How Many Years…

[Spock's Barber]

GR was quoted in the Solow/Justman book as saying (paraphrased) “This 3rd year is going to be the best ever and Star Trek will go on forever.” That’s before GR and TOS parted ways.

Well, it didn’t quite come to fruition, but if TOS did survive Freiberger, the time slot, etc. how many years do you think it would have survived in the wild world of network television?

Considering that thousands of shows don’t even make the airwaves or they get cancelled very quickly, I’m guessing that TOS would have barely made their 5 year mission before the Enterprise was decommissioned.

 

[somebuddyX]

I like thinking of about 5 seasons and it being ended rather than cancelled. One of the things I think about with it is what happens to Trek when TOS stays on the air longer. Does more Trek then satiate the desire for more Trek later, and some kind of proper ending cause hesitation in reviving the show in another format?

 

[Spock's Barber]

I like thinking of about 5 seasons and it being ended rather than cancelled.

Yes, Shatner’s famous opening narration emphatically states “Its’ 5 year mission” so I’m guessing that GR would have moved on to other projects even if TOS would have survived that long. He did abandon the series in S3 for various reasons and turned his attention to other scripts and pilots.

 

[FredH]

I don’t know, it’s hard to see a way to respond, if the question is “How long would the series have lasted if it hadn’t been cancelled?” Until it *was* cancelled, I guess. Which it was.

 

[Spock's Barber]

I don’t know, it’s hard to see a way to respond, if the question is “How long would the series have lasted if it hadn’t been cancelled?” Until it *was* cancelled, I guess. Which it was.

I guess I meant if everything worked out ideally as originally instituted in S1 : GR as writer/story editor/producer, Justman as Supervising Producer, etc. Plus having NBC realize, as they admitted many years after TOS was cancelled, that the Nielsen Ratings demographics were wrong. TOS shouldn’t have been cancelled in S3.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

I picked 30 US shows from the era I'd heard of and found they averaged around 4 seasons, though Bonanza ultimately lasted 14. Westerns did much better than science fiction back then, with the actual Wagon Train lasting 8 seasons and Gunsmoke setting the record with 20. In fact I think Star Trek was probably the longest running US space opera series of its day, at least if you're counting the days between the first and last episodes. Its UK equivalent, Doctor Who, did a little bit better, running 26 seasons before taking a break. That's long enough to overlap Star Trek: The Next Generation by two years.

But maybe the best series to compare TOS to is its sister show, Mission: Impossible, which began the same month and continued for 7 seasons during its original run. It had better ratings when it was cancelled than TOS had at its peak (if I'm reading Wikipedia right), and was ended because Paramount felt they could make more money by putting it into syndication.

So how long would TOS have run in ideal circumstances? Between 4-7 seasons it seems.

 

[Spock's Barber]

So how long would TOS have run in ideal circumstances? Between 4-7 seasons it seems.

That sounds logical. Very few series seem to last as long as Gunsmoke. I’m sure that Hawaii 5-0 lasted for at least 12 years, but by that time the actors complained, “Didn’t we do this same story in season 4???”

 

[Richard S. Ta]

equivalent, Doctor Who, did a little bit better, running 26 seasons before taking a break.

Running for 23 years longer is a ‘little bit better’?

The Hardgrits are harsh!

 

[somebuddyX]

Trek having the Mission Impossible or Doctor Who type lifespans have been fun thought experiments for me. I really dug the Doctor Who one for the idea of TOS just never stopping and casting new characters, and everyone wearing TOS uniforms and being on the TOS bridge into the 80s.

 

[publiusr]

Match Game didn’t last as long as Gunsmoke—though I think Meet the Press has the record

 

[Spock's Barber]

It’s funny…GR pitched Star Trek to the networks as “Wagon Train To The Stars”. Wagon Train lasted for 8 years while TOS was pulled in 3.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Before Star Trek became a juggernaut franchise, the deck was usually stacked against science fiction shows having a long run. The networks seemed to think they must earn spectacular ratings, or they should be cancelled so something cheaper can come on.

One Year:
Men into Space
My Living Doll
It's About Time
Mr. Terrific
Captain Nice
My Mother the Car
The Green Hornet
UFO
The Starlost
Search (aka Probe)
Man from Atlantis
The Fantastic Journey
Quark
Logan's Run
Planet of the Apes
Gemini Man
Kolchak: The Night Stalker
The Invisible Man (David McCallum)
Project UFO
Beyond Westworld
The Powers of Matthew Star
Manimal
V
Street Hawk
Starman
Firefly
WandaVision

Two Years:
The Time Tunnel
Land of the Giants
Space: 1999
Salvage 1
Battlestar Galactica / Galactica 1980
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
The Invisible Man (Vincent Ventresca)

Three Years:
Batman
Lost in Space
Star Trek
Wonder Woman
The Bionic Woman
SeaQuest DSV

Four Years:
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
Mork & Mindy
Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman

Five Years:
The Twilight Zone
The Incredible Hulk
The Six Million Dollar Man

Six Years:
Adventures of Superman

So we did have a few long-running shows, but they're thin on the ground compared to the One and Done crowd.

[I'm not accounting for Doctor Who because they keep making it into a new series altogether, adding it all up seems like cheating, and anyway I probably couldn't begin to unravel its history.]

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

Quite a few of the above shows (with lots of the Fridays) perished in their terrible time slots long before their single year (generally 22 episodes) was up. They died on the same night as TOS.

 

[Ssosmcin]

The 70's were very kind to 50's and 60's reruns and many shows went on to great popularity, both of long and short lifespans. However, I don't know if a 5 - 7 year run for the original series would have created the hunger that spawned a franchise. I really doubt we would have had 6 theatrical films - maybe a TV movie or two during the reunion craze, but then that would have been it until Paramount resurrected the IP with recast films and follow ups, much like Mission: Impossible. It would probably be a much different landscape for Star Trek.

 

[Spock's Barber]

I’ve read that generally speaking, a series needs to run for at least 3 years for it to be possible for syndication. Yet, some of those shows that barely lasted 2 years are on quite frequently, uh, sometimes very early in the morning.

 

[Spock's Barber]

Others more wise than yours truly have posted comments in other threads concerning quantity versus quality. During its’ 3 year run TOS had a decent amount of top class episodes, some average episodes and a few klunkers. Maybe the addition of 2 more years of episodes would have adversely affected this ratio of good: average: mediocre in ways that fans would abhor.

 

[Ssosmcin]

I’ve read that generally speaking, a series needs to run for at least 3 years for it to be possible for syndication. Yet, some of those shows that barely lasted 2 years are on quite frequently, uh, sometimes very early in the morning.

A few commonly held beliefs never quite lined up, like "100 episodes" repeatedly being the minimum for syndication. Meanwhile, my entire childhood was populated by:

The Honeymooners (39)
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (50)
Lost in Space (83)
The Munsters (70)
The Addams Family (64)
F-Troop (65)
Please Don't Eat the Daisies (58)
Nanny and the Professor (54)
I Spy (82)

And a lot of these shows were stripped for daily viewing. Hell, Gilligan's Island, which was close enough 100 episodes to not make my list (98) was rerun so much, when I was old enough to learn how long it ran, I though "ONLY 3 seasons?!" We didn't care how many times we saw an episode. It wasn't about "knowing how it ends" it was about spending time with characters we loved. I feel like network execs didn't factor that in until much later.

 

[Spock's Barber]

Quite a few of the above shows (with lots of the Fridays) perished in their terrible time slots long before their single year (generally 22 episodes) was up. They died on the same night as TOS.

As a young kid, I was usually fast asleep before TOS’ Friday night 10:00 PM time slot. As a teenager, I didn’t get home until after 1:00AM. So either way I missed the episodes, except in Summer reruns

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

A few commonly held beliefs never quite lined up, like "100 episodes" repeatedly being the minimum for syndication. Meanwhile, my entire childhood was populated by:

The Honeymooners (39)
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (50)
Lost in Space (83)
The Munsters (70)
The Addams Family (64)
F-Troop (65)
Please Don't Eat the Daisies (58)
Nanny and the Professor (54)
I Spy (82)

And a lot of these shows were stripped for daily viewing. Hell, Gilligan's Island, which was close enough 100 episodes to not make my list (98) was rerun so much, when I was old enough to learn how long it ran, I though "ONLY 3 seasons?!" We didn't care how many times we saw an episode. It wasn't about "knowing how it ends" it was about spending time with characters we loved. I feel like network execs didn't factor that in until much later.

Three years was generally enough in the '60s.. 70 to perhaps 90 episodes for most. THE HONEYMOONERS was a very special case they would have been insane NOT to syndicate, 39 or no.

 

[Spock's Barber]