a cut price Season 4

recently ive purchased the Airwolf series (3 seasons plus a cut price 4th with a new cast, filmed on the cheap reusing stock footage from the previous seasons. abit similar to what happened with the Galactica 1980 series - even cast the same guy)

wonder what a cut price 4th Season of Trek would've been like as surely it mustve been discussed. a new cheaper crew on the Enterprise with a new Kirk like Captain (Roy Thinnes of the recently cancelled Invaders?), another Vulcan 1st officer (Martin Landau whod just finished MI?), new Doctor etc. maybe one or two secondary members would've stayed (Scotty? Sulu?) reusing a lot of FX shots from the prev seasons. Storywise I imagine it would've veered more toward late season Lost In Space/Land of the Giants/Time Tunnel/Voyage craziness, perhaps even a child on board (a pre Wesley). Basically Season 3 dialled up to 11.

 

less thought to the story more hand to hand to hand fighting w/the klingons and Romlans

 

I can't imagine anyone expected to have a Season 4 given Season 3 was so close to not happening.

Regardless, I think a Season 4 at an even lower budget wouldn't have been great.

 

At least we did get TAS a few years later

 

I need to revisit TAS at a much later date.

I know people describe TAS as really being the 4th and 5th Seasons of TOS, but I disagree.

I think TAS is its own thing.

I just finished my complete TOS runthrough, (The Cage through Star Trek VI) and that included TAS, but TAS was a rough transition.

On the whole, I really liked TAS, but because the animation is stagnant (and TOS is so energetic with tons of energy), I had a hard time getting really into it.

It was well-written for sure, with tons of great stories, but the lack of energy kinda hampered the experience for me.

 

The term "cut price" to me is a synonym for "cut rate", and I don't want to see anything like that. Galactica 1980 never should have gone to air.

 

I suppose it's possible they could've renewed the series for one season just to make it to 100 episodes for a fuller syndication package -- if the syndication rights hadn't already been snapped up before the series even ended. Certainly they would've slashed the budget, and I suppose replacing cast members would've been a way to do it. This being the '60s/'70s, the cast changes might well have occurred without fanfare or explanation. When Fred Freiberger took over Space: 1999 for its second season a few years later, he devoted the season premiere to the introduction of the new alien science officer Maya, but gave no explanation for the disappearance of first-season characters Dr. Bergmann, Paul Morrow, and David Kano or the sudden presence of Tony Verdeschi.

Well, it was less of "its own thing" relative to TOS than the movies or the later series were. It had Roddenberry executive-producing, D.C. Fontana story-editing, half the episodes being written by TOS veterans, and most of the original cast returning. There is no other post-TOS Trek series that has the involvement of so many veterans of TOS. And they were trying to tell the same kind of stories, insofar as they were able to given the differences in production. It's those differences in execution that make it feel distinct to you, but it's the concept and goals behind it, and the continuity of cast and crew, that make it a continuation.

 

A cheaper final season with a less expensive cast, I hate when that happens. In addition to the travesty of Galactica 1980, there was a great police-helicopter show called 240-Robert that suffered this fate and then got canceled quickly.

Probably the most successful example was when All in the Family became Archie Bunker's Place. It ran another four years (but I couldn't get into it).

Space:1999 cut costs for year two by moving to a smaller sound stage. The big and glamorous Main Mission was replaced by a little Command Center. If anything, the cast got more interesting, but the scripts got worse. I was young enough at the time, and space-hungry enough, to think both seasons were good television.

I'm not sure if the radical changes made to Buck Rogers for year two came from budget cuts or just a new artistic direction. Does anybody know?

 

The changes to that show were more about making it more appealing to American audiences. Changing the set was more about making it look flashier and more dynamic, though I think it was just more garish.

According to this interview with the leads, the show got new producers for the 2nd season (after a writers' strike delayed it for months, which might be the reason for the change), and the new guy in charge (John Mantley, formerly of Gunsmoke) wanted to put his own mark on it by taking it in a new direction. Although he basically just ended up copying Star Trek.

 

Nah, Trek would have just wound up recycling the same dozen or so stock shots of the Enterprise zipping through space, reusing music cues over and over again and repainting/reusing props...

Wait a minute...!!!

 

No that probably would have killed the whole franchise

 

I'm glad nothing like this happened for Trek. Airwolf Season 4 was just plain bad.

 

"These are the voyages of the Captain of the Enterprise" (because we can't afford any other actors... or sets... or special effects).

 

Upon full review of the thread and due consideration of the subject, I feel this is the proper response!

ME

 

IF Season 4 had somehow happened, Nimoy and maybe Takei would have been the ones to go. Sick of being Spock by then, Nimoy would have gladly gone on to M:I regardless, and Takei (being there from the 2'nd pilot on) would have been getting pricey and bored. Nichols and Doohan would have been there maybe half the time, Uhura's episodes scattered across the season (like Sulu in Season 2) and Scotty only being heard over the intercom from Engineering.

So in their place, we'd have gotten a return of sorts to Gary Mitchell/Will Decker in the helmsman/first officer department. For this What-If, I'll cast Dack Rambo who'd just finished The Guns of Will Sonnett on ABC.

For the new science officer, we could very likely have seen the return of Louise Sorel as a rebuilt Rayna Kapec ("Requiem for Methuselah"), a gift from Flint to Kirk with a full Starfleet Academy curriculum pre-installed in her computer brain. Thus Star Trek would get an infusion of Steed-Peel/Landau-Bain DNA and allow for a happy series-ending for Kirk.

Since they tried to introduce at least one new part of the Enterprise per season, we'd have probably gotten the library computer core chamber - a redressed Auxiliary Control inspired by 2001's HAL 9000 computer brain where Rayna would be hanging out off-duty. Or maybe we'd finally see the bowling alley.

We'd have gotten a story arc: Bolstered with Klingon ships/technology and unencumbered by the Organian Peace Treaty, we'd have seen the Second Romulan War as they lash out against both the Federation and the Klingons - forcing both races into an unlikely partnership. (A modified Klingon cruiser with Romulan characteristics would have been shot in various action poses to differentiate it from Klingon cruisers.) This would allow for at least one appearance by Nimoy (if he could be talked into it) to wrap up Spock's arc as he tries to bring about reconciliation between the Vulcans/Romulans, and helps bring the Federation/Klingons to the 'fast friends' Ayelborne predicted.

At some point, yes, we'd have gotten the dreaded Clip Show. No kids, though.

"Joanna" would have been resurrected and produced, with Rambo's character taking the place of Kirk.

The series would end with the Federation/Klingon alliance smashing the Romulans, the destruction of the Enterprise (Rambo becomes captain of a new starship with the surviving cast) and apparently the death of Kirk - only to be resurrected in an android body courtesy of Rayna. The last shot would be of them flying away together in a small vessel (Tholian/Aurora), off to explore the universe on their own.

So, to sum up:

 

I don't think a semiregular would be as pricey as a lead actor. And at the time, even a semiregular gig would've been a rare opportunity for an Asian-American actor; if Takei had walked out on it, he probably couldn't have gotten another job as easily as a white actor like Nimoy. Look at his actual post-TOS filmography and you'll find a long string of one-shot guest roles. So I really don't think he would've left voluntarily.

Takei's season 2 absence was due to his role in The Green Berets, not due to budget cuts. In production order, nearly all of the episodes he missed are consecutive; it's only in broadcast order that they're scattered through the season.

I doubt they would've given Kirk a steady love interest. Part of the reason they dropped Rand was so that Kirk would be free to play the romance-of-the-week field like so many '60s action heroes. And the idea of Flint giving Kirk a sentient being as a "gift," as if she were a piece of property, is ill-conceived, to put it mildly. He might give Rayna the gift of freedom to choose her own path, out of his love for her, but he wouldn't donate her as a sex slave for Kirk's benefit. Come on.

In 1969-70? Nope.

Now, that's one suggestion that actually sounds plausible.

Err, they already did produce it as "The Way to Eden." The basic premise of Dr. Sevrin and his space hippies seeking paradise and hijacking the Enterprise to find it was part of "Joanna." The main changes were replacing Kirk/Joanna with Chekov/Irina, adding Spock's rapport with the hippies, and truncating the events on the planet once it was found.

 

Takei was a day player and not costing them much - he didn't have a contract that would have enabled him to negotiate for a penny better than the studio felt like paying. Neither did Nichols or Koenig. They weren't considered important to the show.

 

^Why would that stand out more in broadcast order than production order, though?