Story: Where No Man Has Gone Before
Written By: Samuel A. Peeples
Series: Star Trek: The Original Series
Year: 1966
In the Star Trek community, people like to make a big deal about how the Star Trek idea was so good, that even though they didn’t like the pilot, NBC commissioned a second pilot. In reality I think it went down more like this. “That’s it? That’s the pilot? You said it be like a western in space! This isn’t like a western at all! Look we spent A LOT OF MONEY on these sets and costumes, so you have to do it RIGHT this time.”
It all comes down to money, Roddenberry didn’t really have this grand vision of the future, he just knew, and rightly so, that Star Trek would make good TV, and NBC knew that spending so much money on sets that are only used once wasn’t in their favor. So they let Roddenberry have another go, and this episode is pretty good.
It isn’t mind blowing, but it has its moments. Its more action oriented, and really had Roddenberry any brains when he was writing his first pilot, he would have made it more action oriented, then the show would have been picked up and then he could experiment with more character and cerebral stories. But then history would have been quite different.
NEXT TIME: More Fine Tuning
Written By: Samuel A. Peeples
Series: Star Trek: The Original Series
Year: 1966
In the Star Trek community, people like to make a big deal about how the Star Trek idea was so good, that even though they didn’t like the pilot, NBC commissioned a second pilot. In reality I think it went down more like this. “That’s it? That’s the pilot? You said it be like a western in space! This isn’t like a western at all! Look we spent A LOT OF MONEY on these sets and costumes, so you have to do it RIGHT this time.”
It isn’t mind blowing, but it has its moments. Its more action oriented, and really had Roddenberry any brains when he was writing his first pilot, he would have made it more action oriented, then the show would have been picked up and then he could experiment with more character and cerebral stories. But then history would have been quite different.
NEXT TIME: More Fine Tuning