Was there ever a real intent to do Star Trek as a wheel show?

[ChallengerHK]

I've been watching Banacek for the past couple of months on IMDB. I loved the show in first run, as well as MacMillan & Wife. My rewatch got me thinking about something I'd read decades back, that one of Roddenberry's plans for bringing Trek back to TV was to do it as a wheel show, sharing a timeslot with several other programs. The idea was that instead of 26ish hours of rushed production, there would have been something like 8 episodes with a runtime of one and a half hours each, for about 12 hours of show per season.
So my question is "How real was this?" Wheel shows were fairly popular and successful at the time, so I can see it having been a real idea. Were there ever any serious talks with a network? Any execs ever interested? If it was a "real" idea, why didn't TPTB follow up on it?

 

[BillJ]

I don’t think the economics would have worked for a show like Star Trek.

 

[Henoch]

I don’t think the economics would have worked for a show like Star Trek.

I have no info on the topic, but I speculate that this meant that the Network would have to create two other sci-fi shows to complete the wheel.

TV Executive: So let me get this straight, Gene, not only do you want me to pay for your show, but you want me to pay for two other shows, too?

 

[ChallengerHK]

I have no info on the topic, but I speculate that this meant that the Network would have to create two other sci-fi shows to complete the wheel.

TV Executive: So let me get this straight, Gene, not only do you want me to pay for your show, but you want me to pay for two other shows, too?

Given the attitudes about TV SF in the 70s, i.e., very few really expected or wanted it to be good literature, I shudder to think about what it would have been paired with. The Incredible Hulk and Fantastic Journey?

I don't think the cost of three shows would have been a problem, though. A network would have had to fund three shows, yes, but each show would have had 8 episodes running 2 hours each. At two hours each they would cover two time slots, so the wheel format's annual production would be 48 hours, versus the non-wheel formats production of 52 hours (26 episodes x 1 hour x 2 programs), pretty much the same.

What would have potentially made it more expensive would have been the nature of the shows themselves. A show like the Hulk wouldn't have a lot of expensive effects, wild sets, etc., while Galactica was the most expensive show produced at the time.

 

[Christopher]

Given the attitudes about TV SF in the 70s, i.e., very few really expected or wanted it to be good literature, I shudder to think about what it would have been paired with. The Incredible Hulk and Fantastic Journey?

Well, of course they would've had to be Paramount shows, just like all the Mystery Movie wheel shows were from Universal. Paramount had few SF/fantasy productions in the '70s, and with the exception of Trek:TAS and the short-lived Future Cop, all of them were sitcoms (Mork & Mindy, Struck by Lightning, Out of the Blue).

So the previous post is correct -- it would've been necessary to create at least two additional shows to go along with Trek. Although the advantage would've been the same as for the mystery wheels -- you'd have three different production units working in parallel for the same time slot, so it would be easier to keep to the schedule. It could have been a good format for science fiction, since you could put more time and money into each installment. Although Universal attempted something similar with Cliffhangers! in 1979, and it didn't work out.

There were some attempts in the '70s to make intelligent SF, The Incredible Hulk being the most successful, despite its reputation. The others tended to succumb to network pressure to dumb them down, as seen with shows like Logan's Run (which had D.C. Fontana as story editor, with David Gerrold and Harlan Ellison contributing one script each, but which mostly ended up pretty cheesy) and The Six Million Dollar Man (which was smarter in its first season but got shallower over time). Gerrold pitched an idea for a smart, sophisticated Buck Rogers series that was rejected in favor of the cheesy version we got instead.

 

[J.T.B.]

I have no info on the topic, but I speculate that this meant that the Network would have to create two other sci-fi shows to complete the wheel.

TV Executive: So let me get this straight, Gene, not only do you want me to pay for your show, but you want me to pay for two other shows, too?

Another tough thing about those shows: The network didn't just need a hit, it needed three hits. If two out of three didn't catch on, they could drag down the other show if viewers found something else in that time slot. NBC hit the jackpot with Columbo, McCloud and McMillan, but that was not easy to repeat.

 

[ChallengerHK]

Another tough thing about those shows: The network didn't just need a hit, it needed three hits. If two out of three didn't catch on, they could drag down the other show if viewers found something else in that time slot. NBC hit the jackpot with Columbo, McCloud and McMillan, but that was not easy to repeat.

In a sense I agree, and in another I don't.
Neilsens measure time slots, not shows. So a weak show would have dragged down the ratings for the slot, which would hurt all three.
On the other hand, with a wheel you can swap out an underperforming show and put another in it's place. NBC had both Sunday and Wednesday Mystery Movie shows, and you're right that the first three were all very successful. The rest were hit and miss. Banacek was successful, and had been renewed for a third season, but Peppard was getting a divorce and looking at giving Elizabeth Ashley half of what he made, so he bailed out. I *think* the Snoop Sisters went for two seasons, and maybe a couple of others, but there were many, like Tenafly, that just didn't make the cut. If I remember correctly Quincy MD started out as a Mystery Movie program and then moved into full time production, sos that would have been another option if a wheel Trek was being dragged down by its siblings.

 

[Christopher]

Another tough thing about those shows: The network didn't just need a hit, it needed three hits. If two out of three didn't catch on, they could drag down the other show if viewers found something else in that time slot. NBC hit the jackpot with Columbo, McCloud and McMillan, but that was not easy to repeat.

Well, putting any series on the air is a gamble, and most of them fail. So that doesn't mean it wouldn't have been worth taking a chance on the wheel idea.

Banacek was successful, and had been renewed for a third season, but Peppard was getting a divorce and looking at giving Elizabeth Ashley half of what he made, so he bailed out.

Oh, I didn't know that. I figured it was cancelled due to the usual reasons.

I *think* the Snoop Sisters went for two seasons, and maybe a couple of others, but there were many, like Tenafly, that just didn't make the cut.

Not quite. The Snoop Sisters, like Columbo, started out as a standalone TV movie, then got a second standalone movie as a series pilot, after which it got a single 4-episode season in the second, final year of the midweek Mystery Movie wheel. After the big three, only Hec Ramsey and Banacek made it to two seasons as wheel series.

If I remember correctly Quincy MD started out as a Mystery Movie program and then moved into full time production, sos that would have been another option if a wheel Trek was being dragged down by its siblings.

That's right. It had four episodes in the final season of the movie wheel, which were then cut down to fit a one-hour time slot in syndication -- the reverse of what happened with McCloud, where episodes from its hourlong first season were combined into 2-hour movies for syndication.

I'm not sure I've ever seen the uncut movie versions of those first four Quincy episodes, because I didn't know it had been a wheel series until well after it ended.

 

[J.T.B.]

In a sense I agree, and in another I don't.
Neilsens measure time slots, not shows. So a weak show would have dragged down the ratings for the slot, which would hurt all three.

Yeah, that's what I meant, even if one show was popular it could be undermined by weaker shows in that wheel slot.

On the other hand, with a wheel you can swap out an underperforming show and put another in it's place. NBC had both Sunday and Wednesday Mystery Movie shows, and you're right that the first three were all very successful. The rest were hit and miss. Banacek was successful, and had been renewed for a third season, but Peppard was getting a divorce and looking at giving Elizabeth Ashley half of what he made, so he bailed out. I *think* the Snoop Sisters went for two seasons, and maybe a couple of others, but there were many, like Tenafly, that just didn't make the cut. If I remember correctly Quincy MD started out as a Mystery Movie program and then moved into full time production, sos that would have been another option if a wheel Trek was being dragged down by its siblings.

IIRC NBC wanted four shows for Sunday, which became a necessity when Peter Falk got a little beyond control and Columbo was always behind schedule. Hec Ramsey lasted two seasons, then I think they tried Amy Prentiss and McCoy (what was it with the "Mc" names?) which didn't do well. Finally Quincy M.E. seemed like a hit, but the ratings had really dropped so the Sunday Mystery Movie was canceled and Quincy made into its own series.

 

[Maurice]

The economics are complicated. Startup costs are high, so the fewer episodes you have the less amortization there is and the higher the averaged budget is.

Studios deficit financed shows, but there were on-network re-run fees and foreign sales to pick up a big chunk of the slack. But the fewer shows you make at a higher cost the more likely you’ll be carrying a bigger deficit. And there was never much of a syndication market for 90–120 minute programs to make back your investment.

In summary: tricky.

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, that's what I meant, even if one show was popular it could be undermined by weaker shows in that wheel slot.

Would it, though? I mean, the big three Mystery Movie shows kept going strong for years while the other tryouts kept failing around them. And ChallengerHK says that Banacek was a hit and could've gone on longer.

And there was never much of a syndication market for 90–120 minute programs to make back your investment.

Sure there was. In my youth and early adulthood, TV movie syndication was a commonplace thing. Stations often had a daily afternoon movie block and needed five shows a week to fill it with, which is why failed hourlong series like Battlestar Galactica, Planet of the Apes, and Spider-Man repackaged their episodes into movie-length blocks. (We saw several examples of this on Mystery Science Theater 3000, such as Master Ninja and Riding with Death.) And the Mystery Movie shows -- at least the four big ones -- were constantly rerun in daytime syndication. I was too young to watch most of them in first run, so I didn't get to know them until they were syndicated in later years, and I saw them frequently.

 

[M'Sharak]

Sure there was. In my youth and early adulthood, TV movie syndication was a commonplace thing.

And your youth and early adulthood transpired during the mid-to-late 1970s, did it?

 

[Christopher]

And your youth and early adulthood transpired during the mid-to-late 1970s, did it?

The 1970s-90s, yes, when syndicated TV movie blocks were a routine thing on daytime TV. As I said, those daytime syndicated reruns were how I got to know the '70s mystery movie shows, the reruns of which I watched over and over again in the '80s and '90s. (Universal packaged the three main Sunday mystery shows together with Banacek in syndication, as a single 4-series wheel.) Also plenty of other TV movies (like the Reb Brown Captain America pilots, for example), edited-for-TV theatrical movies, terrible sci-fi B-movies, etc.

Here's an article about the boom in TV-movie syndication and how Universal repackaged its failed series into mashup "movies":

https://classictvhistory.wordpress.com/tag/syndication/

In the seventies and eighties, when made-for-television movies were some of the hottest properties on television, enough of them accrued for their owners to bundle them into syndication packages. These offerings were similar to the packages of old TV shows that cable and local stations could buy, except that they consisted of unrelated telefilms instead of episodes of a single series. They were a good fit for showcases like CBS Late Night and other time slots that regularly ran old theatrical films.

Once the made-for-TV movie proved its value in off-network reruns, the executives at Universal had an idea: why not create some “new” TV movies out of spare parts? The “parts” were series that had flopped after a single season, or less. Because the predominance of “strip” (i.e., five days per week) syndication placed a premium on long-running shows, these failures were perceived as having no rerun value, even if they’d been critical hits. In the seventies, Universal began to cannibalize these write-offs, sewing together two or more episodes of forgotten series, giving them a generic new title, and dropping them into syndication packages along with authentic telefilms. With few reference books and no internet to consult, unsuspecting viewers would recognize these hybrids as recycled television episodes only if they’d been among the few to watch the failed show when it was on the air. That these telefilm Frankensteins were incoherent and unsatisfying – instead of telling a single story, they put the characters through several abrupt, unconnected plots – didn’t matter. They added to Universal’s profits, without any obvious negative consequences.

And as I mentioned, it wasn't unique to Universal. Ten of the 14 episodes of the Planet of the Apes TV series from 20th Century Fox were packaged as five TV movies for a week-long syndication strip, which also paralleled the five theatrical movies. In my youth, it took some years before I understood the difference between the theatrical films and the TV "movies." I think there may have been times when a station would strip the five theatrical movies one week and the five episode mashups the next.

 

[Maurice]

Sure there was. In my youth and early adulthood, TV movie syndication was a commonplace thing. Stations often had a daily afternoon movie block and needed five shows a week to fill it with, which is why failed hourlong series like Battlestar Galactica, Planet of the Apes, and Spider-Man repackaged their episodes into movie-length blocks. (We saw several examples of this on Mystery Science Theater 3000, such as Master Ninja and Riding with Death.) And the Mystery Movie shows -- at least the four big ones -- were constantly rerun in daytime syndication. I was too young to watch most of them in first run, so I didn't get to know them until they were syndicated in later years, and I saw them frequently.

Fair point.

While I personally never encountered such repackages for the Afternoon Movie or whatnot, that's not to say deny their existence. I know a fair number of hour-long shows compiled two or more episodes into movies for theatrical and foreign release. How profitable such "movies" were for syndication is something I've not dug into.

 

[XCV330]

I was 6 by the time the 70's ended so I can't remember much, but for all the affiliates here, after an afternoon news spot, it was soaps until the last ones of the day like Guiding Light made way for cartoons or afternoon light reruns like Star Trek or Gilligan's Island. The game shows mostly had slots between the morning news shows and noon. We didn't et an indie station in the area until the mid 80's, a long forgotten UHF channel that was oddly enough trying something akin, but not nearly as good as, MST3K at weekend nights. Their budget was so poor I'm surprised they weren't showing military training films. They might have done old failed pilots and that kind of fare. I can't say. never watched it in daytime.

 

[Christopher]

I know a fair number of hour-long shows compiled two or more episodes into movies for theatrical and foreign release. How profitable such "movies" were for syndication is something I've not dug into.

I don't know about those specifically, but actual 90-minute or 2-hour TV movies -- like the Mystery Movie series, backdoor-pilot movies like Genesis II or Captain America, or the standalone movies that were often done back then such as Prescription: Murder, the first Columbo movie -- were a staple on TV for decades, both in first run and syndication, so there was definitely a thriving and ongoing market for them. I figure the reason TV movies eventually went into decline was that direct-to-video movies more or less took over their niche. Although they lingered on cable for longer than they did on network TV; I gather that Lifetime still makes them, and Syfy had its multitude of Z-grade monster movies for a while.

I often find it kind of sad that TV scheduling has gotten so much less flexible over the decades. There used to be half-hour shows, one-hour shows, 90-minute shows, and 2-hour shows; heck, in the '50s there were even some 15-minute, 45-minute, and 75-minute shows, and even the occasional 5-minute show. But these days, all that seems to be left on commercial TV are half-hour and one-hour shows. You never even see a 2-hour pilot or finale anymore. (Although The CW did air the last two Supergirl episodes back-to-back.)

 

[ChallengerHK]

There used to be half-hour shows, one-hour shows, 90-minute shows, and 2-hour shows; heck, in the '50s there were even some 15-minute, 45-minute, and 75-minute shows, and even the occasional 5-minute show.

When I was in film school the video production professor got an assignment and left for a month. He had his ditzy girlfriend cover the class. During one memorable lecture she explained that audiences didn't have the patience to sit through one and two hour programs, and that in the future everyone would follow the MTV model and shows would be 3.5 minutes long.

 

[J.T.B.]

Would it, though? I mean, the big three Mystery Movie shows kept going strong for years while the other tryouts kept failing around them.

If you have three successful shows that changes the calculation, it's less risky to try out a fourth. The question is how willing a network would be to build a wheel series with Star Trek. My guess is that the window where that would have been seriously considered was a short one, and probably past, but I'm open to being corrected.

And ChallengerHK says that Banacek was a hit and could've gone on longer.

Banacek was in the Wednesday rotation, I don't think the Wednesday program ever made the top 30 in ratings. Maybe it could have been spun off on its own, but I don't think a second mystery wheel was regarded as a successful idea.

 

[Christopher]

If you have three successful shows that changes the calculation, it's less risky to try out a fourth. The question is how willing a network would be to build a wheel series with Star Trek. My guess is that the window where that would have been seriously considered was a short one, and probably past, but I'm open to being corrected.

My guess is that if they'd tried it, it probably would've gone similarly to the NBC Wednesday Mystery Movie and the '89 ABC Mystery Movie -- the wheel would've gone on for two seasons anchored by the Trek revival with the other two series failing and getting replaced, and then the wheel would've been cancelled but the Trek revival might have continued as a solo series beyond it (as the '89 Columbo revival did, and as Banacek might have if Peppard hadn't quit).

Like I said, the majority of shows don't succeed, so the lack of guaranteed success doesn't mean that it wouldn't have been worth trying. It would've been an interesting experiment, at least. And it would've meant getting a few more short-lived SF dramas from Paramount in that timeframe, possibly fairly intelligent ones if they were meant to be paired with Trek. Assuming two seasons with two failed series each, 4-6 episodes per series, that's 16-24 TV movies, which would be nothing to sneeze at, considering the relative sparseness of 1970s SFTV content.

 

[ChallengerHK]

And ChallengerHK says that Banacek was a hit and could've gone on longer.

Banacek was in the Wednesday rotation, I don't think the Wednesday program ever made the top 30 in ratings. Maybe it could have been spun off on its own, but I don't think a second mystery wheel was regarded as a successful idea.

I don't think I would call it a hit. I said it was successful, i.e., it was renewed. I'm guessing that it performed moderately well in the ratings, but I've never bothered to check. Peppard's dead, there won't be any more of them, so I don't care :-)