Did GENE abandon ship?

[RobertScorpio]

As we all know, Gene Roddenberry jumped ship after not getting the time slot he wanted for TREK. Was he right for standing strong on this issue? I say....NO.

Star Trek was, at that time, considered a ratings loser. When your show is a ratings loser, you don't get plum timeslots. They may have promised him a better slot, but guess what...the Network reserves the right to schedule their shows how THEY feel will best generate higher ratings.

Season Three gets thrashed, and for good reason. But there are some very good episodes in that season, even with Roddenberry's no longer there to make sure the quality was up to standards. Tholian Web, Enterprise Incident, Paradise Syndrome and a few others were pretty good, IMO.

Roddenberry stood his ground. But the ratings for the second season were not all that great. The show was most likely going to get axed even if he had stayed on.

HE should have stayed..

Robert

 

[Esteban]

Well, that's easy for us to say in hindsight, and I'm sure, again in hindsight, Gene probably regretted not staying.

But the reality was he needed the money, and it wasn't coming from Norway Productions. By bowing out he was able to consider other offers, including the incredibly generous one from Herb Solow to produce "Pretty Maids All In A Row", which by most accounts he botched. Oh, and the never-produced "Tarzan", whose box-office I can only imagine....

Gene continued to milk ST for story and polish money, but the hard fact of the business was that he needed the dough. To be fair to him, what was he, 48 or so? With no other means of support? New wife? Hollywood lifestyle?

All that, plus the grim fact that Paramount was going to cut the budget with or without Gene.

I for one can feel his pain.

 

[Maurice]

I think it's too easy to apply 20-20 hindsight here knowing that Star Trek went on to a big deal, but no one knew that in 1968. Let's face it, Star Trek was a loser insofar as ratings went. Roddenberry could collect a paycheck for a year working his butt off for a show that was going to leave him unemployed in one season (if it wasn't canned mid-season, which could have happened), or he could seek greener pastures while he still had a show on the air and thus appeared more successful that he might actually be. I can't blame him one bit for making the decision he did given those circumstances.

 

[GeorgeKirk]

On the Inside Star Trek album recorded in '76, I believe Gene said that his main rationale for leaving was that he had threatened to do so to try to get the network to back off on moving Trek to the death slot, and when they refused to back down he felt like he had to follow through on his threat because he'd have to negotiate with them again at some point.

Also, he thought that perhaps he was subconsciously looking for an excuse to leave because he was burned out from working on the show since 1964.

 

[Vance]

Well, it's no secret that NBC considered Roddenberry a troublesome director... and it wasn't uncommon for networks to kill shows that were 'troublesome', even if they were popular. (Troublesome could mean different things, Wild Wild West was popular but troublesome 'with congress', so was axed. Soap was troublesome with certain 'family groups', so was axed...)

Keep in mind that Gene's leaving wasn't entirely voluntary. He had become a 'liability' in NBCs mind. Of course, Trek, by this time, was in serious decline, the morale was non-existant from the fighting, etc... 'Evil Fred' had been called in to save the show as best he could (NBC wondered if it could be brought around with a proven action/adventure director/producer)

Should Gene have left? Hard to say, but I think it's pretty clear that the door was already propped open when the meeting began.

 

[Maurice]

^^^On what do you base this: him being a liability in NBC's (collective) mind?

 

[Vance]

^^^On what do you base this: him being a liability in NBC's (collective) mind?

Gene Roddenberry used to delight in admitting that he 'made the suits squirm', and bragged about how difficult he was. (Indeed, this appears on his 'Cage' 20th anniversary VHS release).

Specifics, though, come largely from the 'leading ladies' memories that have been published (Majel in particular), as well as comments from NBC executives in their later years. Indeed, their story for the recasting of 'number one' is very simple, that they didn't want to get sued like crazy for having a 'leading woman' that's one of the producer's lovers. Note that this version of the story is starkly at odds with Roddeberry's disturbingly strained statement that 'women didn't find number one believable'.

Roddenberry's extreme use of the 'casting couch' is rather infamous, and was at a time where the Senate was already engaged in tighter regulation and control over the airwaves. (See the Wild Wild West). Sadly, this didn't even stop with TOS, as much of the 'new gen' casting was culled from soft-core women-exploitation films - again, by Roddenberry, and then Berman after him.

Letting go of Roddenberry, at that time, was in NBC's best interest.

 

[jayrath]

Rodenberry was never "let go" until the films. I don't blame him for departing in the third season of TOS, but he did still get his credits, and he was still paid as executive producer, even though he had very, very little to do with the season after approving the initial scripts and settling a squabble between Nimoy and Shatner.

 

[Maurice]

I dunno...Roddenberry's own tales were wonderfully exaggerated and often outright lies (fighting the network to get a multi-racial crew, Scotty doing drugs, etc.), and while I recall Solow mentioned how the NBC programming people didn't like Majel as an actress and asked "who's keeping her?", I don'r recall reading anything credible that indicates that Roddenberry was any more a thorn in NBC's sides than Bruce Geller or any of a dozen other TV producers. If anyone can point out such a source to me I'd be interested in reading it.

 

[Vance]

I don't think that they were so much actively trying to dump him as just... shall we say, not minding much when he threatened to walk out.

 

[Dizzknee]

A great book to read about all this is: Inside Star Trek: The Real Story by Solow and Justman. It goes into some detail about Gene's 'exploits' and all that. Who knows if it's all true, but it's a pretty interesting peak into that time.

 

[Shatmandu]

He probably thought he was moving on to bigger and better things.

Rock Hudson put a stop to that.

Joe, pretty maid

 

[Maurice]

A great book to read about all this is: Inside Star Trek: The Real Story by Solow and Justman. It goes into some detail about Gene's 'exploits' and all that. Who knows if it's all true, but it's a pretty interesting peak into that time.

I've read it... I don't recall anything indicating that NBC was as annoyed with Roddenberry as much of the legends would have us believe.

 

[Trekwatcher]

You have to remember he wanted to do something else. GR never imagined Trek would become the juggernaut we know today-nobody did. It's always easier to move on when you still have a job. I am sure he felt he had done what he could with Trek, wanted to try to get another series made, and felt it was time to move on. It was a business, and he was still pretty small-time back then, so I am sure he was very worried about his future.

 

[Dizzknee]

I've read it... I don't recall anything indicating that NBC was as annoyed with Roddenberry as much of the legends would have us believe.

I never said that it mentions NBC in particular. I do remember a passage talking about how annoyed Lucille Ball was with him at some point following one of his womanizing escapades on the Desilu lot.

 

[Trekwatcher]

You also have to remember that GR had had other shows ("The Lieutenant") that never caught on, so his modus operandi may have to just pick up and start anew. Not very glorious, to be sure, but you can't hold it against him.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Yes, Roddenberry jumped ship. Solow and Justman's book is pretty clear about this.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Roddenberry leaving Trek in its third season is no different than more contemporary producers such as David E. Kelly, et all. who come in create shows, run them for a bit then go off to do something else. Happens all the time.

 

[Trekwatcher]

Roddenberry leaving Trek in its third season is no different than more contemporary producers such as David E. Kelly, et all. who come in create shows, run them for a bit then go off to do something else. Happens all the time.

People stay on shows if those shows remain popular and the creators feel like they are still needed. David Chase of the Sopranos stayed till the very end and made contributions from start to finish. But, that show was also popular right up to the last episode.

 

[Maurice]

You also have to remember that GR had had other shows ("The Lieutenant") that never caught on, so his modus operandi may have to just pick up and start anew. Not very glorious, to be sure, but you can't hold it against him.

More like Roddenberry had other "show" (singular). AFAIK, the only three series he actually got on the air as series were The Lieutenant, Star Trek, and TNG.