To Boldly Go

Even though we missed the actual anniversary by a week, we still feel the need to acknowledge the 50th anniversary of the TV show and global phenomenon that is Star Trek. At Rauner we have several collections of members of the TV and movie industry. Among them are the papers of film and television director James Goldstone (1931-1999). In 1966 Goldstone directed an episode of Star Trek entitled What are little Girls Made Of? It was his second time in the director's chair for Star Trek.

His first had been on the second pilot episode where he had won the approval of many of the production staff. However, according to IMDB, things did not go so smoothly his second time out. Plagued by script problems, the episode went two days over schedule and Goldstone was never asked to direct another episode.

Written by Robert Bloch for Desilu Productions, What Are Little Girls Made Of? focuses on Nurse Chapel, played by Majel Barrett, Gene Roddenbery's wife, who is reunited with her fiancé only to learn that he has gone mad, leading him to make an android duplicate of Captain Kirk.

CHRISTINE 

Are you all right?

KIRK 

(eyes Korby; then to Christine, nods) 

As far as I know.

KORBY

(to Christine) 

And now…meet an Android.

Korby signals over his shoulder; the table slowly rotates until Kirk is out of sight…then a second Captain Kirk rotates into sight, the turntable stopping. It’s the Android, perfect in every detail. The eyelids flutter…slowly the eyes open. Then a look around, fastening on Christine. A smile of recognition.

The shooting script we have makes the aforementioned script problems quite obvious as there is nary a page where large parts of dialogue are not crossed out. In addition there are call sheets, shooting schedules and handwritten notes by Goldstone.

To read the entire script, ask for MS-1073, the papers of James Goldstone.

"Live long and prosper"