Casting

[Dale Sams]

Happens all the time. 30 Rock had several eps missing actors below Fey and Baldwin. An explanation wasn't always given.

As for how 'rough' the first eps look. Whatever. That show hit the ground running. Any post TOS ST show would kill for a first season of that quality.

 

[Lance]

I think it was just a general flux. TNG was the same, in hindsight the series looks very disorganised in the first half of season one (Geordi at conn, Tasha at tactical, Worf in no fixed job, a revolving door of chief engineers, Riker's Beard not being a series regular ), until it all settled down. TOS arguably gets the same feel because some of the things we now take for granted, like the 'Big Three', were not screwed into place yet (Bones was still only a semi-regular in season one, so it was a slightly different dynamic with Spock and Kirk as a "pair" and everybody else kind of flying in and out, including Bones), while other elements (like having a regular Yeoman character) are featured more prominantly than they later would be.

Most shows suffer this kind of 'Early Instalment Weirdness' with the benefit of hindsight.

 

[f14peter]

TV audiences are fickle and will change the channel very quickly if they get bored/irritated.

There were only 3 networks in 1966, and not all cities had even that. National Educational Television (predecessor to PBS) was still around, but I don't remember if they had evening programming. Some cities might have had an independent station or two. But yeah, there was still the risk of viewers switching to "My Three Sons" or "The Tammy Grimes Show" or turning the set off.

I hear that brother! Growing up, we had a nearby CBS affiliate that we could tune in not-too-badly, a further away ABC affiliate that was usually a bit fuzzy, and the PBS station was equally far away and came in even blurrier due to transmitter location ... and that was it! Luckily, the ABC station carried NBC Sports so my dad and I could watch that, but a pretty bleak selection.

At one point my dad put up an antenna on our roof mounted on a 30-foot pole, then the ABC station came in clear, and we could pull in fuzzy signals from farther away. However, it still wasn't until 1979 when I moved out to the nearby town with cable that I had regular access to more channels.

 

[Redfern]

In Atlanta, from my birth in 1962 to 1970 when we moved out of state, I think we got the "Big Three", NBC, CBS and ABC since I vaguely recall programming scattered across the three major networks. There was also an independent station we could receive, channel 17, which would evole years later into TBS.

When we moved to Birmingham, Alabama, we still just got 4 stations via "rabbit ears", again, the "Big Three" and the fourth being the recently developed PBS.

So, as others have noted, one's choices were limited. If one didn't like one program, one had, at most, 3 other choices, depending upon the time of day since the educational network did not broadcast all day like the others. Even the national affiliates "signed off" for 5 or more hours at night.

It wasn't until I moved to south Georgia in 1977 did I have the opportunity for more channels. Despite being what some might consider a "sleepy southern town", my community had a decent cable service (for the time). With a converter box, all 12 channels upon the VHS dial were filled, and with far crisper images that I had previously experienced.

But until I turned 14, four channels was the most I had. But in those days, that was a pretty good selection. Before my grandmother had cable installed, several months after I moved in with her, we got just 2 channels, CBS and NBC...and a very "snowy" ABC...on a "good" day.

I won't be so arrogant as to claim, "And we like it that way!" like an old fart, but since that was what was available, well, we "accepted" it.

Sincerely,

Bill

 

[Ssosmcin]

I have to admit when I first saw WNMHGB back in the early seventies, I scratched my head for second and wondered what was going on.

As a kid, I accepted everything. This was one where I thought, "oh, this is the episode where Kirk has two stripes!"

 

[Marsden]

I'm rewatching TOS for the 1st time in years. I'm always amazed by how rough & disorganized this show looks for the 1st several episodes. The casting is all over the place with actors coming and going and characters being introduced and disappearing never to be seen again. One gets the impression of a lot of behind-the-scenes confusion and melodrama. It's even hard to figure out the proper sequence of events because of all the cast coming and going. I know "The Cage" failed as a pilot and they were forced to start over but the confusion seems to have extended well into Season 1. Does anyone know why it took Roddenberry and the other PTB so long to get it all smoothed out?

I'm always amazed at how someone, (and I am not singling out you JeffinOakland please don't take offence) can see something and have such a different opinion. I don't mean we all need or want to have the same opinion, just that it's so different. First season Star Trek is quite literally one of the best if not the best seasons of any show. I find it to be very well done and organized. The direction is excellent, lighting is wonderful, I wish more shows looked like this. The effects are very good. The acting is great. The stories are some of the best, I'm running out of adjectives. Even the possible 1 to 3 sub par episodes are good in comparison to much of the great wasteland.

Now, seeing WNMHGB as the third episode, yes that can be a jarring effect if seeing it on dvds for the first time, but as it's been said many times, Star Trek really took off in syndication and that's how I saw it. It was just another episode. A good one, too. Even when I bought the series on VHS they weren't in any particular order, so I don't think anyone ever gave it a thought.

I also personally liked that Sulu wasn't the only helmsman, or that they had many different navagators. It's a large ship with many people working in it. To see the same few over and over seems just wrong. It makes it seem more like it's "tv show" than a starship. But that's also my opinion. I really liked Sulu, and he certainly was the "main" helmsman, but he seems to have many skills and I could easily believe he was doing different things at different times. He could have been in life sciences doing a rotation with the bio labs for part of season 2. That's fun for us to say here, but totally unnecessary for the show to say. That's one reason I tire about hearing where Checkov was in season 1. He could be doing something else in one of those science labs we really didn't see to much of. Sulu and Checkov has a clear science background even if they both wear the command color and act mostly as helmsman and navagator, Checkov seemed to be the back up science officer. Uhura is one of the communications officers, not the only one. Leslie is some kind of duty officer, he was there since WNMHGB right up til early season 3, even if he didn't have a name that early.

 

[bbailey861]

First season Star Trek is quite literally one of the best if not the best seasons of any show. I find it to be very well done and organized. The direction is excellent, lighting is wonderful, I wish more shows looked like this. The effects are very good. The acting is great. The stories are some of the best, I'm running out of adjectives. Even the possible 1 to 3 sub par episodes are good in comparison to much of the great wasteland.

We reach.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

First season Star Trek is quite literally one of the best if not the best seasons of any show. I find it to be very well done and organized. The direction is excellent, lighting is wonderful, I wish more shows looked like this. The effects are very good. The acting is great. The stories are some of the best, I'm running out of adjectives. Even the possible 1 to 3 sub par episodes are good in comparison to much of the great wasteland.

We reach.

Yea brother...yea.

 

[ThankYouGeneR]

I believe that a large section of the first season was aired out of production sequence. During that time I notice minor make-up, personality, doctor, etc. type changes. To my eye, though trivial, they are noticeable, even amusing at times to me. My understanding is that the writers, make-up, Roddenberry, and maybe network were in that natural flux that sometimes happens with new shows as they continue to sort and decide what films or is responded to better. Which I believe compounds a less smooth transition as they settle on these minor things because these minor changes jump back and forth with airing out of production date.


Could this be at least part of what you were noticing?

 

[Greg Cox]

Now, seeing WNMHGB as the third episode, yes that can be a jarring effect if seeing it on dvds for the first time, but as it's been said many times, Star Trek really took off in syndication and that's how I saw it. It was just another episode. A good one, too. Even when I bought the series on VHS they weren't in any particular order, so I don't think anyone ever gave it a thought.

Good point. Most of us grew up watching the show via the endless syndicated reruns, which were shown in no particular order. It would have never occurred to us to worry about the order of the episodes because it didn't matter. It would have been like worrying which episode of Gilligan's Island or Wild, Wild West came first.

Heck, when I was a kid, I couldn't have told you which episodes came from which season. It's not like you could look up an episode guide on the internet. You just turned on your TV, or checked the listings in TV Guide, and hoped to see one of your favorite episodes.

"Oh boy, they're showing 'Arena' again!"

It was a simpler time . . .

 

[plynch]

I had Making of Star Trek to go by. And Gerrold's "Worlds." This kid knew his seasons. Whitfield's guide easier to find b/c in the back. Gerrold's in the middle between picture sections iirc.