Inter-Department Communication
“Kirk, Spock, and other Continuing Star Trek Characters”
April 18, 1968
by Gene Roddenberry
....
Chekov
We may well find our most important secondary character this season, certainly one which might give us our best entre to
youth, is Chekov. The studio has been sufficiently impressed by the volume of Chekov fan response to sign him to a contract,
one of the few secondary characters we have optioned in our third season.
Most of us (because of our own ages) tend to forget that Kirk and Spock and the others actually seem rather “middle aged”
to the large youthful segment of our audience. We badly need a young man aboard the Enterprise–we need youthful attitudes
and perspectives. Chekov can be used potently here.
Too often in the past Chekov has been simply the young man, who keeps saying “Russia invented that first!” This was
never really a good joke anyway–in fact runs rather counter to the broad international philosophy we’ve always tried to build
into Star Trek. If we do continue to use that as a continuing joke, lets make certain that it does come off as good humored fun
rather than appear to be stupid chauvinistic attitude from the writer or producer of the episode.
Our original plan all along (and one we never really accomplished)–was to play Chekov as an extraordinarily capable
young man–almost Spock’s equal in some areas. An honor graduate of the Space Academy. But even though verging on
genius, his youthful inexperience and tactlessness, his youthful drive to prove himself, his need of approbation, his quite
normal youthful need for females, and all of that, keep getting in his way. Kirk realized his ability and can play something of
the “father image,” alternately slapping down and lifting him up as wise Captains do when they have a young Ensign with the
potential of someday becoming a fine ship Captain. Referring to something in the previous, an interesting continuing joke
and one with which a youthful audience can relate could very well be Chekov’s constant interest in young females, his
continuing failures and frustration in that area–certainly a quite common experience for all young men at that certain time in
life. It can have the double advantage of pointing up to the audience the existence of pretty yeoman and other attractive
females aboard our vessel.