What if TOS Season 1 was filmed in Black and White?

[Warped9]

Yep. In my teens I recorded some TOS episodes on audio cassette, back before VHS was introduced. It seems so quaint now, but back then it was the only way to access the episodes outside of reruns. That and James Blish's adaptations.

Back in the early to mid '70s if we had been told one day we could collect and enjoy the episodes anytime we wanted and in pristine picture, colour and sound we probably would have thought we were being teased cruelly. Our likely response would have been, "Get outta here! No freakin' way!"

Today I appreciate the poetic irony of watching TOS and other SF on a big flatscreen display that looks remarkably like the Enterprise's main viewscreen on the bridge.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

I first started watching TOS in b&w for about a year in 1970 until we got our first colour TV just before Christmas. I fell in love with the show long before I saw it in colour.

Same here. My family had a B&W TV, and that's how I discovered TOS, but a couple of years later, we bought a color set, and the series took on another life. This was the early 70s where there was not wealth of TOS color photos around, except on a couple of novel covers and the random product (I was not raiding the movie memorabilia stores for stills at that time), so when I watched TOS in color...wow.

 

[Warped9]

I first started watching TOS in b&w for about a year in 1970 until we got our first colour TV just before Christmas. I fell in love with the show long before I saw it in colour.

Same here. My family had a B&W TV, and that's how I discovered TOS, but a couple of years later, we bought a color set, and the series took on another life. This was the early 70s where there was not wealth of TOS color photos around, except on a couple of novel covers and the random product (I was not raiding the movie memorabilia stores for stills at that time), so when I watched TOS in color...wow.

My first association of colour with Star Trek did not come through watching television, but by seeing an AMT model kit of the Enterprise in the stores and seeing some Gold Key comics on the magazine rack at the corner variety store.

My very first "love" was getting a Corgi toy of the Batmobile (the large one that fired pellets) for Christmas in 1966 or '67. My second "love" which eclipsed all else was getting the model kit of the Enterprise on Christmas 1970. That Christmas I was on the freakin' Moon.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Back in the early to mid '70s if we had been told one day we could collect and enjoy the episodes anytime we wanted and in pristine picture, colour and sound we probably would have thought we were being teased cruelly. Our likely response would have been, "Get outta here! No freakin' way!"

Almost kind of makes up for the lack of flying cars, doesn't it?

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRl_D_CunWA[/yt]

 

[Push The Button]

Black-and-white? Heck, STAR TREK works without a picture! (Try listening to it audio-only sometime. It would work as a radio show.

Back before home video was common, some fans would record the soundtracks of episodes on audio tape. Once, in high school, I came upon a group of students listening to a cassette recording of a TOS episode. To my embarrassment, it took me a while to figure out that it was "Miri." But then, I hate that episode, so I didn't watch it that often.

(Doctor Who fans in the UK did the same thing, which proved invaluable when many early episodes were erased by the BBC. There are a number of stories that only survive through their soundtracks as recorded by fans.)

Wow, I did the same thing when I was in high school. I used to make "highlight reels" of my favorite scenes. Ah, the good old days..

 

[HarryM]

I did that once (audio tape) with The Enemy Within, which is quite suitable for it.

 

[TheSubCommander]

I've wondered similarly, too. I know as a kid, seeing the show in black and white did not diminish my enthusiasm for it one bit. I'm sure in earlier times, people reacted similarly to shows, as black and white was, well, the way it was.

Having said that, I was pretty thrilled when we got a color tv set, and suddenly, the Star Trek universe seemed to double in intrigue. To paraphrase a certain someone, it was like being blind all my life, suddenly being given sight.

So I really don't know the answer, except to say I loved it either way.

Call me crazy, but I'm actually interested in finding a way to duplicate the snowy tv picture of yore, to re-experience what so captivated me over (gulp) forty years ago...

Not crazy at all. I sometimes set my TV to watch things in B&W intentionally. B&W is easy. Just go to your picture settings and set it to 0.

As far as snowy TV, you' have to experiment with brightness, contrast, tint, and sharpness to get it the way you remember.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Call me crazy, but I'm actually interested in finding a way to duplicate the snowy tv picture of yore, to re-experience what so captivated me over (gulp) forty years ago...

Metryq has mentioned this in other contexts. He said that today's TV and movie pros have the digital tools to replicate pretty much any artifact from the analog era.

When they're trying to be stylish or do period work, what was once a bug is now a feature.

 

[Metryq]

When they're trying to be stylish or do period work, what was once a bug is now a feature.

Exactly—the artifacts that old engineers strove to eliminate are now plugin FX for a new generation of engineers. I have a terminal emulator called Cathode that recreates all the artifacts of old CRT terminals: static, ground loop hum, screen curvature, lag, random twitches in the power causing raster instabilities, etc.

If anyone is really gung-ho, there's a plugin in FCPX (and no doubt many other NLEs) that recreates all the off-air and old CRT artifacts. Time for a "retro-TREK" release?

 

[HGN2001]

Harry

 

[Warped9]

^^ Yep, that's pretty much what it looked like to me when I started watching TOS way back when.

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

You guys were luckier than I was...this pretty much was my view on a fairly good day in the beginning..

 

[Warped9]

When I started watching TOS we had one of those rotary antennas that helped you get a clearer signal. And since we were living in Mississauga just west of Toronto and the Canadian station airing Star Trek was beaming its signal from Toronto we got a pretty clear signal. We rarely had ghosting or even snow in the picture.

The GTA area was actually a pretty good place for aerial television reception back in the '70s. We were getting about a dozen VHF and UHF stations then with a few more where the reception was not so good.

Funny really. Back then we had only about a dozen channels and we thought we had plenty of interesting stuff to watch. Now with cable and everything we have easily about 200 or so channels available and it feels like there's hardly anything worth watching.

 

[HarryM]

Those were the days. Watch the show then go outside on a "landing party" and act it out again, such fun.

 

[Metryq]

Sixty kilometers from the broadcast tower, it was a bit more like this (sometimes with more static, depending on the weather):

 

[Christopher]

You guys were luckier than I was...this pretty much was my view on a fairly good day in the beginning..

I think mine was closer to that than to the clear images in the previous post.

Also worth remembering that TV screens at the time had rounded corners so portions of the image would be cut off. And can you do a gif of the picture flipping because you don't have the vertical hold knob set juuuust exactly right?

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

Also worth remembering that TV screens at the time had rounded corners so portions of the image would be cut off. And can you do a gif of the picture flipping because you don't have the vertical hold knob set juuuust exactly right?

That was a neat idea, Christopher! How's this for starters?

 

[Christopher]

^Oddly, I can't see any difference in the image on this page, but when I click on it, it opens a new page where the image is slightly different.

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

^Oddly, I can't see any difference in the image on this page, but when I click on it, it opens a new page where the image is slightly different.

The last time I posted a gif image, it "worked". I know not what was difference was this time..

 

[Hober Mallow]

Sixty kilometers from the broadcast tower, it was a bit more like this (sometimes with more static, depending on the weather):

That's about as good as I could get it with the help of a little tin foil on the antenna.