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Episode
061
Specter of the Gun
It’s “Tombstone” meets “Forbidden Planet.” It’s “My Darling Clementine” meets “This Island Earth.” William Shatner plays Captain Kirk playing Ike Clanton against his will. All he wanted to do was talk. Instead, he has to survive being hunted by Wyatt Earp. Confused? Just wait until we put “Spectre of the Gun” in the Mission Log.
This Episode was written by Star Trek’s other Gene:
“Originally titled “The Last Gunfighter,”
This episode was quite different than the usual
big message stories for which the series
was known for……
And by this point in the third season,
our production budget had been significantly
reduced. Since we didn’t have a lot of money,
to create a complex set, producer Fred Freiberger
and Bob Justman came up with a plan to make it work.
Together with scenic designer Matt Jeffries,
they created a surrealistic, yet inexpensive, set.
It ended up working very well.
Rather than trying to conceal the fact that we were only using storefronts, facades, they simply integrated that into the show. Obviously, this represents the Melkotians concept of an American frontier town, circa 1880.
-Just bits and pieces. It’s incomplete:
a reflection of the fragments of a human memory-
and at the same time, a solution to our money problems.”
– William Shatner
The Sci-Fi Channel Special Edition
” And by this point in the third season,
the production budget had been significantly
reduced. ” Interesting comment considering this is the 1st episode shot in season 3.
Behind the scenes :
My favourite trivia about this episode? Deforest Kelly played Morgan Earp in Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957) with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas!
I can’t believe you guys rate this one so well. I would have put it below “and the children shall lead”. I spent most of the episode cringing.
Most of my justification for that is that it looks like they completely ran out of money for this episode. It takes place on a set? That doesn’t even fit with the internal logic of the show. If the Melkotians (sp?) can create a reality in their minds, surely it wouldn’t look like they were borrowing the set of Gunsmoke and not even trying to make it look authentic. Also the Earps all talk like they just took a mega-dose of novocaine.
It’s “Spectre”, not “Specter”. It’s been a few years now, time for a correction?