Was the episode "Where no man has gone before" produced before "Charlie X" despite being aired after

[Ssosmcin]

I think the old-timers among us must resign ourselves to the fact that there are now people out there whose first encounter with ST was not with TOS (even in strip syndication, with a UK print of "Spectre of the Gun" ["gin" instead of "corn whiskey"] even airing in some US markets [during the years that KTLA had it]), and never read any of the reference books that discussed airing vs. production order.

On the bright side, we get to sound like experts when you newers ask questions!

According to everything I've ever heard or read, "The Man Trap" aired first because NBC executives thought a show about a monster would be the most appealing to the people they expected to be watching.

That was certainly part of it, but if "The Corbomite Maneuver" was ready, Roddenberry would have wanted that one first and "The Man Trap" second. But not only was the episode not ready, NBC decided to premiere the series a week early as a preview week, so "The Man Trap" was it.

But even if they set the premiere as planned, "The Man Trap" would have been the only episode NBC would have wanted to lead off with at the time. It's not like "Charlie X" was gonna kick off the series.

And I cannot imagine that anybody involved would be so utterly wasteful as to not plan on airing the second pilot at some point.

The money was spent and the cost of the production could be amortized over the season by the use of sets and props. That is, if they didn't decide to change all the props and uniforms. Set changes were minor, though, and I'm surprised we didn't see the Talos/Delta Vega planet surface a few more times in the series. But maybe that stage was used for something else.

While "Where No Man Has Gone Before" could be slotted in anywhere and still be accepted, "The Cage" would probably be never seen until decades later because everyone but Nimoy was recast. Much like the Gilligan's Island, Lost in Space and other pilots which went hidden until DVD or special presentations. But, as said, they were behind schedule and over budget and needed a pre-made episode to slot in there.

I can't imagine Irwin Allen expected his Lost in Space pilot to ever air as presented. There's no story, just set pieces. He had to know he was front loading his series with expensive sequences he could use later with an elaborate "presentation" film. He even shot some in color for that reason, even though CBS wanted the first season in black and white. Even without the addition of Dr. Smith and the robot, I could see the series carving that footage up and spreading it out over a few weeks, much as it eventually did. It's the only one of his 60's pilots to be that radically different than the aired premiere. Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea did some minor dialog and music dubbing, Land of the Giants got a new score and reedited some intro scenes and The Time Tunnel just needed trimming for time - it was the most "ready for prime time" of the four. And it's a solid pilot.

I Spy held back their pilot until about 13 episodes in, not because of format differences, but because it was awful.

As a kid, I never questioned why "Where No Man Has Gone Before" was different. I just referred to it as "the one where Kirk has two stripes." Kids, man. We didn't care. It was our show and it was a great episode.

 

[Methuselah Flint]

I think the old-timers among us must resign ourselves to the fact that there are now people out there whose first encounter with ST was not with TOS (even in strip syndication, with a UK print of "Spectre of the Gun" ["gin" instead of "corn whiskey"] even airing in some US markets [during the years that KTLA had it]), and never read any of the reference books that discussed airing vs. production order.

Even the early seasons of TNG had some episodes aired out of production order.

I hadn't heard that "The Corbomite Maneuver" had been held up in post-production, but it doesn't surprise me. It is an effects-intensive show.

According to everything I've ever heard or read, "The Man Trap" aired first because NBC executives thought a show about a monster would be the most appealing to the people they expected to be watching.

And I cannot imagine that anybody involved would be so utterly wasteful as to not plan on airing the second pilot at some point.

Is the "gin" version available anywhere?

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Dunno. I just know that during ST's entire run on KTLA, I was convinced that I'd imagined the "corn whiskey" version of the line (since the Blish adaptation also had gin).

 

[Henoch]

From Spectre Of The Gun:

BARMAN: You boys want your usual?
SCOTT: Absolutely. Half a gallon of scotch.
BARMAN: You know we ain't got nothing but bourbon, unless you want corn whiskey.​

I don't think gin was the preferred drink (or even available for that matter) in 1881 Tombstone, AZ. Also, the difference between corn whiskey and bourbon is that bourbon is barrel-aged, corn whiskey (probably made in Kentucky), while corn whiskey implies American moonshine (probably made in Kentucky).

 

[Iamnotspock]

The second pilot uniforms did seem to show up from time to time in Season 1 TOS. I recall see a female crew member wearing one during a Season 1 episode, but unfortunately I can't recall which one.

Some of the K7 personnel sport them in Season 2's "The Trouble With Tribbles" too.

 

[Ssosmcin]

I don't think gin was the preferred drink (or even available for that matter) in 1881 Tombstone, AZ.

Sure why not?

https://www.diffordsguide.com/g/110...erican dry gin,American dry (unsweetened) gin.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

I think the old-timers among us must resign ourselves to the fact that there are now people out there whose first encounter with ST was not with TOS (even in strip syndication, with a UK print of "Spectre of the Gun" ["gin" instead of "corn whiskey"] even airing in some US markets [during the years that KTLA had it]), and never read any of the reference books that discussed airing vs. production order.

[bold added]

I'm confused. There was a UK version with an altered line of dialogue? Can somebody lay that out for us plain, instead of just vaguely alluding to it?

If I don't know about it as an age-old fan, and there is no note about it in the Chakoteya transcript or Memory Alpha, I can't believe I'm the only reader here who is in the dark about it.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

All I know is:
1. I saw SG in strip syndication on KCOP-13.
2. I read the Blish adaptation of SG, with the line altered as "gin."
3. KCOP lost the strip syndication license to KTLA-5.
4. When I saw SG on KTLA, the line was "gin," every airing, and I wondered if I'd imagined "corn whiskey."
5. KTLA lost the strip syndication license, which went back to KCOP, right around the time TNG was at least in development.
6. When I saw SG on KCOP, the line was back to "corn whiskey."

Incidentally, in the Queen's King's English (RIP Elizabeth II), "corn whiskey" is a tautology, as "corn" refers not specifically to Zea mays, but to all cereal grains, and whiskey (and whisky), by definition, is distilled from a fermented mash of one or more cereal grains.

I should think that looping a single word (or using two different takes of a single shot) would be a trivial exercise.

Incidentally, speaking of corn, while sweet corn is served as a vegetable, it is actually a less-than-fully-ripe mutant cereal grain. If it were fully ripe, the kernels would be as hard as popcorn kernels, and you'd probably break your teeth trying to eat it, no matter how long you boiled it. And if it weren't a natural mutation that the Native People of the Americas discovered centuries ago, it wouldn't be palatable in less-than-fully-ripe state. Hominy, on the other hand, is nixtamalized corn. Unless you have more than one stomach, the niacin in Z. mays is not bioavailable in its natural form (and humans subsisting on a diet of Z. mays that hasn't been nixtamalized will develop pellagra). Nixtamalization, i.e., treatment in a strong base, releases the niacin (among other changes). Mexican masa is ground from corn nixtamalized in calcium hydroxide (lime), while American hominy grits (and whole-kernel hominy) is typically nixtamalized in either soda-ash or lye.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

All I know is:
1. I saw SG in strip syndication on KCOP-13.
2. I read the Blish adaptation of SG, with the line altered as "gin."
3. KCOP lost the strip syndication license to KTLA-5.
4. When I saw SG on KTLA, the line was "gin," every airing, and I wondered if I'd imagined "corn whiskey."
5. KTLA lost the strip syndication license, which went back to KCOP, right around the time TNG was at least in development.
6. When I saw SG on KCOP, the line was back to "corn whiskey."

Incidentally, in the Queen's King's English (RIP Elizabeth II), "corn whiskey" is a tautology, as "corn" refers not specifically to Zea mays, but to all cereal grains, and whiskey (and whisky), by definition, is distilled from a fermented mash of one or more cereal grains.

I should think that looping a single word (or using two different takes of a single shot) would be a trivial exercise.

Incidentally, speaking of corn, while sweet corn is served as a vegetable, it is actually a less-than-fully-ripe mutant cereal grain. If it were fully ripe, the kernels would be as hard as popcorn kernels, and you'd probably break your teeth trying to eat it, no matter how long you boiled it. And if it weren't a natural mutation that the Native People of the Americas discovered centuries ago, it wouldn't be palatable in less-than-fully-ripe state. Hominy, on the other hand, is nixtamalized corn. Unless you have more than one stomach, the niacin in Z. mays is not bioavailable in its natural form (and humans subsisting on a diet of Z. mays that hasn't been nixtamalized will develop pellagra). Nixtamalization, i.e., treatment in a strong base, releases the niacin (among other changes). Mexican masa is ground from corn nixtamalized in calcium hydroxide (lime), while American hominy grits (and whole-kernel hominy) is typically nixtamalized in either soda-ash or lye.

Thanks for the "Spectre" facts.

I think the giant ears of sweet corn we enjoy were purposely bred into existence by farmers ages ago. What I find mysterious is, how the hell did Native Americans discover nixtamalization to free up the vitamins in corn? Who would think of that?

Anyway, our culture has forgotten there even is such a thing as pellagra, because we fortify pasta, bread, rice, and breakfast cereals with vitamins. That ended the epidemics.

 

[HGN2001]

As far as the early episode order goes, it should be noted that in the fall television season of 1966, STAR TREK had been originally scheduled to premiere on September 15th. Rival network ABC announced that they were starting their premieres a week early to get a jump on NBC and CBS. NBC then announced a number of their new shows would start a week early, STAR TREK being one of them, which would now start on September 8th. That put even more time pressure on Roddenberry and company to get things together - and we know that of the ones ready, "The Man Trap" got picked because of the "monster".

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I would not go so far as to call my six points about SG "facts"; they are just my recollections of observations made some four decades ago, with absolutely no objective documentation. (It was sometime after 1980 that my family acquired its first VCR -- the U-Matic format I had access to in high school was prohibitively expensive for home use, while Betamax and VHS, even at their highest speeds, were too much of a compromise in quality for my taste -- and it was not until TNG had its debut that I began archiving off-air tapes of ST episodes, and with commercial VHS tapes of TOS readily available, I saw no need to record it, much less archive it.)

And nixtamalization was almost certainly discovered the same way a great many counterintuitive scientific discoveries happened: entirely by accident. The ancient Native People almost certainly boiled water by using hot rocks, the same as most other pre-bronze-age cultures did, and they found that the cornmeal mush was more nutritious and easier to digest if boiled using certain kinds of rocks.

And yes, the present varieties with unnaturally large ears were bred by farmers, ages ago. Native farmers of the Americas, long before Europeans even knew that the Americas were there.

 

[Forbin]

I Spy held back their pilot until about 13 episodes in, not because of format differences, but because it was awful.

THAT explains that episode! I watched the series a year or so ago on DVD and wondered what the heck was going on there.

Also re: pilots being radically different, I recently saw the pilot for The Munsters. Mrs. Munster was "Phoebe" rather than Lily, and played by Joan Marshall with a very Morticia-Addams look (except for the blue complexion). Eddie was a different actor, and played the role like an angry wild wolf-child. And the pilot was in color, whereas the series wasn't!

 

[JonnyQuest037]

As a kid, I never questioned why "Where No Man Has Gone Before" was different. I just referred to it as "the one where Kirk has two stripes." Kids, man. We didn't care. It was our show and it was a great episode.

A number of years back, I was interviewing the comic book writer Gerry Conway (He's probably best known as the Spider-Man writer who killed off Gwen Stacy, and he later went on to be a writer & story editor on Law and Order: Criminal Intent). We were talking about a fan debate about what parallel Earth or another a particular comic book story took place on. Gerry said something I found very insightful: "I don't think it bothers kids. I think it bothers adults."

Adults want to overthink stuff and categorize everything. Kids just accept things as they are.

 

[Noname Given]

This is the production order:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series_episodes#Production_order

The early-episode aired order was different, based on which ones were finished on time (with fx shots and the final cut assembled), and NBC's preferences among the available episodes. WNMHGB was not the premier because NBC didn't want it to be. "The Corbomite Maneuver" took so long to air because its fx shots were not delivered on time.

And they also must have thought highly of the finished cut of The Corbomite Maneuver as they saved it for the ratings 'sweeps' period.

 

[fireproof78]

"I don't think it bothers kids. I think it bothers adults."

Adults want to overthink stuff and categorize everything. Kids just accept things as they are.

Agreed. It's interesting to me, both from a fan and as a counselor, to approach things as a point of acceptance. Kids will look at the entertainment, find it fun (or not) and enjoy it. Adults have to explain everything, including their kids emotions. "Why are you feeling that way?" Is a question for an adult, not a child.

I think it bothers adults more because adults also feel like they have to justify their reactions and enjoyment of different things. It's like one comedian jokes how he no longer wears his favorite sport's team's logo because people will come up, ask him if he is a fan, and then what does he think of a recent decision, or player mess up or whatever.

It's like, no, man, I just enjoy it.

 

[Ssosmcin]

I gotta say, that's probably why I just roll with 98% of original Star Trek. I grew up with it, accepted it, didn't care about reasons other than "that's the way they are" and loved the show based on what they were projecting over the air. Period. "In universe" explanations are meaningless to me when they try to spackle over things caused by the realities of a TV production that didn't worry about anything other than getting the show on the air. I find the background interesting in a "making of" way and feeds my interest in TV and film production. But on the most basic level don't really care why Spock looks different from one episode to another, why Uhura's uniform color changes and who that old substitute doctor was.

Also, I never look at a TV show other than as that: a TV show. I don't try to rationalize production things to make it fit in some make believe continuity.

And you're right, I'm no fun at parties either...

 

[mswood]

IEven the early seasons of TNG had some episodes aired out of production order.

Voyager certainly had changes in its air order (with the really stupid, my opinion of course, move to hold 4 episodes from the first season to the 2nd, something they repeated the next year as well). I don't recall if DS9 or ENT ever had to switch the airdate order....

 

[fireproof78]

Also, I never look at a TV show other than as that: a TV show. I don't try to rationalize production things to make it fit in some make believe continuity.

I have a twofold approach for this. Yes, at the top of the list is the simple fact that this is a TV show. To misquote McCoy, "For God's sake, Jim, I'm a TV show not a..." fill in the blank, and that blank includes literal history, philosophical treatise, or academic exercise, among others. It's primary purpose is to entertain and to engage the audience. So, if there are a lot inconsistencies within the show that falls under the "TV Show" category.

The other side, for me, is how the different parts inform the larger world building. TOS can feel bigger because of TMP going forward. TNG and DS9 and VOY are all expansions on different ideas from TNG. SNW provides a different perspective on events leading in to TOS, and the Kelvin films do a similar thing. In my opinion that's where continuity is strongest is when it feels like it adds more color to the world, rather than checking boxes for facts or trivia.

It's a weird balancing act but to me if I am paying attention to minutia over story in an episode that is purposefully trying to entertain me then the episode has failed on some level.

 

[FormerLurker]

"The Man Trap" got picked because of the "monster".

This was primarily because of the idea that audiences would only accept it if it had what Harlan Ellison called "The three B's, the Boy, the Babe, and the BEM, or Bug-Eyed Monster."

 

[Ssosmcin]

Also look at what passed for science fiction at that time: The Outer Limits, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Lost in Space. Or as Gene Roddenberry would say "The Monster That Ate Tokyo."