Once they are inside the vessel, they are surprised at how cramped and low-ceilinged it is, and they discover the scary humanoid to be merely a puppet, inanimate and unthreatening. Then they hear a chipper voice say, “I’m Balok, welcome aboard!” That’s when things get weird.
The camera zooms in on the source of the voice, a smiling, hairless little figure sitting on a throne in a futuristic robe ensemble and a Roman-style headpiece, clutching a goblet: me!
It turns out that Balok is actually a friendly little alien who runs the entire Fesarius operation from the pilot vessel; he was merely testing the Enterprise’s intentions before making a generous overture of friendship. He pushes a button, and a punch bowl slides out on a tray, with three more goblets. “We must drink!” he says. “This is tranya. I hope you relish it as much as I.”
“Commander Balok,” says Kirk, eager to get down to business.
“I know, a thousand questions,” Balok says. “But first: the tranya!”
BEFORE WE GO any further, I’ll answer the question that Trekkies throughout the decades have always asked me. What was tranya, the mysterious, civilization-bridging elixir?
Grapefruit juice. That’s all. And not even the fresh-squeezed kind, but the kind poured from a punctured can. More on that in a bit.
I have to credit the Star Trek guys—Gene Roddenberry, who created the show, and Joseph Sargent, one of the all-time great TV directors and someone who Dad always held in high regard—for hiring a child. If I were producing this episode and it called for an alien of diminutive stature, logic would tell me to hire an adult little person and make him up accordingly. I would hire someone over eighteen so I wouldn’t be burdened with the added expense of a child-welfare observer on the set, or the possibility that the kid would screw up his lines and blow up the shooting schedule.
That they went with that crazy Benjamin Button approach, with a guy who looks like a baby but isn’t—that’s the reason that the episode, and my role in it, are still remembered and celebrated today. It’s so surprising, so unlike anything any viewer of a sci-fi series would ever have expected.
Some of Balok’s lines were a mouthful—he was a superintelligent alien life-form, let us not forget—and demanded that Dad be at the top of his game as a dialogue inculcator. For example, Balok describes the puppet as “my alter ego, so to speak. In your culture, he would be Mr. Hyde to my Jekyll. You must admit he was effective. You would never have been frightened by me!”
Dad and I talked things through so that I had at least a basic understanding of the term “alter ego” and the archetypal Jekyll-and-Hyde story—which, incidentally, is based on a novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, the namesake of our elementary school.
On the day of the shoot, they situated me in a corner of the soundstage where Balok’s lair had been built. I waited as they concluded shooting a scene where the bridge of the USS Enterprise stood. In the studio, they ring a buzzer and flash a red light to indicate when a scene is starting, so everyone on set knows to shut up, keep still, and not mess up the shot. They do the same when they’re finished. So, when the previous scene was done and the buzzer buzzed, the shadows of several adults—the crew, Bill Shatner, DeForest Kelley—advanced toward me. I perked up—the grown-ups were coming to my space. Showtime!
What didn’t feel good was my costume. My robelike garment was made of stiff, glittery material, and they didn’t even bother to put a lining in it. They never measured my feet for the shoes, which were some kind of uncomfortable hybrid of boots and slippers, with appliquéd sequins. And the crownlike headpiece was really tight and pinched my bald head.
Which, by the way, was not really bald. A few days before we shot the episode, Dad and I went into the studio for a full day of makeup prep, supplemented by a few hours of studio school with a tutor. Star Trek’s producers asked Dad if I would mind if they shaved my head for the role. My answer was basically, Yes, I would very much mind! Are you insane?