Connecting Star Trek Discovery to Lucille Ball via Buster Keaton
The third season of Star Trek Discovery opened with something of a soft reboot. The crew of the USS Discovery leapt forward in time from the 23rd century to the 32nd, leaving them momentarily safe but in an unfamiliar future. By the fourth episode of that season, “Forget Me Not” the crew are understandably feeling stressed, overwhelmed and in need of something to lighten their mood. The ship’s computer wisely suggests a movie night, specifically the silent comedy films of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton as something universally enjoyable for all aboard.
As a fan of both of those artists, I agreed with the computer’s assessment. This episode came out in November of 2020 and I found myself feeling strangely emotional in that autumn of COVID isolation watching the crew experiencing and loving Keaton’s Sherlock Jr.
But the perfection of choosing that particular movie is not the only fun thing about that scene. There’s a great connection between this 2020 episode of Star Trek Discovery and the genesis of the original show that would kick start the franchise.
Let’s look back at Buster Keaton’s career. Even if you’ve never seen a Buster Keaton short or feature film in its entirety, you’ve almost certainly seen clips or gifs of Buster in action. Either being chased through city streets by hundreds of cops or standing perfectly still while the wall of a house collapses around him. The vast majority of those famous moments were from the 1920s when Keaton was an independent filmmaker, able to create what he wanted in the exact way that he wanted.
However, by the 1930s, through a series of unfortunate events, he found himself working in the studio system for MGM with executives who had no idea how to make the best use of the genius they had acquired. Keaton’s career suffered — greatly.
By the 1940s, his career had recovered enough to the point where he was not starring in his own films, but was writing gags (often uncredited) for other comedians such as the Marx Brothers. He befriended a young actress by the name of Lucille Ball. At the time she was a struggling actress doing small parts in B-Movies either as a dancer or a gangster’s moll.
Buster Keaton noticed how great Lucille Ball was at physical comedy, so he encouraged her to take more comedic roles. He wrote gags for some of the movies she was appearing in.
Buster Keaton was right. Lucille Ball was so good that she ended up with an incredible career that made her successful enough that she and her husband Desi Arnaz were able to create a television production company called Desilu Productions.
And what did Desilu Productions create? Many things. But one of their most enduring creations was a TV show by Gene Roddenberry with the name of Star Trek.
Lucille Ball’s impact on Star Trek is well known of course. She believed in the project initially and continued to believe in it even after the first pilot was rejected. Her faith kept the show going long enough for the second pilot to be produced and eventually bought by NBC.
So when Star Trek Discovery sneaks a visual of Buster Keaton into their computer display, they’re honoring the completely random series of events that lead to the creation of the entire franchise. Thank you, Buster, and thank you, Lucy.
(If you have never seen a Buster Keaton film and would like to, I highly recommend watching the same movie the crew of Discovery started with: Sherlock Jr. If you would prefer one of Keaton’s short comedies, it’s hard to go wrong with Cops. A great book about Buster Keaton’s life and career is Dana Stevens’ Camera Man: Buster Keaton, the Dawn of Cinema, and the Invention of the Twentieth Century.)
