Don't forget the historical context factor: 30 years prior to 1967 would have been 1937. Of the few TV shows that did exist in the '30s, virtually none of them were available for the public to view in 1967. With no record/playback devices available, repeat viewing of entertainment was strictly limited to Hollywood blockbusters that received intermittent theatrical re-release (think Wizard of Oz). I'd bet a lot the producers had no inclination the general audience would 1. be able to watch these episodes on demand in their own home, or 2. even choose to do so.
Anyone else think Space Seed kinda sucked?
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Don't forget the historical context factor: 30 years prior to 1967 would have been 1937. Of the few TV shows that did exist in the '30s, virtually none of them were available for the public to view in 1967. With no record/playback devices available, repeat viewing of entertainment was strictly limited to Hollywood blockbusters that received intermittent theatrical re-release (think Wizard of Oz). I'd bet a lot the producers had no inclination the general audience would 1. be able to watch these episodes on demand in their own home, or 2. even choose to do so.
I'd be interested to know the names of any TV shows from the 1930's.
So, ah, over on dallyink.com, they run a bunch of comic strips and a pretty sweet collection of vintage strips rerun from decades and decades ago. Their current run of Vintage Flash Gordon is strips from late 1958/early 1959. I can't give you a link to show the whole story, but you can get the flavor from at least this one:
http://dailyink.com/shared_comics/d9bb7009-f6be-47d4-b695-4e7c102c9e48
In this story, Flash --- after having just encountered an alien spaceship zipping through the solar system and trying to dodge involvement in a galactic war that's been raging for tens of thousands of years --- has seen a major accident at one of the world's Weather Control Space Stations cause its weather-ruling energy beams to run out of control, sending hurricanes, blizzards, tidal waves, all sorts of chaos down to Earth. He grabs the nearest available ship and pilots it to a controlled crash just above the atomic truck mentioned in the above link near the only factory that makes the necessary parts. Now, obviously, the monorail is out and the roads are flooded and all planes are grounded and the nearest spaceport is three hundred miles away; and (in a subsequent strip) the electric beams of the automated highway are in none too good a shape either.
The setting for this world of super-science with a robust spaceport industry and weather-controlling satellite watching over the united Earth and working through the machinations of galactic politics? The far-off distant future year of --- be ready, please --- Nineteen hundred and sixty-eight, nearly ten full years into the future.
My sole point (well, my main point; I also want to bring up to people that this is a pretty cool comic strip at least in its 1950s incarnation) being that while every artist wants to be remembered, they also know that nearly anything they write is going to be forgotten pretty fast. Setting stuff that's a decade to a couple decades into the future gives the thrill of letting the audience imagine being there to see this cool stuff, without it being so close that you can honestly expect anyone to remember this nonsense when the year comes to pass.
I like the idea of this show. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Television_Ghost
Joaquin.
The more I think about it, the more I think The Jetsons was clever to have at least specified it's setting as being 100 years in Earth's future (ie, 2062). There's still another 50 whole years from now before that show goes out-of-date, so hey, we can all still dream about one day having one of those neato flying cars.
Oh, I doubt any television producers of that era thought audiences would be able to watch their programs on demand at home, but repeat viewing of entertainment at the time wasn't limited to theatrical re-releases.
Most television programs at the time were deficit financed. Foreign sales helped reduce that deficit, but the main way studios made their money back (and profited) was through syndication. Star Trek cut a syndication deal while the series was in its first season.
In addition to this, the studios sold a lot of their catalog of movies to television, where many titles were being seen for the first time since their original release.
Television in the '30s and '40s was experimental and primitive, even by the standards of the 1960s. That's probably the single greatest reason programming from that era wasn't in syndication in the '60s. Programming from the '50s, in contrast, was being rebroadcast.
Now, having said all that, did producers at the time think the syndication life of their work would last for decades? The contracts with actors and other talent of the era, which paid residuals for 5 re-runs and then stopped, suggest not.
The more I think about it, the more I think The Jetsons was clever to have at least specified it's setting as being 100 years in Earth's future (ie, 2062). There's still another 50 whole years from now before that show goes out-of-date, so hey, we can all still dream about one day having one of those neato flying cars.
The producers of Space: 1999 set the series 25 years in the future, but there is supposedly a reboot in the works that will take place in 2099.
I'm currently rewatching 1999, episodes that I have literally not seen for 35 years. The F/X are a lot cheesier than I had remembered, worse than non-remastered TOS on their worst day, but it's still great to see Martin Landau in his prime again, and the Eagle ship was a pretty nice design.
Prior to the invention of the kinescope in 1947, there was no reliable way to record live television broadcasts. Some of the early experimental TV transmissions were preserved on film by various methods, but those fragmentary recordings are of purely technical and historic interest. Not nearly enough material there for a syndication package, assuming anyone would want to watch it.
Link -- Early Television Recording
Space: 1999 actually had some pretty good model work, with many shots looking cleaner and crisper than Star Trek TOS's optical composites (most of Space: 1999's FX were done in-camera with multiple exposures).
The problem with Space: 1999 was that the writing was weak and the entire premise was preposterous.
I'm sure in 1967, GR and company would have probably would have considered the idea that people would be watching "Space Seed" and the rest of TOS (1) on demand, (2) in high def and (3) on a multitude of different devices just as fantastic as many of the "23rd Century" concepts shown in the series.
Makes you wonder just how TOS fans will be enjoying it 30 years from now, doesn't it? 3D TOS? Performed holographically right in your house? With you being part of the action, perhaps portraying one of the parts, able to interact with the other 'characters?'
Makes you wonder just how TOS fans will be enjoying it 30 years from now, doesn't it? 3D TOS? Performed holographically right in your house? With you being part of the action, perhaps portraying one of the parts, able to interact with the other 'characters?'
I always mix those guys up, and have been having trouble lately trying to connect to Memory Alpha, IMDB, and even Google and YouTube when verifying things.
Stephen E. Whitfield's The Making of Star Trek (first published in 1968) opens with the following tongue-in-cheek introduction, presumably directed at readers some 200 years in the future:
Apparently Whitfield couldn't conceive of any way in which original Star Trek episodes might be available to future viewers, except in the form of 16mm film prints!
Reminds me of the novel Spock's World, where Uhura and someone (Kyle?) were converting an old Doctor Who episode to play in holographic 3D.
Didn't they show clips from "Where No Man Has Gone Before" at the NASM at that time?
While the TOS producers apparently couldn't imagine storage devices other than "tapes" at first, I find it still amazing that in one of the last TOS episiodes they invented the optical disc for data storage: http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/3x23hd/allouryesterdayshd0192.jpg
Bob
I always wonder whether the use of a term like "tape" is some lack of imagination, or a concession to contemporary audiences. The movie STRANGE DAYS features small optical disc media (a role played by MiniDiscs, which were still new at the time of production), yet many characters use the term "tape." And I can't tell you how often I've heard professionals and amateurs alike talk about "filming" with digital videotape, or even completely solid state cameras. (How about "recording," guys? It's generic enough.)
The term "tape" is used many times in TOS, yet we frequently see the crew handling those featureless, brightly colored cards. Many fans have compared those to floppies, although SSDs or SD cards might be more apt. Then again, those cards show yet another lack of imagination or concession to the contemporary audience. SPACE: 1999, slighted above for its writing, was (accidentally or intentionally) foresighted enough to depict a central computer with "cloud storage" of all files and PDA-like or smartphone-like commlocks. Sadly, the same show also had computers spitting out little slips of tickertape paper.
(I actually liked SPACE: 1999 for its "haunted house in space" atmosphere. Call it a guilty pleasure. The show was far more TWILIGHT ZONE than STAR TREK.)
Maybe Bob meant it as a pun—it showed a picture, and so was an optical disc.
You are, of course, correct. Gross overgeneralization on my part.
The 5 re-runs thing is interesting and speaks to the changing nature of television syndication since that time.
Earlier this week a (somewhat older) gentleman borrowed my smartphone and said he was "dialing" a number into it.
In the early 80s I heard a number of people refer to home videogame cartridges as "tapes", as in "Can I borrow your Ms. PAC-MAN tape?" because the form factor reminded people of cassettes and 8-track tapes I suppose. People still "ring" "doorbells", even though many of those have no bells in them at all. There're lots of phrases and terms we use today that have antiquated or forgotten origins. I mean, do you give someone an unheated shoulder of mutton when you give them the cold shoulder?
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