MeTV has replaced its M-F 4pm (Eastern) showing of TOS with a second hour of Emergency!. TOS will still be on Saturday nights at 9pm. I didn't realize Emergency! was that popular.
No More Weekday Showings of TOS on MeTV
- Thread starter Joanna McCoy-Kirk
- Start date
They do show Night Gallery (in the middle of the night).
MeTV has replaced its M-F 4pm (Eastern) showing of TOS with a second hour of Emergency!. TOS will still be on Saturday nights at 9pm. I didn't realize Emergency! was that popular.
Probably TOS was simply too expensive to run in strip syndication. They're likely getting more bang for their buck with Emergency!
I got my start as a kid watching an episode every weekday afternoon, on a b&w TV set. That was in the early 70s.
Me TV often moves its shows around..Summer is the most disrupted time for them due to the "Summer of Me " when series constantly shift around..keeping oneguessing as to what shows are on on which day...
Saturday nights with them are certainly better than no showings at all..
Like when TV Land had them and ran TOS at odd hours from it's core audience. When the ratings bonanza didn't hit (due to those odd hours), while TV Land still held the rights, they stopped showing it altogether for about 6 months until the rights were transferred..( I think to G4TV at the time..Star Trek 2.0 made for some special commercials)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ytzxbf-4u7Y
Saturday nights with them are certainly better than no showings at all..
Like when TV Land had them and ran TOS at odd hours from it's core audience. When the ratings bonanza didn't hit (due to those odd hours), while TV Land still held the rights, they stopped showing it altogether for about 6 months until the rights were transferred..( I think to G4TV at the time..Star Trek 2.0 made for some special commercials)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ytzxbf-4u7Y
Hour-long Night Gallery would be just fine with me, and it would be great if the >40-year-old half-hour syndication package could be jettisoned. That package is what MeTV broadcasts, and it features not only the indignity of Rod Serling having to give Night Gallery-style introductions to episodes of The Sixth Sense (a separate Universal series starring Gary Collins) but also terrible cuts to fit one or more segments, originally of varying length, into a half hour. (Sometimes expansions, too, such as footage from Silent Running used to pad out one segment.) What they did to the superb "They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar" (originally 40 minutes) is criminal.
The only episodes not affected by the syndication cuts were those from the final 1972-73 season, when the network time slot was cut from 60 to 30 minutes.
Another one that I wish was played was the original "Outer Limits." I am unsure of how syndication cuts affect it but it would be a good replacement. I wasn't a fan of the remake series. I'm guessing being in b/w and what most would consider corny monsters (which is a great appeal to me) wouldn't gain much a new audience.
You know, I tried watching Night Gallery on MeTv and some of the episodes seemed very choppy. I suspected that they had been badly edited, but wasn't sure . . ..
Welcome to modern broadcast TV. It's the same with Star Trek (as many probably already know. ) Unedited Star Trek episodes have a 50 minute run time as there were only 5 minutes of commercial time allowed per 30 minutes on TV in the 1960ies; but today, an 'hourlong' program runs between 38 and 42 minutes (yes, that's 18 - 22 minutes of 'commercial time' per hour now.) Thus, any program episode from those days will be edited to fit. that's why I honestly can't watch Star Trek on ME TV as 8 minutes removed will do negative things to trhe storytelling. yes, some TOS episodes did have stuff that could be cut, and not really be affected; but one Saturday, I had 'Amok Time' running on ME TV and they cut the majority of Spock's dialogue with T'Pau so badly that it changed teh focus of the scene.
If that' how many of the people who started with TNG (or later) are introduced to TOS; I can see why many of them are saying that they really don't see what us older fans who either saw the series first run, or in the early 1970ies where they maybe clipped 2 minutes overall for extra commercial time (which has obviously expanded as time has gone on) saw in the writing of the original show.
I have to say I did enjoy when G4 had the series as they WERE running full uncut episodes and were just expanding the overall run time - IE one Star Trek episode took one hour and twenty minutes in their schedule and they'd often show a block of 3 on Saturdays over a 4 hour period.
I'm sure Night Gallery, Lost In Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, etc. aren't fairing any better.
My first recollection of syndication cuts was a Twilight Zone episode years ago. It was the episode called "Masks.". I had no idea shows were cut up for syndication to make more room for advertising and thus more revenue for the station. Then I began noticing also like MASH and ultimately TOS.
The more "Emergency!" the better!
What a great show! DeSoto/Gage/Dr. Brackett/Dixie/Dr. Early/Ramapart/Squad 51!
What a great show! DeSoto/Gage/Dr. Brackett/Dixie/Dr. Early/Ramapart/Squad 51!
Okay, wiseguy, that kind of talk will get you stunned.
Haha! "Emergency" is one of my all-time favorites and one of the most influential shows of all-time-- many people became paramedics or firemen because of that series.
The Squad and the LaFrance pumper are on display in the Los Angeles Firefighters Museum and look fantastic, and the Station 51 still looks the same & is still in use in Carson City!
Everything in "Emergency" is outdated in 2015, but it's a great document of when the Paramedic Program was new to the world- and very entertaining to watch.
"TOS"& "Emergency"- the 2 greatest shows to grow up with!
I used to watch Emergency.
Starborn Dragon
Captain
That's why I prefer to have things on DVD.
Absolutely.
I have been working on an animation test today and all along I've had a random mix of Star Trek and Space:1999 episodes playing off my hard drive. It's great to have "my own" television channel.
Of course he does. When asked if he would approve of a transfer of the original series to blu-ray, Kor replied (and I quote) "It would have been glorious!"
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