They used it a grand total of four times according to the almighty Wiki
Favourite 'season one' aspects that get dropped early on
- Thread starter Candlelight
- Start date
along similar lines, didn't they ditch the weird-sounding voices the visitors had between the original V miniseries and the Final Battle? iirc, the voices were even a plot point in the first miniseries when the rebels were disguising themselves as visitors - they had to wear a band around their neck that made their voices all warbley
And even mocked it as a stupid idea in "Wormhole X-Treme!"
No, they ditched them between The Final Battle and the weekly series, because the series had a lower budget.
Let's see, as for things from Star Trek first seasons that I regret losing later on:
TOS: I miss the first season's depiction of everyday life aboard ship, its attitude that these weren't great cosmic heroes but just folks doing a job that happened to be in space. Scenes of the characters getting snacks or drinking coffee on the bridge, folks working on hobbies, Uhura asking some guy in the corridor to fix the door to her quarters, just the little slice-of-life stuff like that which brought early TOS such verisimilitude. I also miss the ensemble flavor that was evident in the earliest episodes, before the trio of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy became so dominant.
TNG: I miss the original producers' intent that the Enterprise was exploring in deep, unknown space, that it was essentially a university village in space with civilian researchers aboard, that crewmembers brought their families along because the ship was intended to spend years, even decades, on the frontier without ever returning home. When the later producers made it mostly a show about political, diplomatic, and rescue missions in known space, it rendered the whole premise and design of the Galaxy class rather irrelevant.
DS9: I can't think of anything from its first season that I miss. It didn't really kick into high gear until the end of the season. Well, maybe I regret the loss of stories that weren't about wartime situations, but that was a later development.
VGR: I guess the main thing I miss about the first two seasons is Michael Piller's involvement in the writing. I felt the character writing was strongest when he was in charge.
ENT: I miss the exploration of the "space boomers," the first generations of low-warp pioneers who spent months or years travelling between worlds. That was one of the show's most successful efforts to depict an era of starflight that was truly more basic and pioneering than what TOS showed. I would've loved to see more development of that culture. Also, I liked the first season's use of mentioned-but-never-seen TOS aliens like the Axanar and Malurians.
The legendary overall general awesomeness that would have been:
CHUCK CUNNINGHAM!!!
CHUCK CUNNINGHAM!!!
24 - While Jack as field operative was good fun, I enjoyed how he was the boss at CTU LA in season 1. I also thought the more personalised threat of season 1 - Jack's family targeted by terrorists - was more effective than some of the OTT threats faced in later seasons. Similarly, there was a scene in S1 where Nina told Jack that 'the threat of torture might be more effective with this guy' [than actual torture]. Again, this was more effective than later seasons, where Jack might gouge out someone's eye so that they would give him directions to the coke machine.
^I never felt it made much sense to take the concept of 24 beyond a single season, at least not with the same characters. Some ideas work great in a limited form, but get stretched too far if you try to sustain them indefinitely. (Not that I thought 24 worked great. I gave up on it after 2-3 episodes because Bauer was too violent for me. But I thought it was a clever idea in principle. As a one-season thing, that is. Having the same guy keep getting into equivalent "you have exactly 24 hours to save the world" situations year after year after year was just ridiculous.)
Same with Heroes. Its first season was great, but that's largely because it was designed to be a single-season story with a beginning, middle, and end. The idea was to start over with mostly new characters and situations in the second season. But the actors proved so popular that the network insisted on keeping them around, even though their stories were already over. And so the next three years were just going through the motions and repeating the first season's formulas. So that's kind of the opposite of this thread's topic -- the show suffered because of what wasn't dropped after the first season.
Same with Heroes. Its first season was great, but that's largely because it was designed to be a single-season story with a beginning, middle, and end. The idea was to start over with mostly new characters and situations in the second season. But the actors proved so popular that the network insisted on keeping them around, even though their stories were already over. And so the next three years were just going through the motions and repeating the first season's formulas. So that's kind of the opposite of this thread's topic -- the show suffered because of what wasn't dropped after the first season.
Didn't that disappearing-character phenomenon become known for a while as "moved to Mandyville"?
I think season one of Family Matters had a daughter who just disappeared without ever being acknowledged and then the actress went into porn.
Rescue Me had James Badge Dale as Tommy's other cop brother, but he also ceased to exist from the show's history, never being mentioned again or even showing up for any family events (like funerals).
Rescue Me had James Badge Dale as Tommy's other cop brother, but he also ceased to exist from the show's history, never being mentioned again or even showing up for any family events (like funerals).
Wasn't it mentioned she was fired because of the harassment suit?
Let's see...
nuBSG: I liked how much more often the show relaxed during the first season. That's not to say it never happened throughout the remainder of the run but moments like Gaeta eagerly following Baltar into the bathroom and, hell, the entirety of "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down" just never seemed to crop up anymore after season one. And when they did, they were usually stuffier and more melodramatic for the sake of being melodramatic.
Boxey's disappearance is pretty jarring, too. Like super-jarring considering how well the show usually was about continuity. "Black Market" was originally supposed to involve him getting involved in some bad things. I think after the first season nuBSG really lost the tiny specks of innocence it initially conveyed and in many ways that was when it was at its best. I love the dark nature of it from start to finish but after season one pretty much all humor stems from 'Baltar being Baltar' and 'Adama and Roslin smoking out'.
Farscape: The first season is definitely chock full of growing pains and falls under the more typical shadow of initial years being of a generally lower quality than those random freshman hits like BSG and LOST. Still, there's one thing about it that I miss later on -- the well-paced integration of the entire crew with one-another. At first many of them loathe eachother but over the course of the first year a family is formed. This happens with various characters every year in the series, really, but only in the first year is it this big.
I wouldn't say this got 'dropped' so much as it was no longer needed from season two onward but I still felt like pointing it out.
Stargate Atlantis: I could write a laundry list for this one. There was a stronger sense of the writers using the entire cast to their fullest in the first year; Weir starts becoming less necessary beginning with season two. It doesn't help that I liked the character of Aidan Ford and the writers gave him a moderately interesting arc for 'season 2.0' then ditched him after that, while in the first season he's actually there and part of the team and adding to the dynamic.
There's also more exploration of the city and the wonders it hides early on than any other season, which to a point is to be expected but from season two onward SGA really tries to capitalize on the thrilling final arc of season one by making it more of a non-stop action show and the results are pretty mixed.
Speaking of which, the final few episodes of SGA's first season are terrific. The careful planning required to grow a sense of menace and suspense regarding the imminent Wraith attack is just not something you see after this.
nuBSG: I liked how much more often the show relaxed during the first season. That's not to say it never happened throughout the remainder of the run but moments like Gaeta eagerly following Baltar into the bathroom and, hell, the entirety of "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down" just never seemed to crop up anymore after season one. And when they did, they were usually stuffier and more melodramatic for the sake of being melodramatic.
Boxey's disappearance is pretty jarring, too. Like super-jarring considering how well the show usually was about continuity. "Black Market" was originally supposed to involve him getting involved in some bad things. I think after the first season nuBSG really lost the tiny specks of innocence it initially conveyed and in many ways that was when it was at its best. I love the dark nature of it from start to finish but after season one pretty much all humor stems from 'Baltar being Baltar' and 'Adama and Roslin smoking out'.
Farscape: The first season is definitely chock full of growing pains and falls under the more typical shadow of initial years being of a generally lower quality than those random freshman hits like BSG and LOST. Still, there's one thing about it that I miss later on -- the well-paced integration of the entire crew with one-another. At first many of them loathe eachother but over the course of the first year a family is formed. This happens with various characters every year in the series, really, but only in the first year is it this big.
I wouldn't say this got 'dropped' so much as it was no longer needed from season two onward but I still felt like pointing it out.
Stargate Atlantis: I could write a laundry list for this one. There was a stronger sense of the writers using the entire cast to their fullest in the first year; Weir starts becoming less necessary beginning with season two. It doesn't help that I liked the character of Aidan Ford and the writers gave him a moderately interesting arc for 'season 2.0' then ditched him after that, while in the first season he's actually there and part of the team and adding to the dynamic.
There's also more exploration of the city and the wonders it hides early on than any other season, which to a point is to be expected but from season two onward SGA really tries to capitalize on the thrilling final arc of season one by making it more of a non-stop action show and the results are pretty mixed.
Speaking of which, the final few episodes of SGA's first season are terrific. The careful planning required to grow a sense of menace and suspense regarding the imminent Wraith attack is just not something you see after this.
I tend to agree. The first season had more moments of lightness and humor. It remembered that even in the worst circumstances, humans still have a lighter side, and if anything need humor and frivolity the most when things are at their worst. Not to mention that the audience needed the occasional break from the depressing stuff. But after the first season, it just became relentlessly grim and far, far less enjoyable.
In the first episodes of The Andy Griffith Show, Barney was supposed to be Andy's cousin, but this was quickly dropped and never mentioned again. Andy Taylor was more of a comic character, too, sort of a sly rube like Griffith's stage and comedy record persona. It was soon realized that it was funnier for Griffith to play straight to Don Knotts.
On the first season of Mannix, he was an investigator for a big security firm. In the second season he became a traditional independent P.I.
The first season of The Facts of Life was quite a bit different from the later series. There were a lot of student characters (including a young Molly Ringwald) plus a male headmaster and a female teacher who bickered. In season 2 they kept three of girls, plus newcomer Jo, and axed the rest.
On Police Woman, Pepper Anderson originally had a younger sister with some kind of developmental disability whom she would visit from time to time. This was written out after the first season.
On St. Elsewhere, one of the main doctors, played by David Birney, disappeared after the first season with no explanation. Likewise John (Randall Carver) on Taxi.
I know there are others but that's what comes to mind for now.
--Justin
On the first season of Mannix, he was an investigator for a big security firm. In the second season he became a traditional independent P.I.
The first season of The Facts of Life was quite a bit different from the later series. There were a lot of student characters (including a young Molly Ringwald) plus a male headmaster and a female teacher who bickered. In season 2 they kept three of girls, plus newcomer Jo, and axed the rest.
On Police Woman, Pepper Anderson originally had a younger sister with some kind of developmental disability whom she would visit from time to time. This was written out after the first season.
On St. Elsewhere, one of the main doctors, played by David Birney, disappeared after the first season with no explanation. Likewise John (Randall Carver) on Taxi.
I know there are others but that's what comes to mind for now.
--Justin
That's so odd, I would've sworn it ran longer in that mode before Jo. Of course I was eight years old at the time so maybe it seemed longer.
The last time the third shot disintegrates was used was in season 2's 1969. It was later mocked in season 5's Wormhole X-Treme.
Atlantis's first season really was awesome. While the Wraith were being built up as the primary villain, we also had the Genii quickly being established as a really compelling secondary villain. The year was developing an arc but it didn't require you to watch every episode to understand things. And finally, not only was the main cast fully utilized, even the recurring characters had their moments.
Sadly, as Atlantis went on the seasons had looser arcs, the Genii were virtually ignored, the main cast began undergoing needless overhauls, and aside from Doctors Beckett and Zelenka most of season 1's recurring cast was dropped only to have cameos in random episodes in the later seasons.
Yeah, you summed up my thoughts very well. Everything about you said I recall fondly.
It seems SGA fans come in four varieties: those who think the first season is the best, those who think the third season is the best, those who think the fourth season is the best and those who pretend to hate the entire show but watch all the reruns.
It seems SGA fans come in four varieties: those who think the first season is the best, those who think the third season is the best, those who think the fourth season is the best and those who pretend to hate the entire show but watch all the reruns.
Well, I was only nine and things like that did seem longer. I was surprised when I learned later in life that Battlestar Galactica was only one season, when I was a kid it seemed like a couple years at least. But I'm pretty sure about the Facts of Life thing.
--Justin
Seriously? If so, that's a brilliant touch.
From episode 2:
"MANDY: That bill was our coming out party. We were gonna have the stage for a month! It was our Nesun Dorma!
STAFFER 1: What the hell's Nesun Dorma?
STAFFER 2: It's an Italian aria by Wagner...
MANDY: It's Puccini. Wagner's German, and you're a moron."
I concur with much of that. The glowy spine thing got ditched, too. As for Boxey, the actor apparently encountered a growth spurt that would have jarred with the show's compressed time-frame; also, the envisaged Tyrol-Boomer-Boxey family unit was voided bythe late decision to make Boomer a cylon. Apparently the consensus is that Boxey dies off-screen from cholera.
Personally, I'd give it the second season. There were definitely moments of levity there (imo), especially where Apollo and Starbuck were concerned.
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Exactly. The show was far from perfect, but it's Stargate, it's cheesy fun sci-fi. With more interesting villians (space vamphires... yawn...) and some real writers being brought in to help with the character development the show would have been really great. Instead it just fell apart with brief periods of decent until it was rightfully ended.
MGM at one time thought it was a huge franchise for them, only second to Bond, now it's dead.
The first season of SGA is head and shoulders above the rest of the show. Everything was pretty perfect. Then they had to change everything for some reason.
