Star Trek: Pitch & Guide> Guide part 2–The Script & The Ship

The guide section of our series may be shorter than I thought, but given I’ve also looked at the original sales pitch, back when the ship was the SS Yorktown and the captain was Robert April, this should still be a decent series of articles in the wider story bible review series. I thought each section was going to be longer than it is. Today we’re looking at the format for an average Star Trek script, after going over the show format last time. That’s kind of short, at one page, so we’ll also look at the next three pages, going over the USS Enterprise, and then next time go over the cast of characters in one go. What I do with the rest of the guide I’m not yet certain.

Since this is the version of the writer’s guide that came between seasons one and two they should already have the script format already down pat. You can break formula, and I imagine we’ll look into that when we get there, but only on rare occasions. The format, when done wrong, can become formulaic and dull if followed too closely each time, but when done right draws you into this futuristic world, with breaks to sell you laundry detergent (or just give you time to use the bathroom or refresh your popcorn). So how much is advice and how much is “law” is something to consider when putting these together and judging the script you see.

As for the Enterprise section, I’m expecting a description of the ship and any important facilities. I have a copy of Mr. Scott’s Guide To The Enterprise that came out some time after the NCC-1701-A was introduced and it’s fun to find the toilets (which nobody on television ever uses with rare exceptions), but what resources are writers supposed to consider when it comes to what the ship has to offer? That should also be fascinating. So let’s get started already.

THE STAR TREK SCRIPT FORMAT

THE TEASER

We open with action, always establishing a strong jeopardy, need, or other “hook”. It is not necessary to establish all the back story in the teaser. Instead, we tantalize the audience with a promise of excitement to come. For example, it can be as simple as everyone tense on the bridge, hunting down a marauding enemy ship…then a tale-telling blis is sighted on the screen, and the Captain orders “All hands to battle stations.” Fade out, that’s enough.

Usually, it starts with a Captain’s Log, establishing what their mission is or that they’re going someplace for some R&R. Then something happens, something mysterious or at least dangerous occurs, occasionally with someone being “dead, Jim”, cue the famous stinger and opening credits. That is something the Filmation series lacked, as Filmation shows never had what they call the “cold open”. So they had to work that into Act 1. I kind of missed that not being there. I think Lower Decks even has those, though I don’t know about Prodigy since I only got to see the pilot movie. It’s a staple of every Star Trek series, even the bad ones.

THE ACTS

Four acts in length. Act One usually begins with the Captain’s voice over, Captain Kirk dictating his log.

Even when they put it in the teaser, the first act opens with a log entry, for those who tuned in late and missed the cold open, I guess.

Necessary back story should be laid in here, not in the teaser. The Captain’s log should be succinct and crisp…in ship commander “log” language.

“Captain’s Log, Stardate 5444.9: The Enterprise is on a charting run through the partly explored Moran sector.” That’s the kind of log entry you get in the teaser. In the opening act you get something like “5 crewmen dropped dead, a smile across their faces, literally dying from laughter.” I stole the first one from a book and record and the second is apparently the Joker popping up, but there is a difference in how you do a log entry in the teaser versus the first act.

Opening Act One, we need some form of orbit, establishing or other silent shot to give us time for both Captain’s log and opening credits.

What if the whole episode takes place away from a planet or space bound Starbase? There have been episodes just set in the ship, and some real good ones. In that case it’s just the outside of the ship followed by the crew engaging in either a day to day activity or dealing with the surprise from the teaser.

We must have a strong ending to Act Two, something that will keep the audience tuned to our channel.

STYLE

We maintain a fast pace…avoid long philosophical exchanges or tedious explanations of equipment. And note that our cutting technique is to use the shortest possible time between idea and execution of it…like for instance, Kirk decides that a landing party will transport down to a planet…HARD CUT to lights blinking on the Transporter console, PULL BACK to REVEAL the landing party stepping into the Transporter.

Sci-fi in the old days loved showing off their futuristic toys and what it could do. That’s fine if it’s something new, but you don’t have to sit there telling us every detail of it. For example, in “The Cage” one of the landing party tells a guy that “we broke the time barrier, we can go really fast now”, and that’s all the explanation they needed. Before you’d sit there and go over how they bend time and space and form a bubble that zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

There are also ways to break the philosophical rule, too. I have issues with “The Apple” and the DC comic sequel storyline “Return Of The Serpent”, the story rationalizing killing off yet another computer god, the discussion itself is interesting and worth having, even if the real reason to trash Vaal was self-defense. There’s also a TNG episode, “Pen Pal”, that features a discussion of the Prime Directive, and it’s one of the better discussions of the Directive in Trek.

I love this scene. It doesn’t choose which side is right. It doesn’t preach that Pulaski or Riker is right. They represent two sides of the discussion objectively with the others also bound by their own biases. It’s a rare time I agree with Pulaski, but so does Geordi while Worf is with Riker, and in all four cases for their own reasons. Data is biased and Picard is trying to be unbiased. Deanna is also somewhere in-between, trying to justify both perspectives but ultimately siding with life. This is how you do a philosophical discussion like this right, unlike so many modern shows that preach one side over the other.

This section ends with discussion of the page count (70 for a first draft but it should be down to 65 by the final) and a request to put the cast list and what sets you’ll need in the script. Enough technical discussion, let’s talk about the ship. I won’t be doing the large quotes like I have been, the first article in this series links to the page with the guide and the pitch if you want to check it out. For this I just want to go over the highlights. How much was established in the show and how much were part of the first two versions of this guide I can’t say, but as of season two, this is how the USS Enterprise was depicted.

The U.S.S. Enterprise is a spaceship, official designation “starship class”; somewhat larger than a present-day naval cruiser, it is the largest and most modern type of vessel in the Starfleet Service. It has a crew of 430 persons, approximately one-third of them female.

The purpose of the U.S.S. Enterprise is to give our audience a “home base”, a familiar and comfortable counterpoint to the bizarre and usual things and places we see during our episodes. Where possible we try to emphasize and play to the size, complexity, and varied functions of the Enterprise. This does not mean you must always use the Enterprise or start every story there.

There have been stories that focused on the ship and the crew, when the threat of the weak was to the ship itself during a “bottle episode”, an episode set on the ship to save costs. “The Practical Joker” is an animated episode that has the ship itself be a threat, and there are times when Kirk is shown to be tied to that ship emotionally. Episodes like “Balance Of Terror” or “The Tholian Web” that made great use of the ship as the only location for the story. Conversely, there have been stories where the ship played no part or simply got them there. I just finished reading The Vulcan Academy Murders for the Chapter By Chapter novel review series, recently and outside of the attack that led the cast to travel to Vulcan and the medical academy to be part of the story, nothing takes place with the ship as it’s being repaired and unavailable. It isn’t usually a character itself, like they say about Gotham City and Batman, but it did become more than their oversized RV. Speaking of which, I’m going to do a quick rundown of the features rather than post everything:

• The saucer section, which unlike the TNG version can’t separate to be it’s own vessel, is 11 decks thick at the center point, the thickest point of the ship. No mention of how think the parts between decks are, but that’s more levels than any hotel I’ve stayed in.
• The hanger deck of the Engineering section (described as “equally large and complex”) can hold an entire fleet of jetliners. I guess that’s why it held so many shuttlecrafts. If you consider the 24th century ships to be larger, it might explain why Voyager never ran out of shuttlecrafts and runabouts despite crashing so many of them.
• It also mentions the turbolifts, or “Turbo elevators”, can go sideways as well as up and down. That certainly makes travel around the ship quicker. However, I don’t remember them appearing to go sideways. It was always “Deck #”, with no discussion of what part of that deck, or the distance between the bridge and the actual engineering room.
• The areas we know about in this book are of course the bridge, and “sickbay, Captain’s cabin and other familiar standing sets, ar the widest possible variety of labs and technical departments, computer rooms, storage facilities, passenger accommodations, and cargo facilities”. We never got to see any of these labs or storage rooms that I can recall in the original series, and I think one storage room in the animated series if memory serves. Not mentioned is the brig and transporter room, which saw a lot of use so you’d think they’d be mentioned.

We also get a look at how the crew is to be depicted.

International in origin, completely multi-racial. But even in this future century we will see some traditional trappings, ornaments, and style etc. So far, Mister Spock has been our only crewman with blood lines from another planet. However, it is not impossible that we might discover some other aliens or part aliens working aboard our Starship.

We wouldn’t get that until the animated series, most notably Chekov’s replacement, Arex, and Uhura’s fellow communication officer, M’Ress. I don’t remember seeing any other aliens on the crew until the comics, and even those were set in the movie period. Even the later shows gave us so few aliens just walking around. Speaking of which the next paragraphs suggests seeing people in casual wear, like sports gear or something related to their ancestral culture. We never got that, either. There was a scene in the gym for “Charlie X” and something resembling workout clothes but that was it.

From there we get into “SHIP’S POWER”, but any Star Trek fans know a lot of this. There is some interesting trivia, though. The impulse engines are located in the saucer section, probably that part that sticks out at the back, and of course it doesn’t have warp speed while the nacelles do the whole matter/anti-matter mixing. Life support and gravity have a back-up battery that can work for a week. Maximum safe warp speed is Warp Six, with Warp Eight being where the strain becomes considerable, so Seven and Eight only get broken out in emergencies or when the plot does something to mess with their warp drive.

The conclusion for this installment is the ship’s weaponry section. Again, we know what phasers are, but the guide mentions they’re “artillery-sized versions of the hand phaser and phaser pistol”. Apparently they can be aimed in any direction, but have we ever seen that? The “blips” or “squirts” as the guide calls the effect were only seen pointing straight forward until TNG. Another thing we never saw is “Phaser fire can also be set for proximity explosion and act somewhat like “depth charges”, which doesn’t make sense for what’s essentially plasma lasers. That sounds more like the photo torpedos, which aren’t even mentioned but I’m pretty sure had been in the first season. Mr. Sulu is the one who fires both, but only the phasers are acknowledged.

That should be enough for this edition. Next time we’ll check out the crew as presented in this guide. This is where the PDF file I’m running with gets confusing. I’ll explain in our next voyage.