The Worlds Of Jerome Bixby

The Worlds Of Jerome Bixby

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

GALLERY OF RARE "MEN INTO SPACE" PUBLICITY PHOTOS AND MORE


Wikipedia on Men into Space:

Men Into Space is an American science-fiction television series broadcast from September 30, 1959 to September 7, 1960 by CBS which depicted future efforts by the United States Air Force to explore and develop outer space. The black-and-white filmed show starred William Lundigan as Col. Edward McCauley.
The series was not set in a specific era, but clues throughout the scripts indicated that it took place in the mid-1970s to mid-1980s, with the first moon landing somewhere around 1975. Props were occasionally futuristic (such as a forerunner of today's real-life LCD TVs) but the show's earthly clothing and environs, including automobiles, telephones and other machines, were decidedly 1950s. However, a line of dialogue in "Christmas on the Moon," suggests that the events of that episode take place 2,000 years after the birth of Christ.

Men Into Space was somewhat unusual for a TV action series in that it had numerous recurring characters, but only one --- the protagonist, Col. Edward McCauley (William Lundigan) --- who was in each of the 38 episodes in the series. Tyler McVey appeared in seven episodes as Major General Norgath. Ron Foster appeared five times as Lieutenant Neil Templeton.

McCauley was a sort of "everyman" character who was viewed in the show as the most experienced and illustrious astronaut. As depicted in the scripts, the low-key but decisive McCauley was ubiquitous, assigned to every important space mission over at least a decade, including the earliest manned flights, the first flight to the moon, many additional moon landings and moon base construction missions, construction of a space station, and two flights to Mars (neither succeeded, and folklore has it that plans for a never-aired second season would have focused on further missions to Mars and beyond).

In many episodes, the astronauts were faced with accidents or technical problems that required innovation. The program was not idealistic; missions sometimes failed and astronauts sometimes died. For example, a scientist-astronaut stricken with a coronary thrombosis while exploring the moon was not expected to survive the G-forces of the return flight, so his comrades stowed the space-suited patient in a steel drum filled with water, to cushion him during launch. A "Space Race" episode involved spacecraft from the USA and USSR starting out almost simultaneously on the first Mars mission, with one of the craft aborting its effort to rescue the other craft and crew after it experienced problems.

The series included an episode whose plot essentially paralleled the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission's explosion in space more than a decade later, and another that was an uncanny foretelling of the accident that befell the real Gemini VIII mission in 1966.

Scripts often considered the human factor, and while action was the show's forte, humor and romance were part of the mix. Men Into Space predicted women astronauts and scientists, and married couples in space.

Accuracy

The series was advertised as being for its era an extremely accurate preview of manned spaceflight, based on scientific studies and buttressed by technical assistance from the USAF's ballistic missile and space medicine offices. The spacecraft designs, however, veered inconsistently between early 1950s Wernher Von Braun concepts, and later, totally scaled-down proposals.[clarification needed] Visual backdrops and conceptual designs of spacecraft, space stations and a moon base depended somewhat on contributions from notable astronautics artist Chesley Bonestell. The series also availed itself of extensive documentary footage of early missile launches. It evoked the earlier Disney space exploration documentaries, which in turn owed their look and feel to a widely read, early 1950s series on the subject in the old Collier's Weekly magazine, where Bonestell's art also held sway.

Prediction of technologies in use today

Men Into Space, later syndicated as Space Challenge, used for its plots many technical and human problems anticipated by engineers and planners. For example, the show depicted attempts to refuel spacecraft by tanker in orbit, construction of a space telescope, an experiment to dispose of high level atomic waste by launching it into the sun, the search for life-sustaining frozen water on the moon, exploration and destruction of an asteroid whose orbit threatened Earth, and exo-fossil evidence of extraterrestrial life.

Although the series was modestly budgeted, it was cleverly mounted with what, for its era, were good special effects helmed by Louis DeWitt. Even decades later, the series can still be appreciated for its attention to detail and accurate physics.

Scientific accuracy

A narrator explained in nearly every episode why the astronauts needed magnetic boots to walk in or upon their free-falling spacecraft, how a jet thruster backpack could propel an astronaut through the vacuum of space, why a wrong angle of attack could doom a spacecraft upon atmospheric re-entry, and so forth. The spacecraft in the program were shown gliding to a powerless landing on a dry lake bed, just like the real Space Shuttle nearly 25 years later.

On the other hand, the show repeatedly depicted sound in the vacuum of space. Airlocks hummed, rockets roared, explosions boomed, and footsteps on the moon's surface could be heard.

Production notes

The program was produced by Ziv Television Programs, Inc., whose other notable series included Sea Hunt. The theme and recurring background music were written and conducted by David Rose. The series was produced by Lewis J. Rachmil.

Among the guest stars was Keith Larsen of the CBS series Brave Eagle and The Aquanauts. Joyce Taylor played the role of Mary McCauley in the series, but Angie Dickinson played the role in the pilot episode. Other guest stars include Robert Vaughn, James Coburn, Joe Maross, Gavin MacLeod, Donald May, Harry Townes, Whit Bissell, Simon Oakland, Warren Stevens, Murray Hamilton, Brett King, Robert Reed, William Schallert, James Drury, James Best, Nancy Gates, Allison Hayes, Werner Klemperer, Paul Burke and Marshall Thompson.

Spacesuit costumes and special-effects footage of space vehicles (shot with miniature models) were later re-used in The Outer Limits. The pilot episode used real, high-altitude pressure suits developed by the United States Navy but most of the space suits used in the show were US Air Force designs.


















Buy Star Trek & Men into Space Scripter Jerome Bixby's Mirror, Mirror in  Kindle only $3.99.

 See all 7 Men into Space episodes scripted by Jerome Bixby free - click here.

 


Sunday, December 14, 2014

FREE WATCH ALL 7 EPISODES STAR TREK TOS WRITER JEROME BIXBY WROTE FOR SHOW'S PREDECESSOR 'MEN INTO SPACE"

YOURS TO WATCH FREE 

ALL 7 EPISODES STAR TREK TOS WRITER JEROME BIXBY WROTE FOR STAR TREK'S PREDECESSOR "MEN INTO SPACE"

PRESENTED BY THE NEW JEROME BIXBY COLLECTION

"MIRROR, MIRROR: CLASSIC SF STORIES BY THE LEGENDARY STAR TREK AND FANTASTIC VOYAGE WRITER

THIS COLLECTION CONTAINS THREE OF HIS 1950s MAGAZINE STORIES HE LATER ADAPTED IN TO SCRIPTS FOR STAR TREK TOS

EDITED AND INTRODUCED BY HIS SON, SCREENWRITER EMERSON BIXBY 

Buy for only $3.99 in Kindle at Amazon.

Below watch 7 episodes of the legendary 1960 science fiction television show Men into Space written by Jerome Bixby. Bixby is celebrated by Star Trek fans for his four scripts for the original series, Mirror, Mirror, By Any Other Name, Who Morns for Adonis?, and Day of the Dove. But six years earlier he had learned the craft of creating top-quality science fiction for television as a staff writer for Men into Space.


The episodes Jerome Bixby wrote for Men into Space showcase many of the qualities that would later make his Star Trek episodes among the best written for TOS. We hope you will enjoy watching them and that you will consider looking at Mirror, Mirror, a new collection of his science fiction stories from the golden age of the pulp magazines that features three stories he later used ideas and themes from in his Star Trek Scripts.

 
24 Is There Another Civilization? (story)

His first contribution to the series, a story outline. The script was written by someone else, but Bixby provided a strong and intriguing plot.





32 Mission to Mars (as Lewis Jay)

With his first script for the series, Jerome Bixby seems to have become the chief script writer, as he procuces all but one of the remainder of the season's teleplays.




33 Moon Trap (as Lewis Jay)

His skills as an early television writer, when tense dialogue was as important as action, show off well in this episode.





35 Into the Sun (as Lewis Jay)




Buy Star Trek Scripter Jerome Bixby's Mirror, Mirror in  Kindle only $3.99.



Click here to see the final three episodes of Men into Space. Including the never aired on TV 38th episode. All three penned by Jerome Bixby.











FREE WATCH FINAL 3 EPISODES STAR TREK TOS WRITER JEROME BIXBY WROTE FOR SHOW'S PREDECESSOR 'MEN INTO SPACE"

PRESENTED BY THE NEW JEROME BIXBY COLLECTION

"MIRROR, MIRROR: CLASSIC SF STORIES BY THE LEGENDARY STAR TREK AND FANTASTIC VOYAGE WRITER

THIS COLLECTION  CONTAINS THREE OF HIS 1950s MAGAZINE STORIES HE LATER ADAPTED IN TO SCRIPTS FOR STAR TREK TOS

EDITED AND INTRODUCED BY HIS SON, SCREENWRITER EMERSON BIXBY 


Buy Star Trek Scripter Jerome Bixby's Mirror, Mirror in  Kindle only $3.99.




36 The Sun Never Sets (as Lewis Jay)




37 Mystery Satellite (as Lewis Jay)
Another idea rich, well-dialoged Bixby Script. Traces of his future work for Star Trek TOS can be seen.








38 Flight to the Red Planet [never aired on TV] (as Lewis Jay)
On Phobos McCauley must make desperate decisions to complete their mission to Mars. Too bad the series wasn't renewed for the second season.




Buy Star Trek Scripter Jerome Bixby's Mirror, Mirror in  Kindle only $3.99.










Friday, December 5, 2014

"Mirror, Mirror" New Jerome Bixby Collection Reaches Top 10 on Star Trek Bestseller List at Amazon Kindle






  The famed Star Trek script writer's new collection of eleven stories from the pulp science fiction magazines, Mirror, Mirror, has reached the top 10 on the Star Trek bestseller list at Amazon Kindle and the top 50 among science fiction anthologies and collections.
   Before he wrote four fan-favorite Star Trek episodes, and the screen story for the movie Fantastic Voyage, Jerome Bixby (1923-1998) was a highly regarded professional science fiction magazine editor. But Bixby deserted magazine editing for Hollywood. Bixby is best remembered for episodes he wrote for the original Star Trek television series, and is much revered by series fans for introducing, in "Mirror, Mirror," the concept of the "mirror universe" where The Federation and Kirk, Spock, et al, are all their evil exact opposites in character and deed. 
   Bixby also wrote three other episodes, "By Any Other Name," "Day of the Dove," and, "Requiem for Methuselah," which are ranked among the best in the series. The new collection contains a trio of rarely reprinted novelettes containing ideas that Bixby would later mine and transmogrify in two of his highly regarded Star Trek episodes. These stories are "One-Way Street" and "Mirror, Mirror" (both used in the ST script "Mirror, Mirror") and "Cargo to Callisto" (used in "By Any Other Name"). The collection also contains Bixby's most famous short story, "It's a Good Life," memorably dramatized first on The Twilight Zone, then in the Twilight Zone Movie, and finally reinterpreted for the twenty-first century on the series 2002 incarnation, in "It's Still a Good Life."





Thursday, December 4, 2014

Mirror, Mirror Featured on Roddenberry Site

Digital Parchment Services is thrilled that the Roddenberry section of the SF news site, Nexus, has featured the release of our Jerome Bixby collectionMirror, Mirror:


Jerome Bixby Stories Spotlighted In New Book
'Mirror, Mirror' collection features magazine tales that inspired 'Star Trek' episodes
Stories used by writer Jerome Bixby to create two "Star Trek: The Original Series" episodes are featured in a new book compiling his science fiction work. 
Titled "Mirror, Mirror Classic SF by the Famed Star Trek and Fantastic Voyage Writer," the book from Digital Parchment Services includes the never-before-reprinted novelettes "One-Way Street," "Mirror, Mirror" and "Cargo to Callisto." Bixby molded the first two novelettes into a script for his famous 1967 Season 2 episode "Mirror, Mirror" -- which went on to earn a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation -- and the last for the 1968 Season 2 episode "By Any Other Name." 
The book also contains Bixby's famous short story, "It's a Good Life," which was adapted for "The Twilight Zone" and 1983's "Twilight Zone: The Movie." Other stories include his first tale from 1949, "Tubemonkey," and "The God Plllnk," which was published in 1964. 
Bixby, who was a highly regarded science fiction magazine editor and writer, also wrote the "Star Trek" episodes "Day of the Dove" and "Requiem for Methuselah." He enjoyed success beyond "Star Trek," however, having co-wrote the story for 1966's "Fantastic Voyage" and penning 1958's "It: The Terror from Beyond Space," which served as inspiration for Ridley Scott's classic sci-fi film "Alien." 
Screenwriter and producer Emerson Bixby, Jerome's son, edited the book and wrote its introduction. 
The book arrived in stores Nov. 18, and it costs $3.99 for the ebook edition and $9.99 for paperback.