Starship, the proposed 1970s Series

Well, I don't want to push this, but he made it pretty clear that he did not think I had ever worked in the entertainment industry, and therefore did not know what I was talking about. I also never said anything about imagining that all my decisions would be right. I never said anything about anybody's decisions always being right. I was simply talking about probabilities. But, as I said, I like Christopher and I hope he keeps posting here. He usually comes up with something interesting and useful. For his sake, I'm happy to say no more about this.

 

that's what I said.

 

Christopher has a tendency to do that, he writes non too successful tie in novels about characters someone else created and deems that as qualifying him to lecture people far more experienced or knowledgeable in their own fields than him.

You'll get used to it.

 

Thanks Admiral Spot. As I said, I like Christopher and I don't mind a little sparking.

Spot, may I ask, had you heard of STARSHIP before this thread was started?

 

I don't think a ship with only geniuses on board would have been relatable to the regular viewer. Kirk and company (Spock aside), although heavily trained and intelligent, were still everyday people. They're relatable. That's important when it comes to connecting with as big an audience as possible on network television.

 

Geniuses aren't some alien species. They have the same emotions and needs as anyone else. And there have been lots of shows where most or all of the main characters have been geniuses. Sure, sometimes there's a token "ordinary" guy for audience identification, like with Eureka, but the genius characters are still plenty relatable. Look at The Flash, say. Barry, Cisco, Caitlin, Wells (usually), Wally, all geniuses. The few non-geniuses are supporting characters like Iris, Joe, and Ralph. Is Barry Allen somehow not relatable? Are we incapable of connecting to Cisco's relationship troubles or Caitlin's mommy issues just because they know lots of stuff and are really good at their jobs?

"Genius" doesn't define someone's entire identity any more than any other single attribute does. A character who happens to be a genius can have plenty of other qualities that viewers can relate to.

 

Thank you, King Daniel. That was one of the 3 red flags that hit me about the series. Designating everybody onboard as geniuses, with the possible exception of the captain, has 2 problems. You mentioned the first: they are unrelatable. The fun of a space series is traveling vicariously with the crew. We can imagine ourselves as one of them. It an IQ level is required, or some other way of designating one a genius, then many of us feel shut out before we even begin. If, however, the characters are presented as people who are excellent in their fields, then this gives audience members who like to ride along vicariously a greater reason to see those characters as role models and prompts some of the audience to emulate them.

Secondly, I can tell you from experience that if you tell a group of actors that they are playing geniuses, then you will get a cast of Sheldon Coopers, and a little Sheldon goes a long way. On the other hand, if you tell each actor that he or she is playing somebody who is excellent in his or her field, you will get enthusiastic actors who will look for good choices to make in playing those characters. Actors LOVE playing characters who excel at what they do, and that can lead to interesting performances if good actors are cast and if they are permitted to explore the characters.

 

Thanks, Christopher. I like your FLASH comparison, and it helps support the latter part of my second paragraph above.

 

Flash is a show where, despite all their supposed genius, everything is always solved by Barry running real fast.

I imagine had Starship come to be, would be somewhat more sophisticated and less soap opera-ish than CW's finest. Complex issues solved with real science, as accurate as the could be for a television show in the 70's. At least, that's the impression I get from the information we currently know of the concept.

 

Thanks, King Daniel. I agree that if STARSHIP had come to fruition, it would have had to take a sophisticated approach, and I do think that among the lessons learned from Trek: pay more attention to real science and use interesting characters and science to solve problems. There mission WAS to be interstellar ecological trouble shooters.

Another lesson learned was: we are going to end up using only 5 to 7 crew members in most episodes, so make the crew 6 or 7, and make them each as interesting and accomplished as possible, so we don't rely on just a couple of characters figuring out all the answers.

King Daniel, your line: "Complex issues solved with real science, as accurate as they could be for a television show in the 70's," encapsulates what I think was the potential strength of STARSHIP and is exactly what I would have loved to have seen back in the day. Well stated.

 

You don't have to be better than producers to know they f-ed up. Because even the best producers aren't good at everything.

If I were in the shoes of a producer - and I'm only taking creatively, none of the organizational/raising money stuff - I'm very confident that I, inexperienced as I am, would make a pretty solid scifi show.

You know what I would utterly fail at? Crime shows. Sitcoms. Dramedy. Literally everything else. Guess where the money is? So I would be a horrible producer. Because I would only know how to make one single type of show! And yet - it's very easy for me to identify a much more experienced and successful producer doing dumb mistake. In this single type of show. And only this. But there?Confidently.

 

Which has nothing whatsoever to do with the question of whether he's relatable as a character. That was your own parameter, so no shifting goalposts, please.

 

The point was, we're told Barry Allen is a genius but how often are we shown it? I speculate that the 1970's Starship series would have gone a little further to demonstrate their character's mental abilities since their being geniuses is the only thing we're told about them.

 

Exactly my point. It is stereotyping to assume that people who are geniuses will always and exclusively behave in a way shaped by their genius -- just as it would be stereotyping to assume that gay people never say or do anything that isn't about being gay. These days, gay characters are generally portrayed as normal people whose relationships are just one facet of their lives, and don't have to be a constant focus of their portrayal. Well, the same goes for geniuses. It's just one element of who they are. Heck, "genius" isn't even a particularly well-defined term, and it doesn't mean just one thing.

It's the only thing we've been told because we've only ever heard a few sentences of description about the show. It makes no sense to assume that's all there was. I mean, I assume the actual series pitch document or bible had character names and such, and presumably distinct character traits and backgrounds as well.

 

Hi King Daniel, from the 1 page synopsis I received back in the day (with the 3 blueprints and the color rendering), I got the impression that their genius abilities were what would propel the action and lead them to accomplish their goals for each episode. A better way of presenting it would have been to describe a group of people who are each highly accomplished and highly capable in their fields. It would have been more relatable (IMO) and more helpful to the actors. It the series were being produced now, then I would strongly agree with Christopher. But, the 70s were a time of stereotyping, even if the intentions were good. Shows like BARNEY MILLER that were attempting to be sympathetic to gay people starting by showing them in very stereotypical, but sympathetic, ways. Late in the series they showed a gay cop who was NOT a stereotypical gay character and who acted like all the rest of the cops. That episode was strong because it then showed realistically the harsh repercussions to gay cops in the 70s who were outed.

So, I would agree with Christopher if STARSHIP could have been produced without stereotyping, but that was unusual in the 70s. Not impossible, but unusual. Changing the description from "geniuses" to "highly capable" would have gone a long way in removing stereotypes, making the characters more identifiable for 70s audiences, and would have surely helped the actors.

For me, King Daniel's line: "Complex issues solved with real science, as accurate as they could be for a television show in the 70's," states the greatest potential strength for STARSHIP.

 

Yeah, but only vaguely. Can't say I really knew anything substantial to be brutally honest.

Best contribution from me here is to sit back and just....soak it all in.

 

I'm glad you are here, Admiral Spot, and I hope you chime in from time to time.

 

I wish someone could dig up this one-pager because memory is a dodgy thing especially at a remove of many decades as we are.

I don't think "geniuses" are automatically unrelatable. They're human just like anyone else and can be portrayed with the same foibles and charms as any other character. Plenty of geniuses are flawed individuals: exceptional in some specific areas and a trainwreck in others. Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park is a "genius" and a heck of a lot of fun. It's lazy or low-talent writers who can't make such characters audience friendly.

 

Somebody posted the blurb in the catalog here a few days ago. It was from the catalog that, I believe, came out in 1977. The one pager expanded upon the blurb, but the reference to geniuses was in the blurb, but without any additional detail.

Neither King Daniel nor I said anything about any character being automatically unrelatable. We were not even talking about probabilities. We were talking about possibilities and seeing and avoiding possible problems.

It is not that geniuses are automatically unrelatable. I love the idea of highly accomplished people who are excellent in their fields being the majority or the entirety of a cast, as would have been the case in STARSHIP. It is one of the elements that gives me confidence that STARSHIP could have been a good show. But, sometimes a single word can make all the difference.

One of my scripts for theatre lay dormant for a while, even though several people were reading it. There were no productions. A colleague read it and suggested changing one word. One word in the entire script, and that made all the difference. I had not realized that that one word, in a particular phrase, was causing visceral reactions and misleading people as to what the play was about. I swapped that one word for a synonym, and everything changed. The script was produced.

The point I was making, and I think King Daniel was, too, is that the word genius can be a barrier for many people IF they can't relate to it (nothing automatic here). It also makes a difference for the actors. My recommendation was that using the phrase "excellent in their fields" rather than genius would likely have helped persuade decision makers to greenlight the pilot, and would also have helped he actors create more textured characters.

Maurice, You made a good choice with Malcolm. What made him so much fun was not primarily that he was a genius, but because of how they played his affinity with chaos theory into many of his choices as a character. It flavored much of what he did, including his one-liners (yes, but John, when the Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists). It also helped that Jeff Goldblum played Malcolm. The best casting in the movie. I'm all for great, fun, nuanced genius characters, but you can get that by using different terms than genius when explaining the character to actors and writers. I would be money that what informed Goldblum of who and what Malcolm was was not being told he was a genius, but having chaos theory explained, and reading the line, "I brought a scientist. You brought a rock star."

Anyway, I love the idea of a ship being populated by a few fun brilliant scientists who each rock their fields. The key, in part, is to give the actors enough to create textured characters (like Malcolm) and not flat characters (I could give examples, but not without offended SOMEBODY here. I don't know who, but it would be somebody). The other part of the key is to create characters who are brilliant in their fields and relatable BECAUCE they are good in their fields, and not in spite of it.

I agreed with King Daniel's first statement about the problem with the word genius because I always felt that it could have been a barrier and because I know how much a single word matters. There have been other times when I have seen a few words or phrases make or break a project. I also agree with King Daniel because I thought his single phrase statement of what STARSHIP should have been and might have been was more engaging than the catalog blurb of what the series would have been. King Daniel did not change the premise. He stated it better than the blurb did.