Gary Seven - Why try create new series when current one is struggling.

[scotpens]

Re: Gary Seven - Why try create new series when current one is struggl

. . . Mary Tyler Moore gave us both Rhoda and Lou Grant (which was a total change of character for Ed Asner)

And don't forget Phyllis, starring Cloris Leachman.

The 1970s were the Decade of the Spinoff. There was a joke going around that the next sitcom from MTM Productions was going to be called Carlton the Doorman.

(Carlton the doorman was a character on Rhoda, the Mary Tyler Moore spinoff starring Valerie Harper. The joke was that you never saw Carlton, you only heard his voice on the intercom.)

 

[Maurice]

Re: Gary Seven - Why try create new series when current one is struggl

. . . Mary Tyler Moore gave us both Rhoda and Lou Grant (which was a total change of character for Ed Asner)

And don't forget Phyllis, starring Cloris Leachman.

The 1970s were the Decade of the Spinoff. There was a joke going around that the next sitcom from MTM Productions was going to be called Carlton the Doorman.

(Carlton the doorman was a character on Rhoda, the Mary Tyler Moore spinoff starring Valerie Harper. The joke was that you never saw Carlton, you only heard his voice on the intercom.)

There actually was an animated pilot, Carlton Your Doorman, which MTM produced and was aired as a special in 1980, and which won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program for 1980. (IMDB link)

(framegrab)

 

[Christopher]

Re: Gary Seven - Why try create new series when current one is struggl

Mary Tyler Moore gave us both Rhoda and Lou Grant (which was a total change of character for Ed Asner)

Not so much a change of character as a change of context and emphasis. He was still the irascible boss with a heart, but played more seriously, in a drama with humorous elements rather than a sitcom with dramatic moments.

All in the Familiy gave us both the Jefferson's (which gave us Checking in ) and Maude, which gave Good Times.

Threes Company gave us the ill fated Ropers and Jack's place

And both of the original shows -- and several of the spinoffs you mention -- were adaptations of British shows.

Six Million Dollar Man gave us the Bionic Woman

Which actually wasn't intended as a spinoff pilot originally, which is why Jaime died at the end. But Lindsay Wagner was so popular with viewers that the network ordered her character brought back to life.

I think the bionic shows had one or two other backdoor pilots as well. I think one of them -- or some show from that era -- had a backdoor-pilot episode centered on an agent who had special biofeedback powers and could do things like slowing his heartbeat to feign death, boosting his strength, that sort of thing.

You could tell a backdoor pilot from the way it shoved the main characters to the side to focus mainly on the guest characters, as "Assignment: Earth" did. Often the regular heroes had an even smaller part, just appearing briefly in the opening and ending scenes.

 

[ConRefit79]

Re: Gary Seven - Why try create new series when current one is struggl

I understand backdoor pilots. What I didn't understand was why. I haven't kept on the history of Star Trek as well as some. But I thought this was his first production. And as such thought it would have to do well for Roddenberry to have any chance at future productions. That's why I questioned doing it then. I suppose they could have run out of stories like mid season 1 when they used the Cage.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Gary Seven - Why try create new series when current one is struggl

But I thought this was his first production. And as such thought it would have to do well for Roddenberry to have any chance at future productions.

No, Roddenberry had producer credits before Star Trek. He was the head writer for The West Point Story and the effective head writer for much of Have Gun -- Will Travel, a position that would be considered a producer role today. He pitched a variety of series that he hoped to produce, and got his first producer credits in 1960 with a short-lived summer replacement Western called The Wrangler (starring Jason Evers) and a pilot called 333 Montgomery Street, starring DeForest Kelley as a crusading defense attorney based on a real person. His first full-fledged series was The Lieutenant in 1963, starring Gary Lockwood as Marine Corps Lieutenant William Tiberius Rice. (Roddenberry loved recycling character names.)

In fact, in between Star Trek's pilots and its series pickup, Roddenberry produced two other pilots for Desilu. One was his own creation, Police Story (with Steve Ihnat, DeForest Kelley, and Grace Lee Whitney), which didn't get picked up. The other, created by his old Have Gun -- Will Travel colleague Sam Rolfe, was a pilot movie for a Robert Lansing Western called The Long Hunt of April Savage, though Roddenberry only did that for the paycheck and wasn't interested in continuing with it if it went to series (which it almost did, being picked up for the fall '66 schedule and then dropped).

Really, I doubt NBC or Desilu would've gambled on Roddenberry producing an elaborate science fiction series like Star Trek if he hadn't already proven he had the chops. He'd already established himself as a producer, even though most of his shows never made it past the pilot. But that's just part of the business -- no single project is guaranteed success, so most producers have several balls in the air at once.

 

[Kor]

Re: Gary Seven - Why try create new series when current one is struggl

So I get his trek paid for pilot and I think there would be a logical audience cross over

Exactly, I don't recall people being terribly particular when it came to genre stuff back then. We watched STAR TREK, we watched BATMAN, we watched WILD, WILD WEST and TIME TUNNEL, and THE TWILIGHT ZONE and THE OUTER LIMITS and BEWITCHED and I DREAM OF JEANNIE.

I was pretty much an omnivore when it came to anything that had a fantasy or sci-fi element in it (although somehow LOST IN SPACE never really appealed to me). And I would have surely watched ASSIGNMENT: EARTH if it had become a weekly series, regardless of tenuously it might have related to STAR TREK.

I think an Assignment: Earth series would also have appealed to viewers of Mission: Impossible, I Spy, and the like.

Kor

 

[Harvey]

Re: Gary Seven - Why try create new series when current one is struggl

No, Roddenberry had producer credits before Star Trek. He was the head writer for The West Point Story and the effective head writer for much of Have Gun -- Will Travel, a position that would be considered a producer role today.

Roddenberry was Have Gun, Will Travel 's most frequent freelance writer, but he was never the show's "head writer" (a non-existent position he would later claim for himself) or a producer for the program. His friend and two-time freelancer on Star Trek, Don Ingalls, was a producer on the show, however.

Regarding West Point (incorrectly listed as The West Point Story many places online), Roddenberry was a frequent writer, but I'm skeptical that he was ever the show's "head writer." He certainly does not have screen credit for that role (I've watched about half of the series so far).

 

[Mudd]

Re: Gary Seven - Why try create new series when current one is struggl

Exactly, I don't recall people being terribly particular when it came to genre stuff back then. We watched STAR TREK, we watched BATMAN, we watched WILD, WILD WEST and TIME TUNNEL, and THE TWILIGHT ZONE and THE OUTER LIMITS and BEWITCHED and I DREAM OF JEANNIE.

Well, we were like folks in a famine confronted with air-dropped day-old McDonalds burgers - what's not to like?

 

[JWPlatt]

Re: Gary Seven - Why try create new series when current one is struggl

I would have watched it if the same stars, Robert Lansing and Teri Garr, were in the series. If they were changed out, it would have affected my interest. I would also be more interested in exploring Seven's civilization as a story than Earth assignments as a primary focus. If the stories were mostly Earthbound to save on production costs and ease of story-telling, that too would have affected my interest. I also wanted to know more of the mystery about Isis (Memory Alpha lists the character as Isis but I thought her name was M'Isis), but perhaps with about the same weight as that in the episode - one scene per show in humanoid form.

You may be conflating Isis with M'Ress, who was the cat-woman on the Animated Series.

Definitely not, because I asked myself the same question and figured this would come up. I won't mind going back to watch Assignment: Earth again to find it, but my memory, such as it is, is certain it heard Gary Seven say "M'Isis." Online scripts say "Isis," but I don't immediately believe the internet.

You mention Time Tunnel in one of your posts, above. I kept my previous post focused on Assignment: Earth, but I also thought about Time Tunnel. It is an example of a series that held my initial interest, but spent too little time at the control center and too much on Tony and Doug. The show quickly devolved into episode after episode not on the quality stories that involve history, but on Tony and Doug getting into a fistfight immediately upon arrival and lasting most of the episode. I assume the writers were completely out of ideas and the script, between the opening and closing, simply read "Tony and Doug get into a fist fight with [enemy of the week]" so they wouldn't have to write dialogue; just film a fight in the middle of a field with some people in cheap costumes for 52 minutes. I think it could have done better without being time travelers from a conceptual Gilligan's Island with the Robinson family.

 

[Dark Gilligan]

Re: Gary Seven - Why try create new series when current one is struggl

Sometimes backdoor pilots are used to rejuvenate series that are losing steam. Two come to mind.

The final episode of Maude starring Bea Arthur was a backdoor pilot for a new iteration that completely changed the show's premise. The long-running feminist housewife angle was dropped as Maude became a US Congresswoman. The entire supporting cast was let go in favor of new characters to play Maude's Congressional staff. The network didn't run with the new idea and Maude was dropped altogether.

The Western series Nichols starring James Garner ended with his character being shot to death in the opening scene. His twin brother, also played by Garner, was to have inherited the show and taken it in a whole new direction. Like Maude though, the network didn't go for it.

 

[Kor]

Re: Gary Seven - Why try create new series when current one is struggl

I don't remember Gary Seven ever pronouncing an "M" sound at the beginning of Isis's name.

Kor

 

[Greg Cox]

Re: Gary Seven - Why try create new series when current one is struggl

I would have watched it if the same stars, Robert Lansing and Teri Garr, were in the series. If they were changed out, it would have affected my interest. I would also be more interested in exploring Seven's civilization as a story than Earth assignments as a primary focus. If the stories were mostly Earthbound to save on production costs and ease of story-telling, that too would have affected my interest. I also wanted to know more of the mystery about Isis (Memory Alpha lists the character as Isis but I thought her name was M'Isis), but perhaps with about the same weight as that in the episode - one scene per show in humanoid form.

You may be conflating Isis with M'Ress, who was the cat-woman on the Animated Series.

Definitely not, because I asked myself the same question and figured this would come up. I won't mind going back to watch Assignment: Earth again to find it, but my memory, such as it is, is certain it heard Gary Seven say "M'Isis." Online scripts say "Isis," but I don't immediately believe the internet.

For what it's worth, I've never seen it listed as anything but Isis in reference books, print articles, etc. and it's been Isis in every authorized Gary Seven novel and comic book (including my own). And, trust me, I've watched "Assignment: Earth" more times than any sane person should admit.

Meanwhile, on the subject of backdoor pilots, I recall that THE BRADY BUNCH did an episode that was obviously a trial balloon for a new series about a racially blended family, who were never seen before and after.

We should probably draw a distinction between a "spin-off," which is intended as an extension of the original show, like ANGEL or DS9, and a "backdoor pilot," which is a shameless attempt to use a current show to boost a more or less independent other project. "Assignment: Earth" is pretty much a textbook case of the latter. It was never intended to be a new "STAR TREK" show. Chances are, if the show had gone to series, Vulcans and the Federation and such would've played no part in it.

Granted, the two approaches can blur sometimes. WAREHOUSE 13 did an episode that obviously a backdoor pilot for a spin-off about the H.G. Wells character. (I still regret that never came to pass; I really wanted to write a tie-in novel about Helena.)

 

[Mudd]

Re: Gary Seven - Why try create new series when current one is struggl

It was "Isis."

 

[Christopher]

Re: Gary Seven - Why try create new series when current one is struggl

Definitely not, because I asked myself the same question and figured this would come up. I won't mind going back to watch Assignment: Earth again to find it, but my memory, such as it is, is certain it heard Gary Seven say "M'Isis." Online scripts say "Isis," but I don't immediately believe the internet.

It's not just the Internet. Absolutely every print source about the character ever has called her Isis, from The Star Trek Concordance and Compendium through the Gary Seven novels by Greg and comics by Howard Weinstein and John Byrne.

You're probably thinking of Seven's first line to the cat, "Yes, I heard him, Isis." Maybe you thought he was saying "Yes, I heard, M'Isis." But he wasn't.

As I said, in Roddenberry's original Assignment: Earth series proposal, the villains were shapeshifting future aliens named Harth and Isis. Both characters initially appear as large black cats who wander into Seven's office window, and then they change briefly into their human forms, with Harth looking like Count Dracula and Isis being "incredibly beautiful in an ageless sort of way." At no point in the script is Isis's name spelled with an M.

And of course it makes sense to name a female, catlike character after the Egyptian deity Isis, since the Egyptians worshipped cats (although Bast/Bastet, the cat-headed Egyptian deity, would be more appropriate).

We should probably draw a distinction between a "spin-off," which is intended as an extension of the original show, like ANGEL or DS9, and a "backdoor pilot," which is as a shameless attempt to use a current show to boost a more or less independent other project. "Assignment: Earth" is pretty much a textbook case of the latter. It was never intended to be a new "STAR TREK" show. Chances are, if the show had gone to series, Vulcans and the Federation and such would've played no part in it.

As evidenced by the fact that Roddenberry dropped the time-travel aspect from the original pitch and made Gary a native of the 20th century (although both you and Howie Weinstein reintroduced the time-travel aspect in your respective tie-in fiction, a precedent I've followed in my DTI books). Had it gone to series, it would've been safely insulated from the Trek universe by three centuries' separation.

 

[Nebusj]

Re: Gary Seven - Why try create new series when current one is struggl

As evidenced by the fact that Roddenberry dropped the time-travel aspect from the original pitch and made Gary a native of the 20th century (although both you and Howie Weinstein reintroduced the time-travel aspect in your respective tie-in fiction, a precedent I've followed in my DTI books). Had it gone to series, it would've been safely insulated from the Trek universe by three centuries' separation.

Though I do think that an Assignment: Earth series --- even if it were short-lived, as it probably would have been (most shows are) --- would have done some good for the Star Trek franchise. It would've been an early and pretty insistent reminder that Trek can vary its format and setting more. That could've made for more episodes, and fans more accepting of, getting away from the wandering-starship/planet-with-a-problem/outsider-grokking-humanity setting, basic plot, and cast.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Re: Gary Seven - Why try create new series when current one is struggl

I would have watched it if the same stars, Robert Lansing and Teri Garr, were in the series. If they were changed out, it would have affected my interest. I would also be more interested in exploring Seven's civilization as a story than Earth assignments as a primary focus. If the stories were mostly Earthbound to save on production costs and ease of story-telling, that too would have affected my interest. I also wanted to know more of the mystery about Isis (Memory Alpha lists the character as Isis but I thought her name was M'Isis), but perhaps with about the same weight as that in the episode - one scene per show in humanoid form.

You may be conflating Isis with M'Ress, who was the cat-woman on the Animated Series.

Personally, this was always one of my favorite Trek episodes growing up, and it always felt very STAR TREK-ish to me. You had time-travel, a transporter device, a weapon that harmlessly stuns people, a chirpy female computer, a mission to help humanity advance into the future, and a cool, reserved protagonist in the vein of Mister Spock.

(Albeit with a heavy dose of Sixties Spy-Fi, like THE AVENGERS and THE MAN FROM UNCLE and OUR MAN FLINT, thrown in.)

As I've often argued "Assignment: Earth" is to THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL as "Star Trek" is to FORBIDDEN PLANET. Basically sixties TV shows inspired in part by the classic SF movies of the previous decade, which gave them a similar feel.

I always felt cheated that we never got to see the further adventures of Seven, Roberta (and Isis), which is probably why I wasted no time bringing them back in the novels, once I got my foot in the door . ..

(In fact, "The Return of Gary Seven" was the very first idea I pitched to Pocket Books years ago, although I ended up writing a few other books first, just because DS9 and VOYAGER books were needed more urgently back then.)

Post of the thread.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Gary Seven - Why try create new series when current one is struggl

Though I do think that an Assignment: Earth series --- even if it were short-lived, as it probably would have been (most shows are) --- would have done some good for the Star Trek franchise. It would've been an early and pretty insistent reminder that Trek can vary its format and setting more. That could've made for more episodes, and fans more accepting of, getting away from the wandering-starship/planet-with-a-problem/outsider-grokking-humanity setting, basic plot, and cast.

I don't think so, because A:E wouldn't have been branded as a Trek series. Sometimes spinoffs are deliberately very different from their flagship shows and no one would expect them to inform each other -- for instance, Torchwood's gritty adult storytelling didn't have much influence on Doctor Who. And I doubt that the existence of Gomer Pyle, USMC led to The Andy Griffith Show taking on more of a military focus.

No, if there had been a Star Trek and an Assignment: Earth that were nominally in the same universe, I think that would've been seen as a technicality and the shows would've been treated as distinct entities -- in the same way that Happy Days and Mork and Mindy were technically in the same reality but mostly kept separate. It wasn't so much an attempt to create a franchise as an attempt to create an independent SF show whose nominal ties to ST were merely a launching pad to get it on the air. I think it would've been Roddenberry's preference to give each show its own distinct approach, to do ST-type stories on ST and A:E-type stories on A:E. If they'd been too similar, it might've been seen as redundant.

 

[T'Girl]

Re: Gary Seven - Why try create new series when current one is struggl

There is a scene (iirc) where Isis "says" something, Gary Seven goes Hmm? and then says Isis followed by more dialog.

Perhaps this is what JWPlatt recalls.

 

[Greg Cox]

Re: Gary Seven - Why try create new series when current one is struggl

I can't remember. Did they do a backdoor pilot on the flagship show before launching BAYWATCH NIGHTS?

 

[mos6507]

Re: Gary Seven - Why try create new series when current one is struggl

But why do a spin off of Star Trek that has nothing to do with Star Trek?

Mork and Mindy had about as much to do with Happy Days as Assignment: Earth did with Trek and it turned out OK. All you need is a bridging device. You don't need it to originate from recurring characters.