Your "last episode" and syndication cuts.

[J.T.B.]

I've got the book here and a complete text dump of it and scanning the latter (searching for keywords) I am finding nothing to support the idea that a feature was in any way anticipated.

OK I got a copy and here is what I was thinking of:

pp. 19-20:
If it doesn't work, we've all lost, but we've lost trying to do something worthwhile. And if you give us a commitment for a ninety-minute script instead of one hour, and we make the pilot, you can always run it as a TV special and recoup your investment if it doesn't sell as a series.

p. 23:
The board was nervous. Production of a ninety-minute science-fiction pilot was an expensive business move, a risky business move.
​

I think there was enough extra film to add ca.10 min but I don't know if all of those minutes would have been quality ones.

Thank you!

 

[mb22]

^^^
That's how I saw the character as a kid too when watching that episode.

My 9 or 10 year old sister said the same while watching it...

 

[Maurice]

OK I got a copy and here is what I was thinking of:

pp. 19-20:
If it doesn't work, we've all lost, but we've lost trying to do something worthwhile. And if you give us a commitment for a ninety-minute script instead of one hour, and we make the pilot, you can always run it a s a TV special and recoup your investment if it doesn't sell as a series.

p. 23:
The board was nervous. Production of a ninety-minute science-fiction pilot was an expensive business move, a risky business move.
​

​

Thank you.

I still remain highly skeptical because this doesn't agree with any of the primary source documentation we've seen. We can't know what Solow actually said to the NBC execs, so one has to be careful here because Solow was writing this ~30 years on and there's no guarantee that his recollection was accurate. For our purposes, memoirs are pretty far down the chain as reliable and really only useful if they support primary and secondary sources. Otherwise, they at best launchpads to material worth attempting to verify or debunk.

 

[J.T.B.]

I still remain highly skeptical because this doesn't agree with any of the primary source documentation we've seen. We can't know what Solow actually said to the NBC execs, so one has to be careful here because Solow was writing this ~30 years on and there's no guarantee that his recollection was accurate. For our purposes, memoirs are pretty far down the chain as reliable and really only useful if they support primary and secondary sources. Otherwise, they at best launchpads to material worth attempting to verify or debunk.

Oh yeah, it looks there is reason to be skeptical. I don't know what a typical shooting ratio was for a TV production back then, but from what @alchemist says I have to wonder if they shot enough to work into a TV-movie-length cut.

 

[Maurice]

Oh yeah, it looks there is reason to be skeptical. I don't know what a typical shooting ratio was for a TV production back then, but from what @alchemist says I have to wonder if they shot enough to work into a TV-movie-length cut.

Roddenberry's appeal to Hunter in this regard makes it plain that they could probably pad the thing out to feature length but that it would not be the best possible solution. What never gets suggested is shooting extra material with the Enterprise crew up on the ship.

 

[Coops]

I didn't see the complete The Cage until I bought the Blu rays a couple of years ago but other than that Assignment : Earth was an episode that I thought had passed me by from the BBC broadcasts. For a while I thought Aunty Beeb hadn't shown it. Turns out I'd seen a small part of it in the Eighties but..... I hadn't realised it was Star Trek and I guess I switched over

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Funny, that was one of the episodes that I saw so often I would think "Not again!" if it came on. But I'd watch it anyway. Also I distinctly remember a kid at elementary school saying he'd seen a Star Trek where they met up with "a guy like Liberace" and I knew what he was talking about.

The real Liberace did a Batman episode roughly contemporaneous with "Gothos," and he would have been perfect for Trelane. I wonder if William Campbell got the part because Liberace himself was unavailable.

 

[Grant]

Even back then movies had credits that were quite a bit longer than television shows so they could have padded the runtime of the cage buy three or four minutes with in-depth credits for example there something on the order of 19 or 18 speaking parts in the Cage but the most I've ever seen on screen are maybe six or seven tops. So if they had slowed down the credits and thrown in everybody who had a part in it both in front of and behind the camera they might have been able to by themselves some extra time

 

[JonnyQuest037]

The real Liberace did a Batman episode roughly contemporaneous with "Gothos," and he would have been perfect for Trelane.

The Liberace shows on Batman were actually the highest-rated episodes of that series.

Liberace also had a cameo on the Monkees episode "Art for Monkees' Sake" in October 1967, parodying Jimi Hendrix smashing his guitar:

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[Therin of Andor]

I'm wondering what was the last episode that you finally saw to complete the series and when did you finally see the episodes in their uncut forum.

I finally saw the eps uncut when Hollywood House Home Video released about seven very red-shifted VHS tapes Down Under, and the whole series when the official three-seasons boxed set DVDs came out.

The weirdest Australian TV cuts were in "Space Seed" (Khan's henchman's slap of Uhura was cut before impact - and the uncut episode revealed that the henchman deliberately missed Uhura's face. Likewise Khan threatening McCoy with the scalpel). Weird because the cuts actually make the episode seem more violent!

Also the aged Uhura reflection in "And the Children Shall Lead". Cut from the TV episode - we never see what Uhura sees - but the aged Uhura pic is featured in the closing credits of other episodes.

My last episode is legendary in my family and inspired a blog post, which I wrote up a previous time this question was asked:
http://therinofandor.blogspot.com/2008/03/finally-i-see-lights.html


Finally, I see "The Lights..." by Ian McLean, on Flickr

 

[Richard S. Ta]

It's quite interesting to read old-timers who watched in syndication. A dying breed I suppose. I imagine them jotting down names of episodes they'd seen and hoping they'd get a 'new' one every time they tuned in. Makes me yearn for simpler times.

 

[Henoch]

It's quite interesting to read old-timers who watched in syndication. A dying breed I suppose. I imagine them jotting down names of episodes they'd seen and hoping they'd get a 'new' one every time they tuned in. Makes me yearn for simpler times.

Great to have you on board.

Not dead, yet! I remember watching the first rerun of the original broadcast of Who Mourns For Adonais? in 1968 at my cousin's house (lucky guy). My household didn't watch Star Trek, so, that was my first and only exposure to the original broadcast. Later in syndication, I was able to watch the show on my 12" black and white TV (with reception enhancing aluminum foil on the antenna).

Oh boy did I love it when VHS recorders came out! My master plan: to record all original 79 episodes...in order. I created a hand written list of episodes based on broadcast order (no internet back then, I think I got the list from The World of Star Trek by David Gerrold?). I got two episodes per VHS tape in standard resolution complete with extra commercials which cut out some of the original content. I gave a villainous laugh once I accomplished my master plan (ha ha ha ha.) About 6 years ago, since I didn't own a working VHS machine and the poor quality of recordings, I threw the tapes out. No laugher.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

The Liberace shows on Batman were actually the highest-rated episodes of that series.

Actually, that's an oft-reported story that's since been debunked. One of the To the Batpoles podcast hosts discussed that story in one of their 2019 or 2020 shows (along with the also debunked "4th season" myth).

 

[Richard S. Ta]

Oh boy did I love it when VHS recorders came out! My master plan: to record all original 79 episodes...in order. I created a hand written list of episodes based on broadcast order (no internet back then, I think I got the list from The World of Star Trek by David Gerrold?). I got two episodes per VHS tape in standard resolution complete with extra commercials which cut out some of the original content.

Born in 1979 in the U.K. and I'm not even sure that any channel was broadcasting Star Trek at that point. I remember trying to sit through TOS when it was repeated in the 1990s but I didn't get very far. For me, for years, Star Trek was movies. I wore out my tapes of Star Trek II-IV. I'm old enough to just about remember watching V at the cinema and have less hazy memories of doing the same with VI.

Still, a kid armed with a notebook and the will to record 79 hours of television in broadcast order... then actually doing it. That sir, is something.

My first experience of TV Trek proper was in the mid-00s when I picked up the first TOS boxset. I devoured that then slowly started working my way through TOS to Enterprise. I can't even imagine the thrill of being ten years old or whatever and scanning TV Guides for a 'new' episode.

I gave a villainous laugh once I accomplished my master plan (ha ha ha ha.) About 6 years ago, since I didn't own a working VHS machine and the poor quality of recordings, I threw the tapes out. No laugher.

Tragic.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

It's quite interesting to read old-timers who watched in syndication. A dying breed I suppose. I imagine them jotting down names of episodes they'd seen and hoping they'd get a 'new' one every time they tuned in. Makes me yearn for simpler times.

For me the experience was actually more like this. Every episode I saw was (audio) recorded on cassette tape, either by myself or by my brother. Each cassette was labelled with the episode's title, and those were sorted in the cases by the order in The World of Star Trek. Gaps were left for the missing episodes.

 

[MGagen]

I'm another old-timer who watched some episodes in first run, but got to really see the series a few years later when it was rebroadcast. I remember making cassette audio tapes of some of the episodes when it came back in syndication. I have a vivid memory of taking my portable cassette recorder out under a clear night sky and listening to the opening theme while looking up at stars. Ah, kids! The odd things they do...

In my area, they showed the episodes on week nights, right after the 10:00 news. I could only stay up late enough to see complete episodes on Fridays (it not being a school night). Eventually, our local news team began a cheesy tradition of 'beaming aboard the Enterprise" at the end of their broadcast. They sat in front of a large Chromakey screen. The opening shot of the teaser would appear behind them, and the wizards behind the camera would play the transporter sound effect as the news team's silhouettes (desk and all) were filled with gold-tinted static as they melted away! (Not too bad of an improvised video effect for the early 1970s.)

Those were the days.