TOS myths and misconceptions...

[number6]

I wouldn't say it's cheap by today's standards. It's certainly typical for a show like Star Trek, since all the shows since then that fall into that category have all had budgets that at least approached that level (one of the reasons Warner Brothers liked Babylon 5 so much is that they were able to deliver results like they had a million dollar per episode budget with only half that much).

And, again, the shows that followed were able to apply the lessons and infrastructure that Star Trek built during its run, so they didn't necessarily have to invest those bucks into inventing the wheel every week, and as a result, their megabudgets went further.

Actually B5 looked really cheap.
Brutal Strudel has a valid point. It is too easy to apply a modern production standard and budget to TOS to justify what the value of that dollar really was. Additionally, there are a few things to consider in the era of TOS:

Photographic Optical EFX were (and still are) extremely complicated and time consuming to do. There were a lot of complex SFX shots on the original show, so much so that they were having problems meeting their airdates in the beginning.
Those effects were costly and time consuming for the 60s. With their budget being cut you saw a lot of stock shots and reused establishing shots. There are pages of stories and anecdotes from cast and crew alike complaining about how tight the funds were during the making of the show. I don't think their budgetary issues are any myth. One needs to consider what was possible at that time and how much it cost without the technology that we take for granted.

 

[Kelso]

In today's dollars, Star Trek's budget would come in around a million bucks an episode. And since they had to essentially create a lot of the infrastructure that TNG and the others built upon, they had to make those bucks go a lot further.

What infrastructure did they build that could be a cost saver to the spin-offs?

 

[number6]

In today's dollars, Star Trek's budget would come in around a million bucks an episode. And since they had to essentially create a lot of the infrastructure that TNG and the others built upon, they had to make those bucks go a lot further.

What infrastructure did they build that could be a cost saver to the spin-offs?

Their special effects department had become a well oiled machine by the time the spinoffs started to roll. Pretty much the same team over 20 years, using their tools and honing their skills, taking advantage of every advance. They were able to do more with less because they were all working on the same show, using the equipment they bought for TNG and all the other shows, instead of buying everything new for each series. They were able to use and build and develop all this over several years and apply it to every series.

 

[Kelso]

What infrastructure did they build that could be a cost saver to the spin-offs?

Their special effects department had become a well oiled machine by the time the spinoffs started to roll. Pretty much the same team over 20 years, using their tools and honing their skills, taking advantage of every advance. They were able to do more with less because they were all working on the same show, using the equipment they bought for TNG and all the other shows, instead of buying everything new for each series. They were able to use and build and develop all this over several years and apply it to every series.

Going all the way back to TOS?

 

[number6]

What infrastructure did they build that could be a cost saver to the spin-offs?

Their special effects department had become a well oiled machine by the time the spinoffs started to roll. Pretty much the same team over 20 years, using their tools and honing their skills, taking advantage of every advance. They were able to do more with less because they were all working on the same show, using the equipment they bought for TNG and all the other shows, instead of buying everything new for each series. They were able to use and build and develop all this over several years and apply it to every series.

Beginning with TOS?

Actually, beginning with TMP. Look at how many of those models got reused, set pieces..even some footage. A lot of those sets later found their way into the spinoffs..

April is not correct about equipment that was used for the model work and the other sfx. A lot of those devices would be primitive by the time of TNG and was never used for TNG, but the techniques used in model photography were certainly developed and honed in the 60s and improved upon for the later series. I look at that as a tech development in the sfx industry as a whole, which of course TOS helped to start the innovation ball rolling..

 

[Kelso]

Their special effects department had become a well oiled machine by the time the spinoffs started to roll. Pretty much the same team over 20 years, using their tools and honing their skills, taking advantage of every advance. They were able to do more with less because they were all working on the same show, using the equipment they bought for TNG and all the other shows, instead of buying everything new for each series. They were able to use and build and develop all this over several years and apply it to every series.

Beginning with TOS?

Actually, beginning with TMP. Look at how many of those models got reused, set pieces..even some footage. A lot of those sets later found their way into the spinoffs..

Yeah, I know that. I'm curious about the suggestion that the infrastructure built for *TOS* was a cost-saver for the spin-offs.

ETA: GAH! You edited... and answered my question. Thanks.

 

[number6]

Beginning with TOS?

Actually, beginning with TMP. Look at how many of those models got reused, set pieces..even some footage. A lot of those sets later found their way into the spinoffs..

Yeah, I know that. I'm curious about the suggestion that the infrastructure built for *TOS* was a cost-saver for the spin-offs.

Well.. Clearly it wasn't. But if you consider the techniques that were pretty much invented to make TOS and how they were built upon for the other spaceship types shows that followed, the "infrastructure" of those techniques is clearly defined. By the time of TNG, they had a solid idea of miniature photography and design based on what was developed for TOS and certainly having the benefit of that knowledge saved them money.

 

[Maurice]

All shows recycle set pieces, props and costumes. It's just that it's far more noticable on sci-fi shows because there's less "stock" material that can be used. Where Star Trek's budget seemed low was because they had to build a lot more than a typical show, and because Roddenberry promised NBC "Strange New Worlds" almost every week, and so couldn't save money by setting more stories on the stock sets.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Actually, beginning with TMP. Look at how many of those models got reused, set pieces..even some footage. A lot of those sets later found their way into the spinoffs..

Yeah, I know that. I'm curious about the suggestion that the infrastructure built for *TOS* was a cost-saver for the spin-offs.

Well.. Clearly it wasn't. But if you consider the techniques that were pretty much invented to make TOS and how they were built upon for the other spaceship types shows that followed, the "infrastructure" of those techniques is clearly defined. By the time of TNG, they had a solid idea of miniature photography and design based on what was developed for TOS and certainly having the benefit of that knowledge saved them money.

 

[SpyOne]

And it's why reality tv was making such inroads on nightttime tv a few years back.

When I say "cheap," I mean in comparison to other high profile tv dramas running on network tv, with or without the sfx.

A lot of people think the original Battlestar Galactica was killed by poor ratings: it wasn't. It was highly rated, usually in the top 20 for the week (which was impressive for a show on opposite 60 Minutes and The Wonderful World of Disney), but it cost more to make than every show that was better rated than it. Only one of those shows was a drama, the rest were 3-camera sitcoms.
The network figured out that, since the amount your advertisers pay is based on your number of viewers, if you can pull half the viewers with a show that costs 1/3 as much to make, you are coming out ahead. So Battlestar Galactica got canceled, and Mork and Mindy got moved into its time slot (and bombed).

Dramas cost more than comedies (NBC wanted to try Jay Leno at 10pm because their 10pm dramas cost so much, and pulled comparatively few viewers), and science fiction is the most expensive kind of drama, because you can't just buy the clothes at The Gap and the props at Sears.
Not far off is the point where CGI gets so cheap that it will be cheaper to film everything in front of a green-screen than to build a physical set, but until that day arrives (and honestly, even when it does) sci-fi will be more expensive than yet another CSI-clone, and unless it can pull in enough viewers to make up for the difference in cost, networks will go with the cheaper option.
And right now the best viewer-bang for your programming-buck appears to be Survivor.

 

[Brutal Strudel]

Indeed.

 

[Captain Robert April]

And also accounts for Star Trek's demise. It wasn't just that the ratings weren't high enough, they weren't high enough to justify the expense of keeping it on the air.

I suspect there was more than a little "get enough episodes for syndication so we can get some of our money back" that went into the decision for that third season, and the cancellation. It didn't matter that the quality was slipping, they just wanted enough episodes to fill out the syndication package (which, it turns out, they'd already signed for before the third season got underway).

 

[Zeppster]

It wasn't so much ratings although that was an issue with Trek mostly because the last season was put at 9:00 on a Friday or whatever it was when much of Trek's college aged audience was out partying. The problem at the time is they didn't do demographic studies of shows at the time. If they did that they would have kept Trek for at least the 5 years and probably more.

 

[Ceridwen]

Exactly. Look at her very specific choice of words: YOUR world. Kirk's world. His own, personal world. He can't have a lasting relationship with ANY woman. That's what she meant.

It's even a running theme throughout the series. Kirk isn't a womanizer (again, despite the reputation as such), he's a romantic. There's a part of him that would love nothing more than to find a beautiful, smart young woman and run off with her. It's the first thing out of his mouth when under the influence of Psi-2000, it's what makes Dr. Adams' mental experiments so effective, it's why Edith Keeler breaks his heart. But unfortunately for this fantasy, he's already married to the Enterprise. ("Never lose you.")

 

[Captain Robert April]

It wasn't so much ratings although that was an issue with Trek mostly because the last season was put at 9:00 on a Friday or whatever it was when much of Trek's college aged audience was out partying. The problem at the time is they didn't do demographic studies of shows at the time. If they did that they would have kept Trek for at least the 5 years and probably more.

The pinheads running Paramount at the time wouldn't know a demographic from a dumpling. They were just looking to cut their losses and move on to the next thing.

 

[Lieut. Arex]

It wasn't Paramount's choice. NBC pulled the trigger. Paramount would have loved to continue producing a successful series for the network, which, unfortunately by the standards of the time, Star Trek wasn't.

 

[C.E. Evans]

It wasn't Paramount's choice. NBC pulled the trigger. Paramount would have loved to continue producing a successful series for the network, which, unfortunately by the standards of the time, Star Trek wasn't.

Wasn't there some kind of irony that a little bit after they canceled the series, NBC then wanted the demographic that Star Trek had been pulling in?

 

[Lieut. Arex]

That's the story GR told. In The Making of Star Trek-The Motion Picture he states one guy went to an NBC exec and said he'd found the show with the perfect demographics. The exec says, "Great! Which one?" "The one you just canceled."

If I'm not mistaken there were talks about bringing it back, either with everyone or just a Spock-only show, but NBC wanted another pilot. GR balked at that ("I've got 79 pilots") and nothing came of it. Well, TAS, but for the live show, it was the well-known start-stop, back-and-forth, up-and-down round robin of TV movie, Phase II, and theatrical film options for a decade.

 

[Kelso]

That's the story GR told.

Then it must be true.

 

[Lieut. Arex]

Well duh.