TOS minus COON

[trevanian]

And if there was no Coon, there's nothing to say they wouldn't have landed a producer even better than him. It's just as likely an outcome as them finding someone worse than him. We can speculate all we like, but there's really no way of knowing. In any case, the odds are likely the show would have been somewhat different, but given it was not a rating's hit in the first place, it might have lasted just as long. Whether or not it would've become the phenomenon it did is anyone's guess.

Odds are not good. Freiberger was GR's original choice; JM Lucas was Coon's selection for his own replacement. Lucas at least had his head on straight, but note that GR did NOT invite him back, but instead retreated to the Freiberger for season 3.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

In any case, the odds are likely the show would have been somewhat different, but given it was not a rating's hit in the first place, it might have lasted just as long. Whether or not it would've become the phenomenon it did is anyone's guess.

Well, probably no Klingons.

 

[QuasarVM]

IMOSHO, Star Trek was better before Gene Coon came along.


Oh, and my sig. seems appropriate for this thread.

Your siganture would be more pinpoint had Harlan not stepped on many toes in the past. But he has, and has for quite sometime. You can not out run the past. I have met the man and found him quite piffy. And I have been around long enough, and at enough TREK conventions and COMIC CONS ( I live in San Diego) to know that he isn't liked by everyone. Facts are facts...it is what it is.

Rob

I've met him too. An experience I would not want to repeat. He was RUDE to everybody. I didn't get into it with Gerrold over there at Trekmovie, but my first experience was FAR removed from the person he describes over there as being Ellison.

There's no excuse for rudeness or throwing F-bombs. And he did. He went ballistic with a guy who wanted him to sign a Trek trading card at a book signing. I was incredulous. There's a million and one diplomatic ways to say "no" without being an ass. Unfortunately, he chose the lowest common denominator.

But, I know the kool-aid drinkers like Dennis will not refrain from making the excuses for the guy.

And here's a preemptive: "You're just against Harlan because you don't like him because of your experience".

Yes, that's true. First impressions are often the most lasting.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Well, probably no Klingons.

And I could live with that if it meant none of those Norse-Viking honor bound crab heads of ModTrek.

 

[Ssosmcin]

The title of this thread immediately brought forward an very non-PC and possibly offensive wisecrack. I was able to control myself, but it was close. Just thought I'd say that before addressing the actual topic.

There were a number of producers out there who could have come in and done really good work on the series, but it would have been a little different no doubt.

Let's say Coon was unavailable Herb Solow brought in a few candidates to work with Roddenberry. I could see Buck Houghton doing a bang up job on the series, possibly avoiding some of the "planet of the Earth-like Society on the Backlot" type of stories that came about in the second year. He might even get some of the SF greats to stick around a write a few more episodes.

Then there was Leslie Stevens, who was really good with sci-fi TV. He even worked with Bob Justman and a few of the Trek cast before on The Outer Limits (and with Shatner again in Incubus). Joseph Stefano would have been frustrated with Roddenberry pretty quickly.

William Read Woodfield and Allan Balter made an amazing writing team for Irwin Allen and on Mission Impossible. They did want to work on Star Trek, I believe, but again, Woodfield would have beaten the crap out of Roddenberry. :-)

What would these guys have brought to the table? Depends: Balter and Woodfield would have given us really complex scripts with lots of incident and twists. Prolems would have been solved cleverly.

Stevens: probably a down to Earth feeling, giving the characters some real dimension and a sense of humor. He was Coonish that way. Also would have given us a lot of more high concept plots.

Buck Houghton: quality control, realistic characters, probably would have mae Bob Justman redundant.

But above all of these, Justman should have been given the job in the thrid season. He earned it, worked like a dog and knew the show better than anyone. He was also fair and had good story sense. His "friend" Roddenberry butt-raped him without the courtesy of a reach-around.

Without Coon? No Klingons, probably fewer "sensitve" stories, no outright comedies and less emphasis on the Kirk-Spock-Bones triangle.

 

[Piper]

William Read Woodfield and Allan Balter made an amazing writing team for Irwin Allen and on Mission Impossible. They did want to work on Star Trek, I believe, but again, Woodfield would have beaten the crap out of Roddenberry. :-)

What would these guys have brought to the table? Depends: Balter and Woodfield would have given us really complex scripts with lots of incident and twists. Prolems would have been solved cleverly.

Gosh I had no idea that Balter and Woodfield came anywhere near Star Trek (although given their work on Mission I guess I should have figured it a possibility.) I would have loved to have seen a couple of episodes written by that pair - they might have felt a bit different from other TOS shows but most likely they would have been superb.

 

[Maurice]

And if there was no Coon, there's nothing to say they wouldn't have landed a producer even better than him. It's just as likely an outcome as them finding someone worse than him. We can speculate all we like, but there's really no way of knowing. In any case, the odds are likely the show would have been somewhat different, but given it was not a rating's hit in the first place, it might have lasted just as long. Whether or not it would've become the phenomenon it did is anyone's guess.

Odds are not good. Freiberger was GR's original choice; JM Lucas was Coon's selection for his own replacement. Lucas at least had his head on straight, but note that GR did NOT invite him back, but instead retreated to the Freiberger for season 3.

Yes, but Frieberger wasn't available. If Coon hadn't been, either, then who? See...who knows?

 

[Ward Fowler]

^You raise an excellent point. Who knows? I appreciated the nature of the first 12+ episodes of Trek. When Coon took over, Trek became something different, but it was still entertaining. Would Trek have survived without him? Who knows? Roddenberry seemed to have as somewhat hedonistic personality, so he needed someone to be the grown-up. Considering the situation, I think Roddenberry was very fortunate to have Coon. However, to this day I wish someone would have had the good sense to nurture the intent and spirit of those first dozen or so episodes.

 

[Esteban]

Well, we know that Freiberger was represented by Ashly-Famous, Roddenberry's agent. What bearing that had on Gene's somewhat strange love-affair with Freddie we'll never know, but I bet there was some behind-the-scenes pressure, somehow, someway, to get Freddie on board.

Fred Freiberger had very little demonstrable writing talent. He may have been a crackerjack producer in the sense that he could shoot a 60 minute drama in five days, but if you examine his writing credits, they are abysmal in terms of quality.

Coon, on the other hand, was "the fastest typewriter in the West", with a long string of writing credits. That's what they really needed in that crucial first season. When Coon came in on "Miri", the 10th show shot, it was already past September 8th, the debut, and with alot of post-production work still undone. As has been said over and over, they were very close to missing their airdates and needed scripts, scritps, scripts. Shootable ones, that is. Coon got to work, and several weeks later gave us originals or heavy rewirtes on Arena, Space Seed, Argageddon, Devil in the Dark and Errand of Mercy. He delivered.

For all of Bob Justman's great strengths and talents, the ability to write a script was not among them. I don't think he had a single writing credit to his name. So by the time the 3rd season came around, it would have been hard to justify him as the main producer, back in the days when the producer did most of the (re)writing. Fair or not.

Ironically, Fred Freiberger never got a writing credit. Was he rewriting behind the scenes? We don't seem to know. How about Artie Singer? What the hell was he doing? I suspect they were simply rewriting episodes so they could be shot fast and cheap, with no attention to quality.

Coon was clearly focussed on the writing end but just as clearly gave a damn about the show and the characters, amply demonstrated by his work. I'll never understand why he left after one year. What happened? Was he pissed off when Gene Roddenberry "polished" Bread and Circuses?

Speculation, Captain....

 

[T'Bonz]

Guys, discuss and argue if you wish, but keep personal sniping out of the discussion. Thank you.

 

[QuasarVM]

Ironically, Fred Freiberger never got a writing credit. Was he rewriting behind the scenes? We don't seem to know. How about Artie Singer? What the hell was he doing? I suspect they were simply rewriting episodes so they could be shot fast and cheap, with no attention to quality.

It's a fact that Freiberger wrote and rewrote episodes of Space:1999 under the pseudoname of "Charles Woodgrove". So, it would not surprise me at all if he rewrote third season Star Trek episodes. On Space:1999, he wrote the episodes "The Rules of Luton" (about intelligent alien plants), "Space Warp" (Actually a pretty good episode), and "The Beta Cloud" (a bug-eyed monster that is actually an alien robot is sent to Moonbase Alpha to steal it's life support system).

Here's a good link to some quality Freiberger info:

http://www.space1999.net/catacombs/main/crguide/vcpff.html

As for Bob Justman, he understood Star Trek very well and had a great track record with regard to science fiction having worked on The Outer Limits. I think he would have made an exceptional producer on Star Trek during the third season. However, no matter who the producer was they were going to be hamstrung with the budget cuts the series faced that year. Some of the stories, I believe were predicated by the budget. Certainly less location shooting was due to that.

But, I think the writing staff would have been in much better hands.

Here's a peak at FFs thought processes:

Martin Landau on Fred Freiberger: He had much less respect for actors and their input and contribution. I'd say 'Koenig wouldn't do that!' Fred would just shrug and say 'It doesn't matter, it's a good script and the audience won't notice if it's inconsistent with his character.' 'Of course they will!' I'd argue for hours and hours... usually losing the battle.

Space:1999 writer, Johnny Byrne on FF: "But, suddenly, we were not talking about Earth people any more. We were talking about some kind of ghastly alternative Star Trekkers: they were Space Men; there was nothing they couldn't handle; they could deal with anything that was thrown at them by aliens—who are inevitably malevolent. Their attitude was, "Get the bastards before they get us. Kick arse quick or they'll kick us." I told Freddie that he was going to lose the sense of wonder that we had had in the first series, and he told me not to worry because he was going to bring wonder into it, so we got a story called The Bringers Of Wonder, and that was Freddy. He completely changed the scripts that I had written, primarily to make it more like Star Trek."

"Freddy made some real contributions to the second series. There was more pace, there was more sense of immediacy, there was more of a believability about some of the characterisations and so on. Because they were written in the main by good writers, even though many of the scripts were re-written by Freddy, the stories did come out as acceptable and up to the mark. He was a lovable, warm, generous man, but he should have been kept a million miles away from Space: 1999."

 

[Cakes488]

I wonder, in hindsight, how good would TOS have been if Gene Coon hadn't been there? No Klingons? no Prime Directive? In fact most of what I like about the show is definately from the COON side of the house...

So, for you TOS experts; What did COON add to the show? And what did he not add to show. And do you think TOS would have been as good as it was with out him??? What was his thoughts on the GUARDIAN OF FOREVER?

(I wonder if Harlan Ellison will charge me for even mentioning the Guardian in my post!!)

Rob
Scorpio

It's very simple. I think that everyone who contributed to the show was integral to it's success.

 

[plynch]

I like the pre-Coon eps. Trek got chucklier after he arrived. I like the darker, quieter tone, pre-Coon. There are more pauses in the dialog, the words seem to matter more, and the stories are more like sci-fi stories than "Kirk and Spock go the ______ planet, get in trouble and escape."

 

[Jonas Grumby]

I like the pre-Coon eps. Trek got chucklier after he arrived.

Yep, I agree with this. Even though I absolutely loved the funny stuff as a kid, all these years down the road it is definitely the earlier, darker episodes that have the real "staying power."

 

[Ssosmcin]

For all of Bob Justman's great strengths and talents, the ability to write a script was not among them. I don't think he had a single writing credit to his name. So by the time the 3rd season came around, it would have been hard to justify him as the main producer, back in the days when the producer did most of the (re)writing. Fair or not.

Quinn Martin never wrote a script in his entire career, but was producer of a dozen hits over a 20 year period. Buck Houghton didn't write any Twilight Zone scripts, but was the producer of that series for it's first three (and best) years. After the pilot episode, Bruce Geller wrote absolutely nothing for Mission: Impossible (neither did Bruce Lansbury after him). Howie Horwitz didn't write a single Batman or Green Hornet. The list goes on.

This is why they hire story editors and associate producers. One does not have to be a writer-producer to run a TV show. Justman contributed many story ideas and plot points and he knew the mechanics of the series better than pretty much anyone. He should have been given the Producer job and had a better story editor than Arthur Singer keeping things up in quality. Justman probably would have kept Lucas in place as Associate Producer.

It would have been interesting to see that combo pull off the episodes on the reduced budget.

 

[Saxman1]

For all of Bob Justman's great strengths and talents, the ability to write a script was not among them. I don't think he had a single writing credit to his name. So by the time the 3rd season came around, it would have been hard to justify him as the main producer, back in the days when the producer did most of the (re)writing. Fair or not.

Quinn Martin never wrote a script in his entire career, but was producer of a dozen hits over a 20 year period. Buck Houghton didn't write any Twilight Zone scripts, but was the producer of that series for it's first three (and best) years. After the pilot episode, Bruce Geller wrote absolutely nothing for Mission: Impossible (neither did Bruce Lansbury after him). Howie Horwitz didn't write a single Batman or Green Hornet. The list goes on.

This is why they hire story editors and associate producers. One does not have to be a writer-producer to run a TV show. Justman contributed many story ideas and plot points and he knew the mechanics of the series better than pretty much anyone. He should have been given the Producer job and had a better story editor than Arthur Singer keeping things up in quality. Justman probably would have kept Lucas in place as Associate Producer.

It would have been interesting to see that combo pull off the episodes on the reduced budget.

One could make the argument Berman wasn't a writer, either, LOL!