, he's not.

Both Gene Roddenberry and Gene c.o.o.n were good pro-ducers.

Most of the best producers started out as writers. This is because almost all of a show's production problems can be solved on the typewriter, long before the story ever gets to the soundstage.

Your writer describes a mile-long valley with eighty-foot high talking statues lining the walls and uttering proclamations of doom? And your budget is only $191,000 for the episode?

Change it. Turn it into a small .as.h.i.+ng arch with a .ltered voice and newsreel stock shots superimposed in. Not quite as effective, no-but more suitable for the twenty-one inch screen and the twenty-one inch budget.