Trials and Tribble-ations Read online

  Finally, I was ready for the camera, and I headed over to Stage 11, where the Enterprise had been recreated. There were at least a dozen other atmosphere people there, men and women, all dressed and made up in the original costumes. It was spooky to see all those Enterprise crew people again; they looked so much like the original crew that it was like traveling back in time thirty years. The tingle at the base of my spine became a cold chill.

  The set was fully dressed now, lit, and ready for the day's first shot. The walls were brightly lit, the doors worked, and the turbolifts were ready. B.C, the First A.D., placed the atmosphere people where she wanted us: "You go here. You two are walking from here to there. You're talking into a wall panel. Good, let's see a rehearsal; no, that won't do. You, count to two before you come around that corner. You two start from farther back. Good, that's it."

  The prop man appeared out of nowhere and attached a balsawood phaser to my equipment belt, and now I was ready for a shot. My son, Sean, was thrilled; the phaser made up for not having any pockets.

  And then Sisko and Dax appeared on the set, wearing twenty-third-century Star Trek uniforms; they looked terrific in them. Jonathan West, the director, rehearsed them for a bit; then we ran the first day's shot. It was a complex shot; Sisko and Dax are walking the length of the Enterprise's curved corridor, while crew people hurry past them in both directions. Dax is amazed at how many people there were aboard "these old ships."

  So was I. Today, there were twenty extras. On the original Star Trek, we never had more than seven. We had to do quite a few takes of that first shot while everybody learned how to work this new set, but after a while we all fell into the mood of it and the pace of the work picked up.

  There were adjustments that needed to be made. After the first shot, for instance, the sound man came around and put foam pads on the bottom of the shoes of all the atmosphere people. Too loud. We sounded like a herd of mugatos. For budget reasons, the set had been built without carpeting.

  Later in the day, for an even more-complex shot, also involving a camera tracking with the actors down the corridor, I was waiting behind a corner where a monitor was set up. I had to take my cue to enter by watching to see when the actors reached a certain point in the corridor; then I would come around the corner and cross behind them. Watching the shot proceed on the monitor was eerie; it was the original Star Trek all over again! Everything looked the same. It felt like the first new episode in twenty-eight years. And the cold chill at the bottom of my spine started creeping upward.

  Steve Oster, one of the show's producers, came up to me abruptly: "David, in this next scene, Sisko has to hold the handle of the turbolift to tell it where to go. Is it all right if he lets go after he does, or does he have to hold onto it the whole time? Do you remember how the turbolifts worked?"

  "Uh …" Thinking fast, I said, "If I remember correctly, it's all right to let go after the lift starts. But you'd better check with Mike Okuda. He's the real expert." It was a nice moment, being treated as if I knew something about Star Trek again.

  During another break in the shooting, I had a chance to chat with Jonathan West. Jonathan works as a director of photography on Deep Space Nine, and he's directed three episodes on his own. He was surprised and thrilled to be asked by Rick Berman to direct "Trials and Tribble-ations."

  Later, while waiting for another shot to be set up, Ron D. Moore and René Echevarria, (who wrote the teleplay, based on the story by Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler & Robert Hewitt Wolfe—Ed.) came by the set to visit; we had our pictures taken together and I congratulated them on doing such a good job with the script. It was filming even funnier than it read.

  One of the video monitors was set up with a tape of the original "Trouble with Tribbles" episode, so the actors and the director could see what was happening in the scene they would be matching. For instance, in the rec room scene where Kirk discovers that his chicken sandwich and coffee arrive with tribbles, Sisko and Dax would be inserted digitally. They would be surreptitiously watching Kirk; so Terry Farrell and Avery Brooks had to watch the scene a few times to see what they would be reacting to.

  As we stood around the monitor, one of the A.D.'s was searching backward through the tape for the scene until I asked innocently, "Why are you rewinding? The scene you're looking for takes place in the third act."

  For a moment, a couple of folks looked at me surprised, and I felt embarrassed at having spoken up, until somebody realized, "He's right."

  And then somebody else said, "Well, if anybody knows this show, it should be David."

  By the second day of shooting, the atmosphere people had become a real team. The assistant directors could give a set of instructions and the team would hit their marks every time. They were as professional a group of folks as I'd ever seen on a soundstage, and … well, it was like finally getting a chance to play with the big kids.

  Everybody knew we were doing something special here; the cast, the crew, the folks in the front office, the studio executives, everybody connected with Star Trek knew we were re-creating a piece of classic television, and that if it worked, it would make television history. Everybody was jazzed and you could feel the excitement everywhere on the set. The cold chill was halfway up my spine now.

  While Paramount Pictures does not have a studio tour the way Universal does, with earthquakes and King Kong and flash floods and trick bridges, they do have guides escorting small groups of tourists around the lot, showing them the workings of a real film studio. During breaks between shots, the atmosphere people would often wait outside the stage, and we often saw these groups wending their way between the soundstages. The tourists would look over and see us in our classic Trek uniforms and their eyes would go wide with surprise.

  And it wasn't just the tourists, either; a lot of the people who worked on the Paramount lot, even actors from other shows, reacted with delight to see folks dressed again in the original Star Trek uniforms. It made me start to think … what if Paramount started a new Star Trek show, one that took place in Kirk and Spock's time? Or how about even a new set of shows about Kirk and Spock? (If you used a new, younger cast, you could start off by telling the story of how Kirk first took command of the Enterprise.) I still wonder if that's doable.

  On the afternoon of the second day, one of the studio messengers offered me a ride on the back of his electric cart, and we passed a very large group of sight-seers. Half a dozen of them saw me and grinned; they lifted their right hands in the Vulcan salute. I laughed and saluted right back.

  Knowing that Mike Okuda had expressed a wish to have one of the original tribbles appear in this new episode, I'd brought one to the set; and as I showed it off to Jonathan and some of the other folks from Deep Space Nine, some of them held it with a sense of awe, as if it gave them a mystical connection to the past.

  A little while after that, John Dwyer came by; John was the set decorator for Star Trek and he had worked on the original "Trouble with Tribbles" episode. John is a tall guy, always smiling, always having a good time. He walked up and down the sets now, examining details with a big smile on his face. On the bridge set, he looked at the base of the chair at a work station, something that wouldn't even show up on screen, and grinned. He turned to Mike Okuda: "You even got the chairs right!"

  Not only the chairs, even the graphics on the bridge stations and the buttons on the consoles, as well. Jim Van Over, who had done much of that work, proudly pointed out how he'd duplicated all the separate details.

  John and I swapped a few stories of our own—about all the folks we still remembered fondly. He had a terrific story about Irving Feinberg, the show's prop man, and how he once brought in a brand-new set of socket wrenches to be Scotty's tools. . . .

  And then the high point of the day occurred. Bob Justman arrived.

  Now, listen, in all of the histories of Star Trek, you hear a lot about Gene Roddenberry. And more recently, Gene L. Coon is starting to receive some of the credit he so richly deserves f
or the success of the original series. But it was Bob Justman who made it all work; he was on the soundstage every day, overseeing every detail of the production. He did it for all seventy-eight episodes of the original Star Trek. He did it for the first five years of Star Trek: The Next Generation. There is nobody alive who knows the nuts and bolts of Star Trek like Bob Justman. I've admired him since the day I first met him in the summer of 1967. Bob Justman combines a gentle manner with a no-nonsense approach to production that has set a standard for others to match.

  I found him at the end of the curved corridor, watching the setup for a particularly tricky shot. He turned around and saw me and I just grabbed him and gave him a big hug. He saw me in the red security guard's uniform and started laughing. "You finally made it," he said.

  I hadn't seen Bob since 1988, and it was like a joyous family reunion with a favorite relative. We stood and babbled at each other for a long time, catching up on old news, clearing up silly old business, and just sharing the joy of both of us being back on the Enterprise. I congratulated him on his new book (Inside Star Trek, written with Herb Solow), he congratulated me on my son's adoption, and I showed off pictures.

  And the cold chill that had started at the bottom of my spine suddenly hit the top and my eyes started to fill up with tears of sheer joy. We were back on the Enterprise again and thirty years had disappeared. This was all we'd ever wanted to do: make Star Trek.

  Indeed, this was the reason why all these folks were here today. They'd all come aboard this show because they'd all shared the same dream of making more Star Trek; and here we all were, remaking the original Star Trek one more time. Wow!

  Bob walked the sets with Mike Okuda and other members of the art department, nodding thoughtfully. Abruptly he stopped, looked up, and said, "Those panels are too dark." And he pointed at the orange mesh next to the ladder. "And that doesn't quite match, either."

  Mike Okuda's face fell. "You found the only two things we couldn't match exactly. The company that makes the reflective plastic went out of business ten years ago, and nobody makes the same kind of mesh anymore."

  But then Bob said, "You got everything else right. It's perfect. When you take this set down, will you send me one of those wall panels as a souvenir? It would mean a lot." And yes, it meant a lot to Mike and Denise Okuda and the rest of the art department, as well, to receive such high praise from the man who made the original Enterprise work.

  Somewhere in there, I mentioned to Bob how carefully they'd even duplicated the "Finnerman lighting," and he said, "Nope, it's 'Justman lighting.' Star Trek was Gerry Finnerman's first job as a D.P., and I had a long talk with him about how I wanted the show lit, and why I wanted to use the colored gels to provide a mood for the sets. Do you know he was so nervous during the first season that he used to throw up after we'd screened the dailies?"

  The stories you hear thirty years later …

  But then it was time to get back to work. There was one more scene to shoot before the day was over. O'Brien and Bashir have accidentally been caught in the fight in the bar, and now they're in the lineup where Kirk bawls out Scotty, Chekov, and Freeman. (And, yes, while it would have been fun to insert me into that shot with O'Brien and Sisko so I could finally play the part of Freeman, it wasn't technically feasible. Besides, I was wearing a red shirt, remember?)

  When the lineup is dismissed, O'Brien and Bashir come down the corridor and around a corner to see that there are tribbles in the Enterprise corridor. First, Jonathan shot the dialog with O'Brien and Bashir; then he set up an over-the-shoulder shot of what O'Brien sees. Because of the angle of the shot, the best place to stand was right behind Jonathan.

  Abruptly, he turned around to me and said, "David, what do you think? Aren't there too many tribbles in this shot?"

  "Well …" I started thinking out loud. "O'Brien and Bashir just walked out of the lineup. The lineup happens at the beginning of the third act, and we haven't seen tribbles out of control on the Enterprise yet, so this would be the first time we see how fast they're breeding; so, yes, there are too many tribbles in the shot."

  Jonathan walked onto the set, and I followed him, and we proceeded to remove half the tribbles. "What do you think, David? Is this about right?" And as I answered him, I suddenly realized everyone was looking at me. For one brief moment, I was directing the director!

  "This looks good," I said. And then, not unselfconsciously, I suggested, "You know, this is the shot where you should use me. You should have a crewman, kneeling down on the floor actually playing with one of the tribbles. Let me do that."

  "You're right," he said. And that was the way the scene was set up.

  When you watch the show—and if you're a serious fan, you've probably taped it—I'm the silver-haired security guard playing with the baby tribble; the same one I'd brought to fulfill Mike Okuda's wish. That tribble is now the only tribble to have appeared in both tribble episodes!

  They ain't never gonna get the grin off this face!

  And then the shot was in the can and the day was over. It was late and it was time for me to head home. I turned in the phaser for the last time. I took off the costume with real sadness. The adventure was winding down, but not really.

  In truth, it was only beginning. Star Trek never ends. It only begins. As I left the lot, I felt young again because I'd had a chance to rediscover the fun and the magic and the dream. The final frontier is not space. The final frontier is the human soul. Space is where we will meet the challenge.

  But until we get out there full-time, Star Trek is one of the places where we will imagine the challenge.

  No, it's not enough. But it's a great start. Isn't it?

  —David Gerrold, 1996

  DAVID GERROLD is the guy who wrote "The Trouble with Tribbles" episode for the original Star Trek series. He's also written a whole bunch of other stuff, too.

  Prologue

  "CAPTAIN!"

  "Kirk here."

  "I'm picking up a subspace distress call, priority channel. It's from Space Station K-Seven."

  "Go to warp factor six."

  "This is a red alert. Man your battle stations. All hands, man your battle stations. We have a Code-One Emergency Disaster Call. All hands, man battle stations …"

  "Captain's log, Stardate 4523.3. Deep Space Station K-Seven has issued a Priority-One call. More than an emergency, it signals near or total disaster. We can only assume the Klingons have attacked the station. We're going in armed for battle."

  The bridge smelled fresh, clean, ready. The maintenance crew had just come through, at change of watch. The carpet was refreshed, the usual dusty residue and shavings of general activity were whisked away, and the interiors of all the computer access trunks had been scoured. The bridge looked brand-new, ready to handle anything.

  "Space Station K-Seven on approach vector, sir." There was a crack of nervousness in the helmsman's voice. Understandable, at Priority-One alert.

  "Ahead standard," Captain Kirk ordered automatically.

  And the comforting response: "Ahead standard, aye."

  Now the ship would reduce from warp six and come into the sensor globe of the Deep Space station at a manageable speed for close battle.

  Battle. The one thing the ship was really built for, and the one thing they hoped never to have to use her for. But she was the first line of defense of the United Federation of Planets. Kirk felt his legs tense and the muscles in his arms tighten. His pulse began to match the throbbing of red alert through the ship.

  Battle happened. Had in the past, would in the future.

  As for the present, Captain James Kirk was ready and unintimidated. If Klingons had attacked Deep Space Station K-Seven, then he and this ship and crew were the rescue squad, the police, the firefighters, and the cleanup crew all rolled into one. The ship prepared itself because of red alert, bringing forward into automatic mode all the systems that otherwise would be manual, in case the crew were occupied or injured. His own body was the same,
tense with grit and resistance, the weight of all with which he was saddled. He felt his posture, muscles, nerves shoring up to sustain him in whatever he had to do. And his mind, the same. More.

  "Mr. Chekov, confirm weapons readiness," he said, just for his own comfort.

  "Main phasers armed and ready, sir."

  Kirk watched the distant dot of the space station growing larger on the screen. He had only wanted to hear Chekov's voice, to know that not only the weapons but the crew were armed and ready.

  With alarming speed the three-pronged station swelled on the screen. Pushing to his feet, Kirk scanned the big screen with his eyes from corner to corner, top to bottom, for attacking ships.

  He saw them in his mind, but gradually realized that he wasn't seeing any on the screen. None at all.

  Not even any trading ships.

  "But …" Navigations Officer Chekov squinted at the screen. "There's nothing there … just the station!"

  Kirk peered suspiciously at the screen.

  "Priority One Distress Call," he uttered, mystified, "yet it's absolutely peaceful. Lieutenant Uhura, break subspace silence." He moved around to the side of his command chair, looked at Uhura, then turned again to face the space station.

  On the upper aft bridge, Communications Officer Uhura played her graceful hands across the board. "Aye, sir. Channel's open, sir."

  "Space Station K-Seven, this is Captain Kirk of the Enterprise. What is your emergency?"

  He knew his voice was sharp, annoyed, but he didn't care. He wanted to sound severe. Space had ears.

  After a moment, the hesitant response siphoned up through the emptiness.

  Captain Kirk, this is Mr. Lurry, manager of K-Seven. I must apologize for the distress call—"

  "Mr. Lurry," Kirk flared, "you issued a Priority One Distress Call. State the nature of your emergency."

  "Uh … well … perhaps you'd better beam over. I'll try to explain."