Where TOS stumbled....

[Gary7]

^^ True, Spock is awesome, I wouldn't want to lose Spock for Number One.

Yeah, there would've been too much competition for attention in the writing for those characters. The compelling Vulcan science officer and the female XO... It would've meant less attention for Spock, who was such a pivotal character. Those episodes where he was in command were mostly good.

 

[Pauln6]

The tone changes halfway through S1 with the arrival of Gene Coon. Earlier Trek is scarier, moodier, Kirk is sterner, there is more pausing in the dialog, more naturalism in general (more extras seen at work, drinking coffee, etc). It became chucklier/cuter. Fewer crewmembers and more focus on Sulu/Uhura/Chekov, to make it more of a "family." Alas, Riley, I knew him well.

S3 really isn't that bad, though its clunkers are louder. It is a continuation of S2 which had more going-through-the-motions eps than 1 or 3.

So, the major stumble was the change in tone halfway through S1. Good thread.

I agree with this 100%. I would have preferred it if a group of recurring guest stars including Riley, Rand, Chapel, and Mulhall could have been spread more regularly across all three seasons in roles where they were allowed to contribute something worthwhile.

Too often TOS featured highly qualified female officers whose role in the episode ended up having nothing to do with their abilities but rather with their role as a love interest or sex object.

The loss of Rand early on was a big mistake for me. I'm not sure that Uhura benefited from her loss as much as it is supposed since a fair few of Uhura's most notable scenes were in the early episodes, including some where she was interacting with Janice.

 

[Warped9]

I understand the nature of television production in that time, and so some of the things I'd have liked to see just weren't likely to happen.

I, too, would like to have seen the secondary characters get a little more screen time. I would also like to have seen some third tier characters crop up again every so often.

Yes, I like the tone of Season 1 best, but shows do evolve and I don't think it changed so much as to really hurt the series. In Season 3 I would also have liked Justman as producer rather than Freiberger because I think it would have had a more positive influence on the season as a whole even though I think it's panned more than it deserves.

The role of women should have been pushed more. TOS wasn't the only series pushing greater roles for women, but perhaps it was the most visible and arguably the most remembered from that time.

There are things I'd like to have seen production wise, but it's not really a failure because they simply didn't have the needed time and money or they would have done those things.

Where I think the show stumbled was generally in the case of individual episodes that deserved a little more rewriting to lift them up. And this is something I think we would have seen more of with Justman in charge. Even a horrid exercise like "And The Children Shall Lead" could have been salvaged with a little rewriting...and some sterner direction to get Shatner to tone it down some.

 

[Ssosmcin]

The introduction of all out comedies and the increased number of "parallel Earths" chipped at the show's veneer.

Character humor works well and the show had the magic in spades. But the all out comedies eroded at the show's realism. I, Mudd and A Piece of the Action are not on my repeat viewing list, although Tribbles is notable for being amusing while keeping everyone in character.

The parallel Earth scenarios were a little tiring: Nazi's, Romans, gangsters, the damned US Constitution… It shows a real lack of imagination and one wishes more solid SF writers would have been hired in the second year. We were lucky enough to get something from Norman Spinrad and Robert Bloch.

While I enjoyed the comfort between the characters, I felt there was just too much lightness. If Freiberger can be complimented for anything, it's the excision of all out comedy. The show did regain a certain creepiness in the third year. But then there were to many scenarios where the Enterprise was ferrying medicines, or something.

 

[Warped9]

^^ Agreed. I just watched an Outer Limits episode with James Doohan in a prominent role. I'm reminded of how I'd like to have seen Scotty with a little more significant screen time and more as he was portrayed in Season 1 rather than as the somewhat excitable engineer he could be later.

It also would have been nice if we could have seen the occasional alien Starfleet officer (other than Spock), command rank or otherwise, just to nail home the idea of how diverse the Federation was really supposed to be.

 

[Gary7]

^^ I think you guys make some excellent points.

Part of the problem was that TOS was really the first of its kind. Aside from it being riddled with certain production issues (various people in control, limited budgets for the scope, etc), this was new territory. And so they experimented, with some of them quite disastrous (such as "And The Children Shall Lead"). They were also hard up on good scripts... remember how they were about to run out and the refashioning of "The Cage" into "The Menagerie, I & II" saved the day. You can tell that some of these screenplays were slipshod... they made the most of them, but had they more time I've no doubt they'd have been much better.

Another problem was the egotistical Shatner. As the series progressed, he and Nimoy became such pivotal characters. And Shatner exercised his power often, having things changed here and there to suit his desires (and ego). The idea of a non-primary character getting extra attention pissed him off. That's part of the reason why Doohan had such a problem with him, why there was such bad blood between them for so long (and thankfully they patched up quite a bit later on, not long before Doohan passed away). Doohan was a very talented actor and should have had more screen time. And yes, definitely some repeating 3rd string characters like Riley. Also, more screen time for female and alien characters; show more diversity.

 

[scotpens]

It would have been interesting if they had been able to keep the Number One character from The Cage. With time it would have made the show seem even more progressive.

Aside from being too far ahead of the curve in terms of women's roles, the problem with Number One is that she was conceived as a riddle wrapped in an enigma. “Almost mysteriously female . . . slim and dark in a Nile Valley way, age uncertain, one of those women who will always look the same between years twenty and fifty” is how G.R. described her in the series outline. A mystery woman can work as a principal character for only so long before viewers want to know something about her. Like her name, f'rinstance.

Since losing Number One gave us the Spock we know, I'm ok with the mashing together of those characters. But one spot where TOS really stumbles is where is goes sexist.

One could say that is a modern interpretation, and say it's a product of its times, etc. Which is true, but the existence of Number One in the pilot shows that equality was in the minds of some and it would have made TOS a better show.

It also shows that G.R. was pushing for a major role for his then-girlfriend.

I'd rather have seen Chapel rewritten in a different department, like an engineer assistant, and have cast the head nurse as a man.

A male nurse on TV would have made a good sitcom, perhaps. But a character in a serious drama? Good luck trying to sell that idea in 1966.

 

[PorthosShadow]

I was just thinking of something Rod Sereling said in a 1970 interview.

"Star Trek I thought was a very inconsistent show. Which at times sparkled with true ingenuity and pure science fiction approaches and other times was more carnival like. And very much more the creature of television than the creature of a legitimate literary form."

 

[YARN]

Replacing Jeffrey Hunter was MAJOR stumble, but it doesn't matter much since TOS is no longer canon.

 

[Warped9]

Replacing Jeffrey Hunter was MAJOR stumble, but it doesn't matter much since TOS is no longer canon.

 

[Gary7]

Replacing Jeffrey Hunter was MAJOR stumble...

That's a very difficult call. While I really liked Hunter and his personification of Captain Pike, I'm not sure he would have boded well for the show long term. His demeanor was more hard core than Shatner's. I wonder if he would have warmed up over time. He did pass away in May of '69, so he would have been able to fulfill the 3 season run.

Despite Shatner's more flamboyant style and egotistical characteristics, he had a charm that worked well. Yeah, there were plenty of episodes where you can see him overacting. But he could be very serious at times, while playful on others. From what I've seen of Hunter's work, I'm not so sure he would have pulled it off as well.

 

[PorthosShadow]

Replacing Jeffrey Hunter was MAJOR stumble...

That's a very difficult call. While I really liked Hunter and his personification of Captain Pike, I'm not sure he would have boded well for the show long term. His demeanor was more hard core than Shatner's. I wonder if he would have warmed up over time. He did pass away in May of '69, so he would have been able to fulfill the 3 season run.

Despite Shatner's more flamboyant style and egotistical characteristics, he had a charm that worked well. Yeah, there were plenty of episodes where you can see him overacting. But he could be very serious at times, while playful on others. From what I've seen of Hunter's work, I'm not so sure he would have pulled it off as well.

If you think of TOS as a futuristic western then William Shatner was definately the equivilent of a cowboy. As for Jeffrey Hunter, he seemed more like James Arness in Gunsmoke.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Another problem was the egotistical Shatner. As the series progressed, he and Nimoy became such pivotal characters. And Shatner exercised his power often, having things changed here and there to suit his desires (and ego). The idea of a non-primary character getting extra attention pissed him off.

Let's not drink too deeply from the "Shatner done us wrong" Kool-Aid. The stuff that Shatner had cut was stuff that bogged down the story and really didn't serve any purpose, i.e., characters being given lines for the sake of being given lines, whether it makes any sense for them to pipe in at that moment or not. And by that criteria, we're talking about dialogue that probably would've been chopped during editing anyway, so why waste the time, film, and more importantly, money in filming stuff you know is gonna get cut?

I think Shatner's theory is correct. It wasn't until the conventions, with thousands of screaming fans telling the various cast members "Scotty/Sulu/Uhura/Chekov was my favorite!" that the resentment started kicking in. Before that, you never heard a peep and it was all one big happy family on the set (a version that's pretty well backed up by folks like Eddie Paskey and Billy Blackburn, who haven't been puffed up by forty years of con puffery and probably have a clearer recollection of events, not to mention Blackburn's home movies from the set).

 

[number6]

Another problem was the egotistical Shatner. As the series progressed, he and Nimoy became such pivotal characters. And Shatner exercised his power often, having things changed here and there to suit his desires (and ego). The idea of a non-primary character getting extra attention pissed him off.

Let's not drink too deeply from the "Shatner done us wrong" Kool-Aid. The stuff that Shatner had cut was stuff that bogged down the story and really didn't serve any purpose, i.e., characters being given lines for the sake of being given lines, whether it makes any sense for them to pipe in at that moment or not. And by that criteria, we're talking about dialogue that probably would've been chopped during editing anyway, so why waste the time, film, and more importantly, money in filming stuff you know is gonna get cut?

I think Shatner's theory is correct. It wasn't until the conventions, with thousands of screaming fans telling the various cast members "Scotty/Sulu/Uhura/Chekov was my favorite!" that the resentment started kicking in. Before that, you never heard a peep and it was all one big happy family on the set (a version that's pretty well backed up by folks like Eddie Paskey and Billy Blackburn, who haven't been puffed up by forty years of con puffery and probably have a clearer recollection of events, not to mention Blackburn's home movies from the set).

This.

 

[plynch]

I hadn't thought of Frieberger excising the comedy eps. Yup. And there are some creepier eps in 3, though the crew is too familiar (cf. S1 anyway) and Shatner seems to be mumbling more. I'm not the norm in that I think S2 is the weakest, mainly due to the parallel earth eps and the "comedy" that isn't. But whatever. Be well.

 

[Warped9]

The parallel Earths idea was candidly built into GR's pitch from the start. The idea was to utilize existing sets and props where possible to save on production costs. It was part of GR's appeal to make Star Trek attractive as series proposal. And it's not a bad pitch in principle since no one wants to spend more than they have to.

 

[Brutal Strudel]

I only realized this just the other day, but it's kinda sad that the white characters all got full full names pretty much out of the gate (James Kirk, Pavel Chekov, even Kevin Riley) but the non-white regulars were treated like the aliens, with only one name (Uhura and Sulu). This may seem overly PC, but I think that shows that, for all Trek's vaunted inclusiveness, it still viewed non-white humans as fundamentally "other." Par for the course in a late 60s show, I guess (though I, Spy was light years past Trek in the race relations department) but worth mentioning.

 

[Anji]

Without light, you would not know dark. Therefore, you would not know good Trek episodes without bad ones.

Based on that logic, I really can't criticise anything about the series.

 

[Warped9]

For myself I'd say my criticisms are based on love rather than abject disappointment. We can see where things could have gone better even while realizing the reasons why things were they way they were.

 

[JustKate]

Mandatory (but sincere) disclaimer: I love TOS. Keep that in mind. Plus, I know exactly the limitations of the TV of the time since I was alive and watching TV at the time Star Trek debuted.

Other people have made some really great points re. the secondary characters and the kind of yucky way women were often treated. They were treated worse on most contemporary TV shows, sure - but those shows didn't pretend to be showing a universe in which humanity had solved all of its social problems. And there were shows that, IMO, treated women better than they were treated on Trek. Two examples I can think of are The Avengers and Mission: Impossible (the regulars, anyway - the guest stars got more of a mixed reception).

But to bring up something that I don't think has come up yet, I think the show really erred in showing next to no character growth. Once you get past the first few episodes (and not all that much before then, IMO), you don't see any of the characters grow or change. The one who seems to grow the most, I think (this may be my imagination, but I don't think so), is Spock, but even he doesn't change that much. Kirk remains Kirk, Spock remains Spock, McCoy remains McCoy, and these characters continue to interact with each other in almost exactly the same way throughout the duration of the show. And I think that's a shame. Yes, yes, I know that's the way TV was at the time. I just don't think that's an adequate excuse. After all, the non-white characters in most TV of the time were out-and-out stereotypes, and yet they weren't on Trek. Had Roddenberry had enough vision, he could have included subtle signs of character change and growth if he wanted to, just as he included subtle signs of equality between the races, but obviously he didn't want to. He had a formula and he kept on using that formula. And it's a shame.