Questions About the Original Broadcasts

I couldn’t find a decent topic to add this to, so I figured maybe some kinda catch all for these types of questions would be fun. Or not. We’ll see if this dies after 8 posts.

While listening to the Original Series Soundtrack collection, I was enjoying the preview music Alexander Courage composed specifically for The Man Trap. It got me wondering if this preview was ever seen on the network in any form. We know the music was composed at the same time as the episodic score, but since this was the first episode to air and didn’t have a network repeat (right?), did they create the preview before deciding which episode to run first and then shelve it? Or did NBC happen to run it as an ad for the series during the summer? ABC did that for some shows.

Previews for a season premiere probably wound up at the end of the last rerun of the prior season, but for the series premiere it would be a different story. My guess is that since they didn’t know what episode was gonna run first until late in the game, the preview for The Man Trap was put together just in case it was going to be the second episode or so (also other countries could run them in whatever order). It was only one of two previews with its own dedicated score, the other being Mudd’s Women.

One of the things about the 1984 VHS/Laserdisc releases I liked was the addition of the previews. They weren’t always in the right order, starting out in production and then airdate (and some were just weird), but other than a few Connecticut broadcasts which kept them, I didn’t see most of them before the home video releases.

 

Interesting post... Also were the previews ever shown in the UK do we know?

 

They wouldn't have shown next time previews. The BBC already cut a few minutes' worth out each time, to fill 45 minute timeslots I think. I know they started off with the main title sequence each time, then the pre-title leading and the rest.

There's a video on YouTube, where a splice in the 16mm print breaks, causing a transmission break. That's where they'd have moved the main title, from between pre-title & first act, to the start.

I would imagine a Next Voyage trail would've come into play, say on "Turnabout Intruder", going back to the start again maybe?

 

I only remember the 90s repeats onwards, which I believe were uncut? And we had the banned episodes broadcast too by that point.

The only unusual thing I recall is that the recap at the beginning of Part Two of The Menagerie was removed and we went straight into the titles. It wasn't until we got the VHS that my brother and I were excited to see it.

 

The earliest airdate memo I have (August 4, 1966) lists “The Man Trap” in the #1 position. So do all subsequent airdate memos. The score was recorded on August 19, 1966–seemingly after the decision was made to use the episode as the series premiere.

Rerun schedules were tentative and subject to change depending on the whims of NBC. Episodic trailers were created for all episodes, possibly in case a decision was made to change the rerun schedule for some unexpected reason. They might also have been needed for international distribution or domestic syndication (we know the versions originally shown on NBC were re-edited to drop the “next week” title card for a more generic “next voyage” card more suitable for strip syndication).

 

The BBC always screened Trek with the titles first and kept the same cuts to the episodes. Not all were cut as I recall but Arena and Court Martial I recall were missing prominent scenes! I stopped watching Trek after I had recorded all the episodes from TV so only saw those certain scenes when the DVDs first came out and it was like watching a totally new show! I had various episodes (thirty) from the 1980/81 season and then taped the last fifty in 1984/85!
JB

 

Thanks @Harvey, I knew you’d have the answer. Now, “He Who Must Not Be Believed” has gone on warped and scratchy record that Bob Justman chose the episodes to rerun. Any truth in that?

Thanks to an old thread this site has NBC rerun dates, which always interested me.

The “Next Voyage” title was instituted in the 3rd season of the NBC run and then added to the first two years for syndication, going by the preview's music, font and lack of overlapping sound effects and dialog. I wonder if the reason for that was to just keep it generic in case of pre-emptions…

 

Were the previews done before the episodes had their final cuts? Some have deleted/alternate scenes.

 

Justman was the person at Desilu/Paramount who prepared tentative broadcast schedules (both for network first run and network repeats). But these were sent to Roddenberry and NBC in case they had any desired changes—Justman wasn’t making these calls unilaterally.

 

Perhaps this is the place to have answered some questions about a particular image in a book I know I have seen onscreen at sometime but could not place.

In The Star Trek Sketchbook, there is an image of the shuttlecraft on a planet with the words "Next Week" (I don't know if the image from "The Galileo 7" or "Metamorphosis", but it probably one or the other). Is this the "Next Week" title card you are referring to? It would have been in the spot where "Next Voyage" is seen in the first two seasons? If this is the original form of the trallers, is there a place on YouTube I can see an example? (My searches for this have not been successful.)

 

Yes, that’s the original title card from the episode trailers. I don’t think I’ve ever seen these in motion, just stills. Pretty sure there’s one in the book Star Trek Lost Scenes.

 

One of the members here was recreating them and posting them on, I think, YouTube, but apparently CBS put the smack down on it.

 

Thanks for the info! I think that I saw it in motion as part of the "Star Trek Insights" when Star Trek was first on the Sci-fi channel in 1998, but I could easily be mistaken and it might have just been a still frame because I know that they were using the regular trailers because I remember those for use.

That would figure. Not sure how that steps on their profits or ownership, but I guess that is a call they can insist on if they want to.

 

The image you're referring to came from a frame of the discarded (and replaced) original beginning of the preview for "The Galileo Seven."

I actually have 16 mm prints of 5-6 of the original trailers and, FWIW, they're identical to the "Next Voyage" trailers with the exception of their beginnings.

Oh, and not all of the beginnings were lettered with "Next Week" of course. Some were lettered with "Next."

 

In my dream “perfect restoration” of the original series, these previews are re-created to the original network broadcast versions. It’s not really hard to do. Along with all the sound mix corrections and additions of the network and sponsor billboards.

 

Totally agree. It would be pretty straightforward. I'm doing that now for one of the original 1966 NBC promos because the film is pretty faded.

 

The original sound mix (or even just the 1978 stereo mix) for the episodes on a newer media format for home viewing would be great. I guess, based on comments i read on this site, that even the blu-rays that have a version based on the original visuals apparently don't have the original sound mix. If so, that is disappointing.