Still boldly going

IT'S life Jim, but not as we knew it. Like the rest of us, the Star Trek cast have aged in the 35 years since the series was first shown, although they still have hair (not always their own, it appears)

The most poignant moment was the appearance of James (Scotty) Doohan, now 84 and recovering from a serious illness. His willingness and determination to appear, along with other survivors of the cult 1960s space series, shows the cast have come to terms with the fact that Star Trek is never going to go away. For Leonard (Spock) Nimoy, doubts about typecasting have disappeared along with his drink problem.

Several have moved on to interests outside acting. William (Kirk) Shatner, after what was charitably described as "an eccentric musical career", now trains and sells horses, using riding to help handicapped children. George (Sulu) Takei chairs the board of the Japanese-American National Museum, in memory of his parents who lost everything when put into Japanese internment camps in the US in 1942.

We were also reminded that Star Trek gave US TV viewers their first inter-racial kiss, and that Nichelle Nichols who played communications officer Uhura was ready to quit after the first season, but persuaded to stay by no less a figure than Martin Luther King, who felt her appearance aboard the Enterprise was helping the civil rights movement.

Lack of time and money on the show made it difficult to boldly go. The makers were told to be "creative, imaginative and cheap - especially cheap". Production staff scavenged rubbish bins at the studios to retrieve packing material and foam shapes for the sets.

Even the famous transporter beams were a money-saving device. There were worries about going over budget if the effects people had to show the ship landing on faraway planets too often. Moving the actors in a beam of light was cheaper. And, by the way, Kirk never said those immortal words, "Beam me up Scotty."

Enterprise crew members had their transporters, the BBC had something even better in Elephants: A Spy In The Herd - dung-cam and plop-cam. The ever-resourceful wildlife film-makers invented a small camera that was hidden in piles of elephant poo to get up close and personal with the creatures.

I can't see the idea being adapting for human reality shows - even the makers of Big Brother must draw the line somewhere - but it paid dividends with African elephants. At one point, an elephant picked up a camera in its trunk to become a cameraman. "For the first time we bring you ele-vision," said narrator David Attenborough. Then a baby elephant did the same. Yes, that's right, "This is children's ele-vision," he chuckled.

More seriously, these hidden cameras - static, mobile and floating - revealed much about the herd's behaviour. Such as how female relatives crowded round a new-born calf like aunties round a maternity ward bed, and how the herd protects the calf from predators. Dung-cam became porn-cam to record the mating pandemonium as all the family crowded round to watch the coupling.

Feeding takes up 80 per cent of an adult elephant's time. They eat 150 kilos of grass each day, and their flatulence matches their appetite. They expel 2,000 litres of methane a day, enough to run an average gas fire for ten hours. It made you glad that dung-cam can't convey smell as well as pictures.

Published: 21/07/2003