Only the big Three?

[The Grim Ghost]

TOS and the TOS movies heavily focused on Kirk and Spock, with McCoy getting the spotlight to a lesser extent.

The other day I was discussing this with a friend and we started to wonder if the show would have been hurt at all if all of the secondary characters were just replaced with rotating red shirts.

Okay, I think Scotty was a pretty important part of the show.

But what about Sulu, Chekov, Uhura, Rand, Chapel, etc?

Would the show have been any worse if they were replaced by random people episode to episode? Or were they actually an important part of the show?

I'm kind of torn. I like all of the secondary characters and I feel like I would miss them. But at the same time they had little to no character development.

Just wondered what others thought about this.

 

[Dayton Ward]

Well, it's worth remembering that during the production of the original series, Doohan, Nichols, Takei and Koenig were all "day players." They weren't in every show. Shatner was "the star," Nimoy was the co-star, and De Kelley received co-star billing starting with the second season. Everybody else? There *are* several examples where other crew members are in the positions normally occupied by Sulu, Chekov, and Uhura. Only Scotty got spared having another engineer take his place at one point or another, though there are eps where he does not appear.

It was only after the show was off the air and into reruns, and the actors started showing up at conventions and whatnot, that the fans' love for the "entire" cast became apparent. It was a perception strengthened by the movies, when all seven cast members were in the opening credits on what appears to be "equal" billing. Heck, even that didn't start until STII. Watch the credits to TMP, and Doohan, Takei, Nichols and Koening all appear on one title card, along with Grace Lee Whitney and Majel Barrett.

Sure, they were replaced during the series, but does that make them "replaceable?" I don't think so. All seven characters bring something to the table, even if some of them got short-sheeted in the development department.

 

[sbk1234]

Actually, Rand WAS replaced by a "yeoman of the week." I don't think it really hurt the popularity of the show.
For that matter, Chekov didn't join the show until season 2.

 

[Alientraveller]

Scotty, Sulu, Uhura and Chekov helped bring that multicultural feel to the Enterprise, and famously Nimoy refused to do the cartoon if Takei or Nichols weren't involved.

 

[plynch]

Sulu, Uhura: cardboard and replaceable.

Chekov: the ingenue, which they did play up in some ep.s, so he at least had a character.

Chapel was a "person" for a couple of eps, due to the whole Spockian thing, but for the most part cardboard.

Woulda been cooler to see other nurses, helmsmen, comm ofcrs., etc. Like in first half of season one. Would have required more casting time maybe? Why not hire three helmsmen and rotate 'em? Oh well. I like Star Trek fine, but this was a good question, original poster.

 

[bbailey861]

This is a good question.

At this juncture, I would have to say that because these characters are so ingrained into me, not only because of the episodes and movies, but because of the books as well, that they couldn't be replaced. When I think of the helmsman, I think of Sulu. Ditto for the Sig O (Cdn for Comms O), and Chief Engineer. I know and see other people doing these functions at various times, but I can easily cast that aside with the fact that there are different shifts, sick leave, annual leave, or any other number of reasons that someone else could be in their chair.

I may have thought differently 40 years ago, though.

 

[paustin]

I think its great to have the consistancy of them being there. It would not have ruined the show to not have had them. Its a shame the 'day players' would later become so petty about their rolls. I mean lets be real - in every production there are star players and supporting players.

 

[Jonas Grumby]

Well, seeing familiar faces in the crew - be it Sulu or Leslie or even that guy who looked like Walter Matthau - always enhances the sense that it's a "real" crew, but I don't think any of the minor players were in any way indispensable to the show.

I do think Scotty was a step up from the other minor characters. He brought a lot to the scenes he was in, and the idea of one clearly drawn and vividly recognizable guy running the engine room was important, I think.

But as far as who says "aye, sir, warp three" or "hailing frequencies open" or even "course plotted, sir," who really cares?

 

[Neutral Zone]

The 'lesser' characters as we call them, Sulu & Co, have become over the years just as popular and recognised as the big three. I have never thought of them as lesser, they were there doing their jobs and on occassion they got a bigger role for example (can't think of the episodes title off hand) Sulu was stranded freezing to death on a planet while Kirk had been split into two seperate Kirk's.

I thnk that the movies though did bring the lesser stars more to the front and had more of an involvement in the stories.

 

[Kirk1980]

Well, as I think Justman and Solow talked about in 'Inside Star Trek'...they felt the minor characters being consistent made Trek a 'family' to the viewer. May not have had a lot of lines but...they were a presence, a familiar one that helped make people comfortable.

This was done intentionally.

And it's not like they could all get equal billing...hell, they had to fight Desilu/NBC/someone in the higher-ups to get Kelley his 'third' billing.

 

[Anji]

Well, for me, I can say that Uhura was irreplaceable. She proved that girls could go into space. She made me want to grow up to be an astronaut.

 

[Red Ranger]

If the roles of Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov were just interchangeable guest stars, that would've had an interesting impact on the TOS movies, and even the follow-up series.

In the movies, would the roles of helm, navigation, and communications been assigned to guest stars for each movie? Would've made hijacking the Enterprise in TSFS more difficult if it were just Kirk & Scotty, with McCoy along for the ride, eh? Still, Saavik probably would've been along for the ride due to her loyalty to Spock, instead of investigating the Genesis Planet.

I prefer the way it wound up, but I do recall fondly how in the first season, they cast several actors for additional, different characters (Bailey, Riley, LaSalle, Giotto, Barrows, Noel, etc.) to show there was indeed a crew on the ship.

Red Ranger

 

[Myasishchev]

^That was actually something I liked about TOS in comparison to TNG. On TNG, it very often appeared that despite having over one thousand people aboard, the E-D might as well have been crewed by seven.

Despite that, I think everyone can agree that in retrospect TOS' "minor" characters made a substantial contribution to the show. I would go so far as to say they made a critical contribution. Scotty particularly I would consider nearly on par with the Big(ger) Three.

I also like to think (somewhat unrealistically) that if in some magical world where TOS got seven seasons like the modern Treks, they'd have carved out larger, more important roles than even what we have.

 

[Botany Bay]

Been watching a lot of early Season 2 lately, and I think they were trying to create a 'big four'.

Kirk, Spock, Bones...and Chekov.

It's almost like Coon was trying to make Koenig into a star, or reach out to a younger audience or something.

Anyone agree?

 

[Orcus]

Been watching a lot of early Season 2 lately, and I think they were trying to create a 'big four'.

Kirk, Spock, Bones...and Chekov.

It's almost like Coon was trying to make Koenig into a star, or reach out to a younger audience or something.

Anyone agree?

The "Fab Four", certainly. Although, for my money, the fourth of the Fabs was always Scotty. Even in Season One he was a force to be reckoned with...

 

[Jonas Grumby]

Been watching a lot of early Season 2 lately, and I think they were trying to create a 'big four'.

Kirk, Spock, Bones...and Chekov.

It's almost like Coon was trying to make Koenig into a star, or reach out to a younger audience or something.

Anyone agree?

I do. Once Koenig came aboard, the lion's share of all those little "bits" that earlier on had gone to Sulu or Uhura went to Chekov instead. I suspect TPTB thought Chekov was (at least potentially) a more popular character with the audience they were trying to attract.

Or...maybe they just liked Koenig better than Takei or Nichols.

 

[sbk1234]

Much of Sulu's lines went to Chekov when Takai was gone to film a movie, I think.

 

[bbailey861]

^ Takei left for a spell to film The Green Berets.

 

[Pepelequoi]

I think that TOS really started off as the Kirk and Spock show, but then some of the more minor characters made such a good impression in their recurring roles that they got more attention and thus more screentime. I'm pretty certain that's how Kelley received co-star billing in season 2 - because Bones had become the more human side to the a-typical heroic Kirk/completely logical Spock duo. If it was intended to be about the big trio then surely he would have had the co-star billing from the start?

I also believe that it was in one of the featurettes that TOS was actually referred to as an ensemble show (which was quite a rare thing in the 60's), even though it certainly wasn't originally intended to be so. Perhaps it wasn't until the movies that TPTB realised this themselves, but it could be argued characters like Scotty, Uhura, Chekov and Sulu were equally as popular as the "Big Three". It's not an uncommon occurrence either!

 

[Joel_Kirk]

^^

Just to add to that cool post: We talking about the 1960s, during the civil rights era, so Nichelle Nichols (being a woman, and being a black-American) was getting attention because she wasn't portraying a maid, servant, etc....

...and she was, of course, getting attention because she looked good in a duty skirt and go-go boots. (The red looked nice, but I also liked her in the yellow).

There is one scene however, when Uhura says to the effect, 'Captain, I'm scared'...which disappointed many; our tough communications officer isn't supposed to say something like that.

Takei wasn't portraying a stereotypical Asian male; Chekov was a Russian on a space flight with other nationalities (and this was during the cold war era)....but why did they give him that hair?

Along with Landru and Tyree, Chekov should have made a stop at the Federation beauty salon before he stepped onto the NCC-1701....