I’d get the first draft, the white pages, and see what Uhura had to do this week, and maybe it was a halfway-decent scene or two, sometimes more, and then invariably the next draft would come in on blue pages and I’d find that Uhura’s presence in the show had been cut way down. The pink pages came next and she’d suffer some more cuts, then the yellow, more cuts, and it finally got to the point where I had really had it. I mean, I just decided that I don’t even need to read the FUCKING SCRIPT! I mean I know how to say, ‘hailing frequencies open.’
Nichelle Nichols, quoted in in Star Trek Memories.
Quote: Nichelle Nichols on TOS Scripts
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Add Yours →[…] As revealed in the documentary Woman In Motion (as well as her memoir, Beyond Uhura) Nichelle Nichols got pretty sick of saying “hailing frequencies open” over and over again on the classic Star Trek. Although Roddenberry had imagined her character as the lead linguist and communications officer on the Enterprise, most of that canon exists offscreen. Like George Takei, Walter Koenig, and James Doohan, Nichols was essentially a supporting cast member. And after seeing the various changes made as scripts were developed, Nichols often felt short-changed. In William Shatner’s memoir, Star Trek Memories, she said: […]