TOS myths and misconceptions...

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Lester clearly states the Starfleet doesn't "admit" women, which would suggest she means in a professional sense, not personal.

Actually, she says "Your world of starship captains doesn't admit women."

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.

I mean, it's not as if the perfect utopia Gene Roddenberry was trying to create would be so sexist as to not allow female captains, would it?

 

[SpyOne]

Yeah, those figures seem to be intended to show viewers of all trek shows, which means that 1993-94 and 94-95 include viewers of the first two seasons of DS9, and all the rest have both DS9 and Voyager.

Something's weird though: did TNG's ratings tank when DS9 premiered? Because the numbers there are down from the previous year. Or are they somehow accounting for people watching both shows (so the figure shown is how many people watched TNG plus how many non-TNG viewers watched DS9)?

Still, that site mentions that DS9 "spent most of its lifetime as the number one syndicated first-run show on television". No indication of how TOS did during the same period (as it wasn't "first-run"), but DS9 was drawing fewer viewers than TNG had, and in a more competitive market (more channels). When TNG debuted, it was the only first-run show in syndication, which pretty much guarantees being the best rated one. Again, how did TOS do during the same period?

 

[Maurice]

TNG was not the only first-run show in syndication when it premiered. It may have been the only hour-long first-run drama in syndication (and I'm not even sure of that), but that's not the same things as being the only one in syndication.

 

[Warped9]

TOS was made on a shoestring budget.

I posted this in another thread, but I think it bears repeating.

The remastering has allowed many of us to see for the first time how much detail and texture and care went into TOS' production. We see the vibrant colour and intricacies of costumes. We see a great level of intentional detail in sets that we never noticed before. It really does make a lie of the myth that TOS was made on the cheap.

TOS' limitations were not really budget or creativity. The limitations were simply what was possible for television. Indeed I could make an argument that for the greater resources and budgets the spin-offs had that they really didn't do any better all things considered. I'd say certain F/X and the limited use of cgi has been the biggest advantages for contemporary Trek. I certainly don't think they had an advantage of imagination and creativity. In fact I think TOS did more with what was possible then than what its successors did.

I'd also add that the profuse use of technobabble makes the spinoff shows sound dumber as a whole than how TOS handled science and tech.

 

[Maurice]

TOS was made on a shoestring budget.

And the veracity of that's been debated before, too.

 

[Warped9]

TOS was made on a shoestring budget.

And the veracity of that's been debated before, too.

Yes. But it's something still often repeated particularly from the general public.

 

[RAMA]

TOS was made on a shoestring budget.

And the veracity of that's been debated before, too.

Hmm I forgot I made so many good points on that thread...

Anyway, what I think it comes down to is that it is shoestring for today, not for the time. So it could be an accurate statement, just not for the time period.

http://trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=2310456&postcount=6

http://trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=2333379&postcount=61

RAMA

 

[RAMA]

That's true, the only people who feel that way were folks who watched TNG.

Oh you mean the 17 million avg viewers a week, who kept the show on with record ratings for 7 years? Oh yes, must be those.

Or the ones who were so bored that they abandoned ship after the original run leaving TNG to the 1am pre-infomercial time slot (or on cable).

TOS definitely had longer legs when it came to syndication. Which is funny considering there is so much more TNG for people to watch.

Actually you're a bit behind, TOS has been shown late at night at least since the late 70s early 80s! Does that mean all those viewers were bored too? OF COURSE TOS has lasted longer in syndication, it started in 1970!!! STNG didn't even end till 1994(duh)! But in terms of what's being shown, TOS only had its revival with ST Remastered, and that's not being shown in prime time or in marathon blocks like STNG is...which is on a network! If anything, ST is being shown less in general because there is so much more media these days...video games, dvds, bluray and so on...whoever wants to own those shows, already does...and even so, STNG is still being shown more than TOS.

RAMA

 

[RAMA]

http://trekmovie.com/2010/04/23/bbc-america-adds-star-trek-the-next-generation/

 

[AtoZ]

Redshirts were always the first to die. In the first season, the majority of the casualties among the crew wore blue or gold.

I'll never understand why Shatner is often accused of performing bad acting in TOS. His acting in TOS was always spectacular.

Changing styles of acting. Shatner was trained in a theatrical style which had to be big and broad to reach the back rows -- and by the standards of that style, his work was pretty naturalistic. But then a new generation of actors came along, actors whose training was in television rather than the stage, and their acting style was smaller and more intimate since the camera could get up close. The more theatrical style thus fell out of fashion. And humans are slaves to fashion, so if something has fallen out of style we assume it's bad.

This is the best response to Shatner's style of delivery that I have EVER seen. Simply excellent!

I remember reading that the Enterprise was Starfleet's "flagship" starship on a small descriptive write-up included on one of those old mod-70's ATL Enterprise model kits. That's where I first remember reading or hearing of it...and perhaps the only time I ever recall that description applied to the Enterprise in the TOS universe.

 

[Maurice]

Shatner wasn't always big in his performances. Early episodes like Balance of Terror show he could scale his performance fine, if he chose to.

 

[Hober Mallow]

Shatner wasn't always big in his performances. Early episodes like Balance of Terror show he could scale his performance fine, if he chose to.

Nick Meyer once said that Shatner's first take was always a little too over-the-top, but the more times he made Shatner do a take, the more subtle his performance became, so he'd make Shatner do several takes of every scene.

 

[Drewmax]

At last this a exceptional thread and hits on the head everything I thought the TOS was misrepresented for. I agree with all of the points except that perhaps the money issue and the flagship. The misconceptions are abound in the circles of ''general fans'', ''TOS haters'' both sects are ignorant. Well done for this thread.

I never thought William Shatner was too over the top in TOS, he was very talented and played the role just right. The BS about his speech pattern is just slanderous used by comedians for comic effect and nothing more. Kirk also if you count the episodes hardly all of the 79 does he become romantically involved. It's time these misconceptions should be laid to rest finally.

 

[Maurice]

Shatner wasn't always big in his performances. Early episodes like Balance of Terror show he could scale his performance fine, if he chose to.

Nick Meyer once said that Shatner's first take was always a little too over-the-top, but the more times he made Shatner do a take, the more subtle his performance became, so he'd make Shatner do several takes of every scene.

Not exactly. He said he had Shatner do many takes so that he's eventually get bored and not thinking about his performance, at which point he'd get the more naturalistic takes.

 

[Joel_Kirk]

Shatner wasn't always big in his performances. Early episodes like Balance of Terror show he could scale his performance fine, if he chose to.

Nick Meyer once said that Shatner's first take was always a little too over-the-top, but the more times he made Shatner do a take, the more subtle his performance became, so he'd make Shatner do several takes of every scene.

Not exactly. He said he had Shatner do many takes so that he's eventually get bored and not thinking about his performance, at which point he'd get the more naturalistic takes.

I like Shatner's performance in the 1st season. Definitely more dramatic.

On that same note, I was listening to clips from the 25th Anniversary PC Game from Interplay, and found Shatner's delivery very subtle and commanding....

 

[Captain Robert April]

TOS was made on a shoestring budget.

And the veracity of that's been debated before, too.

Yes. But it's something still often repeated particularly from the general public.

The point remains....

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.

 

[Brutal Strudel]

A million an ep is cheap by the standards of the last decade or so but all shows were produced on rrelative cheap back then. The only legitimate comparison for TOS would be comparable shows from its time, not shows from decades in its future produced under an entirely different set of economic and technological constraints.

 

[Captain Robert April]

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.

 

[Wingsley]

Cheap in TV standards is a daytime game show like THE PRICE IS RIGHT. Those kind of shows cost thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars per ep to produce. That's why daytime TV has been populated with game shows and soaps for years.

 

[Brutal Strudel]

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.