First Aired: November 7, 2021
METAMORPHOSIS was the most unique production experience in my 26 years behind the camera. On the ENTERPRISE INCIDENTS: Metamorphosis podcast that I did with Scott and Steve, we discussed the contributing people who were a part of that experience. I now want to say there was one person in that illustrious group who for me stood out, who stood taller. That was director of photography, Jerry Finnerman.
According to the International Movie Data Base, Jerry joined the cinematographers’ union while in his 20’s. Starting as an assistant cameraman in 1959, he worked at the Warner Brothers studio in Burbank, California. He became a camera operator in 1961 on the production, A MAJORITY OF ONE, working for the first time with the esteemed director of photography, Harry Stradling Sr. Four years later he again operated for Stradling on MY FAIR LADY. I do not know how Jerry’s name made the list of aspirants for director of photography on the STAR TREK series after its second pilot sold. I do know that Stradling encouraged the young man to accept when the offer was made. Jerry did. He signed the contractual commitment.
But Jerry realized it was going to be an intimidating assignment. The 2nd STAR TREK pilot had been photographed by Ernest Haller, like Harry Stradling one of the giants of Hollywood cinematographers. Haller’s entry into the profession had been in Silent films. He had a long association at Warner Bros and was the favorite cameraman of the queen of the lot, Bette Davis, having photographed both of the films for which she won the Best Actress Academy Award. He photographed Joan Crawford’s MILDRED PIERCE, also an Academy Award winner and was himself nominated 7 times for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, winning in 1939 for GONE WITH THE WIND. His were going to be big shoes to fill and Jerry wavered. He told me he decided to ask to be released from his contractual commitment, But the wise Herb Solow, Head of Production for Desilu Studio, would have none of that. He told Jerry if he walked away from this assignment, he would never work in Hollywood again. Jerry reported as scheduled.
I did not know any of this when I reported to direct THIS SIDE OF PARADISE, the 24th episode in the series’ first season. But now, more than a half century later, as I look back I am amazed by the remarkably original, creative, skillful and imaginative photography that novice cameraman created. Jerry told me the early episodes were not without controversy. NBC did not like the way he was photographing the show. They thought Jerry was getting too artsy with his lighting; They thought it was not right to have colors on walls and on people, that he should just light the whole set fully. STAR TREK fans ever since should be thankful that Gene Roddenberry stood up for his young cameraman. He told the network he liked what they were doing and refused to have any changes made.
Now here is the ENTERPRISE INCIDENTS: Metamorphosis podcast to be listened to — either again or for the first time …
…and then I hope you will join me as …
I DIVE A LTTLE DEEPER INTO WHERE
I HAVE NOT GONE BEFORE
I recently in my last Deeper Dive posed the question: Why had STAR TREK become a Phenomenon? I have had Comments left with answers that I commend, that I respect.
But that I differ with.
I look at the answer differently
Some pertinent facts!
It took 10 years from the
STAR TREK TOS cancellation in 1969
until the 1979 production of
STAR TREK: The Motion Picture.
It took another 8 years before a new series,
STAR TREK: The Next Generation
began weekly airings in 1987.
But daily syndication airings for the original series,
which had been purchased for its stations in several large cities
by Kaiser Broadcasting in 1966
began the week after
STAR TREK TOS was cancelled in 1969.
I was aware of the debuts of the new movie and new series, but totally disinterested. Some time in the mid 70’s I received a telephone call from television station KTLA in Hollywood. The station was daily running episodes of STAR TREK TOS and the lady calling excitedly invited me to participate in a special they were going to be filming about the series. She was shocked, disbelieving when I replied I did not care to participate.
We will now fast forward to when I started my website, RALPH’S CINEMA TREK, in 2011. Much happened in those intervening years. The enormous success of STAR TREK TOS in syndication had led to STAR TREK feature films with the original cast, and several new STAR TREK television series with different casts and appendages to the STAR TREK title: (i.e. The Next Generation). The proposed plan for my website was to present on each post a fly-on-the-wall view of the filming of one of the nearly 200 productions I had directed, plus film clips. And my original plan was to do them in the chronological order in which they had been filmed. But although my feelings about STAR TREK had not changed, I was starting a new website which would be seeking viewers. Hopefully in search of those viewers, on my very first post the episode I presented was THIS SIDE OF PARADISE and here is what I wrote:
STAR TREK was a phenomenon. I directed six and a half episodes of the original series, working a total of only ninety days. And yet today if you google-search my name on the internet, you will think I spent most of my career directing STAR TREK. So although STAR TREK was five years after I began my journey in film, let’s begin our trek into the past there.
The next decade writing on the website proved to be a personally gratifying experience, and in the Comments left on my posts, a very illuminating one! Here’s peek at some of those Comments:
I was only 11 when Star Trek began
and I loved it and watched it religiously
These are the shows I grew up on
…the wonderful series I grew up with
in the 60s – they’re a real treasure
I’m 60 now, and Star Trek has
been in my life for 55 of those years
watched this episode at a very young
age when the series was in syndication
When I was a kid, this (Metamorphosis)
was not one of my faves because there
wasn’t much action but as I’ve gotten
older, I’ve changed my tune.
Growing up, I watched the series
after school when it was in
syndication on UHF stations.
I have been a teacher of
Latin and Greek in high schools
and universities for about 30 years.
Having been raised (or self-raised)
on Star Trek TOS,
I was introduced to the show at age 13,
in the middle of its second season, and
from that first night my world, and how
I thought about it, changed.
I admit that when I first saw Return to Tomorrow
I was in the full, ecstatic glow of having discovered
Star Trek, and EVERY new episode was a gigantic
adventure and true revelation
just revisited this site as my
13-year old daughter is now
interested in Star Trek.
Being a fan of the original
Star Trek from the 80s on
As for the ending, I’m not surprised.
Nor was I when I saw it as a teen.
This (Return to Tomorrow) was the first
Star Trek episode I watched. I remember
lying on the floor in my Grandfathers
living room on a visit to him in Knoxville
and when it came on I was mesmerized.
I’ve been a fan ever since.
Confidentially, as a kid, watched the show
because the girls were good looking in
the jump suits! And, of course the tazers!
I like to think we all mentally mature with age.
In 1969, I was 14 & wasn’t really knocked out
by “Is There In Truth No Beauty”,
but now I’m 65 & I “get” it.
And, a belated happy 55th anniversary of
the series premier…I was 13 at the time
and have been a huge fan since then.
There are many things I realize as I read those Comments. They were written by grown-ups who had first viewed STAR TREK when they were kids. Many of them had been written by people who had been born after the original STAR TREK was cancelled. The syndication viewers were no longer limited like it had been for those viewing the original broadcasts of one showing a week from an affiliate of one television network. Independent television stations in cities spread throughout the nation were airing daily showings and showings again of those 79 original episodes. Eventually that grew to cities in nearly every nation in the world. What I’m saying is that was a lot of kids at an impressionable age meeting and loving STAR TREK.
What I am going to write now is NOT based on any major research on my part. I have not contacted or interviewed anyone. This is just what I personally think and I start with something I have stated elsewhere in these ramblings. It was anticipated that the new medium of Television would be visual radio and in much of its programming it was, but it proved to be much more.
The art of Theatre dated back to the Greeks (and probably even before that). In the earlier part of the 20th century an infant form of storytelling (and at that stage very short) was introduced that could be viewed on jukebox Nickelodeons, which could be set up in any empty store front location. Plus there was another form of storytelling developing in Hollywood that evolved into what turned out to be a new art form — Film. With the creation of the film camera the length of telling a story could be longer and the scope of the storytelling could be broader and more complicated. This then led to the size of the viewing sites being enlarged, which eventually led to the creation of the enormous Movie Palaces of the 30’s. The new medium of television brought that storytelling into the intimacy of people’s living rooms. Now to return to that question I posed before:
Why had STAR TREK become a Phenomenon?
STAR TREK was cancelled after its 3rd season. It had not completed its 5-season mission to explore strange new worlds. But STAR TREK didn’t die. It opened in syndication and as I reported above, it created a lot of kids at an impressionable age meeting and loving STAR TREK. And then there was a convergence of that producer with a vision and that avid audience of young people.
THE PRODUCER: Gene Roddenberry’s original goal as already reported was to create a WAGON TRAIN to the stars, a Space series with a multi-ethnic crew involved in adventure stories about real people. Roddenberry’s 1st pilot for NBC was rejected. The network said it was “too cerebral” but they were still interested and ordered a 2nd pilot. I personally think the 2nd pilot WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE is more cerebral. It’s also more adventuresome. There is more action, more danger and mystery; deeper, more intense character relationships. In essence the 2nd pilot is more Science Fiction; less Fantasy Island. And as with most of the TREK stories, there was a morality involved and something to be learned. The 2nd pilot was approved by the network and the series was placed on the schedule. That was a victory but not the end of the battle. Roddenberry wss relentless, as were his key staff people, in not only maintaining the quality of his pilot, but constantly striving to improve it. That was not always easy. His relationship with the network was far from affable. He proved a worthy opponent.
THE AUDIENCE: By the time STAR TREK began airing in syndication in 1969, those impressionable young people I referred to above had watched on television when our astronauts landed on the moon. The imaginary ventures into space of comic strip Buck Rogers had given way to a different vision and what they saw made them true believers when STAR TREK started making daily syndication entries into their homes, their lives. They admired heroic Captain James T. Kirk, wanting to emulate him, willing to follow him on adventures in space that no longer seemed impossible.
There is a German legend dating back to the Middle Ages, of a piper, dressed in multicolored (“pied”) clothing, who was a rat catcher hired by the town to lure rats away with his magic pipe. When the citizens refuse to pay for this service as promised, he retaliates by using his instrument’s magical power on their children, leading them away as he had the rats. The phrase “pied piper” has become a metaphor for a person who attracts a following through charisma or false promises.
I again ask the question: Why had STAR TREK become a Phenomenon?
Gene Roddenberry was a modern American pied piper who led hordes of multi-ethnic young people from around the world as he ventured into space via the USS Starship Enterprise with its multi-ethnic crew. The Alexander Courage theme song is playing and the voice of Captain Kirk is saying, “Space ,,, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Star Ship Enterprise, its endless mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new lives, new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before
The journey continues
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