{"id":5101,"date":"2017-05-15T14:59:27","date_gmt":"2017-05-15T21:59:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=5101"},"modified":"2020-10-18T11:46:16","modified_gmt":"2020-10-18T18:46:16","slug":"a-chilling-journey-through-worlds-beyond-imagination-tos-by-james-blish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2017\/05\/15\/a-chilling-journey-through-worlds-beyond-imagination-tos-by-james-blish\/","title":{"rendered":"A Chilling Journey Through Worlds Beyond Imagination: TOS by James Blish"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/blishtrek1_500x851.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-4855\" src=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/blishtrek1_147x250.jpg\" \/><\/a>As noted a couple posts ago, in my series of Star Trek Rewatch posts, I\u2019ve just reread James Blish\u2019s first Star Trek book \u2013 published just over 50 years ago! \u2013 to note the changes he made from the original script versions of the seven episodes adapted there, or the changes that survived from the early script drafts he received that were changed by the time of filming. I\u2019ve described points about the episodes \u201cMiri\u201d and \u201cThe Conscience of the King\u201d in their posts. The other five episodes in the book are annotated here.<\/p>\n<p>As I mentioned before, Blish wrote short story versions of these episodes from scripts, often early drafts of scripts that differed in substantial ways from the final shooting scripts, and did so without having seen the show himself &#8212; this was a time before the show was seen in the UK, where he lived. Clearly, the same situation applied to the cover artist of this Bantam paperback, James Bama, who not only casts a greenish glare over everything, but depicts the Enterprise with rocket fire shooting out all three cylindrical sections of the ship!<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCharlie X\u201d<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>First, Blish renames the story \u201c<strong>Charlie\u2019s Law<\/strong>\u201d, as in, be nice to Charlie or else.<\/li>\n<li>Blish <strong>summarizes scenes<\/strong> as often as he transcribes all the dialogue from some scenes. The early Blish Trek books were slim paperbacks of 130 pages or so, containing short story versions of seven or eight episodes each, and so turning a 50-minute script into narrative with all dialogue intact was not feasible. (Or necessarily desirable; some plot developments are better summarized, in a short story narrative, while in a teleplay such developments *have* to be explained via dialogue.)<\/li>\n<li>The story explicitly states that <strong>Kirk is fond of Rand<\/strong> \u2013 a point of possibility that, the producers of the show realized, led to Rand\u2019s character being written out (so the possibility of a romance between them would not interfere with Kirk fraternizing with guest characters)<\/li>\n<li>Twice in the book Blish calls Uhura \u201cBantu\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>Blish has Charlie make all the phasers on the ship disappear.<\/li>\n<li>He references the other ship\u2019s \u201c<strong>Nerst generator<\/strong>\u201d \u2013 a term from his own <em>Cities in Flight<\/em> stories, I recall, since when I first read and reread Blish\u2019s early Trek books, I also read his quartet of \u201cCities in Flight\u201d novels.<\/li>\n<li>Blish expands a last-word line from Charlie, p18t: \u201cBeing a man isn\u2019t so much. I\u2019m not a man and I can do anything. You can\u2019t. Maybe I\u2019m the man and you\u2019re not\u201d. The script did not include, or omitted, the final line.<\/li>\n<li>Blish omits the silly scene of the bridge crew turning every device on to challenge Charlie\u2019s control.<\/li>\n<li>The line about \u201cI have taken my form centuries ago\u2026.\u201d Is missing, but Blish has a <strong>different mysterious reference<\/strong>, as the Thasian explains why they can\u2019t restore the crew of the other ship: \u201cWe could not help them because they were exploded in this frame; but we have returned your people and your weapons to you, since they were only intact in the next frame.\u201d The oddness of the reference has a similar effect.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cDagger of the Mind\u201d<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Again, Blish tends to summarize scenes rather than transcribe lots of script dialogue.<\/li>\n<li>No issue here about a planetary force shield, suggesting that the planet\u2019s atmosphere is sufficient deterrent to potential escapees.<\/li>\n<li>Some lines from the deleted speech by Adams explaining his motives survive here, p37: \u201cI\u2019m tired of doing things for others, that\u2019s all. \u2026 Trust mankind to reward me? All they\u2019ve given me thus far is Tantalus. It\u2019s not enough. I know how their minds work. Nobody better.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Blish acknowledges the huge air duct but calls it a crawl-space meant for servicing power lines.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cThe Man Trap\u201d<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Blish retitles it \u201c<strong>The Unreal McCoy<\/strong>\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Following an earlier script, the planet is Regulus VIII and the characters are named Bierce, not Crater \u2013 while Blish describes the encampment is being inside a crater (!).<\/li>\n<li>Blish uses the term \u201cpetachiae\u201d to describe the mottling on the dead man\u2019s face.<\/li>\n<li>Blish acknowledges that what Spock finds out about the \u201cBorgia root\u201d is only what the Bierces themselves said in an earlier report. (Otherwise, why would the Enterprise have details \u2013 and names \u2013 for every plant on every remote barely occupied planet?)<\/li>\n<li>This version avoids the shoot-out with Crater in the broadcast episode; instead Kirk orders both Bierces aboard the ship.<\/li>\n<li>Again, Blish follows a single character flow story line. Thus, he has none of the side scenes that we saw in the episode, with the creature changing into Uhura\u2019s Swahili-speaking crewman, or the biolab scene with Rand, Sulu, and the silly plant \u201cBeauregard\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>Blish adds a bit of speculation about why the race died out: \u201cIt wasn\u2019t really very intelligent\u2014didn\u2019t use its advantages nearly as well as it might have\u201d referring presumably to the shape-changing. Spock comments: \u201cThey could well have been residual. We still have teeth and nails, but we don\u2019t bite and claw much these days.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cBalance of Terror\u201d<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In this one you can tell Blish, having seen only a handful of early scripts sent to him for this book, and never having watched the broadcast show itself, <strong>wasn\u2019t entirely clear<\/strong> about some of the series\u2019 <strong>premises<\/strong>. In the opening of this story, as he builds toward justifying the occurrence of a wedding on the Enterprise, he says: \u201cTraveling between the stars, even at \u2018relativistic\u2019 or near-light speeds, was a long-drawn-out process at best.\u201d p54.6. Even though at other times he refers to the warp speeds.<\/li>\n<li>He notes the blandness of the chapel.<\/li>\n<li>He identified Spock\u2019s homeworld, Vulcan, as a planet of the star 40 Eridani.<\/li>\n<li>Blish has <strong>a nice line<\/strong> describing the Romulan energy weapon fired at the Enterprise: \u201cMoving with curious deliberateness, as though it were traveling at the speed of light in some other space but was loafing sinfully in this one, the dazzling bolt\u2026\u201d I\u2019m guessing this was not a description in the script.<\/li>\n<li>In Blish\u2019s version, no one has seen a live Romulan \u2013 but bodies were found in the first Romulan war and so they are known to be of the \u201cVulcanite\u201d type \u2013 though this doesn\u2019t lessen the dramatic reveal of seeing the Romulans, and how they are \u201cdead ringer\u201ds for Spock.<\/li>\n<li>Blish understands there would have to be a *sphere* of satellites around the Romulus\/Remus system, p59t.<\/li>\n<li>Technical jargon: Uhura (for some reason it is her) detects what turns out to be the invisible Romulan ship via a \u201c<strong>De Broglie transform<\/strong>\u201d and then Spock calculates that the ship is on a \u201c<strong>Hohmann D<\/strong>\u201d transfer orbit back to Romulus. Needless to say, not terminology in any version of a script.<\/li>\n<li>Blish also isn\u2019t quite clear, in this first Trek book, about the relationship between the characters; Spock is a \u201cfunny customer\u201d; \u201chis manners are bad by Earth standards\u201d, and no one particular likes him.<\/li>\n<li>Big plot change: Blish\u2019s story has Kirk take time out to complete the marriage interrupted at story\u2019s opening.<\/li>\n<li>Also a substantial change: since Blish realizes they\u2019re in a single star system, Spock has noticed a cold comet and now realizes they can use it as a diversion. Not, as in the broadcast show, does the Romulan ship for some reason fly into it directly. (Still, Blish has Spock find the comet in an ephemeris. An ephemeris of what, all comets in all planetary systems everywhere?? Or for some reason, an ephemeris of comets in this one system? Blish may have known his biology, but apparently had no sense for scale in astronomy.)<\/li>\n<li>(Also, of course, again, Blish omits all scenes in the broadcast episode on the Romulan ship itself, sticking to a single story line.)<\/li>\n<li>Kirk uses the comet\u2019s passage between the two ships to accelerate toward the Romulan ship and fire its phasers. Then comes the scene in which the phaser crew downbelow is disabled. Kirk has already sent Spock there, and sees on the intercom screen Spock struggle to hit the phaser fire button.<\/li>\n<li>And in Blish\u2019s version, both Tomlinson and Stiles die \u2013 avoiding the issue, in the broadcast episode, of how Spock managed to save one, but not the other.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cThe Naked Time\u201d<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Blish <strong>avoids the contamination scene<\/strong>, in which Tormolen takes off his glove and exposes himself to an infection, entirely. Blish has Kirk make some plausible speculation about why the dead members of the observation station behaved the way they did, in response to having some infection (e.g., someone would take a shower with clothes on in a hurried attempt to decontaminate themselves).<\/li>\n<li>Blish has the planet named some long technical string, and the nicknamed \u201cLa Pig\u201d, rather than the Psi 2000 of the script.<\/li>\n<li>Blish tries to rationalize the idea of the planet\u2019s breakup, and how it would affect the Enterprise orbit, p79t: \u201cAs the breakup proceeded, the planet\u2019s effective mass would change, and perhaps even its center of gravity \u2013 accompanied by steady, growing distortion of its extensive magnetic field \u2013 so that what had been a stable parking orbit for the Enterprise at one moment would become unstable and fragment-strewn the next.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>There are substantial differences between Blish\u2019s version and the broadcast story, since the latter involved some elements introduced in the last stages of production. In particular: <strong>Spock\u2019s breakdown<\/strong> in the briefing room, and the entire<strong> time travel<\/strong> <strong>sequence<\/strong> at the end, <strong>are not here<\/strong>. Nor is Scott\u2019s phasering through the wall to get into the engineering room. Instead, McCoy\u2019s antidote to the disease involves a gas spray into the ship\u2019s ventilation system. Riley recovers in the response to that, and lets the others into engineering himself.<\/li>\n<li>At the same time Blish has some <strong>remarkably implausible sequences<\/strong> in which, Kirk having thrown emergency bulkheads inside the ship, to stop the spread of the disease, has Uhura crawl between the hulls and communicate the McCoy by knocking on the metal in \u201cprisoners\u2019 raps\u201d&#8230;! The crews\u2019 communicators don\u2019t work inside the ship?<\/li>\n<li>Instead of Spock\u2019s breakdown and recovery seen in the broadcast version, in Blish\u2019s story Spock experiences a \u201cgeneral malaise\u201d and excuses himself to his quarters. At the end of the story, he is heard crooning to himself in his cabin and playing some instrument that \u201cnobody else on board could stand to listen to it\u201d.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As noted a couple posts ago, in my series of Star Trek Rewatch posts, I\u2019ve just reread James Blish\u2019s first Star Trek book \u2013 published just over 50 years ago! \u2013 to note the changes he made from the original &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2017\/05\/15\/a-chilling-journey-through-worlds-beyond-imagination-tos-by-james-blish\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-star-trek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5101"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5111,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5101\/revisions\/5111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}