Did any TOS episodes run "short"--?

[Green]

For the past few days I have been watching the new Outer Limits blurays and they had a real problem with episodes running too short to fill the time slot.

As we know from the "Vault" set and the upcoming Lost Scenes book, TOS had lots of episodes that ran over and had to be cut, but did any episodes run short and they had to scramble to fill the time?

 

[Maurice]

"Let That Be Your Last Battlefield", I think, with the endless corridor running near the finish.

Harvey would know.

 

[Green]

Right, that makes sense. My only other guess is "Alternative Factor" with the endless falls seemingly taking the place of the nixed romance script time.

 

[alchemist]

Well, why we're waiting for this Harvey to show up (), let me say, definitively, that material was cut from both "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" and "The Alternative Factor."

Choices, choices...

 

[Green]

Oh, lord. What "wasn't good enough" to make the cut in "Alternative Factor" --?

And they cut dialogue out of "Battlefield to show them running thru empty corridors for 4 minutes? Yikes.

 

[Marsden]

That's a chilling thought, "Hey, we cut 3 minutes of scenes here, let's through Lazarus of the cliff again to fill it in!"

 

[NickintheATL]

To put a different spin on answering this question:
"The Menagerie" Part 1 runs 30 seconds shorter than other episodes. You can probably assume that they couldn't get 30 more seconds out of the frame story, but the real reason is that the Next Week preview was 90 seconds as opposed to the usual 60 seconds. So, there's that...

 

[Phaser Two]

Well, why we're waiting for this Harvey to show up (), let me say, definitively, that material was cut from both "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" and "The Alternative Factor."

Choices, choices...

Those are two episodes that needed more cutting. (I find LTBYLB enjoyable, though.)

 

[alchemist]

Oh, lord. What "wasn't good enough" to make the cut in "Alternative Factor" --?

And they cut dialogue out of "Battlefield to show them running thru empty corridors for 4 minutes? Yikes.

Off the top of my head, there were three scenes cut in their entirety and a couple more trimmed from "The Alternative Factor." We have frames from two of the former scenes in Lost Scenes with a script excerpt for one of them. In fact, we specifically included the one with the script excerpt because we thought it was so bad that it was actually... no, it was just bad.

"Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" also had a couple of scenes cut and a couple more trimmed.

 

[Garth Rockett]

Wait, what? The next week preview is half the usual length and yet the episode is shorter? Or did you mistype?

Perhaps you misread - he said the next week preview was 90 seconds long. The normal length was 60, so it would appear the episode was 30 seconds shorter to accommodate the longer preview.

 

[tomswift2002]

In the “Mark Of Gideon” there’s an odd scene that I always wondered why it had been left in. Kirk and the girl are leaving the empty bridge, when all of a sudden it looks like the camera operator tripped or something and the camera just spins around the bridge before it cuts to the wall of faces. I always wondered why that spin was left in, because it adds nothing and there’s no reason for it.

But for the OP, I don’t know what the “Outer Limits” sets are like, but could some of the episodes have been mastered from Syndication masters? I know I’ve seen a few series where the people putting together DVD sets don’t pay that much attention and grab a mixture of original and Syndication masters (and in a few cases from Disney I’ve seen a mixture of NTSC & PAL masters used)

 

[UncleRogi]

"Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" also had a couple of scenes cut and a couple more trimmed.

This is my answer to the question.



EDIT: There are books out there called "These Are the Voyages..."
They go into great detail.

 

[Maurice]

This is my answer to the question.



EDIT: There are books out there called "These Are the Voyages..."
They go into great detail.

They're also inaccurate.

 

[UncleRogi]

They're also inaccurate.

But highly entertaining...



EDIT: My favorite is the entry for "Doomsday Machine"
EDIT 2: And Yvonne Craig's reaction to the Shat is priceless...

 

[Phaser Two]

This is my answer to the question.



EDIT: There are books out there called "These Are the Voyages..."
They go into great detail.

[ducks]
[raises shields]

 

[Harvey]

Well, why we're waiting for this Harvey to show up (), let me say, definitively, that material was cut from both "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" and "The Alternative Factor."

Choices, choices...

What @alchemist said.

I actually can't answer this question definitively, but my guess is that no show came in under time. All scripts were timed before they were shot, and Bob Justman was very good at identifying scripts that were not long enough during the writing process.

I can answer this definitely when it comes to one episode, though. Based on the research I've done for the as-yet unfinished conclusion to my "Alternative Factor" piece, about 3 1/2 minutes were cut from that episode - it didn't come in short; it was actually long.

 

[Harvey]

EDIT: There are books out there called "These Are the Voyages..."
They go into great detail.

At the risk of beating a dead horse, don't read these books. They are notoriously unreliable. The upcoming Star Trek: Lost Scenes, co-authored by our own @alchemist, will be a much better resource for answering this question.

The episode preview for "The Menagerie, Part I" running long is interesting. Desilu's contract with NBC mandated a maximum length for the preview trailer. I'll have to check this when I'm back home (on vacation and out of the country right now), but I'm guessing 90 seconds was the max allowed by the network.

 

[NickintheATL]

The episode preview for "The Menagerie, Part I" running long is interesting. Desilu's contract with NBC mandated a maximum length for the preview trailer. I'll have to check this when I'm back home (on vacation and out of the country right now), but I'm guessing 90 seconds was the max allowed by the network.

Just to be clear, I was referring to the preview for Part II at the end of Part I. :-)

 

[UncleRogi]

At the risk of beating a dead horse, don't read these books. They are notoriously unreliable. The upcoming Star Trek: Lost Scenes, co-authored by our own @alchemist, will be a much better resource for answering this question.

The episode preview for "The Menagerie, Part I" running long is interesting. Desilu's contract with NBC mandated a maximum length for the preview trailer. I'll have to check this when I'm back home (on vacation and out of the country right now), but I'm guessing 90 seconds was the max allowed by the network.

I don't call attention because of accuracy, but because they are cool stories...
Who cares? None of us were there, and besides...

Star Trek

Why else are any of us here?



EDIT: Dr. Helen Noel belongs in the "Most Beautiful" club

EDIT 2: Messing with the Writers is never a good idea....

 

[Greg Cox]

As I recall, an entire romantic subplot between Lazarus and Lt. Masters was cut at some point, possibly before filming, so they had to pad out "The Alternative" with lots of running around back and forth.