Casting

[JeffinOakland]

I'm rewatching TOS for the 1st time in years. I'm always amazed by how rough & disorganized this show looks for the 1st several episodes. The casting is all over the place with actors coming and going and characters being introduced and disappearing never to be seen again. One gets the impression of a lot of behind-the-scenes confusion and melodrama. It's even hard to figure out the proper sequence of events because of all the cast coming and going. I know "The Cage" failed as a pilot and they were forced to start over but the confusion seems to have extended well into Season 1. Does anyone know why it took Roddenberry and the other PTB so long to get it all smoothed out?

 

[Maurice]

Examples would help. The regular cast was largely fixed right away, with only Janice disappearing, Chapel being added, and Chekov coming in the 2nd year.

 

[Melakon]

One reason for the "rough & disorganized" look was they were flying by the seat of their pants trying to get episodes ready in time for airdate. Visual effects were one of the earliest stumbling blocks. The two-parter "The Menagerie" gave them a little breathing room.

 

[JeffinOakland]

I can't help but think that the success of the series would have been aided by a delay in production. Another half or even full season of development might have meant a huge difference. Production value matters. TV audiences are fickle and will change the channel very quickly if they get bored/irritated.

 

[Melakon]

TV audiences are fickle and will change the channel very quickly if they get bored/irritated.

There were only 3 networks in 1966, and not all cities had even that. National Educational Television (predecessor to PBS) was still around, but I don't remember if they had evening programming. Some cities might have had an independent station or two. But yeah, there was still the risk of viewers switching to "My Three Sons" or "The Tammy Grimes Show" or turning the set off.

 

[JeffinOakland]

In any case, I don't see people feeling trapped into watching something that isn't enjoyable.

 

[Melakon]

I was watching one of the other networks originally. I think my first full episode was "Miri", which did not impress me, partly because it was mostly planet bound and Michael J. Pollard did not look like a teenager to my teenage eyes.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I'm rewatching TOS for the 1st time in years. I'm always amazed by how rough & disorganized this show looks for the 1st several episodes. The casting is all over the place with actors coming and going and characters being introduced and disappearing never to be seen again. One gets the impression of a lot of behind-the-scenes confusion and melodrama. It's even hard to figure out the proper sequence of events because of all the cast coming and going. I know "The Cage" failed as a pilot and they were forced to start over but the confusion seems to have extended well into Season 1. Does anyone know why it took Roddenberry and the other PTB so long to get it all smoothed out?

Examples would help. The regular cast was largely fixed right away, with only Janice disappearing, Chapel being added, and Chekov coming in the 2nd year.

I'll have to echo Maurice and ask for examples. As he said the cast was set from the first regular episode. (The Corbomite Maneuver)

As for "proper sequence of events", there really isn't one. It's episodic TV, not arc based. The only "arcs" are the way the characters were developed by the actors and writers. Once a few episodes were under the belt they could refer back to them as continuity nods.

 

[urbandefault]

A couple of things:

The first pilot didn't fail. If it had, Star Trek would have been dead right then and there. The fact that another pilot was ordered shows that the suits liked the concept, just not the way it was presented.

Having a fixed cast of umpteen people is a relatively new development in tv drama. Star Trek was pretty much like any other show of the era, with two or three regulars and a revolving door of day players and guest stars.

 

[bbailey861]

I'm rewatching TOS for the 1st time in years. I'm always amazed by how rough & disorganized this show looks for the 1st several episodes.

How and where does it appear disorganized? Even the first few stories are tight. It may appear rough to you because of the age of the show. For those of us who were around then it didn't appear rough at all.

The casting is all over the place with actors coming and going and characters being introduced and disappearing never to be seen again.

I don't think so. The principles were set. Which actors would you liked to have seen more of?

One gets the impression of a lot of behind-the-scenes confusion and melodrama.

What was being shown on screen that gave you the impression that there was melodrama going on off screen?

It's even hard to figure out the proper sequence of events because of all the cast coming and going.

Again, where please? What is confusing to you in which episodes?

I know "The Cage" failed as a pilot and they were forced to start over but the confusion seems to have extended well into Season 1.

I guess fail is in the eye of the beholder. I see it as the brass liked the idea but wanted to see some changes made because they felt their mid 60's viewing audience wouldn't have been able to accept some things - for example a woman as 2 I/C.

Does anyone know why it took Roddenberry and the other PTB so long to get it all smoothed out?

I don't think it took long at all. Maybe the best way to watch it is production order vice the air date order. It makes more sense that way.

 

[Melakon]

Yeah, production order is the only good way to watch the first season. Although "Corbomite" was the first shot when it went to regular production, it's like the tenth aired due to the needed effects.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I know "The Cage" failed as a pilot and they were forced to start over but the confusion seems to have extended well into Season 1.

I guess fail is in the eye of the beholder. I see it as the brass liked the idea but wanted to see some changes made because they felt their mid 60's viewing audience wouldn't have been able to accept some things - for example a woman as 2 I/C.

They objected to the actress, not the character.

 

[EnsignHarper]

Yeah, production order is the only good way to watch the first season. Although "Corbomite" was the first shot when it went to regular production, it's like the tenth aired due to the needed effects.

Agreed - if you watch in production order, you really see the main character literally form in front of you eyes from week to week.

You also have to realize that most of the actors outside of Shatner and Nimoy did NOT have full season contracts. Actors like Doohan, Takei, whatever would get contracts for 7 out of 15 shows, 8 out of 15, whatever. That's why you only see Scott or Sulu in half of the first season shows. Not to mention a lot of the writers in the first had never SEEN the show, so they tended not to use those people. And once the network SEES a Scott or Sulu, and likes them, they will make it known they want to see them more -which is what happened with James Doohan.

 

[Greg Cox]

I'm rewatching TOS for the 1st time in years. I'm always amazed by how rough & disorganized this show looks for the 1st several episodes. The casting is all over the place with actors coming and going and characters being introduced and disappearing never to be seen again. One gets the impression of a lot of behind-the-scenes confusion and melodrama. It's even hard to figure out the proper sequence of events because of all the cast coming and going. I know "The Cage" failed as a pilot and they were forced to start over but the confusion seems to have extended well into Season 1. Does anyone know why it took Roddenberry and the other PTB so long to get it all smoothed out?

I think maybe you're just seeing a typical 1960's TV show through the perspective of someone used to modern TV series. Ensemble casts, serialized storytelling, character arcs, a rigorous concern with "continuity"--those weren't really issues back then. You're not supposed to be trying to figure out "the proper sequence of events" because the episodes aren't meant to be viewed in any particular order. It's like trying to figure out in what order old "Perry Mason" or "Dragnet" episodes take place; it doesn't matter. That wasn't the idea.

And the background characters were meant to be just that, background characters.

As Ensign Harper points out, characters like Uhura or Scotty or Sulu weren't really seen as "regulars" in the modern sense, and certainly not in the beginning.

 

[JeffinOakland]

Maybe I'm overstating the case. I noticed how the 2nd pilot (without Kelley or Whitney) is awkwardly placed as the 3rd episode. There's an early episode without Doohan (Charlie X). Interesting insights from Greg Cox and EnsignHarper. Thanks.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Scotty is missing from a bunch, he wasn't contracted to be in that many episodes. I forget how many, I get his arrangement confused with Kelley's. Was it at least 7 out of every 13? Bones is missing from like 3 episodes in the first season. The only characters in every single episode of the main series are Kirk and Spock. And Spock is the only one in all of them, since The Cage was pre-Kirk.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Maybe I'm overstating the case. I noticed how the 2nd pilot (without Kelley or Whitney) is awkwardly placed as the 3rd episode. There's an early episode without Doohan (Charlie X). Interesting insights from Greg Cox and EnsignHarper. Thanks.

Both pilots were used to play catch up. By using them the production team saved money and gained time. If they hadn't been behind we never would have seen WNMHGB or "The Menagerie". That said, dropping WNMHGB into the mix and using "The Cage" to make a two parter filled out by new material, wasn't that big of deal in the era of episodic TV. It only becomes awkward in the modern era of perpetual reruns and arc based TV.

 

[Push The Button]

Yeah, production order is the only good way to watch the first season. Although "Corbomite" was the first shot when it went to regular production, it's like the tenth aired due to the needed effects.

Agreed - if you watch in production order, you really see the main character literally form in front of you eyes from week to week.

You also have to realize that most of the actors outside of Shatner and Nimoy did NOT have full season contracts. Actors like Doohan, Takei, whatever would get contracts for 7 out of 15 shows, 8 out of 15, whatever. That's why you only see Scott or Sulu in half of the first season shows. Not to mention a lot of the writers in the first had never SEEN the show, so they tended not to use those people. And once the network SEES a Scott or Sulu, and likes them, they will make it known they want to see them more -which is what happened with James Doohan.

Forgive me if I'm misremembering this, because I read it a looong time ago, but wasn't that the situation with David Gerrold when he submitted his first Trek story outlines (prior to Tribbles, he wrote a few before that), that he had actually only viewed one episode and had missed the rest of the first season?

 

[Greg Cox]

Times and expectations have changed. Nowadays if, say, George Takei took some time off in the second season to film a movie with John Wayne, a modern show would probably feel obliged to explain away his absence by mentioning that "Mr. Sulu is carrying out an important mission on Alpha Retro VII, but will be back when his mission is complete."

But, back in the sixties, they didn't really worry about that level of continuity. Sulu disappears for several episodes and then's he back and the show didn't feel obliged to explain that because each episode was more or less intended to stand on its own.

Nobody was thinking about how the season would play when it was collected in a boxed set of DVDs or whatever. And certainly that sort of inconsistency would not have turned off the average NBC viewer back in 1965 or so.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I have to admit when I first saw WNMHGB back in the early seventies, I scratched my head for second and wondered what was going on. OTOH when I saw "The Menagerie" I though it was 100% new and thought it clever to use different costumes in the flashbacks.