Star Trek as ''Wagon Train''.

[GNDN18]

He saw science fiction as a way to focus on stories about issues he wanted to tell, that could be disguised enough to get past the network censors.

Following Rod Serling's lead there.

With shows like The Defenders, East Side/West Side, Slattery's People, and The Bold Ones all on the air at some point in the sixties, the threat of network censors against thoughtful, relevant stories, especially by Roddenberry, but also by Serling, has always struck me as a tad exaggerated.

Marc Scott Zicree's Twilight Zone Companion discussed Serling's troubles during the production of "Patterns" for Kraft Televison Theatre; there was more than a hint of latent antisemitism exhibited by the sponsors and the network. Serling, as you can well imagine, liked to write, so keep this mind if you click on The Rod Serling Foundation's presentation of his introduction to a collection of his teleplays.

I can't speak for the rest of your referenced shows, but East Side/West Side was such a frustrating experience for George C. Scott that he vowed never to return to commercial network television. Harlan Ellison, too, is famous for his criticism of television censorship (and not just that one episode), and it is not surprising that he preferred science fiction for the reasons alluded to by both Serling and GR.

As with most of what GR said, a fair amount of circumspection is required; and perhaps Serling, too, was overly sensitive. Still, Scott and Harlan Ellison were neither shrinking violets nor were they afraid of a fight, yet both found TV in the 1960s confining.

 

[Christopher]

Just because some shows managed to get controversial material on the air, that doesn't mean they didn't have to fight for it constantly; it just means they managed to win a fair number of the battles. Disguising stories as science fiction is a handy way to make an end run around the censors and avoid the fights in the first place.

Admittedly, though, I'm not familiar with any of the shows you mentioned, Harvey. I've heard of two or three of them by name, but I don't know what they were about or what issues they managed to address. The stories Serling had the most trouble getting on the air were ones that confronted racism in society or spoke out against war. And anything that questioned religion, as Roddenberry was wont to do, would've been really tough to get on the air.

Then there was that episode of Roddenberry's The Lieutenant guest-starring Nichelle Nichols, "To Set it Right," that the network refused to air because it addressed the taboo subject of racism.

 

[xortex]

It's true that wagon train indicates them going somewhere to find something like a mythical race/place/object or relocate. The exploring is secondary. TOS was really a rescue mission of the USS Valiant. Maybe Gary Mitchell isn't really dead. The search for him would be incredible as he would be God like.

'Crusade' was about a crew seeking a cure to an alien plague on Earth. It kept things focused. That's what I liked about Dr Who - they created things that didn't have explanations especially if they are big things like alien technology that built the universe or things like that.

 

[Tim Walker]

Gunsmoke was also a very guest-driven anthology-like show. It's probably better to look to that rather than Wagon Train. In a lot of Gunsmoke episodes it's shocking how little screentime James Arness has. He tends to come in like a force-of-nature to mop things up and pontificate at the tail-end.

Gunsmoke centered around Dodge City though, it wasn't always moving like a wagon train. And that show ran 20 years. Arness became famous for it, stayed through the entire run, and gradually tapered off his appearances during its final years. I think by the end he had enough clout to only come in for work three days a week.

Early TOS was an early example of a shared universe, with material contributed by different science fiction writers. It was almost an anthology series, except the characters included some regular cast members, as well as re-using the Enterprise as a setting.

The Enterprise was like a combination of Dodge City-a familiar setting-but on the move like a wagon train. (The starship setting was also economical in that it allowed re-use of some standing sets). Only the Tardis seems more versatile than the Enterprise. Indeed, on another thread it was commented that the Enterprise is a vehicle of the imagination.

All of which serves a purpose, to tell meaningful/important stories, despite the network censors.

 

[Trekkin]

Astronauts and cinematic science fiction being big probably helped with the 'what direction will we take?' decision making. The space race was on, Gagarin reached space in 1961 and the Americans would reach the moon the following year after TOS axing. 'Planet of the Apes' debuted during TOS final season and was the pre-Star Wars sci fi blockbuster franchise. Fantastic Voyage, The Time Machine, The Last Man on Earth, 20000 Leagues Under the Sea etc all came out in that decade, and they were coming off the creature-feature and fantasy/thriller-anthology heavy 50's.

It's even arguable that hiding and watering down the issues did show where the priorities really lay . Yeah, he had a multicultural cast that the studio encouraged. Yes they had an interracial kiss, that was actually non-consensual and there's no evidence to suggest the censors did have a problem with it in spite of studio concerns. Sure they tackled escalating violence during the Cold War, but the episodes still has the totally-not-Soviet Klingons being the instigators and being a lot more violent than the protagonists.

Serling on the other hand, in spite of the fantastical elements that weren't even always included, ran into issues with the censors because he was a lot more direct. He explicitly shows 60's humans as a bunch of racists, some on on the verge of Naziism, and all too ready to tear themselves apart in paranoia.

I'm not trying to turn this into a pissing contest between the two (I like both), and we do know that TZ also made a lot of compromises for purely commercial reasons. I'm also not saying that Roddenberry didn't want to do reasonably deep stories when he could. I just don't think the decision making was as simple as 'he did scifi because he knew it would allow him to do taboo-breaking stories.'

 

[CorporalClegg]

To be fair, though, Trek is just a great classic TV show, of which there are many. TZ, on the other hand, has a legitimate claim to being the greatest television series of all time. (I personally think it is.)

 

[Christopher]

Serling on the other hand, in spite of the fantastical elements that weren't even always included, ran into issues with the censors because he was a lot more direct. He explicitly shows 60's humans as a bunch of racists, some on on the verge of Naziism, and all too ready to tear themselves apart in paranoia.

But in the context of fantasy settings so that the network execs, censors, and advertisers wouldn't take them as seriously. These days, SF is mainstream, its allegorical impact well-understood, but back then it was seen by the general public as meaningless fluff because it was unconnected to reality. Rod Serling actually did a 1959 interview with Mike Wallace about the upcoming Twilight Zone, and he actually claimed with a straight face that he was giving up doing "serious" TV and just doing harmless, non-controversial sci-fi from then on. So that's not a latter-day interpretation, it was his deliberate cover story from the beginning.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Early TOS was an early example of a shared universe, with material contributed by different science fiction writers.

Not sure that's shared universe. While SF writers contributed, there where also contributions from "straight" TV writers. Most from outside of the production team. I think that was SOP for many shows of that era.

 

[Christopher]

Early TOS was an early example of a shared universe, with material contributed by different science fiction writers.

Not sure that's shared universe. While SF writers contributed, there where also contributions from "straight" TV writers. Most from outside of the production team. I think that was SOP for many shows of that era.

Yeah, that's not a shared universe, that's just normal TV writing. The term "shared universe" came about in prose to refer to a collaboration between multiple authors working in the same universe, like the Wild Cards series created by George R.R. Martin. It's a similar approach to TV writing, and may even have been influenced by it (GRRM worked in TV before moving to prose full-time), but it's not the same thing. Generally a shared universe is more of an equal collaboration among the participants, rather than having a single producer and story editor rewriting the scripts of freelancers to fit them into a singular vision.

 

[Harvey]

Just because some shows managed to get controversial material on the air, that doesn't mean they didn't have to fight for it constantly; it just means they managed to win a fair number of the battles. Disguising stories as science fiction is a handy way to make an end run around the censors and avoid the fights in the first place.

Admittedly, though, I'm not familiar with any of the shows you mentioned, Harvey. I've heard of two or three of them by name, but I don't know what they were about or what issues they managed to address. The stories Serling had the most trouble getting on the air were ones that confronted racism in society or spoke out against war. And anything that questioned religion, as Roddenberry was wont to do, would've been really tough to get on the air.

Then there was that episode of Roddenberry's The Lieutenant guest-starring Nichelle Nichols, "To Set it Right," that the network refused to air because it addressed the taboo subject of racism.

Do you have a decent source confirming that "To Set It Right" never aired? That detail is not mentioned in either Roddenberry biography from '94. All I can find are references online, none of them cited, and a somewhat contradictory account from Marc Cushman and Susan Osborn claiming that NBC didn't want to air the episode, but that the NAACP successfully intervened and changed the network's mind. As you can imagine, I give no credence to either source.

 

[Melakon]

cinematic science fiction being big

It wasn't really that big when the series began in 1966. The only real hit that year was Fantastic Voyage, though Fahrenheit 451 also got noticed. The next big year was 1968, with Barbarella, Planet of the Apes and a little film by Stanley Kubrick starring some guy named Gary Lockwood.

20000 Leagues Under the Sea etc all came out in that decade

20000 Leagues was 1954, but Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea was 1961. Leagues was re-released during the '60s though, as Disney did with many of their films.

 

[Trekkin]

Shit, you're right. I don't know why I thought it was a later one.

I did leave some out (like 'Voyage...' and 'Fahrenheit 451') because I was iffy about how successful they were, and '2001' because it was so different. Otherwise I would have included stuff like the 'Quatermass' movies (I don't know if they were ever released in the States), The Day The Earth Caught Fire, and 'X-The Man With the X-Ray Eyes'.

 

[Christopher]

Do you have a decent source confirming that "To Set It Right" never aired? That detail is not mentioned in either Roddenberry biography from '94. All I can find are references online, none of them cited, and a somewhat contradictory account from Marc Cushman and Susan Osborn claiming that NBC didn't want to air the episode, but that the NAACP successfully intervened and changed the network's mind. As you can imagine, I give no credence to either source.

I was just going by Wikipedia. But IMDb says it did air on Feb. 22, 1964. Neither is a particularly reliable source.

 

[Melakon]

Shit, you're right. I don't know why I thought it was a later one.

I was in high school from '65-'69, and had gotten into scifi in '59, so was trying to see as much as I could. Being a preacher's kid, there were some things dad wouldn't take me to see, like Barbarella, but by then I could drive. I do remember seeing Jason and the Argonauts, First Men in tne Moon, Disney's Moon Pilot, 20000 Leagues, Fantastic Voyage, Planet of the Apes, 2001, One Million Years BC, and a few others in cinema.

I would have included stuff like the 'Quatermass' movies I don't know if they were ever released in the States

Quatermass and the Pit played here as Five Million Years to Earth, and I saw that at a cinema too. Day the Earth Caught Fire was shown on television, but I don't know if it was booked in cinemas. I saw at least one of the earlier Quatermass films on TV. A lot of film distributors and exhibitors believed Americans were incapable of comprehending British accents.

 

[mos6507]

With shows like The Defenders, East Side/West Side, Slattery's People, and The Bold Ones all on the air at some point in the sixties, the threat of network censors against thoughtful, relevant stories, especially by Roddenberry, but also by Serling, has always struck me as a tad exaggerated.

How many people remember those shows? If not for IMDB and a few clips on Youtube, I'd never have known what The Defenders was. It's telling that "forgotten" shows with a serious bent tended to be straight contemporary dramas whereas those that went on to embed themselves in pop culture like Trek or TZ had an element of the fantastical. There were also serious westerns (like Gunsmoke) that used the allure of the period piece and the gunplay to be able to cover themes that were more socially relevant to the modern era.

 

[Melakon]

How many people remember those shows?

There are a few of us who were alive and cognizant then, but fortunately we're dying out.

 

[BigJake]

Selling network execs on "serious" stories in a sci-fi format was probably a tougher proposition than selling them on regular dramas, since many at the time thought of sci-fi as kid's stuff and were embarrassed at the prospect of "taking it seriously." (Heck, not just at the time. We regularly hear people today talk about how sci-fi shouldn't "take itself seriously.") Bringing elements of drama and other genres into a genre unaccustomed to it presumably was the real contribution of guys like Roddenberry and Serling.

 

[Harvey]

With shows like The Defenders, East Side/West Side, Slattery's People, and The Bold Ones all on the air at some point in the sixties, the threat of network censors against thoughtful, relevant stories, especially by Roddenberry, but also by Serling, has always struck me as a tad exaggerated.

How many people remember those shows? If not for IMDB and a few clips on Youtube, I'd never have known what The Defenders was. It's telling that "forgotten" shows with a serious bent tended to be straight contemporary dramas whereas those that went on to embed themselves in pop culture like Trek or TZ had an element of the fantastical. There were also serious westerns (like Gunsmoke) that used the allure of the period piece and the gunplay to be able to cover themes that were more socially relevant to the modern era.

I imagine the continued success of fantastic shows from the sixties owes a lot to those shows being widely and successfully syndicated to children and young adults. It's hard for people who aren't Matthew Weiner to be nostalgic for a show like The Defenders, a show for which simple availability is difficult, as it has never been on home video and is rarely syndicated even today.

As a more general aside, it's worth pointing out that "network censors" properly refers to broadcast standards and practices departments -- not advertisers or any other parts of the network television machine. Gene Roddenberry's "A Letter from a Network Censor" made for fantastic convention theater, but anyone who has actually read a few S&P memos will know that the real thing was much more dull and standardized in a way that offered little benefit to fantasy programs over their more grounded counterparts. Profanity and open mouth kisses tended to draw the same ire, whether they took place on planet Vulcan or planet Earth.

 

[Christopher]

Bringing elements of drama and other genres into a genre unaccustomed to it presumably was the real contribution of guys like Roddenberry and Serling.

The genre as a whole wasn't unaccustomed to it, just that very small subset of it that was on television. What Serling and Roddenberry did was to bring the sensibilities of prose science fiction and fantasy to mass audiences -- largely by employing actual prose-SF authors like Charles Beaumont, Richard Matheson, George Clayton Johnson, Robert Bloch, Theodore Sturgeon, Jerry Sohl, Harlan Ellison, and so on. Which is something that's much harder to do today, with shows being so much more showrunner- and staff-driven rather than freelancer-driven. Although there are a few prose authors who've managed to establish themselves as television producers, like George R.R. Martin (who had an earlier career in TV before he left it to work in prose full-time, so it doesn't quite count) and Robert J. Sawyer.

As a more general aside, it's worth pointing out that "network censors" properly refers to broadcast standards and practices departments -- not advertisers or any other parts of the network television machine. Gene Roddenberry's "A Letter from a Network Censor" made for fantastic convention theater, but anyone who has actually read a few S&P memos will know that the real thing was much more dull and standardized in a way that offered little benefit to fantasy programs over their more grounded counterparts. Profanity and open mouth kisses tended to draw the same ire, whether they took place on planet Vulcan or planet Earth.

Still, advertisers could exercise censorship through their influence over a show's funding, by insisting on changes in the shows they sponsored or refusing to sponsor shows about certain subjects. Rod Serling's battles with sponsor interference are discussed in The Twilight Zone Companion by Marc Scott Zicree.

 

[BigJake]

The genre as a whole wasn't unaccustomed to it, just that very small subset of it that was on television. What Serling and Roddenberry did was to bring the sensibilities of prose science fiction and fantasy to mass audiences . . .

Yes, exactly so. That's a better way of putting it.

Although there are a few prose authors who've managed to establish themselves as television producers, like George R.R. Martin . . . and Robert J. Sawyer.

Thus do I discover that Sawyer was affiliated with the Charlie Jade series. I did not know that; fascinating.