I was just wondering, what was Irwin Allen's impression of Star Trek TOS? Did he like it? Did he hate it? Was he indifferent to it and think his show was superior? Same thing for Gene and Lost in Space.
Irwin Allen's (LIS) Thoughts On Star Trek?
- Thread starter Ensign Ricky
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There is a famous anecdote about GR pitching TOS to the executives at CBS. They asked him questions, picked his brain for ideas and then said "Thanks for your time. We already have a Sci-Fi show called Lost In Space. Goodbye now."
He was not happy. Once production started on TOS, I imagine GR was way too busy to worry about LIS. I'm assuming Irwin Allen was also very occupied with his own shows.
He was not happy. Once production started on TOS, I imagine GR was way too busy to worry about LIS. I'm assuming Irwin Allen was also very occupied with his own shows.
From memory, one side were at pains to insist that they were doing "different things" and weren't direct competitors.
Producers rarely have time to watch other shows. Roddenberry was sat down and shown recent SF movies during the creation of TNG (with Aliens inspiring Macha Hernandez/Tasha Yar). Something similar happened with Gerry Anderson during shooting of Space Precinct, at which point he understood (too late) why some of the team were worried that the show seemed too old-fashioned and juvenile.
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If I was producing a science fiction show, I doubt I'd be too inclined to check out other science fiction TV shows for either business or pleasure. If they did something really stupid, you'd just say, "Oh God, why did they do that?" If they did something really cool, you'd say, "Damn, why didn't we do that?" So there's no real upside.
Even less so if you have to worry about inadvertent plagiarism. It's remarkably easy for an idea to get lodged in your brain without remembering the source of it. You could watch a show, forget about it, and then a year later a cool story pops into your head fully-formed -- one that you've forgotten you watched a season before.
Even less so if you have to worry about inadvertent plagiarism. It's remarkably easy for an idea to get lodged in your brain without remembering the source of it. You could watch a show, forget about it, and then a year later a cool story pops into your head fully-formed -- one that you've forgotten you watched a season before.
I can't imagine Irwin Allen gave other shows much thought other than in terms of what trends were impacting ratings. It's not as if he looked at Star Trek and said, "that's exactly what I don't want to do! More monsters on the Seaview! Now!" He had three shows on the air simultaneously. Form what I understand, he was a workaholic. No TV for Irwin.
Irwin Allen and Gene Roddenberry basically wrote the book on my childhood.
Roddenberry wanted to use sci-fi to proselytize and convert young people to his beliefs, while Allen was probably the better businessman. But they both drew us in with escapist adventure and hardware porn.
If they saw each other's shows, they would watch with a producer's eye. How many sets and how fancy are they? How much comedy vs. tragedy? How does the show skew, adult vs. juvenile? I doubt that they'd get swept up in an episode the way we do.
However, I do know that Joss Whedon was a huge fan of the Battlestar Galactica remake series. So it can happen.
Roddenberry wanted to use sci-fi to proselytize and convert young people to his beliefs, while Allen was probably the better businessman. But they both drew us in with escapist adventure and hardware porn.
If they saw each other's shows, they would watch with a producer's eye. How many sets and how fancy are they? How much comedy vs. tragedy? How does the show skew, adult vs. juvenile? I doubt that they'd get swept up in an episode the way we do.
However, I do know that Joss Whedon was a huge fan of the Battlestar Galactica remake series. So it can happen.
Even though I watched both LIS and TOS, it still was obvious to me at the time that TOS was superior in writing, acting, direction and production values. Any time I need a good laugh, I plug in the LIS episode "The Great Vegetable Rebellion" with Stanley Adams dressed as a fat carrot.
Can't believe anyone could prefer the new BSG over the old to be honest? 
JB
JB
Until LIS went campy at really the start of the color episodes, it was much grittier and more mature. For me I enjoyed those episodes.
I imagine with Irwin Allen producing the number of shows he was (not sure if he was also doing movies then as well) but it would seem to me regardless of TOS's popularity, he wouldn't have given it much thought. I suspect he was both too busy and generating a more than decent income flow. His shows were popular and enough demand to pump them out. You can't fault his creativity and business sense.
I imagine with Irwin Allen producing the number of shows he was (not sure if he was also doing movies then as well) but it would seem to me regardless of TOS's popularity, he wouldn't have given it much thought. I suspect he was both too busy and generating a more than decent income flow. His shows were popular and enough demand to pump them out. You can't fault his creativity and business sense.
It was never gritty or mature. It was played more straight in the first season, but it was always a family show, meant to be enjoyed by children and their parents, and the Robinsons were as clean-cut and wholesome as the Cleavers. "Gritty" is a word that gets tossed around a lot and used to mean a lot of different things, but it basically means something like realistic, unsentimental, hard-edged, acknowledging the rough and uncomfortable aspects of life or the ugly, imperfect details. I don't think that describes LiS much at all. It was a very sentimental show, and though the first season did try to tell stories about the challenges of survival in space, it did so in a fairly lightweight manner, with everyone ending up okay at the end and nothing really horrible happening.
I doubt he would've seen ST as very threatening. He was a successful TV mogul with multiple shows on the air; when you thought sci-fi television, you thought Irwin Allen. This Roddenberry guy was an upstart trying to horn in on his turf, and his show constantly struggled in the ratings -- although it did get the sort of critical acclaim Allen's shows didn't. I'm not sure that would've mattered to Allen much, though. If he'd cared about quality, his shows wouldn't have been so shlocky.
Lost in Space was doomed from the start. CBS wanted a light family show. The first, more serious and grim episodes never had a network rerun. The kids weren't permitted to be shown in danger and Smith was lightened up from the second episode. You can see the show evolve by the episode. A real shift occurred about midway, once the weekly aliens showed up. Long before the show hit color, they were dealing with Space Hillbillies, and Gilligan's Island style visitors who would come and go and never offer to help. Long before color, Dr. Smith was in unexplainable outfits, screaming like a little girl and fainting. The show was "camp" almost from the start. Definitely got much lighter from the sixth episode on, when Warren Oates arrived as a good ol' boy astronaut in a dinky like spaceship. When it hit color, after a half season of being directly opposite the first part of the weekly two-part Batman, they went to all out comedy, sprinkled with moments of drama and adventure. By the time the second season was winding down, they were doing Children's Theater. But, really, only the first five episodes were really steadfastly serious.
Irwin Allen did what the networks wanted. Notice none of his other shows went in that extreme. They were on ABC, where fantasy adventure was presented with a straight face. Still flighty and, as Christopher says, "schlock," but not sitcomy as LIS had become. None of Irwin's shows remained the way he originally presented them. Voyage held out longest, lasting a year and a half before truly falling into the pattern of monsters and stock footage. Time Tunnel changed two-thirds of the way through it's single season and Land of the Giants wrestled with its dead end concept as seriously as possible until finally lapsing into weird fantasy in its second season.
Irwin Allen did what the networks wanted. Notice none of his other shows went in that extreme. They were on ABC, where fantasy adventure was presented with a straight face. Still flighty and, as Christopher says, "schlock," but not sitcomy as LIS had become. None of Irwin's shows remained the way he originally presented them. Voyage held out longest, lasting a year and a half before truly falling into the pattern of monsters and stock footage. Time Tunnel changed two-thirds of the way through it's single season and Land of the Giants wrestled with its dead end concept as seriously as possible until finally lapsing into weird fantasy in its second season.
That's a really good analysis of the Allen shows.
Sci-fi fans would never have thought so, but the comedy aspects of LIS, especially Dr. Smith and the Robot, are probably what gave it the strongest following in syndication and home video. The longer first-run of VTTBOTS somehow didn't translate into as much of an afterlife, if I'm not mistaken (I might just be unaware).
"The kids weren't permitted to be shown in danger" puts me in mind of Jurassic Park (the good one, 1993). When the T rex attacks the two children in their yellow jeep and overturns it, and the girl is screaming her lungs out, that was one of the best scenes in the movie. It was sensational.
Irwin Allen was a big name in the 60s and 70s..from SF films (The Lost World, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Swarm) SF TV shows (Voyage, LIS, TT LotG) Disaster films ( The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno) and TV miniseries/films
(Return of Captain Nemo/Amazing Captain Nemo, Flood!,Fire! etc.) to my eyes, his best was a TV pilot that became a movie of the week :City Beneath the Sea, the man was phenomenally busy, and frankly didn't care to look at the competition. Supposedly the success of the original Star Wars films baffled him , but heck, Mr. Allen's body of work will live on long after him, through reruns, reboots and re-imaginings such as the (meh..) 1998 LIS movie. Compared to Gene Roddenberry, Irwin was more successful and far far richer...the man knew what put butts in the seats and boobs in front of the tube in the 60s and 70s for sure..
(Return of Captain Nemo/Amazing Captain Nemo, Flood!,Fire! etc.) to my eyes, his best was a TV pilot that became a movie of the week :City Beneath the Sea, the man was phenomenally busy, and frankly didn't care to look at the competition. Supposedly the success of the original Star Wars films baffled him , but heck, Mr. Allen's body of work will live on long after him, through reruns, reboots and re-imaginings such as the (meh..) 1998 LIS movie. Compared to Gene Roddenberry, Irwin was more successful and far far richer...the man knew what put butts in the seats and boobs in front of the tube in the 60s and 70s for sure..
The pilot material was spread among episodes 1, 3, 4, and 5. The new shooting was to incorporate the new characters of Dr. Smith and the Robot into the story and to restructure the narrative to accommodate their inclusion, as well as reworking the ending to bring the Robinsons back to the spaceship so they could keep using the sets.
LIS was never "gritty" but I know just what was meant by that. There was a dry, serious tone at first, where you felt this was a real struggle for survival, not something lightened up for kids. At the same time, it was in a sense a children's show from day one, but a very good one, which didn't patronize or talk down to them. It showed that being for adults and being for children didn't have to be mutually exclusive.
Yeah, but "gritty" isn't the only word for "serious." I think it gets overused these days. It's just become a buzzword to say "gritty" this and "gritty" that, to the point that it loses its meaning.
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