—
## A Final Accounting
The question that this article has been building toward is what, specifically, Lucille Ball’s contribution to *Star Trek* amounts to in historical terms — what she did, what she didn’t do, and how to weigh the specific institutional act she performed against the larger collaborative effort that brought the show into existence.
The answer has several components.
What she did not do: she did not create *Star Trek*. Gene Roddenberry created *Star Trek*, drawing on a lifetime of reading and experience that produced a specific vision for what science fiction on television could accomplish. She did not sell *Star Trek* to NBC. Oscar Katz and Herbert Solow did that work. She did not manage the production through its difficult first three seasons. Solow and Robert Justman did that work. She did not fight with NBC over Spock’s ears or negotiate the terms of the second pilot commission. Solow did that. She did not write the scripts, direct the episodes, perform in the cast, or contribute to any aspect of the show’s creative execution.
What she did: she built the studio — with Arnaz’s foundational work and her own executive management after 1962 — that had the physical plant and the financial capacity to take on ambitious new series. She hired Solow and gave him the authority to develop programming. She made the specific decision, in early 1966, to override a board vote that would have canceled the show before its first full season aired. She insisted on an all-or-nothing sale to Gulf + Western in 1967 that ensured *Star Trek* remained with the studio — by then Paramount Television — rather than being sold off separately, which preserved the coherence of the franchise’s ownership.