Unfilmed 3rd Season Episodes

[Ssosmcin]

We were specifically discussing TV. I'd forgotten about the Six Million Dollar Man, but that's not really the same genre as Trek.

And the less we talk about The Starlost, the better...

Well, Logan's Run and Planet of the Apes were TV shows based on films, so they fit (but not space faring if that's what you mean). They were just kinda awful.

 

[MAGolding]

This has nothing to do with the original post but I figured I'd ask it here anyway, but does anyone know when Star Trek first did reruns? Was it after it got cancelled or was it doing it beforehand?

As was the case for nearly every other scripted show on the air at the time, Star Trek did a mixture of new episodes and repeats of previously-shown episodes.

Just do the math: if 26 new episodes are produced for a season, yet the season schedule calls for anywhere from 35-45 weeks of programming in the show's assigned timeslot, you're going to have to fill those other dates in the schedule with reruns.

Usually, there would be several weeks of all-new episodes, followed by a couple of weeks of repeats, then more new eps, a couple of repeats, etc. Reruns tended to fall during weeks when widely-celebrated holidays or major events meant viewers might be less likely to watch anyway.

And after the television season ended, either the show would air only reruns, or there would be a summer replacement show, either first runs or reruns of another show.

I happened to get sick while watching "The Derelict", the second episode of Lost in Space, and missed the ending of it. I figured that it would be the second rerun shown when the summer reruns started. But the reruns skipped the first few episodes, so I didn't get to see how "The Derelict" turned out until I saw in it in syndication a few years later.

I remember watching "Balance of Terror" in our living room in Jenkintown, PA, with a teenage boy who said that the Romulan commander looked like "Spock's old man", and of course the Romulan Commander and Sarek were both portrayed by Mark Lendard.

"Balance of Terror" was broadcast. on Dec. 15, 1966, and was rerun in the summer of 1967.

"Journey to Babel" was broadcast on Nov. 17, 1967 and probably rerun in the summer of 1968. And in September 1968 my family moved to another town. So I wonder how that boy could possibily have seen "Journey to Babel" before watching "Balalanc eof Terror" in our living room in Jenkentown. PA, before September 1968.

Were any Star Trek episodes shown in syndication iby stations in the Philadelphia area before September, 1968?

If so, possibly a station showed "Balance of Terror" sometime between November 17, 1967 when "Journey t o Babel" first aired and September, 1968 when we moved.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Form everything I've read, Star Trek was not available for American syndication until the series ended. That doesn't mean a delayed broadcast couldn't have happened by an affiliate. Or perhaps the affiliate plugged in a rerun to fill a slot.

 

[mb22]

This listing of all the NBC broadcasts has been posted, and should be informative here as well:

http://wikibin.org/articles/history-of-star-trek-on-nbc.html

 

[Neopeius]

Well, Logan's Run and Planet of the Apes were TV shows based on films, so they fit (but not space faring if that's what you mean). They were just kinda awful.

Hahaha. I didn't realize they made TV shows out of them! Logan's Run is at the latter end of the 70s, so kind of gets lumped in with BG and so on. There's an episode of Wonder Woman that has a SF con where folks are cosplaying Logan's Run -- and lo and behold, both were CBS shows!!!!

But PotA is smack dab in the period I'm talking about. It is space-adjacent, I guess.

 

[Commishsleer]

I have never seen that cited anywhere including Cushman’s book. The hangar dreck miniature set and the shuttlecraft mockups simply hadn’t been built yet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(Star_Trek)
A shuttle had been suggested initially during the production of "The Enemy Within", but was ultimately rejected due to the cost.[1]

1. Cushman & Osborn 2013, p. 302.

If this is the Cushman?
Did they consider a shuttlecraft for Enemy Within ever? If so then half the drama of the episode would have been gone. I mean they had the time crunch of evil Kirk's body was going to fail but having the boys in peril on the planet made the episode better.

 

[Pauln6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(Star_Trek)
A shuttle had been suggested initially during the production of "The Enemy Within", but was ultimately rejected due to the cost.[1]

1. Cushman & Osborn 2013, p. 302.

If this is the Cushman?
Did they consider a shuttlecraft for Enemy Within ever? If so then half the drama of the episode would have been gone. I mean they had the time crunch of evil Kirk's body was going to fail but having the boys in peril on the planet made the episode better.

They could have used a line of dialogue about not being able to use the shuttle due to some sort of upper atmospheric interference. That's implied, I guess.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

They could have used a line of dialogue about not being able to use the shuttle due to some sort of upper atmospheric interference. That's implied, I guess.

Or the entire shuttle fleet was working through a recall because the catalytic converters were defective and known to start fires. You can't hang up the starship Enterprise for that, so it was flying a few missions with no shuttles, and would swing back to Starbase 11 to pick them up when the work order was completed.

Either way, we just weren't in the room when somebody remarked on the situation.

 

[Commishsleer]

Or the entire shuttle fleet was working through a recall because the catalytic converters were defective and known to start fires. You can't hang up the starship Enterprise for that, so it was flying a few missions with no shuttles, and would swing back to Starbase 11 to pick them up when the work order was completed.

Either way, we just weren't in the room when somebody remarked on the situation.

This is along the lines of what I thought. Like they had a couple of accidents and both shuttles were in for repair.
Or they just didn't have shuttles at all until later.

Why do they need shuttles when they have transporters would be the bureaucratic thinking?
After Enemy Within Kirk organises shuttles for the Enterprise or for them to come sooner. That's my canon until evidence proves otherwise.

 

[alchemist]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(Star_Trek)
A shuttle had been suggested initially during the production of "The Enemy Within", but was ultimately rejected due to the cost.[1]

1. Cushman & Osborn 2013, p. 302.

If this is the Cushman?
Did they consider a shuttlecraft for Enemy Within ever? If so then half the drama of the episode would have been gone. I mean they had the time crunch of evil Kirk's body was going to fail but having the boys in peril on the planet made the episode better.

There's no mention of a shuttle in the outline, script drafts or production memos I've seen. Maybe @Maurice and @Harvey have seen something.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Well, we look at the series in two ways: in-universe and Real Life. In-universe, either they didn’t have any shuttles yet or the atmospheric conditions prevented anyone from landing. They probably talked about it during the commercials.

In Real Life, they didn’t construct shuttlecraft yet, they couldn’t afford them and if AMT wasn’t talking to them yet, then nobody was making a deal to create them. So even if Jeffries and Roddenberry envisioned that rounded end cap to be a hanger deck, they weren’t gonna mention it in the episodes if they couldn’t show them. So, in Real Life: no shuttles so don’t mention them.

Classic Trek was inventing all of this stuff as budgets and stories permitted. World building was on an as needed basis. Everything happening to the crew was “the first time” for a lot of stuff that works well for a standalone series, but for a franchise, it requires retcons (the gymnastics Enterprise performed in the 4th season were impressive). Spock’s first command in The Galileo Seven is fine until they had to use the pilot footage to add a “free episode” to the schedule (airdate order messed that up tho). The Enemy Within’s lack of shuttles is no big deal since it’s early and without constant reruns, MOST people wouldn’t have made the connection later (even as late as The Doomsday Machine nobody mentioned shuttles on the Constellation which could have helped Decker save some of his crew).

Honestly, only a very few people at home watching would have thought “hey, the ship should have landing craft.” Maybe the SF fans and people who went to cons.

When you think about it, living on the Enterprise in those days was risky since there was no sure fire way to evacuate everyone quickly. Fan theories and set changes aside, during the run there was only transporter and even after establishing the shuttles, there were only a handful which could seat, what? 8? No real mention of escape pods at all. Spock mentions “life boats” in the second pilot but not in reference to their own ship. When Kirk threatens to blow up the Enterprise because Bele is being a jerk, he never orders an evac. And even IF there were two dozen transporters, if the power went out, you’re screwed. Manually cranking open a shuttle bay and powering a transporter were two different things and you could save a portion of the crew but just a fraction.

In-universe fan justification is a fun pastime but I give 60’s TV a huge break. A lot of these shows were making it all up as they went and figured their shows would be off the air totally after 5 reruns.

 

[M'Sharak]

Cushman & Osborn 2013, p. 302.
If this is the Cushman?
.

2013, yep -- that's the one.

 

[Neopeius]

Or the entire shuttle fleet was working through a recall because the catalytic converters were defective and known to start fires. You can't hang up the starship Enterprise for that, so it was flying a few missions with no shuttles, and would swing back to Starbase 11 to pick them up when the work order was completed.

Either way, we just weren't in the room when somebody remarked on the situation.

This being 1966, it's more likely they were in the shop to be equipped with catalytic converters.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Alan Dean Foster was encouraged by Gene Roddenberry to do a spec script in case TOS received a fourth season. ADF did so and put it in his filing cabinet - but pulled it back out and cannibalized it when he was asked to expand "Star Trek Log Seven" beyond the script of TAS's "The Counterclock Incident" and he needed to reach the looming deadline. The Klingon-heavy script involved Captain Kumara, a former Klingon exchange student who was once Kirk's roommate.

I once asked ADF if he recalled the title of the script, but sadly the script and its title are long gone.

As much as the history of this particular show has been mined, wouldn't somebody have published something on it, somewhere along the way?

Has no-one mentioned "Requiem for a Martian"? (A running gag from the days of the old message boards.)

In June 1988, "Locus" listed "The Star Trek That Never Was" by Allan Asherman as a planned October 1988 release from Pocket Books. It was withdrawn and pulped before release after some red tape problems, IIRC.

I think some of the animated episodes were from earlier scripts.

Definitely Gerrold's "Bem" and "More Tribbles, More Troubles", both pitched as possible live-action episodes.

 

[Christopher]

Why do they need shuttles when they have transporters would be the bureaucratic thinking?

Transporters have limited range. Shuttles can travel farther, and can go on side missions while the ship is occupied.

When you think about it, living on the Enterprise in those days was risky since there was no sure fire way to evacuate everyone quickly. Fan theories and set changes aside, during the run there was only transporter and even after establishing the shuttles, there were only a handful which could seat, what? 8? No real mention of escape pods at all. Spock mentions “life boats” in the second pilot but not in reference to their own ship. When Kirk threatens to blow up the Enterprise because Bele is being a jerk, he never orders an evac. And even IF there were two dozen transporters, if the power went out, you’re screwed. Manually cranking open a shuttle bay and powering a transporter were two different things and you could save a portion of the crew but just a fraction.

My understanding back in the day was that the entire saucer section was supposed to be the lifeboat if they had to jettison the warp drive. Which, frankly, makes much more sense than the "escape pod" concept that's become annoyingly common in sci-fi since Star Wars. I mean, what use is a dinky little lifeboat in deep space? How are you going to get anywhere or survive long enough for help to come when the nearest ship might be weeks away? Per The Making of Star Trek, the saucer was designed to operate independently and provide everything the crew needed except warp drive. It could support the crew long enough for help to arrive, or make a safe landing on a nearby habitable world.

In one of the first Pocket novels from the early '80s, Black Fire, the bridge was blown up and the saucer so badly damaged that the crew had to jettison it and use the engineering hull as a lifeboat. I remember being bothered by that because it was doing it backward compared to the way I'd always read it was supposed to work.

 

[Maab]

In June 1988, "Locus" listed "The Star Trek That Never Was" by Allan Asherman as a planned October 1988 release from Pocket Books. It was withdrawn and pulped before release after some red tape problems, IIRC.

Interesting, I didn't know about this. I once tried to contact Allan Asherman but with no success. However a book titled "The Star Trek That Never Was" was released by John Peel.

From my collection:

https://i0.wp.com/fantascienza.tv/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/LostTrekBibliografia18

 

[Christopher]

Interesting, I didn't know about this. I once tried to contact Allan Asherman but with no success. However a book titled "The Star Trek That Never Was" was released by John Peel.

From my collection:

https://i0.wp.com/fantascienza.tv/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/LostTrekBibliografia18

I used to have both of these. To clarify, the Almost Was volume is the one that covers unmade TOS scripts and story treatments, while the Never Was volume covers the unfilmed outlines for the Phase II revival that was abandoned in favor of ST:TMP. I still have the Almost volume, but I sold the Never volume years back, because its outlines were also covered in Pocket's Phase II: The Lost Series book by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens, so it seemed redundant to keep it.

 

[publiusr]

Interesting, I didn't know about this. I once tried to contact Allan Asherman but with no success. However a book titled "The Star Trek That Never Was" was released by John Peel.

From my collection:

https://i0.wp.com/fantascienza.tv/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/LostTrekBibliografia18

Not familiar with those.

DEEP MUDD would have been a fun romp.

 

[Therin of Andor]

However a book titled "The Star Trek That Never Was" was released by John Peel.

Yep. This and "Almost Was..." were unlicensed, both from Psi Fi Movie Press, 1985.

 

[Noname Given]

And two years of Space:1999.

There was plenty of what one could call science fiction in the 1970s. The issue is not all of it was in network primetime.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1970s_American_science_fiction_television_series