Why didn't they do more Court room dramas on the show ?

[DumbDumb2007]

Why weren't at least one other Court room drama story done on the Original Series ? I watched the one with Kirk being out on trial and the one with William Windom.
Why didn't they do at least another Court Room story? There would have been other Starship Captains in trouble from time to time. Captain Kirk would have been interesting to watch as he sat on the tribunal as another Starship Commander would be put on trial for whatever reason. There should have been an episode involving the Trial of the Captain of the U.S.S. Exeter, a post story about the Captain of the Starship Constellation,etc. Seeing Kirk having to sit on the tribunal that would have decided the fate of one of his fellow captains or eevn a superior officer would have bene worth seeing.
I saw once a while back the Andersonville Trial on public television. Seeing Shatner shouting as an attorney was worth watching. I didn't know he could yell that hard !
Ooops, wasn't there a trial of Kirk on the final episode ? Seeing Kirk shout and go red hot there was something !

 

[Mallory]

DumbDumb2007 said:
and the one with William Windom...

Which episode was that?

There was also some pretty good court room drama in The Menagerie, but the basic answer to your questions is that Star Trek was never intended to be "Perry Mason in Space".

 

[DumbDumb2007]

Court Martial, the Menagerie,Turnabout Intruder and Space Seed all had some court room stuff. It would have been cool to see another good court room story done on the show. i had to sit back and think of the names of those episodes.

 

[KDoug]

"There would have been other Starship Captains in trouble from time to time. Captain Kirk would have been interesting to watch as he sat on the tribunal as another Starship Commander would be put on trial for whatever reason."


I don't know about that. I think it would be much more interesting if the person on trial is one of the regulars. Otherwise, the audience would wonder why they should care about the outcome of the trial because they don't know the guy. In order to make the audience know the character well enough, you would need to have a lot more time devoted to back story, which takes away from the time that can be devoted to the trial.

But as far as court drama episodes period go, regardless of who they're about, I think it's an area worth exploring. Probably the reason why it's not done more often in Trek is because it's a lot different from the kind of story that's they usually do. It requires a rather specific story structure. But it can certainly be done right.

 

[Kryton]

William Windom was the prosecutor in the episode "The Doomsday Defense".

Judge Denny Crane kicked Sam Cogley's ASS in that one!

 

[Forbin]

More importantly, why weren't there more space combat episodes in Perry Mason?

 

[Basill]

Laughably, I could actually see a weird little law firm type show based on Starbase 11 with Sam Cogley and a few others butting heads as they define space law for the next few centuries. Maybe Finnegan will show up as a sleezy lawyer and harass Kirk every time he comes into port. Or maybe a DA type program with a hard nosed assistant DA trying to take out all the seedy elements of the space shipping industry. Drug trafficking and Orion slave trade... They could call it Shar...akis. Yeah. Sharakis. As long as they have pink skies and ringed planets I'd be happy.

Maybe someday we'll get a "Starfleet: JAG" spin-off. Or even a "Starfleet: CSI" Though that trend may be on the wane. Fortunately.

There are alway fanfilms.

 

[SonicRanger]

Two in a row kinda ruined courtroom episodes for me.

 

[Outpost4]

Mallory said:
Star Trek was never intended to be "Perry Mason in Space".

If that's the case, then why didn't we see more cattle rustling on Star Trek?

Wagon Train to the stars, my ass.

 

[Kegek]

"The Deadly Years" also contains coutroom drama.

The answer is that they weren't able to sign Elisha Cook, Jr. as a regular. Initially the plan had been, following "Court Martial", to have one half of the episode each week about Kirk and Spock, and the other half about the proverbial odd couple, Samuel T. Cogley and Harcourt Fenton Mudd. Unfortunately, Cook was unavailable. It was briefly considered to recast Cogley as William Windom, but eventually the whole thing was scrapped. Roger C. Carmel discussed this in his autobiography, alluding to an infamous script by Bar-David which would have Cogley interpret constitutional law that discriminates against Martians while Harry Mudd conned the natives of an eskimo planet into buying freezers.

Disclaimer: Everything past the first sentence was garbage. Believe it to be true at your own peril.

 

[Jack Bauer]

They probably felt that it wasn't a good idea for a space show to do too many courtroom dramas. I think there was enough.

 

[Brannigan]

I wanted to see Denny Crane defend Captain Kirk.

 

[Nebusj]

Someone caught them in ``Space Seed'' holding the proceedings in front of the Cuban flag and what with the political climate of the time the courtroom set was quickly dropped down the Vasquez rocks, never to be seen again.

 

[Cranston]

Forbin said:
More importantly, why weren't there more space combat episodes in Perry Mason?

Regrettably, they were cut due to production budget issues. The forthcoming HD-DVD and Blu-Ray releases of the program will restore said scenes, complete with state-of-the-art CGI effects designed (according to the press release) "to honor the creators' original vision."

 

[Garibaldi O'brien]

If we want this we could just ask for a Star Trek: Law and Order: Space Victims Unit spin-off. I'm sure they have the notes for it in a drawer somewhere.

 

[Forbin]

I have notes in MY drawers!

 

[aridas sofia]

Mallory said:

DumbDumb2007 said:
and the one with William Windom...

Which episode was that?

There was also some pretty good court room drama in The Menagerie, but the basic answer to your questions is that Star Trek was never intended to be "Perry Mason in Space".

Yeah. Perry Mason had already transfered to Ironside.

Which means most Trek courtroom dramas were probably taking place on Constitution.