If not MAN TRAP..then what

MAN TRAP was the first aired episode, and yet from what I have read, six were in the can. Many point at that premier episode as being one of the reasons TOS had a bumpy start. You know what they say about first impressions...

Of the episodes that were in the can, which one would you have gone with first?

Rob
Scorpio

 

Robert Justman said in his Star Trek book that they were really only considering "The Naked Time" or "The Man Trap" for the premeire, and the reason they chose "The Man Trap" was to illustrate the "Strange New Worlds" concept. Think if they had gone with "Mudd's Women" as the first one! If I was there, I would have picked "The Enemy Within."

 

"WNMHGB".

Just to set up the premise and characters with a bunch of people who weren't going to return to the show and get the whole mystery of the costume and set changes out of the way a lot sooner.

 

Not a bad idea, but it might have been confusing if in the coming attactions they saw radically different settings and uniforms...I think they should have done with WNMHGB what they did with the CAGE. But instead of season one, they should have showed it in the second season with some kind of framing around it...

Rob

 

Yeah, perhaps the late 60s equivalent of a "flashback episode" a'la "The Menagerie" with stock footage from a pilot episode used to explain background and context.

 

As "The Naked Time" was supposed to depict the crew acting out of character, had it been the debut, you wouldn'y know them in character.

(Of course, TNG used their "remake" of this story very early, as I recall.)

 

Yep. It was episode two.

As to the question, What about "The Enemy Within"? We got to know Kirk (both sides of him) pretty well in that one.

 

Right out of the box is too early to split your lead, I'd say. We need a few weeks to get to know him before we can do that to him.

I think "The Man Trap"--a good, solid horror story with philosophical underpinnings and a monster that would look right at home on The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone was agood choice. It's been unjustly maligned (by Nimoy, among others) in my opinion.

 

I think the Corbomite Fiasco (see special effects problems) could have been a great start. They're... on a star trek...and find aliens... etc.

Other than that, I don't get why they didn't just show the new pilot for the first episode. =-/

 

I don't think Nimoy was the only one who thought that episode wasn't the best choice..and as for Man Trap being unjustly maligned? Well, that may or may not be true, but of the six episodes or so that were in the can, I think Man Trap was the weakest...Enemy From With In, Corbormite, and Charlie X were all in the can, and all were better choices to lead off..IMO

Rob

 

It has been stated time and again that NBC was really hooked on the "strange new worlds" aspect of the show right to the end, considering the "bottle shows" (i.e. placed on the ship) to be somehow inferior.
I have to say I prefer a believable ship set over a fake planet set any day, but they thus really limited their choice for opening episode.
But if they really wanted a planet-based story, I still would have advised to show WNMHGB. It had a superior set/matte (with clouds in the sky) and of course a powerful story. The change in some personnel would at that stage not have been too distracting, IMHO. Didn't the girlfriend of Colt in "The Fall Guy" change without explanation between pilot and series? Those things happen.

 

Actually, "The Naked Time", *did* show them in character. The whole point was to show what was really inside them, without their masks on.

 

<shudder> All I remember is the gay Asian man sitting indian-style in Engineering.

And WESLEY.

Joe, blocked

 

Reminds me of that old skit on In Living Color, "Men on Film," which featured two gay men and their gay take on movies. They would've loved the "special friendship" between Wesley and that goofy Asian engineer!

Back on topic, if The Corbomite Maneuver was indeed one of the eps in the can, I think that would've been a better debut. It has more of the elements that define TOS than The Man Trap possesses.

Playing Where No Man Has Gone Before first would definitely have been problematic for all the reasons stated above. I like the idea proposed above that it would've been better to do with WNMHGB what was done with the first pilot. Would've been interesting!

Red Ranger

 

Also, "The Man Trap" had an alien monster in a creepy costume(well, for THEN anyways)to appeal to a wider audience for the premiere episode. Less cerebral and stodgy and more aliens, action and suspense. A continuation of the philosophy that got "WNMHGB" made after "The Cage" failed to get picked up.

 

I like The Man Trap and think it did okay as a premiere ep (not that I watched it at the time, having been born in 1969!), but I would definitely have gone with WNMHGB. To me, it sums up the core themes of the series perfectly, and is a great episode to boot.

 

WNMHGB is one of my rotating faves and, having it air first, the differences between it and later episodes wouldn't seem so strange (though I first saw it in syndication, just as out of context). So yeah, it would have been a good choice.

 

FYI - While the live action portions of The Corbomite Manuever were done (it was the first 'regular' episode filmed); it was the 9th shown only because it was the most 'effects heavy' episode filmed to date, and it was taking longer than expected to complete those effects.

 

Which is truly sad - CM is absolutely the THIRD pilot that defines the show and its characters for time immemorial -

McCoy is there, and is established right away as Kirk's friend AND advisor

Sulu is in his proper situation

Scotty is more established as an important part of the crew - in fact, MORE important than almost the rest of the first season! It was only when Gene Coon came on board, that Scotty started rising in importance. It was Coon who started to let Jimmy Doohan's personality come through, and really give us the Scott we all know and love...

Only (ironically) Spock is still a bit of an enigma, both personality and performance wise- it took Nimoy and the writers a while to get a grip on the character...

In many ways, CM is much more like TNG than the rest of the series - a glimpse of what Trek might have been like if it had not become the Kirk & Spock Show...

 

A lot of it depends on how you define "in the can." I define it as completely done and ready for air, and by that scale, they really didn't have much to choose from.

"The Man Trap" was the only one of the finished episodes that purported to show all the characters in character for the entire episode (the argument can be made that a lot of folks weren't exactly themselves, but then again, it was early, the actors were still trying to figure out their characters). "The Enemy Within" and "The Naked Time" wouldn't have worked as debuts because those pretty much require you to know the characters better for the stories to have any appreciable impact, and "Charlie X" was a slightly weaker story (and it helps to better know how the ship operates normally to better appreciate just how disruptive Charlie is). "Mudd's Women" was a bit silly in parts, and "The Corbomite Maneuver" wasn't ready. And besides, "The Man Trap" had a proper sci-fi monster running around killing folks (another point, "The Man Trap" was the first regular episode in which anyone actually dies, a key factor in mid-60's action/adventure television).

Is it any wonder I prefer production order?