William Shatner Interview 1969
Compiled, Written & Edited by K. R. Overholt Critchfield
The Wayne Communique, Published March 6, 1969
~~ Webpage Published March 6, 2022 ~~
Updated March 8, 2022
Updated March 29, 2022


SPECIAL EDITION!!

AN INTERVIEW WITH WILLIAM SHATNER, STAR OF NBC-TV's STAR TREK


Editor's Note: On Washington's Birthday, February 22, Belk's Department Store in New Bern was host to William Shatner, who plays Captain James T. Kirk in the NBC-TV series Star Trek. Through no small miracle, with the help of R. W. Baker, the Sales Manager of Belk's, I managed to schedule an interview with Mr. Shatner.

Edward Nicholson, the Dean of Academic Affairs, graciously consented to drive James Joyner, the future editor of the Communique, and myself to New Bern and back. So, loaded down with three cameras, film, flash cubes, a new portable tape recorder from the library, and our gifts to Mr. Shatner, we started out early Saturday morning.

We spent approximately 35 minutes with Mr. Shatner in Mr. Baker's office. Of course, the first question we asked was if there were any chance Star Trek would not be canceled next season.


Mr. Nicholson: Would it help to write?

Mr. Shatner: No, I think it's too late for that. But it'll go through the summer reruns. They're changing the time slot to Tuesdays at 7:30 in April.

Karen: They should have done that before.

Mr. Shatner: Yes, they should have. That may have some results If the ratings go up dramatically, it may have some result. But, to all intents and purposes, the program's canceled. I'm curious. Is this for a particular subject?

James: No. Karen's the editor and I'm the co-editor of our school paper.

Karen: The Wayne Communique.

Mr. Shatner: Oh, I see. So, it's really a newspaper rather than for any academic credit of any kind.

Mr. Nicholson: In a two-year college, you always have the problem of a varying quality of student interest and you're helping to maintain it.

Mr. Shatner: (laughing) Well, I don't know; my English may not be very good. But we had the same problem. I went to McGill at the University of Montreal and, of course, every college has the same problem— the constant turnover. The football team gets the most publicity, (laughing) but it works for the newspaper, too, doesn't it?

Karen: Did you work on the newspaper?

Mr. Shatner: No. My office for the college musicals and the theater society was next door (laughing) to the newspaper. But I didn't work on the newspaper at all; I didn't do any creative writing on it.

Karen: Then you've never written any scripts?

p. 2

Mr. Shatner: Oh, yes, I've written scripts and, in fact, whenever I'm not working as an actor, I try to do something in the area of creating a script. And by that, I mean, I have, in the past, sat down and written shows -- either a finished screenplay or a story idea -- and in the past three years, I tried to put together a film by either buying a property, a book, or a script that I think can be improved, or by one means or another, putting together a film. I've tried on three separate occasions to have a screenplay in a finished form of such value that somebody would be willing to invest money. I haven't succeeded in three tries, but that won't stop me.

Mr. Nicholson: Star Trek and the show you did before that, as well as the one before that, all had pretty good critical reviews. They made points; they had a point of view that they were expressing.

Mr. Shatner: Social commentary.

Mr. Nicholson: Right. This brings the question to my mind: Is this general approval of the point of view reached through discussion with writers and the entire staff, or is it representative of the official decision of just one or two people?

Mr. Shatner: Well, in the case of the series you're talking about before, For the People, the same group that produced The Defenders, Herb Brodkin of Plaudus Productions. Well, to go back even further -- I had been asked to do The Defenders and I turned it down, wanting to make a career in theater and movies. Subsequently, some four years later, I changed my mind, and Brodkin called me and said, "We have a show ready to go. We've got a pilot. We're on the waiting period, ready to go on the air, and its point of view will be that of the opposite, the other table, than The Defenders." In other words, The Defenders was defending the criminal against the machinations of the law. This program, For the People, would be defending the people against the aberrations caused by defense lawyers, so that the people, themselves, would be protected against the criminals, in order to prosecute the criminals, put the criminals away. And I, at this point, had kind of adhered to that point of view anyway, you know. I mean, much had been written about the defense of the individual and the pendulum has just begun to swing back the other way and say, "Wait a minute! It's all very well to say his mother didn't like him and that's why he murdered that person, but what about that murdered person and his family?" which is the other point of view. So, I selected to do the show for a number of reasons and one of them being that the point of view did not offend me. On Star Trek, we take a very humanistic point of view and that's part of my philosophy, as well. If I encountered a situation whereby a script offended me, and I was tied by contract with the necessity of doing it, uh, I think at this point now, I would object. Whether I would have when I was in a less strong position, I don't know (small laugh).

Karen: Have you ever changed the dialogue in a script that you didn't think went with the character?

Mr. Shatner: Oh, yes! These scripts are written so hastily! The author of a particular script will conceive an idea or get an idea from the producer of the show and he'll go home and write it in two or three weeks. An hour is an act and a half of a play. He'll bring it in as a first draft and he's tied by contract, the writer's contract, to do a second draft. Sometimes, the thing is so bad that they say, "OK," and they pay him off and the story editor of the particular program will give it to another guy to rewrite or in some instances, they'll give it back to the original writer and say, "These scenes are terrible; this construction is bad, let alone the dialogue!" They don't even talk about dialogue; they talk about construction! Then he'll hack it up for another week, and if he spends more than two or three weeks on a script, he is not going to make as much money as he could if he didn't, you see. And a lot of these writers, as everybody else, get themselves --

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are necessitated by economic motivation to get in there and be a hack. So, what usually happens is by the end of the second draft, the script comes in and it doesn't sound anything like the way we ordinarily sound. And then the script editor takes the whole thing and rewrites it in the manner that the script editor would think we talk. And I have noticed, for example, that during the first year, when the man who was doing most of the rewriting was Gene Roddenberry, himself, we sounded one way. The second year, there was a gentleman -- a very fine writer -- by the name of Gene Coon, and he wrote in another way. He was an ex-Marine and he wrote tough and terse. And this year, we had a more verbose script editor who wrote in longer paragraphs, and our speeches are longer and our questions more academic. "But what would you do if --," you know. So, it was changed. And in the final analysis, when we get on the set and look at the script, and we'd say, "Good Lord, I'd never say that!" we'd change it.

Karen: Have you ever had a script writer who actually wrote the character into the script well?

Mr. Shatner: Very few. I think on one or two occasions. Of all the scripts we've had -- all 79 scripts that we shot and maybe some hundred scripts that were bought -- I think on a very isolated occasions did the script writer write in the manner that Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy would speak traditionally and still maintain the same relationship. Very difficult. And I don't know why. I think Star Trek is particularly difficult in that way, because other shows don't seem to have that trouble. They acquire a stable of writers -- seven, eight writers -- and then the guys keep bringing in scripts. They make around $3500 for a script, and so a top writer, a top talent -- mathematically you can figure out -- if he gets in one a month, he's not making by comparison as much income as he could -- as others are.

James: How long does it take you to learn your script?

Mr. Shatner: Well, I have acquired -- it's an acquired characteristic, memory. When I was working freelance before the series, I would take my script home and learn it in time so that when I went in for the first day of shooting -- and you shoot out of sequence; you don't necessarily shoot the first scene the first day -- I would know the whole script cold and I'd know exactly what I was going to do in what scenes. So, if they shot the middle of the show, I would know what was leading up to that. Well, on a series, you can't do that because of the dint of time. I mean, sometimes we'd finish a show in the morning and some in the afternoon. Sometimes you barely have time to read them. Well, in the first half of the first season, I found myself learning as much as I could when the show started, and then taking that first weekend and learning the rest, so that at some point during the entire show, I learned the whole script. In the second half, I found that I could learn what was necessary to learn the night before for the following day's shooting. In the second season, I got so that I could learn the scenes coming up at the makeup table. Finally, in the third season, I got so adept at memorizing, and needing the necessity of a challenge, I would wait (laughing) until we had rehearsed it, or wait until everything was set, to start learning massive speeches. And I got pretty adept at it.

James: Is it true that you like some special passages of Shakespeare?

Mr. Shatner: Shakespeare, in the English language, is the finest dramatist, so any actor with any knowledge of his craft has necessarily to like Shakespeare. Whether he can do it or not is another question. But as for favorite passages, those that have become cliches in our language have been quoted because they are the great passages, and so I care for them, too.

Mr. Nicholson: You had formal training in the theater at McGill?

p. 4

Mr. Shatner: Well, I took the theater courses, but they're usually a waste of time. Paint a flat, learn how to light a set, and if you can answer a few stock questions, you pass the grade. But it wasn't anything comparable to Yale or Antioch here, for example, at McGill at that time. I don't know what it's like now. So, my training has taken place in the theater by experience and by outside classes, like at Stratford (Ontario). I was at Stratford for three years and I took all kinds of classes there, and classes outside at night.

Mr. Nicholson: It seems to me that you might call yourself more of a classic actor as far as your training is concerned, rather than a method actor.

Mr. Shatner: Oh, yeah. I don't understand the method acting, and I took courses in it and I've studied a little bit. I don't understand exactly what they're doing, because it seems to me that what they're doing is what every actor should do, and maybe it's a method of learning. But, as for being a classical actor, I'm capable of doing the classics. I have a record out called The Transformed Man on Decca.

Mr. Nicholson: Who wrote it?

Mr. Shatner: Well, it's an idea that I had had as a result of being on several conversation programs in doing Shakespeare. They asked me, "What can you do besides talk?" (laughing) and I'd say, "Well, do some Shakespeare," and I'd do some Shakespeare. Finally, they'd say, "What else can you do?" and I said, "Well, play a song and I'll say the song. The lyrics in some of these modern songs are sometimes very beautiful." So, they'd play the melody and I'd say the song, you know, not wanting to risk being laughed at by singing. But finally, it occurred to me to combine the two. To combine background music with Shakespeare, segueing into a modern song. So that, on this record, the first cut is Once More Unto the Breech from Henry V, with the great majestic music of War segueing into a simple little song about peace. I do Cyrano the No Thank You speech which ends, "I may climb to no great heights, but I will climb alone!" segueing into Mr. Tambourine Man, which is a guy needing a fix, who can't stand alone. Romeo and Juliet, the romanticism of Romeo's part of the balcony scene, segueing into How Insensitive -- Baudelaire, a piece of Baudelaire poetry tied in with Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, LSD, the psychedelic experience from Baudelaire and the Beatles. This kind of thing. So, it's an unusual record, and Decca has it and I'm very proud of it. There are mistakes, but then again, where isn't there? It would be interesting to anybody, especially to anybody studying the theater.

Karen: Do you think Star Trek is a good representation of the future?

Mr. Shatner: Well, everybody has a right to his opinion. Who's to say? I say that anything you can imagine can plausibly come to pass sometime in the future, so that anything these script writers can imagine is possible. Whether it represents it, I don't know.

Karen: Have you ever met any astronauts?

Mr. Shatner: Yes.

Karen: What do they think of the show?

Mr. Shatner: They dig it! The whole Cape Kennedy just closes down. I went there! I flew in and they rolled out the red carpet. I got into the Apollo moon ship, the LEM module. I met Don Isley [Donn Eisele], who took me around and showed me everything.

Karen: I've heard that when "Star Trek" comes on, everything at Cape Kennedy stops. This is true?

Mr. Shatner: Yes! And they played a practical joke on me! I was looking through one of the quartz windows -- and through the quartz windows, they had televised a screen of the star systems that they'll be flying by, well, this was just before the moon shot (laughing). Did you ever hear the story?

p. 5

Mr. Nicholson: (laughing) No, but I can imagine what happened!

Mr. Shatner: Yeah! And I'm looking -- I'm lying on my back -- and they say, "Are you looking?" and I say, "I'm looking," and across the screen flies the Enterprise!! (general hearty laughter) The idiots -- on my tax money -- (more laughter) had spent four hours making this model to televise it. And when I got out of the Apollo ship -- I had to climb down some stairs -- there were two or three hundred engineers laughing! They had played a practical joke on me! Oh, it was hysterical! It was the funniest thing that had ever happened! And they handed me the model to autograph and I wrote down on it: "When you get to the moon, I'll see ya!" (laughing).

James: Approximately how much fan mail do you get?

Mr. Shatner: It's varied a great deal. In the early days of the show, we were getting many thousands of letters a week. It's slackened off since then, and I don't know what it is now.

James: Have you ever received any marriage proposals from your fans?

Mr. Shatner: (laughing) Yes! I've received a number of marriage proposals! And other kinds! (general laughter) And I don't read too much of the mail. There’s so much coming in, and there’s so much to do that I see very little of it.

Mr. Baker:  How is that mail handled?

Mr. Shatner: It's handled in two manners. If the person writing in says, "I'd like a picture," that's automatically handled. If there's a more extensive letter, there's a service which tries to answer in as brief a manner as possible.

Karen: Do you think it will be easy for you to shake the character of Captain Kirk?

Mr. Shatner: To shake it? Yes. I made quite a good living before I went into Star Trek and I hope I'll be able to make a good living by playing other parts after Star Trek. Actually, the character of Captain Kirk is merely a Greek hero in futuristic terms.

Karen: I saw you in Alexander the Great.

Mr. Shatner: That's right. It's Alexander the Great. The same company that produced Combat wanted to produce Alexander the Great. I did a pilot film on it. And I call Alexander the Great Combat in Drag! (laughing) And he, too, was a hero, of course. Captain Kirk is a hero in the same classical terms as Alexander was.

Karen: I've been in the military all my life, so I sort of relate to orders, etcetera. I've often wondered what would happen if the Enterprise (laughing) didn't pass inspection.

Mr. Shatner: (hearty laugh) That'd be funny!! That's a good idea for a story!

James: Do you play a musical instrument?

Mr. Shatner: I have a guitar that I can strum, but I don't play it very well, so in effect, I don't play a musical instrument.

James: What's your favorite pop hit?

Mr. Shatner: Pop hit? (sigh) Well ... there's so many great songs that have been written in the last few years. Jimmy Webb is, you know, the new sensation. The Beatles are simply great. And Simon and Garfunkel are, perhaps, the minstrels of today. Those three are the great artists in the modern music.

Karen: Which were your favorite episodes of Star Trek?

Mr. Shatner: Well, I liked two of them. I liked performing them— that which I can remember, 'cause they all begin to fade into (laughing) one giant Star Trek! But there was one in the early season that I played where I played the

p. 6

two aspects of Captain Kirk: the animal -- I call it the animal -- and the mental, the cerebral. And the idea of the show was that man needs both of those aspects of his personality in order to exist and that we must come to peace with the fact that we need both. The intellect must control the animal. At the same time, the vitality of man is evidenced by the animal. So, I tried to indicate, rather than Jekyll and Hyde -- which it could have been -- I tried to indicate that kind of philosophy. The other one was the aging one when we all got old to the age of 90 and back and it was quite fun. I enjoyed it.

James: How did Nichelle Nichols get her part on Star Trek?

Mr. Shatner: I don't know how she got the job in the first place. She obviously has talent, beauty and brains, and apparently, she had luck. And those are the ingredients you need for success anyway. But she is a very talented girl. She sings and dances beautifully.

Mr. Baker: Do you know any of the plans of the other members of the cast?

Mr. Shatner: No, I don't know what anybody else is doing. They're actors; they'll grub around for jobs like everybody else, you know.

Karen: What about Leonard Nimoy?

Mr. Shatner: I don't know. He's a very good actor and he'll have no difficulty maintaining his career. I'm sure.

Mr. Nicholson: You work out quite a bit, don't you?

Mr. Shatner: Yes, as often as I can.

Mr. Nicholson: I can see that if you gained five pounds you'd be out of a show.

Mr. Shatner: Oh, yeah, the costumes! God, you eat one big meal and you're dead! You can hardly breathe! It's quite true. Quite true. And I put on weight on the show. I'm so used to being athletic, you know, that by the end of the filming season, which takes about eight months, I'm really sadly out of shape, because there's no time to work out. So, I put on weight. And then, beginning the following season, I've worked out and I've swum.

Mr. Nicholson: There's one side effect you may not be aware of. You are an ideal to -- well, we don't say it, but it's true -- to middle-aged American men. You've shown you can be thin after your 20's.

Mr. Shatner: (laughing) Yeah?

Mr. Nicholson: You helped me lose 55 pounds.

Mr. Shatner: Did I really? That's wild! That's about the nicest compliment I have received, really! I have to keep weight off as a necessity to my trade. And I'm really about 10 pounds overweight right now. I will take off 10 pounds in the next two or three weeks. But the camera puts on 10-15 pounds like that, you know. I mean, it makes you look heavier and fatter than you are, so you've got to actually be gaunt. The best-looking guys are gaunt and look somewhat sickly (laughs).

Karen: Do you ever get to see Star Trek after you've filmed it?

Mr. Shatner: The only time I see Star Trek -- I see the show fresh and new as you do. I watch it, you know, and if I miss the show, I've missed the show. I've missed quite a few this year.

James: How old are your daughters?

Mr. Shatner: One is four, one is seven and one is ten.

Karen: Have you ever received any strange gifts?

Mr. Shatner: Yes. Yes. One of them that comes immediately to mind are muffins and brownies -- in the same package. They came all bent and crumbled from across the country someplace. And they brought it to me on

p. 7

the set and said, "This came for ya," and I opened it up and there were these dry muffins and these brownies. And I kinda looked at the brownies, you know. Everyone looked at the brownies. There was a five-minute pause where we all (laughing) kinda eyed the whole thing. They either could contain arsenic, or pot, or just be bad cooking (laughing). And who was gonna bell the cat was the idea. Finally, one of the stuntmen said, "I can't take it any longer!" He grabbed one of the brownies (laughing) and he shoved it in his mouth and spit it out, and he said, "It's just bad cooking is all it is!" And that was one of the more exotic gifts.

Karen: In some of the larger shows, there are many extras. How many extras do you usually have?

Mr. Shatner: Well, that depends mostly on the budget of a show, because extras and things like that cost money that doesn't go into script and film time. So, if the show has a large budget, or is budgeted as a large show, it'll have 20-30-40 people. If it's not a large show, if they have to save money, it'll be a crowd of three -- or five.

Karen: And they use them often.

Mr. Shatner: Oh, yeah. They'll cut back to the crowd of three.

Mr. Nicholson: With a low budget, that's when you get stranded on a planet?

Mr. Shatner: That's right! (laughing) Alone, you know, haunted by a voice!


OTHER LITTLE-KNOWN FACTS ABOUT "STAR TREK"

1. All the special effects on Star Trek are done in a special laboratory. Highly skilled men develop the film so that the crew of the Enterprise appear to beam up and beam down to the various planets they encounter in space. None of the cast of Star Trek knows how the special effects will look until they watch the show on TV.

2. Mr. Spock's pointed ears are made of plastic. It takes about an hour to put them on and these props are so heavy that the makeup artist must tape Leonard Nimoy's ears against his head. The ears are very painful, and Mr. Nimoy can hardly wait to take them off at the end of the day's shooting. He pops them off in a second. Mr. Shatner says, "I don't know how he could stand them! I know I couldn't."

3. William Shatner does not believe in UFO's. He has on several occasions tried to spot a UFO while riding his motorcycle through the desert at night, but he never saw one. Although Mr. Shatner does not believe in flying saucers, he does believe there are other intelligent beings in the universe.

(Story continues on page 8)
.

 

THE WAYNE COMMUNIQUE
the voice of
Wayne Community College
Drawer 1878, Goldsboro, N. C.
Editor, Karen R. Overholt -- Co-Editor, James Joyner

 

p. 8

And then we wrapped up the interview. I presented Mr. Shatner with our gifts: a WCC mug, a WCC pennant, and a copy of the last Wayne Communique! I am pleased to say that he liked the gifts very much.

During the interview and the three shows at Belk's, we took pictures and slides of William Shatner. If any students or teachers are interested in seeing these shots and listening to the tape of the interview, they may sign up for a general showing. Just sign your name on an appointment slip in the library and indicate what day and hour you wish to see them. When there is a sufficient number of names, the Communique will announce the day of the show.

-The Editor-
Karen R. Overholt



Karen's Note: Regarding the above paragraph about pictures and slides, in response to a recent query made to the Clyde A. Irwin, Jr. Library at today's Wayne Community College, the Director of Library Services revealed there are no such pictures or slides in their archives, or even the tape recording I left of our interview with William Shatner.

Any such artifacts may have disappeared in 1973, when The Wayne Communique ceased operations, or when the second newspaper, The WCC Campus Voice, was running in 1988. No cassette tape, pictures or slides relevent to the Shatner interview were included when the contents of the first library at the U.S. 70 Bypass location were transferred to the new library at the Wayne Memorial Drive location.

They do have issues of the WCC college newspapers that are now digitized for the DigitalNC website, an archive that includes the Shatner interview. The Director's email included something that made me smile: "I remember processing that collection and was fascinated to find the Shatner issue. We featured it in a public exhibit in the 2000s."




Star Trek Publicity Photo (1966-1969)
Paramount


This picture was at the end of the article, something I cut out of a magazine to illustrate Star Trek. It may have been a publicity photo readily available for publication back in 1969. Strangely enough, after perusing hundreds of the perhaps thousands of Star Trek pictures available on the Internet, I could not find this exact pose.


Pictures and Comments About the William Shatner Interview
Written by K. R. Overholt Critchfield copyright 2022


Photograph by K. R. Overholt (Critchfield) copyright 1969

We arrived in New Bern early enough to see a crowd of people listening to William Shatner answer questions. I took a few snapshots with my Brownie Starmite camera. James Joyner had a better camera, but I am not sure how many times he snapped pictures, because he said only a few shots would be available at the end of his roll of film.


Photograph by K. R. Overholt (Critchfield) copyright 1969

While we watched and listened, I was in "journalism mode," and wrote down any of Shatner's responses that I particularly liked, thinking it would be good to ask the same questions and thus get his answers on tape -- the WCC library had loaned us a small tape recorder and a cassette tape.  This plan backfired during the interview, when at one point, Shatner tilted his head and said something to the effect of, "I think I've heard these questions before." Without question, I blushed with guilt.


Photograph by Karen R. Overholt (Critchfield) copyright 1969


Photograph by Karen R. Overholt (Critchfield) copyright 1969

When the first Q&A session was over and the people moved away, we three were ushered into the office where our interview was held. Of course, the first thing I wanted to do was take a few pictures.


Photograph by Karen R. Overholt (Critchfield) copyright 1969


Photograph by Karen R. Overholt (Critchfield) copyright 1969

During the interview, which was going very nicely, the sales manager, seated at his desk, took a few Polaroid photographs of the three of us WCC visitors. He asked us to switch seats, so that each one of us could be represented.


Photograph by K. R. Overholt Critchfield copyright 2022


Photograph by K. R. Overholt Critchfield copyright 2022

The photo above is a photocopy of the picture that was meant for James, because he is visible in the frame, included here in remembrance of what happened during the interview.


Photograph by K. R. Overholt Critchfield copyright 2022

The room felt different, when I moved to the chair near Shatner. The main thing was I no longer was sitting at a distance, observing from a corner, which was my normal position in life. I tried to keep to my notes.

Just before our interview, the Star Trek episode that appeared on television was Requiem for Methuselah, first broadcast on February 14, 1969. Shatner asked if we had seen it, and I said, "Yes."

Plainly, Shatner was clear-eyed about the stories produced for the third season of Star Trek. "What did you think of it?" he asked, and he was serious.

Stuttering a bit, I finally said something like, "Well, it was okay. The story could have been better, but for what it was, it was okay."

He replied, "I thought it was dull," and his voice was as dull as the comment.

Feeling challenged, I added, "The problem was that for all three seasons, Captain Kirk was most concerned about the welfare of his crew, but in this case, it seemed he forgot about all that, so it did not make sense." He seemed to accept that notion from me, and the conversation moved on.


Photograph by K. R. Overholt Critchfield copyright 2022

Before we left the office, I remembered to ask William Shatner for his autograph. In my life, it has not been my desire to ask for autographs, so I was embarrassed to ask Shatner to provide one -- it seemed so much like a high school request. I cannot remember whether the sales manager or I gave him the index card, but I do recall being dismayed that he chose to autograph the side with lines, rather than the side without lines. Looking back, his choice may have revealed something about his personality, just as every signature reveals something about the person's outlook on life, for instance. Nevertheless, when I put all these pictures into a photo album, I trimmed down the card to fit it in with the other pictures. The trim was a mistake, I fear, but the signature is still real. It became very special to me, because William Shatner had complimented my scriptwriting effort.


Photograph by K. R. Overholt Critchfield copyright 2022

At the end of our interview, the sales manager gave us a few of his pictures, then took my Brownie Starmite camera to take a few more of us standing with William Shatner in the hallway. I could tell he was too far away to be effective, but did not speak up to say so, and it turned out I was right about that. BUT it is good to see that the top of my head reached the top of Shatner's shoulder, which gives you an idea about how short I was then (about 4' 11"). Nowadays, I am even shorter!


Photograph by K. R. Overholt Critchfield copyright 2022

Before leaving the department store, James and I checked out the "Captain's Chair" set design that had been created for Shatner's personal appearance. Using James' camera, I took a picture of him sitting in the chair, then he took a picture of me sitting in the chair. He said he would send me a copy of my pose, but that never happened. It has been a long time since 1969, but if he gets in touch, maybe any pictures he still has can be added to mine.



Wayne Community College, Goldsboro, NC (1968-1969)


"Wayne Community College came to life in 1958, as the Goldsboro Industrial Education Center. Several IECs were established in North Carolina to provide vocational training for industry workers, and Goldsboro's center was among the first. Under the governance of the Goldsboro City Board of Education, the IEC used classrooms in Goldsboro High School ... A campus was established on the U.S. 70 Bypass in 1960. By the fall of 1962, the IEC had eight faculty and 47 students ....

"Goldsboro IEC changed its name to Wayne Technical Institute in 1964. Enrollment increased steadily and by the fall of 1966, there were 550 students on campus and 1,500 extension students. In November 1967, a community vote approved the necessary financial support for WTI to become Wayne Community College. One year later, curriculum enrollment was 700. Wayne Community College was accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools in 1970, and has been regularly reaffirmed by the agency's Commission on Colleges, most recently in 2016.

"The student population's rapid growth overwhelmed the U.S. 70 Bypass facilities. In January 1974, the Board of Trustees commissioned a Master Plan for campus relocation to Wayne Memorial Drive. The first building on the new campus, constructed in 1978, housed auto-diesel technology, welding, watchmaking, drafting and electronics programs."

By 1996, seven new buildings were completed and were in use by that winter, along with an aviation building at the Goldsboro-Wayne Municipal Airport.

- From Growing Futures: A Brief History of the Institution
Wayne Community College website



Current WCC Campus on Wayne Memorial Drive



Karen's Addendum
Written by K. R. Overholt Critchfield copyright 2022

The original introduction to the William Shatner Interview failed to mention the man who was the Dean of Students at Wayne Community College, when I was there, Jefferson Faucette, whose picture is included above. He should have been mentioned, because he must have approved Mr. Nicholson's proposal of driving two students from Goldsboro to New Bern to meet and interview William Shatner.

These two gentlemen were well-known to me and vice versa. The summer before I began classes at WCC, I worked as a secretarial assistant, mainly a clerk typist, off the main entrance to the premises, where the offices of Faucette and Nicholson were located. Also at the main entrance was the switchboard operator's station, where I took over during her lunch hour.

Yeah, I learned to use the latest rendition of the old-fashioned switchboard. If my memory serves correctly, an incoming call was connected by pulling up a cord and plugging it into the lighted hole in the facing board. Then once the caller identified who was wanted, the operator punched a button to put that person on hold, picked up that cord's mate and inserted it into the proper phone line hole, and punched another button, so the call would go through to ring the proper telephone in the proper office. At the end of a call, a light on the set would change and the operator would pull out both cords to return them to the waiting-in-place position.

It was a really interesting procedure, and many years later, it was quite valuable in understanding the workings of a primitive computer. Data in; data out.

One day, I should write about how I was operating one of the first typewriting devices that connected with a university computer via the office telephone. That university was Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, and I was working as a clerk typist in the Advanced Building Studies office. Before that, back in Florida, occasionally I operated one of those old TWIX machines -- but do not get me started on my journey through computer land! I am an old lady and have a lot of stories to tell, but not now.

Back in 1969 Goldsboro, when transcribing the audio tape of William Shatner's interview, as editor of The Wayne Communique, it seemed necessary to leave out a few details for the sake of clarity. Also, somebody in some office had complained that the previous issue had used up too much mimeograph machine time printing on too much paper, so that claiming machine time had been difficult and the usual supply of paper had been seriously diminished. So, I was trying to save paper, too. All that aside, as a pioneer journalist in an educational institution that had never had a student newspaper, that big complaint was not going to diminish the Shatner interview publication. This project was the last thing I could do to support the fledgling newspaper, before getting back to my family in Florida.

Most of the details that were left out of the original publication are related above, along with the interview pictures, so now they are part of the whole story. Only one bit more should be revealed now. Truth be told, there was an exchange with Shatner that was left out of the article, because it was personal to me, and it was my belief that WCC students would be more interested in William Shatner than Karen Overholt. My 19-year-old self had something more than an autograph in mind, because of a Star Trek project that had taken up all my spare time since my senior year in high school. And I needed an honest opinion or assessment of it.

Karen's Idea for a Star Trek Script

At the end of the interview, I pulled out a folder, the kind used in school to turn in an essay. I had developed a story and had typed the beginning of a script meant for Star Trek, but now that the show was cancelled, the project was pointless, a mere exercise. A TV or movie script is laid out on the page differently than a stage play. I had made the effort to learn how to create a TV script, especially the format containing camera shots, the director's data and actors' dialogue, all of which were relegated to specific locations on a page. My typed script amounted to the first few minutes of a Star Trek episode -- the "teaser."

After a quick explanation, I said to Shatner, "You don't have to read it. Just look at the pages and see if everything is in the right places. Does it look like the scripts you get on the set?"

Shatner took the folder, saw the title, Valera, and with some consideration, flipped through the pages. Then he stated firmly, "This looks better than the stuff we get on set," and suggested I move to Hollywood, if I wanted to be a scriptwriter, because that was where the jobs were. So, that was that, and because it came from a professional, it meant the world to me.

Questions and Comments

Several questions I put to William Shatner seemed to be prescient, as in the definition, "human anticipation of the course of events." For instance, there was my question, "Do you think it will be easy for you to shake the character of Captain Kirk?" Despite his answer at the time, Shatner never did shake off the aura of being Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise. In that department store interview of 1969, the actor was struggling to see his own future, but personally, I was sure the Star Trek role would cling to him like Superman's cape. And this thought reminds me of some Jim Croce lyrics from 1972.

You don't stomp on Superman's cape;
you don't spit into the wind;
you don't pull the mask off-a old Lone Ranger,
and you don't mess around with Jim!

Consider my comment to Shatner about my being raised in the military, so I was familiar with rules and regulations, and related to orders, etc. I said, "I've often wondered what would happen if the Enterprise (laughing) didn't pass inspection." He responded with laughter, saying, "That'd be funny!! That's a good idea for a story!" Perhaps he remembered that exchange and shared that plotline, for it was often used in the Star Trek films. In The Final Frontier, which he co-wrote and directed, the newly commissioned Enterprise-A was "not up to specs," and provided memorable inside jokes for fans. Even the original TV series regularly built tension by having the starship lose power or defensive capabilities in the midst of a crisis situation, but The Final Frontier teased mirth to a high point, when Scotty gave us a pratfall.

Seriously, though, how many Star Trek stories included crashed ship systems?

Remember the first Star Trek film that rolled out in 1979, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, often referred to as ST:TMP. The story began with a newly designed starship that was still undergoing technical troubleshooting. In other words, it would not pass inspection in the condition it was in, when Admiral Kirk insisted on taking her out to meet head-on with one of the most dangerous adversaries Earth had ever known, specifically, V-ger.

Occasionally, fans got to see a brand-new Enterprise on their TV or movie screens, but after ST:TMP, subsequent films often featured a subplot that the Enterprise was not equipped for the mission at hand. The ship might not have had a full refit after a battle, or not completely reliable in her upgrades. The Wrath of Khan began with an inspection and a training shakedown cruise in the hands of amateurs (i.e., Starfleet Academy's finest cadets), before they were waylaid by the villain Khan. Taken by surprise, Kirk had to accept blame for the damage incurred by a supposed "friendly" Starfleet vessel, and being caught with his "pants down."

The Search For Spock began with Kirk's theft of a battle-scarred Enterprise that had to be jury-rigged in order to slip it out of spacedock, for a rescue mission that sadly included the senior officers forced into initiating the dreaded self-destruct sequence that completely destroyed the ship. What a sad sight, that ball of fire streaking across the sky of a doomed planet!

In the film, The Voyage Home, Kirk and his bridge crew were aboard a confiscated Klingon vessel and were still trying to translate Klingonese, when they took off from the planet Vulcan to return home and face serious charges. The Klingon ship barely survived a slingshot maneuver around Earth's sun to get them into the past. Then its dilithium crystals had to be reconstituted, and the cargo bay had to be refitted to accommodate and deliver to Earth's future two humpbacked whales -- before sinking to the bottom of San Francisco Bay, a hopeless wreck. After once again "saving the day," Kirk's crew is still intact, and he is happy to be finished with the admiralty and once again serving as a Starfleet captain. At the end of this film, he is given command of a new ship, Enterprise-A.

In The Final Frontier, Chief Engineer Scott and a skeleton crew were working overtime, trying to get the Enterprise-A to work properly, and before the technical and mechanical problems had been resolved, Starfleet gave Kirk the mission to recover three consuls taken hostage by a renegade Vulcan. It is a story that has the Enterprise being overrun by renegades, who commandeer the ship and chart a course directly for a dangerous barrier at the edge of the galaxy. Beyond the barrier, the ship and everyone aboard are at risk, when a battle ensues with a powerful unknown entity.

The Undiscovered Country had its Enterprise fiasco, too, when it appeared that torpedoes were launched that devastated the Klingon Chancellor Gorkon's ship and enabled multiple murders. In that story, there was no evidence that the Enterprise did any such thing, but Kirk faced an imminent war or a saving peace, so he ordered a stand down and surrendered to the Klingons. The real screw-up took the form of Lieutenant Valeris, a highly regarded Vulcan that Spock had been grooming to take his place on the Enterprise. She turned out to be a saboteur undermining the proposed peace between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, and along the way, she personally murdered two crewmen who had been working with her. Once found out, not only did she have to face the consequences of her crimes, she also had to face Spock, who gave her no room to dissemble.

Regarding the name Valeris, could Shatner have remembered the name of my Valera script? Maybe, but my Valera was not a villain.

And then there was Star Trek: Generations in 1994, a film that right up front gave us the commission of Enterprise-B, a ship revealed to have been launched without a full crew, or any defensive systems that could be deployed to meet the emergency they met in space. That ship survived, but the film also gave us the total loss of a future incarnation, Enterprise-D, when even the dramatic separation of the saucer portion of the ship from its engineering section did not save the day. The first time around, everyone that survived a crash landing were killed, when the Veridian star was obliterated. The second time around, Enterprise-D still suffered catastrophic damage and crashed on the surface of Veridian III, but a heroic fight to stop the launch of a sun-killing missile protected the lives of all the survivors.

What a legacy the writers of Star Trek have given us about the trials and tribulations of living and working in space. Despite all the negatives, people still look forward to a future that includes space travel. Men and women still put their lives on the line to help that future come to pass.



How the Overholt Kids Assimilated Science Fiction
Written by K. R. Overholt Critchfield copyright 2022

When we were young, my three brothers and I experienced many science fiction movies and TV programs that stretched the imagination. Our little sister was ten years younger than our oldest sibling, born when I was nine, so she really did not get the same education that the rest of us did. We were Air Force dependents, and as such, at every Air Force base our father (and later our stepfather) was stationed, we had access to very inexpensive tickets to see movies at base theaters, and were gifted with free access to base libraries, and both were often within walking distance from base housing. I was the avid reader of the family, and would go to the library with a load of books I had finished, then walk home with another load of books to keep me company, whenever I got a break from picking up after my brothers.

Those were the days when lots of low-budget "sci-fi" movies and big-budget adventures were hitting the theaters. The stories being told were wonky, like Mothra vs Godzilla, The Day of the Triffids, Curse of the Fly, and the one about a gigantic spider spinning webs in a cave. And there were classic Jules Verne adventures, like Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Around the World in Eighty Days. By the time we were attending schools in Goldsboro, North Carolina, a lot of the movies we saw in Air Force theaters were being shown on television. Yeah, but by that time, we kids were near experts in the history of existing science fiction entertainment.

In my senior year at Goldsboro High School, my brothers were telling me about a new TV show they had been watching (usually while I was in the kitchen washing dinner dishes) and they were sure I would like it. So, one evening while they were watching the show, I came into the living room and saw NBC's Star Trek episode, The Devil in the Dark. That episode was aired for the first time on March 8, 1967, so that was probably the evening I first saw Captain Kirk and Crew. Forever thereafter, I was a solid fan of Star Trek.

Over time, serious fans were called Trekkers, not Trekkies. The word Trekker implied a person is on a journey, and in this case, on a journey into a future in outer space. Definitely, I was a Trekker. And a writer. Therefore, I began to make up my own stories for Star Trek, just as I had done for every other TV show that I liked. The stories in my head were usually running while I was doing housework, especially washing dishes, because my stories made the time spent on tedious work seem shorter -- I was always creating my own time distortions. The ability to develop stories was handy a lifetime later, when I began to write about our Overholt ancestors, attempting to make their lives and times come alive.



Wrapping Up Subject Matters
Written by K. R. Overholt Critchfield copyright 2022

As I recall, Wayne Community College divided the academic year into quarters. I believe it was in the middle of a quarter that our Air Force sergeant Dad (our stepfather at the time) returned to the U.S. after a TDY (temporary duty) in Thailand, with orders of a change of station from Seymour Johnson AFB in Goldsboro to MacDill AFB in Tampa, Florida. Once again, my family had to pack up and move, but it was decided I should remain in Goldsboro to complete the coursework for the 2-year Executive Secretary curriculum. With some help, I found a room to rent at the home of a local widow and her teenage daughter. When the next big holiday came around (Christmas?) I took a bus to Tampa to spend time with my family, and then returned to Goldsboro.

Before the final quarter that I was at WCC, I switched from Executive Secretary coursework to the new College Parallel curriculum, because the non-business courses would give me more credits that would count toward a four-year degree. North of Tampa, the new University of South Florida was taking shape, and it would be a good place to earn a degree in Journalism. My intention to stay several days beyond the end of the quarter was a problem for the widow, who said it was important that I leave before the new quarter began, so that another student could rent the bedroom. So, I moved out and a friend drove me to another friend's house, where I stayed for a short while.

My last task was to accomplish typing up the Shatner interview, getting it mimeographed, and making sure it was available for distribution at WCC. I believe all that was done by me alone, because James and the rest of the student body had scattered at the end of the quarter. Once accomplished, I made plans to 1) purchase a trunk that was big enough to carry all my worldly goods, and 2) get to the bus station and travel back to Tampa. Again, there was help from friends.

Accomplishing all that built up a modicum of self-assurance, but unfortunately, it took a couple years to negotiate my starting classes at the University of South Florida (USF). Once that process began, before starting my new university life, I was able to help with the upcoming cost of attending by working full time, through a full semester, in the Office of Admissions. Once again, I was typing, filing and processing paperwork for students. I even designed a new USF application for admission form that (surprise!) ended up being used years later at the University of Tampa. While working at UT as a secretary, I totally recognized the distinctive format that had been my invention. In more than twenty years of office work, there was always room to create new forms for vital documents, for I was an Air Force kid influenced by signage that perpetually ordered, "Do it right the first time!"

Establishing a major came before choosing classes, and a USF advisor convinced me to enter their shiny new curriculum, Speech Communication and English Education, rather than my heart's desire, Journalism. But the man sat up straight, looked me in the eyes, and said firmly, "This is a double degree! You're sure to get a job with this!"  Ha!

Well, I earned the double degree that gave me the credentials to teach Speech, English, Drama, Journalism, Broadcasting and Mass Communications on a secondary level. Unfortunately, upon graduation, my Florida license to teach was useless, because the state was under a legal restriction to hire only minority candidates. It took several perfectly solid job interviews that went nowhere, before an interviewer explained it would be years before the lay of the land changed in Florida. That was one big reason to leave the state. Another reason was my perceived "call" to the priesthood. At that time, the Episcopal bishop of southwest Florida was totally against the ordination of women. He did, however, approve my application to have my short, sad marriage nullified by the Church.

Let us skip over the rest of that life in Tampa, where a legal divorce added to the religious nullification, and jump to the part where I drove away from all my hard times. It was the autumn of 1976. It was me getting back to Pittsburgh, the city of my birth, and the few Italian relatives on my mother's side that I knew about. There was a little bit of familial care in the beginning, but I was a stranger in a strange land, and both public schools and private schools were well into a severe downsizing mode.

I have lived in Pittsburgh most of the time since then, always missing the city when I was away, always longing to get back as soon as possible, where at least for more than a decade, short-term secretarial jobs could be found at several different colleges and universities. And there were a number of Episcopal churches that accepted me in their choirs along the way. I had been singing in adult church choirs since about 10th grade, loved to sing and loved to sing in church. But as for secretarial work, it was always more comfortable to be in educational surroundings, than in pure business atmospheres. Given the conservative nature of the diocese at that time, it was easy to imagine it would take years to convince somebody in the Commission on Ministry to support my calling. And if it was impossible to find a teaching job beyond Sunday School, the least I could do to support the spiritual lives of parishioners was to participate in the liturgy of the Church as a chorister. And the least I could do to support the education of young people was to work as a secretary where interacting with students was part of the landscape.

Let us continue by jumping over another huge portion of my life in Pittsburgh, where after eleven years of being single, earning a master degree in Religion for Christian Education at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and trying twice to get approval to become a candidate for the priesthood, I got married and flew away to live a couple years in California, where my actor husband performed at The Great American Melodrama and Vaudeville Theater. Then we drove back to our hometown to deliver our one son, Matthew. This nearly 73-year-old woman really does have a lot of stories to tell, but not now!

The DigitalNC Archive and the Vulcan Salute

In recent years, I learned about DigitalNC, a website that is a digital archive of lots of North Carolina printed and published history. The information came to me from emails sent by members of the Goldsboro High School Class of 1967, many of whom had found items that pictured their parents or grandparents in school yearbooks and newspapers. I never found time to investigate the site, until deciding to look for the Shatner interview, for I had lost track of my copy.

Aside from finding more published issues of The Wayne Communique than I could ever hope to find, I was happy to learn the site contained my high school yearbooks. And surprise! I discovered WCC had published yearbooks, too! So, collecting pictures from my GHS years and my WCC years was made easy. For some reason, while attending WCC, it never occurred to me that yearbooks were being published. Possibly, they were overlooked, because I could not afford to buy them. Anyway, my junior and senior high school pictures appeared in two yearbooks -- the 1968 Teknik and the 1969 Insight -- so I collected all the data that would be good to have in my computer files.

While about 98 percent of my Karen's Branches webpages are genealogical and historic in nature, a few are otherwise, so my decision to publish the memorable William Shatner interview could be done on my existing platform. A few events prompted this decision. First, there was the Blue Origin launch that allowed the 90-year-old Shatner to experience the weightlessness of suborbital space. I was watching the Blue Origin launch as it happened, and listened to Shatner's comments upon landing, and later watched the Prime Video special, Shatner in Space, three times, and could not help being impressed. A few days ago, I watched it again, and it was equally impressive on the fourth go-round. The man's determination to work at his craft and still feel obliged to experience the unexpected is remarkable, despite advancing age and probably the same kind of health issues I have dealt with in my time on planet Earth.

When I create a webpage, the whole process is something like building a house. For me, it is important to find or create the best background for the subject matter, then figure out the physical parameters of the page, and develop a few ideas for content. The next job is to collect data and let the data create the story. As I began my Internet searching for and gathering Star Trek jpgs and biographies, the next big incentive to continue the project happened. The Beatles Get Back three-part special was broadcast on Disney Plus. It was a case of, "Get back, get back, get back to where you once belonged," that pushed me to keep working on a webpage that has become my ode to science fiction, the adventures of Star Trek, and the driving personality of Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise, a character created by Gene Roddenberry, made believable by the grace of good scriptwriting, and energetically performed by William Shatner.

My last personal words on the subject of Star Trek are these. I always loved the idea of the Enterprise as much as I loved the idea of the characters who in imagination inhabited the imagined starship. And with every new generation of the ship, seeing her damaged or destroyed made me cry. For those who do not know, the Enterprise was always the main character of every story unveiled on her decks of the imagination. With all these memories to support us, may we all live long and prosper!




Three Seasons of a Science Fiction Show That Changed the World
or The Little Starship That Could

Written by K. R. Overholt Critchfield copyright 2022

Over succeeding decades, the original Star Trek series gained several new lifetimes after the show was cancelled. This was due to numerous local and regional television stations utilizing the series in continuous reruns. This filler programming always generated a following, and the stories and characters stood the test of time.

In the year 1977, when the film Star Wars exploded in movie theaters worldwide, new interest in Star Trek generated a healthy Paramount franchise that produced the first four new Kirk & Crew films -- The Motion Picture (1979), The Wrath of Khan (1982), The Search for Spock (1984), and The Voyage Home (1986).

In 1987, Star Trek: The Next Generation was launched as a regular network TV series that produced seven seasons of new adventures. It was the first of four new expressions of the Star Trek Federation and Starfleet universe. Deep Space Nine was launched in 1993 (seven seasons), Voyager in 1995 (seven seasons), and then Enterprise, a flashback before Kirk's timeline, launched in 2001 (four seasons).

While The Next Generation was in production, Kirk & Crew starred in The Final Frontier (1989) and The Undiscovered Country (1991). In 1994, a seventh Star Trek film, Generations, featured the characters Kirk, Scott and Chekov, as well as the cast of the The Next Generation TV series. It provided a story arc that connected the timeline of Captain James T. Kirk with the timeline of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, captain of a future Enterprise. It was the first of four Picard & Crew film adventures, which included First Contact (1996), Insurrection (1998), and Nemesis (2002).

In recent times, three new animated series -- Short Treks (2019), Lower Decks (2020), and Prodigy (2021) -- joined the first animated Star Trek series (1973), that featured the voices of the original Star Trek crew. Also, two popular live-action spinoffs -- Star Trek: Discovery (2017) and Star Trek: Picard (2020) -- have been launched on streaming services. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022) premieres on May 5, 2022, which is a new series featuring the adventures of Captain Christopher Pike, the immediate predecessor to Captain Kirk on the Enterprise. In the United States, the full roster of Star Trek films and TV series productions are found on the streaming service, Paramount Plus (Paramount +).


(1966-1969) Paramount
As for Star Trek: The Original Series, true to form, the compendium is still found on television. All three seasons are available to current generations of new Trekkies (fans) and Trekkers (serious science fictioners) on Paramount Plus (Paramount +).

The fact that kids and adults are still enjoying the original series, despite the fact that Paramount is producing brand new versions of the Star Trek universe(s), proves the worth of that short-lived TV series. This is a case of The Little Starship That Could -- that could survive, could live on in films and spin-off TV shows and today's streaming services. About writing good science fiction, my suggestions follow.

First, take an idea grounded in real science and extrapolate further. Second, do not make the villain or villainy too big to handle (i.e., beyond belief). Third, make humanity (in all its forms) the driving force in the arc of a story that has a beginning, a middle and an ending. Fourth, leave all forms of magic and magical thinking far behind, unless used as a device to point out the differences between magic and science.



Star Trek Films with William Shatner

Star Trek I: The Motion Picture (1979) Paramount
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Paramount
Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (1984)
Paramount
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
Paramount
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
Paramount
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
Paramount
also
Star Trek VII: Generations (1994)
Paramount
with Star Trek: The Next Generation Crew




Star Trek I: The Motion Picture (1979)
Paramount

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
(1982)
Paramount


Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
Paramount




Star Trek I: The Motion Picture (1979)
Paramount


Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Paramount


Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (1984) Paramount


Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
Paramount


Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
Paramount


Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
Paramount





The Motion Picture (1979)
Paramount


The Motion Picture (1979)
Paramount


The Motion Picture (1979)
Paramount


The Motion Picture (1979)
Paramount


The Motion Picture (1979)
Paramount


The Motion Picture (1979)
Paramount


The Motion Picture (1979)
Paramount



The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Paramount


The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Paramount


The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Paramount


The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Paramount


The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Paramount


The Wrath of Khan
(1982)
Paramount


The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Paramount




The Voyage Home (1986) Paramount


The Voyage Home (1986) Paramount


The Voyage Home (1986)
Paramount


The Voyage Home (1986)
Paramount


The Voyage Home (1986)
Paramount


The Voyage Home (1986)
Paramount


The Voyage Home (1986)
Paramount


Enterprise-A is Commissioned
The Voyage Home
(1986)
Paramount


The Final Frontier (1989)
Paramount


The Final Frontier (1989)
Paramount


The Final Frontier (1989)
Paramount


The Final Frontier (1989)
Paramount


The Final Frontier (1989)
Paramount


The Final Frontier (1989)
Paramount




Karen's Notes on Star Trek: Generations
Written by K. R. Overholt Critchfield copyright 2022

The film begins with the new Enterprise-B being commissioned in Starfleet's shipyard located in a synchronous orbital space station. The event has a typical christening with a bottle of champagne crashing into the ship's hull. Aboard the vessel, a media frenzy is in action, surrounding three famous Starfleet personalities who are present to inspect the ship and observe her first launch out of spaceport -- James T. Kirk, Montgomery Scott and Pavel Chekov.

Following a cursory inspection of the new ship, Scotty ends up feeling quite impressed. They take seats to watch the proceedings, but the current captain of the Enterprise asks Captain Kirk to "give the word" to start the shake-down cruise around Earth's solar system. Kirk is loath to play the part, but when the captain insisted, Kirk stands up to say, "Take us out."

The unexpected happens -- they received an emergency transmission from two ships in danger. No longer a lark in space, the event becomes tense and dramatic. The ship's captain seems frozen in place, then orders the young navigator Sulu to notify the closest starship to respond to the emergency, because the Enterprise, itself, is not equipped to handle this. But theirs is the only ship within range to respond, so within minutes, they are enroute to the scene where the two ships are caught in a ribbon of energy that is displaying a serious form of time distortion.

Upon arrival, too many things are impossible for the Enterprise to accomplish. They had left space dock without a full crew aboard, so Sickbay was unstaffed. Chekov designated several people to be nurses and marched them off to prepare to receive patients. The Enterprise has no tractor beam, no torpedoes, and they have to keep far enough away to prevent their own destruction, so they cannot get close enough to use the transporters. One of the ships is destroyed by the ribbon of energy and the second ship is losing its integrity. Kirk tells the young captain that he has to take the risk of getting close enough to rescue people via the transporters.

Scotty manages to save 47 people seconds before the second ship is destroyed. Then the Enterprise is caught up in the wake of the ribbon. Scotty has an idea to use the main deflector dish to emit a burst of anti-matter to push the ship out of danger. However, the ship has no full crew down in Engineering, either, and the controls to accomplish this task were down there on Deck 15.

The ship's captain is about to go and work the controls, but Kirk says a captain's place is on the bridge, and goes, himself. Kirk runs through the ship, deck by deck, and makes it to Deck 15, where he accesses the components, inserts them properly, and gets the main deflector to work the way Scotty intended. The mechanism works, the burst of anti-matter pushing Enterprise-B out of harm's way, but the end of the ribbon whips back and strikes three lower decks of the ship.

Young Sulu reports on the ship's damage and discovers Deck 15 has been breached. Scotty tells her, "Notify Chekov to meet me on Deck 15," and rushes away, followed by the ship's captain. When they arrive, they see a huge gaping hole made by the energy ribbon. Chekov exclaims and asks if anyone was here, and Scotty replies sadly, "Aye."

Seventy-eight years later, aboard Captain Picard's Enterprise-D, Lieutenant Worf is being advanced in rank to Lieutenant Commander, the bridge crew enjoying their work with some play in the ship's holodeck. The fun is interrupted when Picard takes a private message that leaves him emotionally devastated. Then they receive a message that puts the crew on alert -- a Starfleet science station has been attacked.

Another misadventure ensues, dealing with a dangerous scientist named Soran and his Klingon allies. This story includes the same energy ribbon -- the Nexus -- that was encountered by the Enterprise-B. Soran was pulled via transporter from the Nexus, as was Guinan, who we recognize as a long-running character in Star Trek: The Next Generation. But while Guinan came to terms with leaving paradise behind, Soran was still desperate to return to the place that gave him an illusion he could not live without, namely, the resurrection of the family he lost to a Borg invasion. Soran intends to change the course of the Nexus by destroying two stars, in order to be taken up by that ribbon again.

It is in the final third of the film that Captain Kirk returns to the story, after Picard fails to prevent Soran from launching a missile into the Veridian star and being taken up into the Nexus ribbon. Picard is on site, so he is also taken into the ribbon, a place where time has no meaning. Upon arrival, Picard is dizzy and cannot see anything, because he is apparently blindfolded and riding a miniature painted horse on a child-sized carrousel. When the blindfold is removed, he finds himself in a stately home decorated for Christmas, with his wife, children and young nephew in high spirits. This was the nephew who died in a fire, along with his father, Picard's older brother -- the sad news had come to him in the holodeck. But now it is Christmas, and every child is happy to unwrap gifts and come over to thank him, while his wife gets busy in the dining room, laying out a sumptuous banquet for the whole family.

Picard breathes in the familial warmth and feels the full effects of being comfortable as a loved husband, father and uncle. His every-dream-come-true was happening here, right in the palm of his hand, right at his fingertips to have and to hold. But there are clues to remind him that he is indeed inside the Nexus, and the loveliness surrounding him is quickly disarming him from the truth that it is all a figment of his imagination. He remembers why he is there in the Nexus and why he has to remove himself from that realm as soon as possible. When his son takes his hand and leads him to join the family at the dinner table, Picard stops and says softly, "Go on, go on without me."

He then sees his old friend Guinan seated on the carousel. She looks real, but says she is a "shadow" of the Guinan who had been taken up and then removed from the ribbon long ago. Picard questions her about whether he can leave the Nexus and get back to the mountaintop on Veridian III, in order to stop Soran from destroying the Veridian star. Guinan suggests there is someone in the Nexus who might be able to help, someone who, from his own perspective, has just arrived, too.

We see Picard walking through a woodland and he stops, seeing Captain James T. Kirk happily swinging an axe, splitting firewood. Picard introduces himself and tries to convince Kirk to come away and help in his quest, but Kirk is caught up in his own story.

It takes a while, but ultimately, Kirk realizes that nothing is real in this realm, something he has recognized from the start, really, but had ignored because of his feelings of joy. Taking charge of his own hopes and dreams, he remembers his retirement and admits, "Ever since I left Starfleet, I haven't made a difference." He adds sage advice to a fellow captain. "Let me tell you something. Don't, don't let them promote you. Don't let them transfer you. Don't let them do anything that takes you off the bridge of that ship, because while you're there, you can make a difference."

"Come back with me," pleads Picard. "Help me stop Soran. Make a difference again!"

With a smile, Kirk replies, "Who am I to argue with the Captain of the Enterprise?"



Generations (1994)
Paramount
Enterprise-B is Commissioned


Generations (1994)
Paramount


Generations (1994)
Paramount


Generations (1994)
Paramount


Generations (1994)
Paramount


Generations (1994)
Paramount


Generations (1994)
Paramount


Generations (1994)
Paramount


Generations (1994)
Paramount

"Did we do it?" asked Kirk. "Did we make a difference?"
"Oh, yes, we made a difference," said Picard firmly. "Thank you."
"Least I could do for the captain of the Enterprise," replied Kirk. He breathed
a sigh, added,"It was ... fun," and smiled just a bit. He blinked once,
then looked away, softly said, "Oh, my!" and he was gone.


The Starship Enterprise-D is Unsalvageable
Generations
(1994)
Paramount



Life, Death, Life Again, Death Again
Written by K. R. Overholt Critchfield copyright 2022

We took the death of the character James T. Kirk as seriously as the death of Spock, those of us who were intellectually and emotionally tied to the trials and tribulations of this captain and his crew. Much like the feigned death of Spock at the beginning of The Wrath of Khan, we were presented with the supposed death of Kirk at the beginning of the film Generations. Likewise, both films resurrected the characters, only to show us their "real" deaths at the end of the story. However, the events surrounding Spock's death naturally led fans to believe the Vulcan might yet survive his own death, (i.e., the Genesis device created life from lifelessness), but the events surrounding Kirk's death in Generations left us with no expectation of the character's resurrection, mainly because of statements Kirk made in the film, The Final Frontier.

William Shatner was intimately involved with The Final Frontier, since he was one of the writers and the director and this time around, he could add a few personal touches to the multi-layered Captain Kirk. How many clues did the writers of this film give us about the prospect of Kirk dying?

In the beginning of that story, Kirk loses his footing on a high rock face and plummets to earth, but Spock saves him from hitting the ground. That night, while Kirk, McCoy and Spock are sitting around their campfire, the circle of light around them enhanced by lanterns, they share McCoy's "old family recipe" for beans flavored with Tennessee whiskey. They joke around a bit, but then the conversation changes direction. McCoy is still angry that his captain risked life and limb by climbing that rock face.

"Maybe it didn't cross that macho mind of yours, but you should've been killed when you fell off that mountain."

"It crossed my mind," was Kirk's calm reply.

"And?" pestered McCoy, so Kirk continued, "And even as I fell, I knew I wouldn't die."

"Oh?" said McCoy dryly. "I thought he (indicating Spock) was the only one who's immortal."

"Oh, no, it isn't that," said Kirk. "I knew I wouldn't die because the two of you were with me."

Spock shook his head, "I do not understand."

Kirk explained, "I've always known I'll die alone." He seemed content with the prospect.

McCoy's voice became a little bit crass, a little bit gruff with sadness, "Well, I'll call Valhalla and have them reserve a room for you," and Kirk responded to that idea with a grateful nod and a smile.

After Spock presents a "marsh melon" device that produces marshmallows to roast, there is the "ritual sing-along." Kirk and McCoy think "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" will suffice, and start it off, not quite making it into a round. "Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream; merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream."

"Come on, Spock," urges Kirk. "Why didn't you jump in?"

Spock replies, "I was trying to comprehend the meaning of the words."

Once again cranky, McCoy cuts in, "It's a song, you green-blooded Vulcan. You sing it! The words aren't important. What's important is that you have a good time singing it!"

Later on, in the quiet of the night, Spock returns to the subject, saying, "Life is not a dream."

"Go to sleep," says Kirk.

"Yes, Captain."

Then the three of them say goodnight to each other in turn, reminding us of the TV show, The Waltons, when at the end of every program, members of that big family say goodnight to each other. It is a quietly hillarious film moment, but the directive to "go to sleep" was a subliminal suggestion. We would not have to remember the campfire conversation about life and death and dreams until the end of the film, and then again at the end of The Undiscovered Country, and then again at the end of Generations.

The end of The Final Frontier, finds Kirk stranded near the summit of a rocky elevation on a desert-like planet, pursued by a malevolent entity. He is ducking blasts of deadly blue energy, but makes it to the top. There is nowhere else to go. He is trapped. The entity is determined to kill him. Then a Klingon vessel rises up from the bowl of the desert, and it has a weapon that is turning in his direction. But the weapon fires over Kirk's head, directly at the raging entity. After a resounding explosion, the weapon then turns on Kirk. Defiant, he shouts, "So it's me you want! What are you waiting for?" Then he is transported aboard that ship, where he expects to be killed. However, he is served a formal apology from the ship's captain, and given an introduction to the ship's "new gunner." It is Spock.

Rising to his feet, Spock says quietly, "Welcome aboard, Captain." Astounded, Kirk approaches, says, "I thought I was going to die!"

"Not possible," replies Spock. "You were never alone." He wards off a move that telegraphs a possible hug by saying, "Please, Captain, not in front of the Klingons." It is another quietly hillarious moment.

The Final Frontier ends back on Earth, with the three old friends sitting around another campfire and singing, "Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream; merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream," this time singing it properly as a round.


Some of the best writers of science fiction were represented in the original Star Trek series, and long after his death, Gene Roddenberry's overall positive expectation for our future in space continued to guide Star Trek storytellers. The writers never backed away from the vagaries of the military or politics, history or religion. Whether gently told or bombastic in attitude, the bad and the good were always available fuel for storylines. The dangers of space travel were never minimized, the possibility of sudden death, if not spoken, was always apparent. Death was heroic or ignominious, and sometimes both at the same time. Stories that included someone's or something's destruction could be subtle or unexpected or deliberate. We were given villains and angelic hosts, rakes and mad scientists, brilliance alongside the ordinary, and all kinds of individuals from imagined other planets.

The beginning of The Undiscovered Country presents us with the sudden destruction of possibly everything and everyone on a whole planet, Praxis, a Kingon moon, and the resulting shockwave nearly destroys Captain Sulu's new Starship Excelsior. A Wikipedia article reports that Leonard Nimoy offered a question that became the basis for the script. What would happen if the wall of animosity between the Federation and the Klingon Empire came down, so to speak, like the events surrounding the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War?

And therein lies the tale, with a mixture of Shakespearean tragedy and Star Trek optimism, with Kirk initially aghast that Spock volunteered him to escort Chancellor Gorkon to peace talks on Earth, and then becoming a champion of that proposed peace. Both Kirk and McCoy suffer the consequences of an unexpected and dramatic murder of Gorkon. They escape execution only by grace of the upcoming peace talks, and instead are sentenced to life imprisonment on a frozen planetoid. Towards the end of The Undiscovered Country, Kirk and McCoy are stranded at the edge of an arctic cliff, confronted by gleeful Klingon guards and murderous hounds. Their deaths seem certain, but Spock had already arranged a rescue, so in that moment, they did not die. Kirk did not die.

In Generations, both times Kirk dies, he is alone -- he is without Spock and/or McCoy nearby to help rescue him. As a well-rounded, heroic Star Trek character, Kirk would have known he might die in those situations. He certainly would have acknowledged this to himself the moment he accepted Picard's entreaty to accompany him to Veridian III, and "make a difference again." Moreover, an audience familiar with the parameters of the Star Trek storylines would have expected this, too.

In a strange quirk of science fiction fate (i.e., canny scriptwriting), towards the end of this film, Kirk is again facing death on a rock face. The possible outcomes of this scenario have been rehearsed several times over by now, so nothing is really a surprise. Kirk manages to secure the vital tool pad and release the protective shield on the fatal rocket launcher, but then the scaffold he is clinging to brakes free and plummets to the rocks below. He is alone, so his death is a foregone conclusion, but science fiction fate can also be kind.

Picard finds Kirk before his last breath. They have only moments to share the assurance that together they made a difference. "Oh, my," and he is gone.

We see the mound of rocks that has become Kirk's last resting place, built by Picard, high up on the rock that had been the field of both captain's battle to determine whether millions of people lived or died. This time around, Kirk's success in the struggle also saves the lives of the crew and families aboard Picard's Enterprise-D, somewhat like all those people Kirk previously saved on the shakedown cruise of Enterprise-B. It was the least he could do for those captains of the starships Enterprise.



The popularity of the original Star Trek series generated several new TV shows based upon an expansion of Gene Roddenberry's expression and vision of the future. Each new series presented characters that encompassed the rich complexities of the original Trek characters, and advanced new storylines worthy of all the wonders, adventures and dangers that space travel congers up for writers of good science fiction.



Subsequent Star Trek TV Series

Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) Paramount (Seven Seasons)
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
(1993) Paramount (Seven Seasons)
Star Trek: Voyager(1995) Paramount (Seven Seasons)
Star Trek: Enterprise (2001) Paramount (Four Seasons)



Films with the Star Trek: The Next Generation Cast

Star Trek VII: Generations (1994) Paramount
Star Trek VIII: First Contact (1996) Paramount
Star Trek IX: Insurrection (1998) Paramount
Star Trek X: Nemesis (2002) Paramount



Star Trek Kelvin Timeline Films

Star Trek (2009) Paramount
Star Trek: Into Darkness
(2013) Paramount
Star Trek: Beyond (2016)
Paramount


Kelvin Timeline Starship Enterprise - Paramount


The Kelvin Timeline Star Trek cast includes the aged Spock from the original timeline. - Paramount


The Elder Spock's failure to save a threatened planet results in the Kelvin timeline. - Paramount



Star Trek Adventures via Streaming TV Services

Star Trek: Discovery (2017) Paramount (Five Seasons, ongoing)
Star Trek: Short Treks (2019)
Paramount (Animated, One Season, ongoing)
Star Trek: Lower Decks (2020) Paramount (Animated, Two Seasons, ongoing)
Star Trek: Picard (2020) Paramount (Two Seasons, ongoing)
Star Trek: Prodigy (2021) Paramount (Animated, One Season, ongoing)
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022)
Paramount (Premieres May 5, 2022)



. . .



And then, and THEN, on October 13, 2021,

William Shatner was launched into SPACE! Yeah, really!



The Second Blue Origin Crewed Mission to Space is Established

90-year-old actor William Shatner, well-known as Star Trek captain
Glen de Vries, co-founder of Medidata Solutions, a life science company
Chris Boshuizen, co-founder of satellite company Planet Labs
Audrey Powers, vice president of Blue Origin mission & flight operations,
a former NASA flight controller & engineer
(2021) Blue Origin




Blue Origin New Shepard rocket in mission
countdown and liftoff (2021) Blue Origin

The NS-18 capsule reached a height of
347,539 feet above ground level, with
a maximum velocity of 2,235 mph.


Blue Origin New Shepard liftoff (2021)
Blue Origin




Mission Welcomed Home by Blue Origin Founder Jeff Bezos

Overcome with emotion, Shatner said, "Everybody in the world needs to do this!"
He also said, "It was so moving! This experience has been somethng unbelievable --
the blue down there, the black up there!" (2021) Blue Origin/ABC World News Tonight


Blue Origin New Shepard NS-18 Capsule (2021) Blue Origin
Mission Accomplished by Four New Blue Origin Astronauts


After the Flight, Mission Astronauts with Press (2021) Blue Origin/ABC World News Tonight

Shatner in Space (2021) Blue Origin
(Available on Prime Video)

. . .



~~ End of Page ~~ Go to the first page of Karen's Branches.





Wayne Community College
(1968-69)




Wayne Technical Institute in Goldsboro, NC, became Wayne Community College. In later years, WCC moved to a new location and has grown to be a large college campus.


Karen R. Overholt, Founder & Editor
The Wayne Communique


James Joyner, Co-Editor
The Wayne Communique


Edward M. Nicholson
WCC Dean of Academic Affairs


Jeffferson H. Faucette
WCC Dean of Students



References Made by Shatner




The Transformed Man (1968) Decca


NASA Icon


The First Crewed Apollo Space Mission
(10-11-1968)
Apollo 7 Collage - NASA


Apollo 7 Prime Crew (1968) NASA
Donn Eisele, Command Module Pilot
Wally Schirra, Commander
Walt Cunningham, Lunar Module Pilot


Apollo 7 Launch (10-11-1968) NASA


Apollo 7 Astronaut Donn Eisele



All Star Trek pictures on this webpage were found on the Internet. Be aware that all pictures from various Star Trek TV series, animations and films are copyrighted properties of Paramount.


Star Trek Original Series


Star Trek Original Series (1966-1969)
Captain's Command Badge


William Shatner as
Captain James T. Kirk
Publicity Photo (1966-1969)
Paramount


Starship
Enterprise (1966-1969)
-Paramount


Inglorious Early Uniforms -
Paramount


Classic
Star Trek Uniforms -
Paramount


Captain's Alternate Uniform -
Paramount


Starfleet Dress Uniforms -
Paramount


Science Officer Spock, Captain Kirk,
Chief Medical Officer McCoy -
Paramount


Star Trek Cast Regulars -
Paramount


Tension on the Bridge -
Paramount


"Kirk to Enterprise!" -
Paramount




Charlie "X" (9-15-1966)
Paramount


Charlie "X" (9-15-1966)
Paramount


Charlie "X" (9-15-1966)
Paramount



Miri (10-27-1966)
Paramount


Miri (10-27-1966) Paramount


Miri (10-27-1966) Paramount


Miri (10-27-1966) Paramount



Balance of Terror (12-15-1966)
Paramount


Balance of Terror (12-15-1966)
Paramount


Balance of Terror (12-15-1966)
Paramount



Galileo Seven (1-5-1967)
Paramount



Space Seed (2-15-67)
Paramount


Space Seed (2-15-67)
Paramount


Space Seed (2-15-67)
Paramount


Space Seed (2-15-67)
Paramount



The Devil in the Dark (3-8-1967)
Paramount


The Devil in the Dark (3-8-1967)
Paramount


The Devil in the Dark (3-8-1967)
Paramount



The City on the Edge of Forever (4-5-1967)

Paramount


The City on the Edge of Forever (4-5-1967)
Paramount


The City on the Edge of Forever (4-5-1967)
Paramount



Amok Time (9-15-1967)
Paramount


Amok Time (9-15-1967)
Paramount


Amok Time (9-15-1967)
Paramount



The Changeling (9-29-1967)
Paramount


The Changeling (9-29-1967)
Paramount


The Changeling (9-29-1967)
Paramount



Mirror, Mirror (10-6-1967)
Paramount


Mirror, Mirror (10-6-1967)
Paramount


Mirror, Mirror (10-6-1967)
Paramount



Metamorphosis (11-10-1967)
Paramount


Metamorphosis (11-10-1967) Paramount


Metamorphosis (11-10-1967) Paramount



Journey to Babel (11-17-1967)
Paramount


Journey to Babel (11-17-1967)
Paramount



The Trouble With Tribbles (12-29-1967)

Paramount


The Trouble With Tribbles (12-29-1967)

Paramount



Assignment: Earth (3-29-1968)
Paramount


Assignment: Earth (3-29-1968)
Paramount


Assignment: Earth (3-29-1968)
Paramount



The Tholian Web (11-15-1968)
Paramount


The Tholian Web (11-15-1968) Paramount



Plato's Stepchildren (11-22-1968)

Paramount



The Empath (12-6-1968)
Paramount



Let That Be Your Last Battlefield
(1-10-1969)
Paramount



Requiem for Methuselah (2-14-1969)

Paramount


Requiem for Methuselah (2-14-1969)

Paramount


Requiem for Methuselah (2-14-1969)

Paramount


Requiem for Methuselah (2-14-1969)

Paramount


"Forget," whispered Spock.
Requiem for Methuselah (2-14-1969)

Paramount



All Our Yesterdays (3-14-1969)
Paramount


All Our Yesterdays (3-14-1969)
Paramount


A
ll Our Yesterdays (3-14-1969)
Paramount



Turnabout Intruder (6-3-1969)
Paramount


Turnabout Intruder (6-3-1969)
Paramount


Turnabout Intruder (6-3-1969)
Paramount


Turnabout Intruder (6-3-1969)
Paramount


Turnabout Intruder was the final new episode broadcast of the original Star Trek TV series. After three seasons, it was gone, but not forgotten. Over succeeding decades, the show gained several new lifetimes due to continuous local reruns, and the stories and characters stood the test of time.


The Search For Spock (1984)
Paramount


The Search For Spock (1984)
Paramount


The Search For Spock (1984)
Paramount


The Search For Spock (1984)
Paramount


The Search For Spock (1984)
Paramount


The Search For Spock (1984)
Paramount


The Search For Spock (1984)
Paramount




The Undiscovered Country (1991)
Param
The Undiscovered Country (1991)
Paramount


The Undiscovered Country (1991)
Paramount


The Undiscovered Country (1991)
Paramount


The Undiscovered Country (1991)
Paramount


The Undiscovered Country (1991)
Paramount


The Undiscovered Country (1991)
Paramount


Saboteur Lt. Valeris Under Arrest
The Undiscovered Country (1991)
Paramount



////

. . .

krc