Wednesday, November 30, 1994

News for the Trekkie-impaired: "Star Trek" added the mop-haired Chekov character in 1966 in a blatant attempt to exploit the popularity of another NBC series, "The Monkees."

With that, many of us will glean useful archival information from "Star Trek: A Captain's Log," an hour-long "Star Trek" retrospective tonight on CBS (8 p.m., Channel 5).

Next time you're stuck for small talk at a holiday cocktail party, just say, apropos of nothing, "Yeah, well, where would Walter Koenig be today without the Monkees?"

Big Impression
Then smile enigmatically and walk away. Guaranteed big impression.

We're supposed to pick up another piece of information from the special. Seem there's a new "Star Trek" movie in the theaters. Think maybe they did this TV show for nothing?

The TV topic is the original "Star Trek" the show that wouldn't die. Hosted by William Shatner, the special is full of the usual sights and sounds from old clips.

There's the tense crew on the bridge, bracing yet again for annihilation. Here are the crew members making impossible choices between duty and personal loyalty. Spock cocks a Vulcan eyebrow and says, "Fascinating." Kirk makes out with a parade of blond aliens. Scott notes in his calm way that the engine is overheated (!!) and the Enterprise is sure gonna blow up (!!).

Then there's Jane Wyatt of "Father Knows Best" fame, guest-starring as Spock's Earthling mother and grumbling in exasperation, "Logic! Logic! I'm sick to death of logic!"

I'd forgotten on "Star Trek" cliche. It's McCoy kneeling onver one fresh corpse after another, looking up at Kirk and saying, "He's dead, Jim."

Bones' Interview
DeForest Kelley is interviewed for the special -- along with Leonard Nimoy (Spock), James Doohan (Scott), Nichelle Nichols (Uhura), George Takei (Sulu) and Koenig (Chekov) -- and says the likely words on his own tombstone will be, "He's dead, Jim."

For her part, Nichols recalls that she'd had enough of her chair-bound role after one season, and told "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry that she wanted to quit.

Then she met Martin Luther King, a "Star Trek" fan, at an NAACP fund-raiser, and told him she was going to leave the show. Huh-uh, King said: the show's implicit message of racial equality was too important. Nichols stayed.

Nichols and Shatner also recall the "Plato's Stepchildren" episode, in which they shared television's first interracial kiss. They say they hadn't thought much about it at the time but that point may be arguable.

Some TV historians say Uhura's personal life was seldom explored on the show so that interracial complications could be avoided. After all, there were no other black officers on the bridge of the Enterprise.

The "Generations" movie passes the "Star Trek" baton to Patrick Stewart and the "Next Generation" cast, and tonight you can't help noticing the advancing age of the original cast.

So the question arises: Is the CBS special a means of peering out at Trekkies and finally saying, "It's dead, Jim"?

Nah. Wouldn't be logical.