Trivia / Star Trek S2 E10 "Journey to Babel"

• Actor-Inspired Element: Mark Lenard and Jane Wyatt asked Leonard Nimoy to help them develop their characters, given that he'd already come up with several major elements of Vulcan culture. Nimoy suggested that they should find some way to incorporate hand gestures into their performance, believing that Vulcans placed great significance on their hands (as seen with the salute, mind-meld, and nerve pinch). From this, they came up with the two-finger touch that seems to substitute for kissing or holding hands in Vulcan culture.
• Blooper: Trek legend holds that during the operating room scenes, the wisps of smoke you can see emanating from behind the apparatus Bones is using to perform the cryogenic heart surgery are from DeForest Kelley's lit cigarette. (He is known to have protested against Gene Roddenberry's edict that there be no smoking in the future and was likely thrilled to have a chance to hide his ciggie behind a giant prop.)
• Creator's Favorite Episode:
  • D. C. Fontana has repeatedly named this as her favorite out of all the Star Trek episodes she wrote:
    It went into the Vulcan relationships between families. I think that's a story that's universal and timeless – that communication between parents and children. And that to me was the big story. The rest of it was an adventure, it was a spy story, it was a mystery, it was an action story – but all in all it was really about the parents and the child... There had still been a vast lack of communication between them and they needed to find each other as parent and child.
  • Leonard Nimoy named this as one of his favorites, though he did remark on its obvious similarities to The Jazz Singer.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: In one shot in the recreation room we have Humans, Vulcans, Tellarites and Andorians discussing the matter about admitting Coridan to become a member of the Federation. It would be later established that those four species founded the United Federation of Planets.
• Prop Recycling:
  • The Tantalus field controls used in "Mirror, Mirror" can be seen behind McCoy while Amanda is inquiring about Sarek's condition. The couch from Kirk's Starbase 11 quarters in "Court Martial" can also be seen in McCoy's office.
  • Many of the costumes worn by extras in the hallway and reception room scenes were recycled from several first season episodes, including the outfits worn by Galactic High Commissioner Ferris in "The Galileo Seven" and by Lazarus in "The Alternative Factor". A female extra (Jeannie Malone) can be seen wearing a faux fur dress worn by Lenore Karidian in "The Conscience of the King", complete with other recycled costume pieces. Another female alien is wearing Areel Shaw's civilian dress from "Court Martial", and a third one is wearing a costume left over from "Wolf in the Fold". Scott's dress uniform was also reused on an extra playing a Starfleet delegate.
• Underage Casting: Mark Lenard was only seven years older than Leonard Nimoy, despite playing his father. The makeup people put grey in his hair to make him look older. In this case it also works because Vulcans live much longer and age more slowly than humans; in "The Deadly Years" while Spock is no less affected than Kirk, McCoy and the others, his aging is not nearly as pronounced.
• What Could Have Been:
  • In the first draft script, Sarek and Amanda had been married for thirty-eight years, Sarek had been an astrophysicist before embarking on a career in politics, and his father (Spock's grandfather) was Shariel, a famous Vulcan ambassador.
  • In an early draft, D.C. Fontana planned for a Vulcan city to be shown in the episode's teaser, when Spock meets up with his parents. She explained, "The cost of doing a 'matte,' or painting of the city, was prohibitive."
  • In the original script, Sarek and his company were beamed aboard the Enterprise, but after going over budget with the expensive Vulcan, Andorian, and Tellarite make-up as well as the outer space footage of the Orion ship, there was no money left for the transporter effect. The Vulcans' transportation to the ship by shuttlecraft was decided upon because it could be done completely via the use of Stock Footage from "The Galileo Seven".
  • Anne Baxter was the first choice for Amanda Grayson. She told The L.A. Times:
    I don't do comic strips, and Star Trek is six or seven comic strips rolled into one.
• You Look Familiar:
  • Mark Lenard also played the Romulan Commander from "Balance of Terror".
  • Russ Peek, who plays one of Sarek's aides, also appeared as mirror Spock's Vulcan bodyguard in "Mirror, Mirror".

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