Star Trek: Pitch & Guide> The Guide Part 1: Star Trek Format

Well, we’re done with the pitch. Now it’s time for the guide.

Specifically, this is the third edition, completed for release on April 17, 1967, and is the version given out to the writers and directors of the show. Specifically titled “The Star Trek Guide”, this has all we need to know to create an episode of Star Trek minus the continuity formed by other writers. Those stories weren’t written yet.

In total we have ten sections, making at least ten more articles unless one section is really short or really long. In this installment we’ll take a look at the first section, “Star Trek Format”. These are the important opening details to work on this show. If you can’t make it past the questionnaire, you probably aren’t getting the job…unless you’re writing modern Star Trek. In which case none of this would really matter because they care more about scenes than stories these days.

The guide was written by D.C. Fontana, who was not only one of the show’s writers, but was part of producing both the animated series and The Next Generation, and her story “Yesteryear” was the only animated episode that was canon for far too long. I believe now the whole toon is canon, and if it isn’t it should be! This revision was put together between the first and second seasons, and while I would love to go all the way back to the beginning like I did with the TNG guide, it will reflect changes from the first episode. I have to work with what I got and this is what’s online. It’s the one that fans got their hands on.

I don’t know what else to say that wasn’t covered in the article series overview, which includes links to both the pitch and the guide, so let’s get this reading started.

The guide starts with a questionnaire. That’s an odd choice to make, and I wasn’t expecting a pop quiz, but it serves a purpose.

CAN YOU FIND THE MAJOR STAR TREK FORMAT ERROR IN THE FOLLOWING “TEASER” FROM A STORY OUTLINE?

I’m going to assume this is one of the added things. Showing up in a version prior to the first episode even airing would be odd because at the time nobody could have answered this question. Can you?

The scene is the Bridge of the U.S.S. (United States Spaceship) Enterprise. Captain Kirk is at his command position, his lovely but highly efficient female Yeoman at his side. Suddenly and without provocation, our Starship is attacked by an alien space vessel. We try to warn the alien vessel off, but it ignores us and begins loosening bolts of photon energy-plasma at us.

The alien vessel’s attack begins to weaken our deflectors. Mister Spock reports to Captain Kirk that the next enemy bolt will probably break through and destroy the Enterprise. At this point we look up to see that final energy-plasma bolt heading for us. There may be only four or five seconds of life left. Kirk puts his arms around his lovely Yeoman, comforting and embracing her as they wait for what seems to be certain death. FADE OUT (END TEASER)

PLEASE CHECK ONE

• Inaccurate terminology. The Enterprise is more correctly an international vessel, the United Spaceship Enterprise.
• Scientifically incorrect. Energy-plasma bolts could not be photon in nature.
• Unbelievable. The Captain would not hug pretty Yeoman on the Bridge of his vessel.
• Concept weak. This whole story opening reeks of too much of “space pirate” or similar bad science fiction.

I’m not the guy to ask about the science. Obviously USS stands for United Starship as it’s a member of the Federation, not the United States Of America. Kirk would not hug his pretty yeoman anywhere as, while Rand was occasionally shown being attracted to Kirk, she never showed any interest in pursuing anything with her commander while Kirk only showed interest when some outside force was messing with his libido. For all the talk of Kirk’s bedding women (and you’d be surprised how little that actually happened in the show, and it’s not like other guys weren’t getting some action) he was still a professional. I don’t know if “getting blasted out of nowhere and waiting for the final bolt to hit” is weak. Why is someone suddenly shooting on the ship? Will this be followed up by “this is a warning, leave now” after the credits?  Still, the correct answer is all about the format of the script, and some answers that sound right, aren’t. This isn’t about continuity, but formatting the script.

NO, WE’RE NOT JOKING. THE PRECEDING PAGE WAS A VERY REAL AND IMPORTANT TEST OF YOUR APPROACH TO SCIENCE FICTION. HERE’S WHY.

Inaccurate terminology. Wrong, if you checked this one. Sure, the term “United States Spaceship” was incorrect, but it could have been fixed with a pencil slash. Although we do want directors, writers, actors and others to use proper terminology, this error was certainly far from being the major STAR TREK format error.

In other words, they can fix it in post, or even as far back as the table read. Again, this is about formatting a script, and they do acknowledge they want you to get things right. It doesn’t necessarily mean a “City On The Edge Of Forever” style alteration because you got one word wrong. Especially in later series that were buried in technobabble.

Scientifically inaccurate. Wrong again; beware if you checked this one. Although we do want to be scientifically accurate, we found that selection of this item usually indicates a preoccupation with science and gadgetry over people and story.

I’m assuming this speaks to being extreme in getting the science right. Remember, this is between season one and season two. Technically, the transporter is scientifically impossible, and faster than light travel is still a debate topic in the scientific community. If the science is believable, you don’t have to go all Isaac Asimov on the science. It’s a story first…but that’s also funny when you remember how much science came from people trying to make Star Trek science real, including cellphones and medical devices.

Concept weak. Wrong again. It is, in fact, much like the opening of one of our best episodes of last year. “Aliens”, “enemy vessels”, “sudden attack” and such things can range from “Buck Rogers” to classical literature, all depending on how it is handled (witness H.G. Well’s novels, Forrester’s sea stories, and so on.)

Called that one.

UNDERSTANDING THE RIGHT ANSWER TO THIS IS BASIC TO UNDERSTANDING THE STAR TREK FORMAT. THIS WAS THE CORRECT ANSWER:

Unbelievable. Why the correct answer? Simply because we’ve learned during a full season of making visual science fiction that believability of characters, their actions and reaction, is our greatest need and is the most important angle factor. Let’s explore that briefly on the next page.

Now there’s a lesson modern Hollywood has failed to grasp. There are shows that aren’t even consistent from episode to episode in a running storyline where continuity is more important than a done-in-one episode. I was just listening to a review of the latest episode of Agatha All Along and the critics have hammered this error through the floorboards. If a character is acting out of character, that’s a storyline. Why is he/she acting oddly? Some personal problem? Replaced with a lookalike or under mind control? There’s a whole episode of The Next Generation where Picard starts acting very unlike himself…more than one, actually, but I’m thinking of the one that gave us this.

You can’t do that story if you can’t keep your characters consistent in the same episode.

NOW TRY AGAIN. SAME BASIC STORY SITUATIONS, BUT AGAINST ANOTHER BACKGROUND.

The time is today. We’re in Viet Nam waters aboard the navy cruiser U.S.S. Detroit. Suddenly an enemy gunboat heads for us, our guns unable to stop it, and we realize it’s a suicide attack with an atomic warhead. Total destruction of our vessel and of all aboard appears probable. Would Captain E. L. Henderson, presently commanding the U.S.S. Detroit, turn and hug a comely female WAVE who happened to be on the ship’s bridge.

I actually don’t know. Is this a comedy? Is Henderson the wrong man for the job? Sure, it makes the captain look weak, but he’s about to die and we haven’t watched him for the past television season so who cares? Maybe if it was a different captain aboard a different starship who isn’t as professional as Kirk, but I think I’m missing their point to be pedantic and a bit silly.

As simple as that. This is our standard test that has led to STAR TREK believability. (It also suggests much of what has been wrong in filmed sf of the past.) No, Captain Henderson wouldn’t. Not if he’s the kind of captain we hope is commanding any naval vessel of ours. Nor would Captain Kirk hug a female crewman in a moment of danger, not if he’s to remain believable.

Tell that to any slashfic writer not putting Spock in Rand’s place.

(Some might prefer Henderson were somewhere making love rather than shelling Asiatic ports, but that’s a whole different story for a whole different network. Probably BBC.)

Did Fontana just throw shade at the BBC in the writer’s guide? I’m not even sure Doctor Who was that big stateside yet. Did she have issue with a war story they dropped? I’d love to hear more about this.

AND SO, IN EVERY SCENE OF OUR STAR TREK STORY…

…translate it into a real life situation. Or, sometimes as useful, try it in your mind as a scene in GUNSMOKE, NAKED CITY, or some similar show. Would you believe the people and the scene if it happened there?

IF YOU’RE ONE OF THOSE WHO ANSWERS: “THE CHARACTER ACTS THAT WAY BECAUSE IT’S SCIENCE FICTION”, DON’T CALL US, WE’LL CALL YOU.

Nowadays we’d call that based. “It’s sci-fi” or “it’s fantasy” gets used as an excuse for so much crap. You can tell those people don’t care about the genre. In the early days of Marvel Studios, Iron Man was the only straight superhero story if you think about it. Hulk? Horror. Captain America: The First Avenger? War story. The Avengers movies? Okay, I’m wrong, that’s superhero, too. The others were treated as “x in a superhero world” or “x, but a superhero is there”, and that was one of the secrets to the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And then modern Disney happened. Science fiction is just another genre in the future, or with a robot or superpowers or time travel or something. Fantasy can do that as well. It’s why so many incoming sci-fi and fantasy writers are told to read outside those genres.

One of my English teachers tried that with me. She just kept suggesting stories I have no interest in, while others got me out of sci-fi and superheroes with stories like Treasure Island and To Kill A Mockingbird. Heck, I shouldn’t have liked Great Expectations as much as I did, and it’s still not something I’d read again but liked well enough that one time I did. West Side Story is a take on Romeo & Juliet, but I liked their version better than the original. It’s also why Hayao Miyazaki suggested watching something besides anime to other anime creators, though I’d counter with how varied anime is nowadays because of what creators like him did. Star Trek didn’t look for good science fiction writers, they looked for good writers who could do good science fiction, and it paid off.

THE STAR TREK FORMAT…

A CAPTAIN – Jim Kirk

A FIRST OFFICER – Mister Spock

A GROUP OF REGULARS – who make up our “television family” (Doctor McCoy, Scotty, Uhura, Sulu, Nurse Christine, and others as detailed later).

GUEST STARS – if the story demands it, but with a story which also emphasises our Series Leads.

ON A GIANT STARSHIP – a familiar “television home base” (The U.S.S. Enterprise).

ON PATROL OF A SECTION OF OUR GALAXY – our vessel represents Earth and the Federation (assisting colonists, aiding in scientific exploration, putting down conflicts, helping those in distress, regulating trade, engaging in diplomatic missions, and so on.)

YES THE STAR TREK FORMAT IS ACTUALLY THAT SIMPLE.

Don’t overthink it. It shouldn’t be easy to mess that up, and yet so many adaptations seem to. This is why you have a writer’s guide, to keep everything focused. We end on the guide listing seven rules that you should know if you’re a “TV PROFESSIONAL”. See if you can figure out how many of these get broken by today’s writers:

1. Build your episode on an action-adventure framework. We must reach out, hold, and entertain {their emphasis, not mine} a mass audience of some 20,000,000 people or we simply don’t stay on the air.
2. Tell your story about people, not science and gadgetry. Joe Friday doesn’t stop to explain the mechanics of his .38 before he uses it; Kildare never did a monologue about the theory of anesthetics; Matt Dillion never identifies and discussed the breed of his horse before he rides off on it.
3. Keep in mind that science fiction is not a separate field of literature with rules of its own, but indeed, needs the same ingredients as any story–including a jeopardy of some type to someone we learn to care about, climactic build, sound motivation, you know the list.
4. Then, with that firm foundation established, interweave in it any statement to be made about man, society, and so on. Yes, we want you to have something to say, but say it entertainingly as you do on any other show. We don’t need essays, however brilliant.
5. Remember that STAR TREK is never fantasy; whatever happens, no matter how unusual or bizarre, must have some basis in either fact or theory and stay true to that premise (don’t give the enemy Starilight capability and then have them engage or vessel with grappling hooks and drawn swords.)
6. Don’t try to tell a story about whole civilizations. We’ve never yet been able to get a usable story from a writer who began…”I see the strange civilization which…”.
7. Stop worrying about not being a scientist. How many cowboys, police officers and doctors wrote westerns, detective and hospital shows?

Not only should these rules be given to every Star Trek writer, but with some genre modification posted for every writer.

That does it for the first section. Next time we look at the script format exclusive to Star Trek. Although maybe we’ll get some good advice out of that one, too.