When did Fred Freiberger jump the shark?
- Thread starter Quantum21
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The boys should have slapped on their Fedoras again during S3. It couldn’t have been any worse than And The Children Shall Lead…or could it?
They should have put on Fedoras DURING And The Children Shall Lead.
The boys should have slapped on their Fedoras again during S3. It couldn’t have been any worse than And The Children Shall Lead…or could it?
I love the lavender/purple transporter room. 
RCA called; they want more color!I love the lavender/purple transporter room.
OKAY, I am seriously twitching here...
On my Roddenberry.com uniform pattern instructions, it gives dye instructions for the third season uniform to make them gold. I swear everything I read and saw prior to today shows that when they went double-knit, they gave up and made them gold as the green velour already looked that way onscreen.
Now I see references to the fact they were green? WHAT'S THE STORY. *head hurts*
On my Roddenberry.com uniform pattern instructions, it gives dye instructions for the third season uniform to make them gold. I swear everything I read and saw prior to today shows that when they went double-knit, they gave up and made them gold as the green velour already looked that way onscreen.
Now I see references to the fact they were green? WHAT'S THE STORY. *head hurts*
I love the lavender/purple transporter room.
It's groovy, and as trying to light it with bias lighting wasn't working, it's a nice and cheaper change.
if everyone drooled over how new NTSC color TV was, now look at today's panels that have over 108% of NTSC's gamut!!
(72% NTSC being 100% sRGB, of course...)
I wonder which section the hippies used for the pee corner...
And does he ever manspread, WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Usually, a camera at partial angle can be more appealing from a cinematographic point of view... but season 3, just get it filmed because special setups eat the budget.
yeah, the good/great episodes are pretty solid at least. Some I'd easily put above most of season 2, plot holes and all.
Heck, I find it easier to rewatch TOS3's bad episodes than most of TNG1's bad ones. Looks like that's a good idea there, do scores for season 3 TOS episodes and then pencil in #s for TNG and see how often that holds up for people.
But "And The Children Shall Lead" is on the lower-tier. There's more of that Trek trope of psi horror, but the story still feels less than the sum of its parts. The kids' acting is really good, though. Better than shower curtain alien Gorgon - who's stiffer than an ironing board. He needed more charismatic menace for the kids, and outright menace toward the adults.
Yeah, if the budget had not been reduced and more episodes not be stuck on the ship, would it have been better? How much they could eke out is technically impressive.
And put the children on ice?
The Angel Capades!
I love the lavender/purple transporter room.
RCA called; they want more color!
I was rewatching a handful of season 2 episodes. Wish I could remember the episode, am sure it was in the latter half of the season, and they backlit the transporter room walls that lavender hue. Looks like they definitely had some ideas before season 3.
Did they? I've got to log off now, but I want screenshots!
I'd love to know. I do feel like the walls were not overly purple in "Assignment: Earth", because I think the fight there at the beginning is one of the best action moments in the series (Spock's cry of surprise! Kirk's/Shatner's jump off the pad!!!), and I feel like I would have noticed the purple after rewatching that so much over the years. Or maybe the scene was so awesome that I have never looked at the walls.I also feel like in S3 it wasn't backlighting but straight purple paint. Could be wrong there too.
Very interesting!
Sorry for two posts in a row, especially when I claimed I needed to log off for a bit (I do), but one of the things I *love* about S3 is that we get to see so much of the Enterprise! "Day of the Dove," my personal S3 fave "Wink of an Eye," and "The Mark of Gideon" all come to mind. "Is There In Truth," too, and heck, "The Way to Eden" and even "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" and "And the Children Shall Lead"! The ship feels much bigger and I am here for it.
Did they? I've got to log off now, but I want screenshots!
I also feel like in S3 it wasn't backlighting but straight purple paint. Could be wrong there too.
Very interesting!
Puking in purple and puce, even season 3's paint job isn't as florid!
No need to apologize!
Great assortment of episodes!
That was a plus, in turning lemons into lemonade -- the budget cuts forced more "bottle" episodes and definitely allowed a more expansive feel than what we'd generally got in the past, even if the corridors weren't always as bustling with activity. All in all, more positives than negatives, since he managed to get some new incidental music/soundtrack scores to freshen up the show and appealed to more audiences while keeping sci-fi themes generally strong.
As a kid, it was easier to roll with the idea of "Gideon" regarding a duplicate enterprise (right down to the sounds), though in rewatches the plot problems became apparent - where did the Gideons get the blueprints of the Enterprise and how to simulate noises, etc... among other issues. Had it not been for the budget constraint, the story could easily have had one of its largest nitpicks be a nonissue... and yet, being trapped in a copy of the ship is still a cool idea. Just misplaced and contrived in a situation that doesn't render it believable once the details are revealed. Instead of a duplicate, even having Kirk in a psychedelic drug-induced dream imagining he's stuck in an empty ship would have been easier to buy into. And fits into the psychological horror aspect that TOS could excel with.
"Wink" has some great ideas and holds up fairly well, and even the discontinuity between the Scalosian timeline and the crew's doesn't bother me (VOY took the basic timeline idea, recrafted it into a radically different story - if not a completely new one entirely, and even took care of how to deal with the discontinuity. A shame that more recent sci-fi genre scripts involving multiple timelines didn't make the gaffe, but it's easy to do so I just roll with it.)
"Day of the Dove" is about as TOS as TOS could TOS while on TOS. But it's season 3 so don't tell anyone that!
"Eden" is a hodgepodge of too many ideas crammed together with misapplied focus, but I don't think it's terrible by any stretch. It's definitely as subtle as a room full of paranoid skunks and no vents what with the Herbert Armstrong references as chanted by the space hippies (I don't think the Herbert has anything to do with the makers of the show), but there's a ton to chew on and wishing they had expanded more of various issues only glimpsed at. The nuances behind the hippies as it's clear that some are legitimately there and others are hiding behind it all for personal gain is a nice touch... and Sevrin is nothing more than genuinely insane with his belief.
"Is There in Truth" is a fairly strong entry when all is considered. 8/10 stars. The love angle with the lead designer coming on board being weak... The new incidental music is as amazing as Leonard Nimoy's extra acting. I think there could have been better reasons to preclude Miranda from being Kollos' host in regards to not being able to pilot the ship (Spock is still a better choice (more direct experience for a critical, life-threatening situation) but not due to needing a sensor mesh and Miranda's retort on her abilities with it is strong), though. Plus, Geordi being at helm with his VISOR implant was probably a partial response to Miranda not being allowed to pilot the ship due to blindness.
"Children" is awful when it didn't need to be. Especially as the kids do the evil acting really well. Everything hinges on Gorgon, who comes across as menacingly as a leaf floating in a gentle breeze does.
"Battlefield" knows where to apply the meat of the conflict and action, even if it engages in galaxy hopping, silly dialogue to accord invisible ships, and applied energy such as personal force fields (though the attempt to electric eel analogy is nice.) Overlook a few things and what's left genuinely is a great episode, with award-winning acting. Can't ever go wrong with Frank Gorshin, who makes scene chewing feel utterly natural - the anger he emits comes across the screen effortlessly. That said, Spock should have pointed out the differences in color arrangement, or say how it doesn't matter. Based on the script,
SPOCK: The obvious visual evidence, Commissioner, is that he is of the same breed as yourself.
BELE: Are you blind, Commander Spock? Well, look at me. Look at me!
KIRK: You're black on one side and white on the other.
BELE: I am black on the right side.
KIRK: I fail to see the significant difference.
Neither Vulcan nor Human could understand Bele's attitude, but the original script didn't do Spock any favors. It makes more sense for Spock's lines and Kirk's lines to be swapped, like this:
KIRK: The obvious visual evidence, Commissioner, is that he is of the same breed as yourself.
BELE: Are you blind?! Well, look at me -- look at me!
SPOCK: You're black on one side and white on the other.
KIRK: I fail to see the significant difference. Spock is right. What difference does it make?
BELE: I am black on the right side. Lokai is black on the left side.
Freiberger's time had him pegged as "show killer", but I don't really see that as being the case. Certainly for Trek. The new music, new types of stories that generally didn't break the mold, making the show feel serious instead of jokey again, ditching the overused parallel Earth development trope, etc... he once made a claim about Trek's demise being a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's hard to disagree with him on that. Trek season 3 made and kept to character and plot continuity far better (even with the "Battlefield" Spock gaffe and arguable moment with stern-Chekov in "Eden" but I liked Chekov not being used as the butt of jokes, but even then season 2 was starting to have him mellow by the end as well.)
Agreed, he may not have been the best choice to take over the job of not only being the show runner but lead story editor (really just down to him and Arthur Singer for the most part - two strangers to the show), there was no chance the series was going to go to a fourth season. Lousy time slot, shorter production schedule and a slashed budget made that impossible. The only thing that could have saved it is if somehow all that backfired and the series rocketed to the top of the ratings anyway.
While the series lost whatever subtlety it had, it was still a solid SF series with a lot of new, high concept stories that still tried to have something to say. Some of my favorite episodes are in that season.
Freiberger had more successes in his career than failures and if he never did Star Trek, he'd have no reputation at all outside of whoever in the industry remembered him. Star Trek fans, and then the ex-staffers from earlier years, vilified him. David Gerrold and Dorothy Fontana had axes to grid because they didn't like their work. But think about all of the concepts and characters from that year which not only exciting the fans but also became staples of Trek Canon.
As for being a show killer, people also forget that Space:1999 was pretty close to dead as well until he came on and "Americanized" it. ITC didn't want a second year in the same format and feel as the first. And there are plenty of great episodes in his run. The Six Million Dollar Man was on its last legs when it got a 5th season, but he still tried to goose the format with two-parters and getting Steve Austin back into NASA missions. Some of those episodes are damned fun. And let's not forgot who got The Wild Wild West back on track and who was in charge of the episodes that introduced Dr. Loveless.
He wasn't a genius by any means, nor was he a careful futurist who poured over every script a dozen times. However, he was a solid, if typical, TV producer who could put out what everyone expected to be disposable television entertainment. On time and on budget. A lot of his episodes were fun, fast paced and sometimes thought provoking.
He also wanted Margaret Armen as script editor, had a 4th season been commissioned. She knew the characters as well as Fontana and had some original ideas - would have been a great successor. But I've always loved her stories.
Which was variable already. Season 2 would be as subtle as a den full of jumping porcupines, with "A Private Little War" (and its TNG loose-sequel of "Too Short a Season" that is just as blunt)...
TOS never lost the sci-fi or "something to say" edges and still did it well, especially given all the roadblocks facing season 3. Some shows definitely stink for their final years, but TOS never had - or hadn't reached the jump shark moment yet.
That's true. Some of Trek's makers were not fond of his decisions. But Nichelle Nichols and William Shatner did defend Freiberger: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Freiberger#Producing_Star_Trek
My guess right now is, Freiberger did accomplish so much with Trek that - if given a decent timeslot and enough funding - he would balance everything and still make more than the sum of its parts, which he did do for Trek...
Definitely true; Space 1999, which otherwise wouldn't have been made, had him also trying to piece things together - but unlike TOS with Nichols and Shatner defending the guy stuck in the middle, Landau and others were opposed, with Landau not even appearing in several episodes (can't blame him, S1999 season 2 dropped in-story continuity really badly - how much of that is on Freiberger or the individual writers, that I do not know.) Looks like some transmission dates were variable, for whatever reasons... the fact that Freiberger "Americanized" it alone would have been jarring, never mind some interesting episode ideas that quickly crumbled due to in-story inconsistencies or idiocy.
Six Million Dollar Man - that one still had been put in decent or great time slots, but while season 4 was on a downturn, season 5's reuse of existing baddies -- I need to sit through more of this season to determine better if the show was already running out of steam so badly (season 4 was hit or miss already)... I've not seen enough of 5, what I did see was... meh. What I saw of 4 was meh as well.
Makes sense. Wish he had hired more people as script editors who were in tune with the shows.
Mostly, though, especially Space 1999, the only thoughts are "Why is this script such inane rubbish, despite this otherwise good idea".
That's not correct. Landau appeared as Commander Koeing in forty-seven of the 48 Space:1999 episodes produced; only missing the episode 'Dorzak' because he was filming another episode.
Yes, Landau did object to some of the changes in characterization and weak stories in the second season and some of those memos/objections are reproduced on 'The Catacombs - Space: 1999' website.
What I don't think is widely known is that the budgets for the second season of Space: 1999 were cut following the loss of co-funding from ITC's Italian co-sponsor.
Freiberger got around that by creating what was known as the "double-up" episode - two episodes filmed simultaneously utilizing half the cast and crew for each episode on different soundstages/locations.
Examples include
'The Rules of Luton'/'The Mark of Archanon' - the former being a Koeing/Maya episode and the latter being a Helena/Tony episode.
'The AB Chrysalis'/'The Catacombs of the Moon' - the former a Koeing/Alan/Maya episode, the latter a Helena/Tony episode.
'Devil Planet'/'Dorzak', the former being a Koeing episode and the latter being a Tony/Maya episode.
Their characters would still appear in the episodes via pre-filmed inserts.
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