January 19, 2014

This Sunday, January 19th, we are celebrating the premiere broadcast anniversary of ARENA, which originally aired during Season 1 on Thursday, January 19, 1967.

THE STORY:

The fate of the Enterprise hinges on the outcome of a personal duel between Captain Kirk and the lizard-like commander of an alien spaceship.  On a barren asteroid, the unarmed Kirk must rely on his ingenuity to defeat his powerful adversary.
Book author Marc Cushman’s behind-the-scene insights from These are the Voyages: TOS, Season One:   “Gene Coon’s first original story for Star Trek was anything but original.  The new producer had apparently forgotten that he once read a short story by science fiction author Frederic Brown, also called ‘Arena’.  Desilu Legal switched into high gear and contacted Frederic Brown’s agent…Brown was open to the idea but wanted to see the script before agreeing to sell the film rights to his story…Brown liked what he read and a deal was made, giving the sci-fi author screen credits as ‘Story by’.”

Interesting factoids about this episode:
•    The ominous voice of the (at-the-time terrifying) Gorn is provided by Ted Cassidy, the actor who     played Lurch on The Addams Family. 

•    “Arena” was the first episode to refer to the Earth space alliance as the “Federation”.

•    “Arena” was also the episode which introduced photon torpedoes, a Gene Coon invention.
In honor of the broadcast anniversary, watch the original episode (try amazon.com, Netflix or hulu plus) in a whole new way by reading all of the great behind-the-scenes details in Marc Cushman’s These are the Voyages: TOS, Season One.  Get your copy today!