50 Years of Star Trek Page #2

I went in to do a pitch on a story.

Somehow or another, he

asked if I was interested

in doing "Star Trek."

I said, "Yeah, I would

be interested in that."

And I went home, and I read it,

and I came back the

next day, and I said,

"Who plays Mr. Spock."

The script was very good, very good.

I didn't quite

understand how it was gonna work

as a television show because

it was so unique.

It was really quite special.

But it was a very intelligent script.

It had layers of ideas in it

that you didn't often get in television.

Roddenberry was very inspired

by Jonathan Swift's

"Gulliver's Travels."

And wanted to tell stories

that you couldn't normally

tell on television

through the prism of science fiction.

He was such a complex

and interesting man.

Very bright, very bright.

Hard-working.

Tough job, tough job.

Particularly getting "Star Trek" right

the first couple of seasons.

To get it... to get it what

he wanted it to be.

They didn't think there was a

big enough audience out there.

They thought it was gonna

be sci-fi kooks and kids.

And they didn't think they

could make enough money

from their sponsors to

put these on in prime-time.

Well, they had put on

"Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea"

in fall of '64, winning

its timeslot for ABC.

Fall of '65, he puts

on "Lost In Space" on CBS.

It's winning its timeslot for CBS.

That was when they made

the decision to put it on

for the fall of '66. NBC wants one.

They felt they were missing the boat.

Narrator:
President John F. Kennedy

issues a challenge,

to put a man on the moon before

the end of the decade.

The space race heats up as

America looks to the stars.

And one unlikely

supporter sees an opportunity.

Well, "Star Trek"

may be the first TV show

I can really remember.

"Star Trek" and "Mission: Impossible."

In fact, the both... the two

great Desilu productions.

The other player in "Star Trek"

and get it on the air was Lucille Ball

with Desilu Studios.

It was Lucille Ball who

said, "Let's make this."

That studio was built on reruns.

And when "I Love

Lucy" was in production,

they wanted to film it here in LA.

So they said, "We'll pay

the difference and film this

if we can have the rerun rights."

And the answer from

Harry Ackerman at CBS was,

"What's a rerun?"

Nobody had ever rerun anything on TV.

They shot it live, it was gone.

And "Star Trek" was brought in.

And Lucy said, "I think

that could rerun for ten years.

Well, here we are 50 years later.

"I Love Lucy" is still

on five days a week

in every city around the country.

And probably the second most rerun show

in the history of

television is "Star Trek."

Let's give her credit,

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