Martian Child is slated to come out November 2 in the US. It’s a comedy-drama which tells the story of a sci-fi novelist and widower (John Cusack) who adopts a child (Bobby Coleman) who believes he is from Mars. Soon into the film, the love interest appears in the lovely form of Amanda Peet. Oddly, from what I’ve read, despite the last pairing of these actors, this is not the sequel to Identity. Which is a shame because a sequel to Identity would be a cool trick.

So, another John Cusack comedy-drama is gonna be released (set in Chicago, no less, so we can see John in his cinematic “natural environment”). From what I can glean, I believe I can wait for Martian Child’s cable premiere, DVR it, then watch it while writing or practicing the bass. But then I read the film was based on the novella “The Martian Child” written by David Gerrold.

Take out your Trek-O-Meters, kids!

Interesting to see that name pop up again. David Gerrold is justifiably famous for writing the “Star Trek: the original series” episode “The Trouble With Tribbles,” one of that series most tightly scripted (and genuinely humorous) installments. A fan favorite. But Gerrold created some works just as significant and often overlooked a few years after the the original series was canceled in 1968: He penned the paperback books The World of Star Trek and The Trouble With Tribbles in 1973.

What’s so significant about that? Take it into context. In 1973, Star Trek barely existed. On television, it shared the same ephemeral presence as “I Dream of Jeannie” or “The Munsters,” stripped for syndication, chopped-up 16mm prints running daily on local channels between 4 and 7 p.m. There were no tie-ins, no action figures, and the first Star Trek convention took place at roughly the same time.

David Gerrold’s books were the first non-fiction publications that took Star Trek seriously. World was the first to report of the post-cancellation fan phenomenon, the first to examine the Star trek universe as creation of cultural significance. He used his inside knowledge of the show to sort of evangelize the show, and in doing so legitimized it’s fandom. And his book on the writing of “Tribbles” is still one of the most insightful looks at the seriously compromised business of network television writing ever written. It’s a bit dated (a lot of his problems came from using the wrong kind of typewriter) but if you ever considered penning a TV script it’s a must-read.

(I have a yellowed copy of The World of Star Trek on my desk right now which used to belong to my brother-in-law. Inside, I found an equally yellowed bookmark: An IBM punch card. Whoa.)

As Star Trek content availability went in 1973, these books were pretty much it. But they were the fulcrum point: The animated series premiered in 1973, then there were more conventions, more buzz, culminating in the first Star Trek movie in 1979. And the rest… is available at a video store near you.

It can be argued that the establishment of Paramount’s most profitable franchise owed quite a bit to his early advocacy. Therefore, I would have thought David Gerrold would have been booted up to a place of recognition, riding the franchising wave, but that sort of didn’t happen. During the height of the ST wave he mostly wrote sci-fi novels– though he was apparently the uncredited writer of the “bible” for “Star Trek: the Next Generation.” He managed to write a “Tribbles” sequel in 1974 for the animated series. He did NOT write the OTHER sequel on “Deep Space Nine,” which re-purposed footage from the original episode with the contemporary cast digitally inserted– “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Two to Beam Up” if you will.

But his absence of involvement in the Trek franchise juggernaut was always a bit of a puzzlement. Then again, Gerrold admitted he admired the famously cantankerous and litigious sci-fi legend Harlan Ellison, so maybe he emulated him in the wrong way.

So David Gerrold popped up again, as the autobiographical source of a John Cusack movie. He also wangled an executive producer credit, but then again so did Seth Bass and Jonathan Tolins, the actual screenwriters. I suspect a deferred-compensation deal.

About his only recent contribution to the Star Trek franchise is an episode on the online-only, semi-authorized “Star Trek: The New Voyages.” I can’t tell you if it’s great or it sucks: I can tell you I haven’t yet been able to play even one of the episodes. From what I was able to parse, it looks like a convincing argument AGAINST watching TV on your computer.

–Skot C.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 25th, 2007 at 6:53 pm and is filed under Ancilliaries, Digital Wonderland, General, Long Tail, Motion Pictures, Publishing, Television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.