Star Trek 2009

Star Trek and Lost in Space are very different, even if they both have lots of explosions.

BTW, I committed a compositional error in using the subject of the paragraph when I stated the series had died because of poor ratings. The Original Series was the subject, and I went aside to The New Generation and should have referred back to TOS with that statement.

"Lost In Space" was aimed at young children along with several others from the early 50's through the 60's and Roddenberry had always been dissapointed that TV had not given adult sci-fi it's due. Exceptions, there was The Outer Limits, Twilight Zone, briefly in the 50's Tales of Tomorrow (which was really quite good from an old radio show -- here's an episode and there are others):

http://www.archive.org/details/TalesOfTomorrow-IceFromSpace

There was a TOT episode based on one of Azimov's robot stories and the series failed after two seasons, I believe, and because the sci-fi stories were too serious. There had even been talk of bringing the radio show 2000 Plus to TV, but after TOT's failure, it didn't happen.
2000 Plus was drawn from stories in Astounding Science Fiction, Galaxy and the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, the big three of the sci-fi periodicals of the time.

Roddenberry came up with a compromise where more money was spent on special effects and it was a hard sell but Paramount relented and NBC had a spot for it. It was in color and, as I stated before, was the most expensive opening credits special effects up to that time and maybe for years after. It was also space opera even with some thrown in "moral to the story" and other philosophical trappings. Here's a second season promo:

Roddenberry pitched "Star Trek" to CBS before he pitched it to NBC, but they said, "We have one of our own that we like," referring to "Lost in Space." There was a consistent, accross the board, failure by the networks to appreciate its value until decades later.

I think Gene and Paramount tried ABC also -- the networks still didn't appreciate it as STNG was syndicated and appeared on our LA channel 13 where later "Voyager" and "Enterprise" had their runs. It's now dubbed "My 13" -- here's it's "checkered history:"

Early history

Channel 13 went on the air on September 17, 1948 as KMTR-TV. The station briefly changed its call letters to KLAC-TV (Los Angeles, California), and adopted the moniker "Lucky 13". It was co-owned with KLAC-AM-FM, which was later co-owned with channel 13's current sister station KTTV. Although it was an independent station, it did run some programming from the DuMont Television Network.[1]

One of KLAC-TV's earlier stars was veteran actress Betty White, who starred in her own sitcom, Life with Elizabeth. Television personality Regis Philbin and actor-director Leonard Nimoy once worked behind the scenes at channel 13, and Oscar Levant had his own show on the station from 1958 to 1960. In 1954, the Copley Press (publishers of the San Diego Union-Tribune) purchased KLAC-TV, and changed its call letters to KCOP. In 1960, the NAFI Corporation, which would later merge with Chris-Craft Boats to become Chris-Craft Industries, bought channel 13, creating a relationship with Chris-Craft that lasted over forty years. KCOP offered Japanese cartoons dubbed into English such as Speed Racer and Amazing 3.

Chris-Craft partnered up with various television studios over the years to produce first-run syndicated programming, which gave KCOP some of its best ratings and made channel 13 one of America's leading local television stations. From the 1960s to the early 1990s, KCOP offered a broad range of programs ranging from cartoons to off-network sitcoms, older theatrical and made-for-TV movies, syndicated talk shows, game shows, and even local news.

Charlie O'Donnell, legendary television announcer best known as the off-screen voice of Wheel of Fortune (in which KCOP carried the nighttime version, from 1983 to 1989 until it moved to KCBS-TV), was a news anchor at channel 13 in the 1970s and was the primary voiceover for the station as well.

Despite its success as a general-entertainment independent station, its newscasts were one of the lowest rated in the market. In the 1990s, the station began to focus more on first-run talk shows, court shows, reality shows, and newsmagazine shows as well as off-network drama shows.

[edit] UPN affiliation

In 1995, Chris-Craft and its subsidiary, United Television, partnered with Paramount Pictures to form the United Paramount Network. KCOP became the network's Los Angeles station on January 16, 1995, the day the network was launched.

Viacom, the parent company of Paramount since 1994, bought out the other 50-percent stake of UPN from Chris-Craft, and became full owner of the network in 2000. In a separate transaction in 2002, Viacom purchased KCOP's arch-rival, KCAL-TV (channel 9). Rumors persisted that UPN would move to KCAL, making KCOP an independent station once again. However, Viacom said that it would continue to operate KCAL as an independent station (at least for the time being), and UPN would stay on KCOP.

Chris-Craft/United Television sold its stations to the News Corporation on July 31, 2001. Upon being sold to Fox in 2001, the weekday Fox Kids block moved to KCOP in the mid-afternoons, only for it to be dropped nationwide in January 2002. Soon after, the station ran a one-hour morning cartoon block (from the DIC Entertainment company), but dropped cartoons permanently in September 2006. Channel 13 was the last local television station to air cartoons on weekdays. Like the other local stations, the cartoons were replaced with informercials.

With News Corporation's acquisition of KCOP, it elected to move the station's news and technical operations in with Los Angeles Fox affiliate KTTV in 2003. KCOP abandoned its longtime studios on North La Brea Avenue in Hollywood (once home to the classic game shows The Joker's Wild and Tic Tac Dough) to move into the new Fox Television Center in West Los Angeles[2]. The La Brea Avenue studio was put up for sale, and although no longer used by KCOP, FOX elected to keep the facility, and remodeled it to house the reality TV show Hell's Kitchen[3].

[edit] MyNetworkTV affiliation

On January 24, 2006, The WB and UPN networks announced that they would merge into a new network called the CW Television Network. KTLA (channel 5), which had been a WB affiliate since 1995, was announced as the CW's Los Angeles station.

On January 25, 2006, the day following the announcement of the creation of the CW Network, KCOP removed references to UPN from its station branding, choosing to use the slogan Get it On 13. The station also stopped promoting UPN programing. Similar changes were also made to Fox's other UPN affiliates, as the CW network list did not include any of the Fox-owned UPN stations. The formation of Fox's MyNetworkTV, of which KCOP and the other Fox-owned UPN stations have become affiliates, was announced on February 22, 2006, less than a month later. UPN continued to broadcast on stations across the country until September 15, 2006. While some UPN affiliates who switched to MyNetworkTV (which commenced operations on September 5, 2006) aired the final two weeks of UPN programming outside its regular primetime period, the Fox-owned stations, including KCOP, dropped UPN entirely on August 31, 2006.

In October 2006, the station began identifying itself as MyNetworkTV, Channel 13. The logo changed to a two-column design, with the network logo on the left side and the number 13 on the right. In May 2007, the branding changed again, with My13 Los Angeles appearing on-screen in the bottom right-hand corner.

Additionally, KCOP may air Fox network programming should it be preempted by KTTV for a breaking news story or any other emergency. If a breaking story continues into the 11:00 p.m. hour, KTTV will usually direct their viewers to switch over to KCOP's 11pm newscast at the end of their 10:00 p.m. broadcast. KCOP and their anchors then take over coverage from their studio, usually with only a graphics change.

The best stories for ST-TOS were by Richard Matheson who I had met at several sci-fi conventions and also wrote "The Incredible Shrinking Man" and "I Am Legend."

I certainly woud HOPE SO,
tho I am not so sure from what I hear about the new movie.

I enjoyed the work of Harlan Ellison in City On The Edge Of Forever





David

Harlan was also a good film critic and his book "Watching" is in my library. Just wonder what kind of a review he's write for the new Star Trek, although I remember his avoiding reviewing sci-fi movies, so didn't review any of the previous ST movies.

He coud be very severe in his criticism.

That was cool I love the old Star Trek Promo spot.

Glad you liked it -- I didn't have an idea it could even be found and kind of stumbled into it on a Google search.

TOS?

Stands for 'T'he 'O'riginal 'S'eries... TOS.

Yeah, that also is an acronym for Terms of Service, so I think the better acronym should be ST: TOS

I thought it was interesting that they chose to portray it with such DRAMA. And they added the "in color" thing like it really mattered (which it probably did back then). They also seemed to want to show off their special effects, which by our standards are pretty pitiful, but back then might have attracted some attention.

I've always wondered where the outdoor scenes were originally filmed. I wonder if any of those rocky landscapes are still around today as they were back then, or if they've all been bulldozed and developed by now. The Gorn episode for example, I believe much of that was real outdoor scenery. Where was that filmed?

i don't remember what he had to say about the sets, but in david gerrold's book, the making of star trek he talked about how they used to raid the mission impossible garbage for props they could adapt

gerrold wrote the trouble with tribbles episode, and his non fiction books the trouble with tribbles about the making of the episode, and the making of star trek were two of my fave books when they came out in the mid 70's

Some of the rock landscapes were filmed at what is now a classic local film location near Santa Clarita, CA -- Vasquez Rocks. I know you've seen it in hundred of films, especially the old westerns.





Buck Jones in an old oater:

Cool . Nice to know those rocks are still around.

actually, nice to know they're still around in the future