Click here for part one: 1969
Click here for part two: 1970
Click here for part three: 1971
Click here for part four: 1972
Click here for part five: 1973
Click here for part six: 1974 to 1976
Click here for part seven 1977 to 1982
Click here for part eight: 1984 to 1986
Click here for part nine: 1992 to 1994
Click here for part ten 1995 to 1998
2000
Where No Man Has Gone Before was repeated in a week when a viewer could also watch Farscape on Monday; repeats of Due South and Battlestar Galactica on Tuesday; Star Trek and Buffy The Vampire Slayer on Wednesday; a repeat run of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season three on Thursday; Sliders on Friday; and Star Trek: Voyager on Sunday.
BBC2 favoured a mixture of science-fiction/fantasy/nostalgia programming opposite the BBC1 early evening news. What is commonly referred to as cult television. On BBC2 the cult genre had first developed in 1988 when shows like Mission: Impossible, The Invaders, and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century were shown under the DEF II banner; DEF II was a strand of programmes aimed at teenagers so it's difficult to tell if they were expected to enjoy a series like Battlestar Galactica in its own right or watch it ironically. Later ITC series like Randall And Hopkirk (Deceased), or Gerry Anderson productions like Thunderbirds were added into the mix. First run imports like Star Trek: The Next Generation, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and Farscape would keep things fresh.
Star Trek was an established part of this cult television cycle. It displayed remarkable staying power in a slot where the pattern tended to be strong viewing figures for the opening episodes followed by a decline as the audience became bored and drifted away. This was certainly what happened to the ambitious 6pm Tuesday repeat run planned for Doctor Who which began on 16 November 1999 before fizzling out in February 2000 due to disappointing ratings. The 2000 repeats were Star Trek's fourth time in the 6pm slot.
The repeats started on Wednesday, replacing first run season six of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, before dropping back to Tuesday in August. The series was then shifted to a Saturday afternoon slot in October. Star Trek never settled on Saturday. Its timeslot could be as early as 3.15pm or as late as 6.45pm depending on other programmes. The shift to Saturday looks like an attempt to build a new cult television slot. Star Trek often appeared with other cult series, mostly Thunderbirds repeats, or with Top of the Pops 2 a compilation of old performances from the BBC's venerable pop music show which aimed for a similar nostalgia audience. Earlier in the year Blake's 7 series one had also been shown on Saturday afternoons as a stand alone programme. The placing of Star Trek might show that an audience was more likely to tune in for a block of similar programmes.
The block of repeats starting in 2000 are also the only time the BBC showed Star Trek in production order.
2001
When Star Trek returns after Christmas the series has shifted to Sunday; the same day as the first run of The X-Files series seven. There's no obvious reason for this day change but Battlestar Galactica is briefly dropped into the Saturday cult television block, before that block is also broken up. 2001 rapidly develops into a disrupted year like 1998. In January, February, and March the series is scheduled for two weeks of each month. In April and May the series only appears once. After 35 years Star Trek is understandably a lower priority and so it is moved to make way for other programmes.
Perhaps in an attempt to make up for this, Star Trek is given a place in the Sunday morning hangover recovery slot and stays there pretty consistently from June to the end of August, with a couple of skipped weeks because of sport; the old nemesis.
There's a two week gap at the start of September. This seems to be to build up a backlog of episodes so that on Sunday 16 September a double-bill can be shown to promote a second Star Trek Night. Yes, a second Star Trek Night [1]. The first one was in 1996 for the 30th anniversary, this one is to mark the 35th. The highlight of the night was a phone in vote to choose the Captain's Choice episode. The choice was between Captain Kirk/City on the Edge of Forever, Captain Picard/In Theory, Captain Sisko/Far Beyond the Stars, and Captain Janeway/Counterpoint. Counterpoint was the winning episode.
After Star Trek Night the series shifts to Saturday and then vanishes from the schedules after October reappearing for a single week in December to show By Any Other Name.
2002
Star Trek reappears on Sunday in March before The Ultimate Computer is bounced onto Saturday 6 April to avoid Motorcycling. At the end of April and into May the series is presented as double-bills before it moves back to Saturday to avoid more sport. Then The Tholian Web is shown as a lone episode in June.
And then Star Trek vanishes. Maybe the intention was for the series to take a break over the summer and come back in the autumn, or to run the last remaining season three episodes in 2003. Whatever was planned didn't happen. The BBC paid for the rights to show Star Trek and the decision to throw that money away by leaving 15 episodes unrepeated seems unusual. Of course it's possible the BBC Genome records are wrong but it seems unlikely that 15 episodes could disappear in a technical error. The double-billing of episodes across April and May 2002 looks less like an attempt to find a new format for the repeats, and more like a way to extract the maximum value for money possible from the final few weeks of the run.
It's difficult not to get a sense of an era ending. Star Trek is taken off the air mid-run. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had finished in October 2001. Star Trek: Voyager would come to an end in August 2002. By the end of 2002 only Star Trek: The Next Generation would still be on air, and that would finish in October 2003 with a repeat of Time's Arrow Part II.
Since 1990 there had always been at least one Star Trek television series running on BBC2. 2004 would be the first time in 14 years that no Star Trek episodes were broadcast.
2005
Star Trek may have been unceremoniously removed a third of the way through season three but someone at BBC2 obviously still thought fondly of the series. On January 14 the Huygens probe landed on Titan. The BBC coverage of this probe was called Stardate: Mission To Titan and on Saturday 15 January an appropriate repeat of Where No Man Has Gone Before was squeezed in before a mission update at 2.20pm.
2006
The British television market was transformed by the time Star Trek returned. Subscription multi-channel television had been available since the mid 1980s (first on cable and then via satellite) but it was the launch of the digital terrestrial service Freeview in October 2002 which brought multi-channel television into most homes.
The 6pm weekday cult television slot opposite the news, which had existed in one form or another since 1990, was gone. Many of the series which formed the backbone of the slot were now available on DVD, or as repeats on the assorted Freeview channels. Successful first run series like Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Farscape, which kept the slot fresh and drew in new audiences, had finished. Potential replacement series had either been lost to other channels, Stargate, Smallville, and Star Trek: Enterprise all ended up on Channel 4, or proved unsuccessful; Seven Days only ran for 10 weeks on BBC2 although it completed three years on UPN.
With all this in mind it seems odd that BBC2 purchased the rights to show Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation again. The 6pm cult slot no longer existed. It was filled with quiz and lifestyle programmes. Instead Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation were scheduled back to back on Saturday afternoons. As double, and sometimes triple-bills.
UPDATE 14/05/17: Thanks to Chris Dale for pointing out a repeat of Mirror, Mirror which I had missed on digital channel BBC4. It was shown at 10pm sandwiched between a documentary called Parallel World's -A User's Guide and a repeat of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Yesterday's Enterprise. Embarrassingly it didn't occur to me to check the schedules of the non-terrestrial BBC channels for repeats.
2007
Unfortunately the Saturday slot does not seem to have been a success and Star Trek's last year to date on BBC2 saw it relegated to the schedule backwaters of just past midnight on Saturday morning. By showing the series at this anti-social time the BBC was presumably less interested in capturing that valuable night owl market than getting at least some return on its investment. The alternative would have been to dump the series, as had happened in 2002. It's possible that even early in the morning Star Trek was capable of picking up a substantial share of whatever audience was watching. It depends on the competition from other channels. BBC1 was showing BBC News 24, while BBC3 and BBC4 were repeating programmes from earlier.
This repeat run started out in NBC broadcast order but the switch to late night double-bills caused some confusion at the start of season two. Who Mourns For Adonais? and Amok Time are shown the wrong way round on 10 March, and The Apple and The Changeling are also shown in the wrong order on 17 March. Mirror, Mirror had already been shown in 2006 and was skipped.
Once Star Trek finished the repeats of Star Trek: The Next Generation were moved into the same slot and at 01.20 on 6 December 2008 the last episode of any Star Trek series shown on the BBC was the appropriately titled All Good Things.
Some final figures
The BBC has transmitted Star Trek 9 times. The first run lasted from 1969 to 1971. With repeat cycles lasting from 1971 to 1973; 1973 to 1976; 1978 to1981; 1984 to 1986; 1992 to 1994; 1995 to 1998; 2000 to 2002; and 2006 to 2007.
Star Trek was shown in production order once from 2000-2002, and that run was cut short.
Star Trek was shown in NBC broadcast order four times.
The other four times that the BBC showed Star Trek they used an order of their own devising.
The number of times the BBC actually showed Star Trek correctly is once; from 1992 to 1994. Every other time at least one episode was skipped or shown out of order.
The least shown episodes were Plato's Stepchildren and Whom Gods Destroy which only clocked up three transmissions on the BBC; first runs in 1993 and 1994, then repeats in 1998 and 2007. The Empath, the other episode censored by the BBC, was shown a total of four times because it squeaked in a repeat before the run in 2002 came to an abrupt end.
The most shown episodes were The Man Trap, Where No Man Has Gone Before, and The Galileo Seven which each got shown a total of ten times on BBC1 and BBC2.
Between 1969 and 2008 the BBC showed Star Trek, Star Trek: The Animated Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager. Only five of those 39 years had no episodes from one of those series; 1983, 1987, 1988, 1989, and 2004. And in 1989 and 2004 you could still have watched some of the movies, leaving only three out of 39 years completely Trekless.
In the list below the number in brackets shows the number of transmissions of an episode. Most episodes in 2000 are on their eighth showing; that's the original broadcast plus seven repeats.
2000-05-31 18.00 The Cage (3)
2000-06-07 18.00 Where No Man Has Gone Before (8)
2000-06-14 18.00 The Corbomite Manoeuvre (8)
2000-06-21 18.00 Mudd's Women (8)
2000-07-12 18.00 The Enemy Within (8)
2000-07-26 18.00 The Man Trap (9)
2000-08-02 18.00 The Naked Time (8)
2000-08-09 18.00 Charlie X (8)
2000-08-16 18.00 Balance Of Terror (8)
2000-08-23 18.00 What Are Little Girls Made Of? (8)
2000-08-29 18.00 Dagger Of The Mind (8)
2000-09-05 18.00 Miri (4)
2000-09-12 18.00 The Conscience Of The King (8)
2000-09-19 18.00 The Galileo Seven (9)
2000-09-26 18.00 Court Martial (8)
2000-10-03 18.00 The Menagerie Part I (8)
2000-10-10 18.00 The Menagerie Part II (8)
2000-10-14 15.30 Shore Leave (8)
2000-10-21 16.15 The Squire Of Gothos (8)
2000-10-28 15.15 Arena (8)
2000-11-04 16.50 The Alternative Factor (8)
2000-11-11 18.45 Tomorrow Is Yesterday (8)
2000-11-18 16.40 The Return Of The Archons (8)
2000-11-25 16.10 A Taste Of Armageddon (8)
2000-12-02 16.00 Space Seed (8)
2000-12-09 16.30 This Side Of Paradise (8)
2000-12-17 18.35 The Devil In The Dark (8)
2000-12-23 18.10 Errand Of Mercy (8)
2001-01-21 18.55 The City On The Edge Of Forever (8)
2001-01-28 19.15 Operation -- Annihilate! (8)
2001-02-18 18.55 Catspaw (8)
2001-02-25 18.45 Metamorphosis (8)
2001-03-18 18.30 Friday's Child (8)
2001-03-24 18.30 Who Mourns For Adonais? (8)
2001-04-08 18.30 Amok Time (8)
2001-05-20 18.30 The Doomsday Machine (8)
2001-06-17 11.15 Wolf In The Fold (8)
2001-06-24 11.15 The Changeling (8)
2001-07-01 11.15 The Apple (8)
2001-07-08 11.15 Mirror, Mirror (8)
2001-07-15 11.15 The Deadly Years (8)
2001-08-05 11.15 I, Mudd (8)
2001-08-12 11.15 The Trouble With Tribbles (8)
2001-08-19 11.15 Bread And Circuses (8)
2001-08-26 11.15 Journey To Babel (8)
2001-09-16 11.15 A Private Little War (8)
2001-09-16 12.05 The Gamesters Of Triskelion (8)
2001-10-06 12.25 Obsession (8)
2001-10-13 12.25 The Immunity Syndrome (8)
2001-10-27 12.25 A Piece Of The Action (8)
2001-12-08 12.25 By Any Other Name (8)
2002-03-24 11.20 Return To Tomorrow (8)
2002-03-31 11.10 Patterns Of Force (8)
2002-04-06 12.20 The Ultimate Computer (8)
2002-04-14 12.00 The Omega Glory (8)
2002-04-21 12.00 Assignment: Earth (8)
2002-04-28 11.20 Spectre Of The Gun (8)
2002-04-28 12.10 Elaan Of Troyius (8)
2002-05-05 11.40 The Paradise Syndrome (8)
2002-05-12 11.20 The Enterprise Incident (8)
2002-05-12 12.10 And The Children Shall Lead (8)
2002-05-19 11.20 Spock's Brain (8)
2002-05-19 12.10 Is There In Truth No Beauty? (8)
2002-05-25 12.40 The Empath (3)
2002-06-16 12.00 The Tholian Web (8)
2005-01-15 13.30 Where No Man Has Gone Before (9)
2006-07-08 14.55 The Cage (4)
2006-07-15 13.05 The Man Trap (10)
2006-07-22 13.00 Charlie X (9)
2006-07-29 14.55 Where No Man Has Gone Before (10)
2006-08-05 12.30 The Naked Time (9)
2006-08-19 12.30 The Enemy Within (9)
2006-08-26 13.45 Mudd's Women (9)
2006-09-02 12.30 What Are Little Girls Made Of? (9)
2006-09-09 12.55 Miri (5)
2006-09-16 13.30 Dagger Of The Mind (9)
2006-10-07 13.55 The Corbomite Manoeuvre (9)
2006-10-14 13.25 The Menagerie Part I (9)
2006-10-21 13.20 The Menagerie Part II (9)
2006-10-28 13.25 The Conscience Of The King (9)
2006-11-04 13.15 Balance Of Terror (9)
2006-11-11 13.35 Shore Leave (9)
2006-11-18 13.55 The Galileo Seven (10)
2006-11-25 13.35 The Squire Of Gothos (9)
2006-11-28 22.00 Mirror, Mirror (9) shown on BBC4
2006-12-02 13.30 Arena (9)
2006-12-16 13.30 Tomorrow Is Yesterday (9)
2007-02-03 00.15 Court Martial (9)
2007-02-03 01.05 The Return Of The Archons (9)
2007-02-10 01.00 Space Seed (9)
2007-02-10 01.50 A Taste Of Armageddon (9)
2007-02-17 00.20 This Side Of Paradise (9)
2007-02-17 01.10 The Devil In The Dark (9)
2007-02-24 01.00 Errand Of Mercy (9)
2007-02-24 01.50 The Alternative Factor (9)
2007-03-03 01.10 The City On The Edge Of Forever (9)
2007-03-03 01.10 Operation -- Annihilate! (9)
2007-03-10 01.05 Who Mourns For Adonais? (9)
2007-03-10 01.55 Amok Time (9)
2007-03-17 00.40 The Apple (9)
2007-03-17 01.30 The Changeling (9)
2007-03-24 02:50 The Doomsday Machine (9)
2007-03-24 02:40 Catspaw (9)
2007-03-31 03.25 I, Mudd (9)
2007-03-31 04.15 Metamorphosis (9)
2007-04-07 02.20 Journey To Babel (9)
2007-04-07 03.10 Friday's Child (9)
2007-04-14 02.10 The Deadly Years (9)
2007-04-14 03.00 Obsession (9)
2007-04-21 01.40 Wolf In The Fold (9)
2007-04-21 02.30 The Trouble With Tribbles (9)
2007-04-28 02.25 The Gamesters Of Triskelion (9)
2007-04-28 03.15 A Piece Of The Action (9)
2007-05-05 01.25 The Immunity Syndrome (9)
2007-05-05 02.15 A Private Little War (9)
2007-05-12 02.00 Return To Tomorrow (9)
2007-05-12 02.50 Patterns Of Force (9)
2007-05-19 02.05 By Any Other Name (9)
2007-05-19 02.55 The Omega Glory (9)
2007-05-26 02.20 The Ultimate Computer (9)
2007-05-26 03.10 Bread And Circuses (9)
2007-06-02 02.10 Assignment: Earth (9)
2007-06-02 03.00 Spock's Brain (9)
2007-06-09 02.00 The Enterprise Incident (9)
2007-06-09 02.50 The Paradise Syndrome (9)
2007-06-16 02.10 And The Children Shall Lead (9)
2007-06-16 03.00 Is There In Truth No Beauty (9)
2007-06-23 02.00 Spectre Of The Gun (9)
2007-06-23 02.50 Day Of The Dove (8)
2007-06-30 03.00 For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky (8)
2007-06-30 03.50 The Tholian Web (9)
2007-07-07 01.05 Plato's Stepchildren (3)
2007-07-07 01.55 Wink Of An Eye (8)
2007-07-14 01.35 The Empath (4)
2007-07-14 02.25 Elaan Of Troyius (9)
2007-07-21 01.30 Whom Gods Destroy (3)
2007-07-21 02.20 Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (8)
2007-07-28 01.20 The Mark Of Gideon (8)
2007-07-28 02.20 That Which Survives (8)
2007-08-04 01.55 The Lights of Zetar (8)
2007-08-04 02.45 Requiem for Methuselah (8)
2007-08-11 02.30 The Way to Eden (8)
2007-08-11 03.20 The Cloud Minders (8)
2007-08-18 02.25 The Savage Curtain (8)
2007-08-18 03.15 All Our Yesterdays (8)
2007-08-25 02.20 Turnabout Intruder (8)
[1]19.30: Star Trek Night
Ends 12.45.
Jonathan Ross hosts a celebration of the 35th anniversary of Star Trek. The evening includes classic episodes, interviews and behind-the-scenes footage. Viewers can also vote for a Star Trek captain's favourite episode to be shown at 9.55pm. See page 42 for further details.
7.35 From Enterprise to Franchise How the legendary sci-fi series became a global phenomenon.
Then Memorable Moments A compilation of classic Star Trek moments demonstrating it's a good idea to Never Wear Red, plus a day out with fans at The Convention. (S)
8.10 Make It So A behind-the-scenes look at Star Trek's special effects, from photon torpedos to 24th-century bras.
8.40 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Trials and Tribble-ations
An Away Team go back in time onto Captain James T Kirk 's starship Enterprise. (R) (S)
9.20 The Warp Factory Star Trek writers have plundered all their best ideas from science. Having created four ever more advanced space ships, where is there left for Star
Trek to go? (S)
Then Memorable Moments Classic clips of big shoot-outs in Battlestations and what happens when DIY and Star Trek meet in Space: the Final Front Room. (S)
9.55 Star Trek: Viewers' Vote Winning Episode The screening of the winning episode of the Captain's Choice Viewers' Vote. Lines will be open from 10 September and close tonight at 9.15pm. Calls cost a maximum of lOp. Votes can also be registered atwww.bbc.co.uk/startrek.
Captain Kirk/City on the Edge of Forever
Captain Picard/In Theory (R) (S)
Captain Sisko/Far Beyond the Stars
Captain Janeway/Counterpoint
10.40 Star Trek IV: the Voyage Home **** Science-fiction adventure starring William Shatner , Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley. In the 23rd century, Captain Kirk and his
- crew return to 1986 San Francisco to prevent Earth's destruction. Widescreen. Review page 61.Director Leonard Nimoy (1986. PG) (S) (W) The reel story behind .. : page 62
Then Memorable Moments Space cuisine clips in Feed Me Up Scotty and romantic moments in Star Dates. (S)
Thursday, May 28, 2015
Monday, May 4, 2015
Star Trek on the BBC: 1995 to 1998
Click here for part one: 1969
Click here for part two: 1970
Click here for part three: 1971
Click here for part four: 1972
Click here for part five: 1973
Click here for part six: 1974 to 1976
Click here for part seven 1977 to 1982
Click here for part eight: 1984 to 1986
Click here for part nine: 1992 to 1994
Click here for part two: 1970
Click here for part three: 1971
Click here for part four: 1972
Click here for part five: 1973
Click here for part six: 1974 to 1976
Click here for part seven 1977 to 1982
Click here for part eight: 1984 to 1986
Click here for part nine: 1992 to 1994
1995
The trend had been for Star Trek to spend longer and longer off air between blocks of repeats. From 1969 to 1976 the series ran annually before taking a break in 1977 and returning again from 1978 to 1981. A three year gap was then followed by another run of repeats from 1984 to 1986. Star Trek was then off the air for six years before returning as a substitute for Star Trek: The Next Generation between 1992 and 1994. Surprisingly in 1995 the series bucked this trend by returning within 18 months although the series was no longer in the 6pm weekday slot. It was dropped onto Sunday morning at 11.40; a time when the majority of viewers are presumed to be recovering from a hangover in front of the telly. Star Trek spent the rest of 1995 playing out in front of an audience too fragile to cope with the rigours of watching Countryfile on BBC1. At the end of the year The Conscience Of The King displaces The Menagerie Part I, presumably to stop the story being split around the new year break. This means that by 1995 the BBC has repeated Star Trek seven times but only the 1992 to 1994 repeats were completely in NBC order.
1996
Star Trek stayed in the Sunday morning bacon sandwich and coffee slot until 21 April. It was replaced by a series called Fully Booked which sounds far too bright, active, and loud for that time of day.
In August BBC2 marked Star Trek's 30th anniversary with a repeat of The Cage and The Man Trap and a night devoted to Star Trek on Bank Holiday Monday; 26 August [1]. This themed evening was a mixture of comedy, documentary, and quiz programmes. The night also promoted BBC2's purchase of Star Trek: Voyager. The Caretaker would be shown as part of the theme night and the series began at the end of September. In fact the end of 1996 was a good time to be a Star Trek fan with repeats of Star Trek: The Next Generation on Wednesday, series two of Deep Space Nine on Thursday, and Voyager series one on Sunday. All that was missing was the series which started it all.
1997
If the end of 1996 had been a good time to be a Star Trek fan then the start of 1997 must have been paradise. The Next Generation on Wednesday at 6pm, Deep Space Nine at the same time on Thursday, Star Trek on Friday (in the 6pm "cult tv" slot previously occupied by Gerry Anderson's series UFO), Star Trek: The Animated Series on Sunday morning at 6.45am, and Voyager also on Sunday at the more sociable time of 6.45pm.
As 1997 goes on the repeat run is disrupted. Star Trek is bumped on 16 March by regular BBC1 programmes transferred to BBC2 because of Comic Relief. A couple of months later the same thing happens again in the aftermath of the General Election on 2 May. Then on 23 May it's the turn of golf and tennis.
Star Trek took a break over the summer and returned at the end of August. Two days later Diana Princess of Wales died on 31 August and the UK entered a strange week of national mourning. On Friday 5 September, the day before the funeral, in response to an increasingly ugly public mood the Queen made a speech at 6pm which was carried live on BBC1. It seems extraordinary to think that BBC2 was showing A Piece Of The Action as this unprecedented speech was being made but there is no evidence to show that the BBC2 schedule was altered.
In November there's a two week gap caused by the BBC's apparent desire to repeat some Ren And Stimpy followed by another week off due to snooker. The series returns for three weeks in December and then goes off the air over Christmas.
1998
The watchword for 1998 is unpredictability and the tone is set on 16 January when Star Trek is bumped for ice skating after two weeks of repeats. Spectre Of The Gun is broadcast on 23 January and then Star Trek takes another two weeks off for programmes about the forthcoming Winter Olympics. Not the actual Winter Olympics themselves but two programmes about the Winter Olympics in general. Actually this is fair enough. The 1998 Winter Olympics came from Nagano in Japan and with live broadcasts running from midnight to 4am the games needed all the publicity they could get. That said it's something of a disappointment when Star Trek returns once on 13 February and then goes off on a much needed holiday; shagged out after four whole repeats over the first seven Fridays of the year. Don't worry, the series will be back in April on Good Friday once Robot Wars has finished, plus another week for sport; tennis and more ice skating.
Amazingly the repeats then run for eight whole weeks before sport intervenes. The Mark Of Gideon is postponed on 5 June; probably due to overrunning cricket. The following week That Which Survives is also bumped; either because of overrunning tennis or possibly World Cup football. The Friday after this has already been set aside for more sport -a triple bill of cricket, Royal Ascot, and tennis- and then it's Wimbledon fortnight so its not until 10 July that Star Trek briefly elbows its way into the schedules for The Mark Of Gideon. The following week is The First Night Of The Proms, and some more golf. Quick there's a Friday without any sport or culture scheduled! That Which Survives is repeated on 24 July.
The Lights Of Zetar, Requiem For Methuselah, and The Way To Eden all follow. There are only four episodes left. Can they make it on air? No! European Athletics and more cricket block the way. The Cloud Minders makes it through on 4 September, and then -oh no!- it's two weeks of The Commonwealth Games followed by highlights of the Scottish National Party annual conference from beautiful downtown Inverness.
Finally, the last three episodes of season three make their way on to BBC2, and Star Trek realises that its been relegated to filler status. Two years ago the programme was proudly celebrating its 30th anniversary. Now it's reduced to filling the gaps between other programmes.
In the list below the number in brackets shows the number of repeats of an episode. Most episodes are on their seventh showing; that's six repeats after the original broadcast.
1995-10-15 11.40 The Man Trap (7)
1995-10-22 11.40 Charlie X (7)
1995-10-29 11.40 Where No Man Has Gone Before (7)
1995-11-05 11.40 The Naked Time (7)
1995-11-12 11.40 The Enemy Within (7)
1995-11-19 11.40 Mudd's Women (7)
1995-11-26 11.40 What Are Little Girls Made Of? (7)
1995-12-03 11.40 Miri (3)
1995-12-10 11.40 Dagger Of The Mind (7)
1995-12-17 11.40 The Corbomite Manoeuvre (7)
1995-12-24 11.40 The Conscience Of The King (7)
1996-01-07 11:45 The Menagerie Part I (7)
1996-01-14 11:45 The Menagerie Part II (7)
1996-01-21 11:45 Balance Of Terror (7)
1996-01-28 11:45 Shore Leave (7)
1996-02-04 11:45 The Galileo Seven (8)
1996-02-11 11:45 The Squire Of Gothos (7)
1996-02-18 11:45 Arena (7)
1996-02-25 11:45 Tomorrow Is Yesterday (7)
1996-03-03 11:45 Court Martial (7)
1996-03-10 11:45 The Return Of The Archons (7)
1996-03-17 11:45 Space Seed (7)
1996-03-24 11:45 A Taste Of Armageddon (7)
1996-03-31 11:45 This Side Of Paradise (7)
1996-04-07 11:45 The Devil In The Dark (7)
1996-04-14 11:45 Errand Of Mercy (7)
1996-04-21 11:45 The Alternative Factor (7)
1996-08-19 18.25 The Cage (2)
1996-08-20 18.30 The Man Trap (8)
1997-01-24 18.00 The City On The Edge Of Forever (7)
1997-01-31 18.00 Operation -- Annihilate! (7)
1997-02-07 18.00 Amok Time (7)
1997-02-14 18.00 Who Mourns For Adonais? (7)
1997-02-21 18.00 The Changeling (7)
1997-02-28 18.00 Mirror, Mirror (7)
1997-03-07 18.00 The Apple (7)
1997-02-21 18.25 The Doomsday Machine (7)
1997-02-28 18.20 Catspaw (7)
1997-04-04 18.25 I, Mudd (7)
1997-04-11 18.20 Metamorphosis (7)
1997-04-18 18.20 Journey To Babel (7)
1997-05-09 18.20 Friday's Child (7)
1997-05-16 18.20 The Deadly Years (7)
1997-05-30 18.20 Obsession (7)
1997-06-06 18.25 The Wolf In The Fold (7)
1997-06-13 18.20 The Trouble With Tribbles (7)
1997-08-29 18.05 The Gamesters Of Triskelion (7)
1997-09-05 18.00 A Piece Of The Action (7)
1997-09-12 18.00 The Immunity Syndrome (7)
1997-09-19 18.00 A Private Little War (7)
1997-09-26 18.00 Return To Tomorrow (7)
1997-10-03 18.00 Patterns Of Force (7)
1997-10-10 18.00 By Any Other Name (7)
1997-10-17 18.25 The Omega Glory (7)
1997-10-24 18.20 The Ultimate Computer (7)
1997-10-31 18.25 Bread And Circuses (7)
1997-11-07 18.25 Assignment: Earth (7)
1997-12-05 18.20 Spock's Brain (7)
1997-12-12 18.20 The Enterprise Incident (7)
1997-12-19 18.20 The Paradise Syndrome (7)
1998-01-02 18.20 And The Children Shall Lead (7)
1998-01-09 18.25 Is There In Truth No Beauty (7)
1998-01-23 18.20 Spectre Of The Gun (7)
1998-02-13 18.00 Day Of The Dove (7)
1998-04-10 18.25 For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky (7)
1998-04-17 18.25 The Tholian Web (7)
1998-04-24 18.20 Plato's Stepchildren(2)
1998-05-01 18.20 Wink Of An Eye (7)
1998-05-08 18.25 The Empath (2)
1998-05-15 18.25 Elaan Of Troyius (7)
1998-05-22 18.25 Whom Gods Destroy (2)
1998-05-29 18.25 Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (7)
1998-06-05 18.25 The Mark of Gideon POSTPONED
1998-06-12 18.25 That Which Survives POSTPONED
1998-07-10 18.25 The Mark of Gideon (7)
1998-07-24 18.45 That Which Survives (7)
1998-07-31 18.45 The Lights of Zetar (7)
1998-08-07 18.50 Requiem for Methuselah (7)
1998-08-14 18.45 The Way to Eden (7)
1998-09-04 18.40 The Cloud Minders (7)
1998-10-02 18.25 The Savage Curtain (7)
1998-10-16 18.25 All Our Yesterdays (7)
1998-10-30 18.25 Turnabout Intruder (7)
The trend had been for Star Trek to spend longer and longer off air between blocks of repeats. From 1969 to 1976 the series ran annually before taking a break in 1977 and returning again from 1978 to 1981. A three year gap was then followed by another run of repeats from 1984 to 1986. Star Trek was then off the air for six years before returning as a substitute for Star Trek: The Next Generation between 1992 and 1994. Surprisingly in 1995 the series bucked this trend by returning within 18 months although the series was no longer in the 6pm weekday slot. It was dropped onto Sunday morning at 11.40; a time when the majority of viewers are presumed to be recovering from a hangover in front of the telly. Star Trek spent the rest of 1995 playing out in front of an audience too fragile to cope with the rigours of watching Countryfile on BBC1. At the end of the year The Conscience Of The King displaces The Menagerie Part I, presumably to stop the story being split around the new year break. This means that by 1995 the BBC has repeated Star Trek seven times but only the 1992 to 1994 repeats were completely in NBC order.
1996
Star Trek stayed in the Sunday morning bacon sandwich and coffee slot until 21 April. It was replaced by a series called Fully Booked which sounds far too bright, active, and loud for that time of day.
In August BBC2 marked Star Trek's 30th anniversary with a repeat of The Cage and The Man Trap and a night devoted to Star Trek on Bank Holiday Monday; 26 August [1]. This themed evening was a mixture of comedy, documentary, and quiz programmes. The night also promoted BBC2's purchase of Star Trek: Voyager. The Caretaker would be shown as part of the theme night and the series began at the end of September. In fact the end of 1996 was a good time to be a Star Trek fan with repeats of Star Trek: The Next Generation on Wednesday, series two of Deep Space Nine on Thursday, and Voyager series one on Sunday. All that was missing was the series which started it all.
1997
If the end of 1996 had been a good time to be a Star Trek fan then the start of 1997 must have been paradise. The Next Generation on Wednesday at 6pm, Deep Space Nine at the same time on Thursday, Star Trek on Friday (in the 6pm "cult tv" slot previously occupied by Gerry Anderson's series UFO), Star Trek: The Animated Series on Sunday morning at 6.45am, and Voyager also on Sunday at the more sociable time of 6.45pm.
As 1997 goes on the repeat run is disrupted. Star Trek is bumped on 16 March by regular BBC1 programmes transferred to BBC2 because of Comic Relief. A couple of months later the same thing happens again in the aftermath of the General Election on 2 May. Then on 23 May it's the turn of golf and tennis.
Star Trek took a break over the summer and returned at the end of August. Two days later Diana Princess of Wales died on 31 August and the UK entered a strange week of national mourning. On Friday 5 September, the day before the funeral, in response to an increasingly ugly public mood the Queen made a speech at 6pm which was carried live on BBC1. It seems extraordinary to think that BBC2 was showing A Piece Of The Action as this unprecedented speech was being made but there is no evidence to show that the BBC2 schedule was altered.
In November there's a two week gap caused by the BBC's apparent desire to repeat some Ren And Stimpy followed by another week off due to snooker. The series returns for three weeks in December and then goes off the air over Christmas.
1998
The watchword for 1998 is unpredictability and the tone is set on 16 January when Star Trek is bumped for ice skating after two weeks of repeats. Spectre Of The Gun is broadcast on 23 January and then Star Trek takes another two weeks off for programmes about the forthcoming Winter Olympics. Not the actual Winter Olympics themselves but two programmes about the Winter Olympics in general. Actually this is fair enough. The 1998 Winter Olympics came from Nagano in Japan and with live broadcasts running from midnight to 4am the games needed all the publicity they could get. That said it's something of a disappointment when Star Trek returns once on 13 February and then goes off on a much needed holiday; shagged out after four whole repeats over the first seven Fridays of the year. Don't worry, the series will be back in April on Good Friday once Robot Wars has finished, plus another week for sport; tennis and more ice skating.
Amazingly the repeats then run for eight whole weeks before sport intervenes. The Mark Of Gideon is postponed on 5 June; probably due to overrunning cricket. The following week That Which Survives is also bumped; either because of overrunning tennis or possibly World Cup football. The Friday after this has already been set aside for more sport -a triple bill of cricket, Royal Ascot, and tennis- and then it's Wimbledon fortnight so its not until 10 July that Star Trek briefly elbows its way into the schedules for The Mark Of Gideon. The following week is The First Night Of The Proms, and some more golf. Quick there's a Friday without any sport or culture scheduled! That Which Survives is repeated on 24 July.
The Lights Of Zetar, Requiem For Methuselah, and The Way To Eden all follow. There are only four episodes left. Can they make it on air? No! European Athletics and more cricket block the way. The Cloud Minders makes it through on 4 September, and then -oh no!- it's two weeks of The Commonwealth Games followed by highlights of the Scottish National Party annual conference from beautiful downtown Inverness.
Finally, the last three episodes of season three make their way on to BBC2, and Star Trek realises that its been relegated to filler status. Two years ago the programme was proudly celebrating its 30th anniversary. Now it's reduced to filling the gaps between other programmes.
In the list below the number in brackets shows the number of repeats of an episode. Most episodes are on their seventh showing; that's six repeats after the original broadcast.
1995-10-15 11.40 The Man Trap (7)
1995-10-22 11.40 Charlie X (7)
1995-10-29 11.40 Where No Man Has Gone Before (7)
1995-11-05 11.40 The Naked Time (7)
1995-11-12 11.40 The Enemy Within (7)
1995-11-19 11.40 Mudd's Women (7)
1995-11-26 11.40 What Are Little Girls Made Of? (7)
1995-12-03 11.40 Miri (3)
1995-12-10 11.40 Dagger Of The Mind (7)
1995-12-17 11.40 The Corbomite Manoeuvre (7)
1995-12-24 11.40 The Conscience Of The King (7)
1996-01-07 11:45 The Menagerie Part I (7)
1996-01-14 11:45 The Menagerie Part II (7)
1996-01-21 11:45 Balance Of Terror (7)
1996-01-28 11:45 Shore Leave (7)
1996-02-04 11:45 The Galileo Seven (8)
1996-02-11 11:45 The Squire Of Gothos (7)
1996-02-18 11:45 Arena (7)
1996-02-25 11:45 Tomorrow Is Yesterday (7)
1996-03-03 11:45 Court Martial (7)
1996-03-10 11:45 The Return Of The Archons (7)
1996-03-17 11:45 Space Seed (7)
1996-03-24 11:45 A Taste Of Armageddon (7)
1996-03-31 11:45 This Side Of Paradise (7)
1996-04-07 11:45 The Devil In The Dark (7)
1996-04-14 11:45 Errand Of Mercy (7)
1996-04-21 11:45 The Alternative Factor (7)
1996-08-19 18.25 The Cage (2)
1996-08-20 18.30 The Man Trap (8)
1997-01-24 18.00 The City On The Edge Of Forever (7)
1997-01-31 18.00 Operation -- Annihilate! (7)
1997-02-07 18.00 Amok Time (7)
1997-02-14 18.00 Who Mourns For Adonais? (7)
1997-02-21 18.00 The Changeling (7)
1997-02-28 18.00 Mirror, Mirror (7)
1997-03-07 18.00 The Apple (7)
1997-02-21 18.25 The Doomsday Machine (7)
1997-02-28 18.20 Catspaw (7)
1997-04-04 18.25 I, Mudd (7)
1997-04-11 18.20 Metamorphosis (7)
1997-04-18 18.20 Journey To Babel (7)
1997-05-09 18.20 Friday's Child (7)
1997-05-16 18.20 The Deadly Years (7)
1997-05-30 18.20 Obsession (7)
1997-06-06 18.25 The Wolf In The Fold (7)
1997-06-13 18.20 The Trouble With Tribbles (7)
1997-08-29 18.05 The Gamesters Of Triskelion (7)
1997-09-05 18.00 A Piece Of The Action (7)
1997-09-12 18.00 The Immunity Syndrome (7)
1997-09-19 18.00 A Private Little War (7)
1997-09-26 18.00 Return To Tomorrow (7)
1997-10-03 18.00 Patterns Of Force (7)
1997-10-10 18.00 By Any Other Name (7)
1997-10-17 18.25 The Omega Glory (7)
1997-10-24 18.20 The Ultimate Computer (7)
1997-10-31 18.25 Bread And Circuses (7)
1997-11-07 18.25 Assignment: Earth (7)
1997-12-05 18.20 Spock's Brain (7)
1997-12-12 18.20 The Enterprise Incident (7)
1997-12-19 18.20 The Paradise Syndrome (7)
1998-01-02 18.20 And The Children Shall Lead (7)
1998-01-09 18.25 Is There In Truth No Beauty (7)
1998-01-23 18.20 Spectre Of The Gun (7)
1998-02-13 18.00 Day Of The Dove (7)
1998-04-10 18.25 For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky (7)
1998-04-17 18.25 The Tholian Web (7)
1998-04-24 18.20 Plato's Stepchildren(2)
1998-05-01 18.20 Wink Of An Eye (7)
1998-05-08 18.25 The Empath (2)
1998-05-15 18.25 Elaan Of Troyius (7)
1998-05-22 18.25 Whom Gods Destroy (2)
1998-05-29 18.25 Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (7)
1998-06-05 18.25 The Mark of Gideon POSTPONED
1998-06-12 18.25 That Which Survives POSTPONED
1998-07-10 18.25 The Mark of Gideon (7)
1998-07-24 18.45 That Which Survives (7)
1998-07-31 18.45 The Lights of Zetar (7)
1998-08-07 18.50 Requiem for Methuselah (7)
1998-08-14 18.45 The Way to Eden (7)
1998-09-04 18.40 The Cloud Minders (7)
1998-10-02 18.25 The Savage Curtain (7)
1998-10-16 18.25 All Our Yesterdays (7)
1998-10-30 18.25 Turnabout Intruder (7)
[1] 7.15 Star Trek
Night Introduction. Craig Charles introduces an evening of
programmes to celebrate 30 years of the fantastic universe created bv
Gene Roddenberry.
7.20 To Boldly Go Where No Quiz Has Gone Before. Peter Smith sets out to find the ultimate Trekker as five contestants battle it out in an intergalactic mission through the logical and illogical rounds of Trek trivia to win a night with the stars of Star Trek.
Followed by Star Trekkers Comedian and actress Josie Lawrence reveals her admiration for Captain Picard, and Labour MP Paul Boateng considers Lt Uhura as a black role model.
8.00 Science: the Final Frontier. The world of Captain Kirk portrays a fantastic future, but how plausible are warp drives, transporters and photon torpedoes? Eminent scientists such as Stephen Hawking , Roger Penrose and Lawrence Krauss , author of The Physics of Star Trek, describe how Star Trek science fiction measures up to real-life science fact. Star Trek's science adviser Andre Bormanis explains how he tries to keep one step ahead of reality, while still presenting a plausible vision of the future, and experts at the cutting edge of science describe how they are experimenting with Star Trek's vision and coming up with answers of their own.
9.00 Spoof Trek. Over the years many comedians have seen the funny side of the Star Trek universe. Alistair McGowan introduces a collection of send-ups inspired by the programme.
Followed by Star Trekkers Jonathan Ross recalls his adolescent longing for a girlfriend with blue skin, and artist Damien Hirst contemplates the Borg.
9.25 Star Trek Story. Gene Roddenberry's Utopian vision of humanity in the 24th century had a profound effect on American viewers. During the height of the Cold War, the tension of the civil rights movement and the jingoism of the Vietnam War, they saw a multicultural crew working together on the bridge of the Enterprise. Leonard Nimoy , Patrick Stewart ,
Nichelle Nicols, Brent Spiner and others reflect on Star Trek's cultural impact over its 30-year history, and contemplate its future on the small screen.
10.20 Funk Me Up Scotty. In this tribute to the stars, John Peel forages in the archives for a collection of musical performances by Star Trek cast members, as well as various records inspired by Star Trek over the years.
Followed by Star Trekkers Astronomer Patrick Moore praises the qualities of the eternally logical Mr Spock , and feminist Camille Paglia reveals why she once wrote Data a love letter
10.50 Star Trek: Voyager. The pilot episode of the latest Star Trek series, starring Kate Mulgrew Caretaker. Agroup of "freedom fighters" called the Maquis take up arms to combat a new treaty between Cardassia and the Federation. Captain Kathryn Janeway of the USS Voyager has pursued a Maquis ship into the Badlands, but then both ships are catapulted 70,000 light years into an uncharted quadrant of space.
Star Trek: the Next Generation continues on Wednesday at 6.00pm
12.20am Star Trekkers Shaun Ryder and Kermit from Black Grape yearn for the fantasy world of the Holodeck.
7.20 To Boldly Go Where No Quiz Has Gone Before. Peter Smith sets out to find the ultimate Trekker as five contestants battle it out in an intergalactic mission through the logical and illogical rounds of Trek trivia to win a night with the stars of Star Trek.
Followed by Star Trekkers Comedian and actress Josie Lawrence reveals her admiration for Captain Picard, and Labour MP Paul Boateng considers Lt Uhura as a black role model.
8.00 Science: the Final Frontier. The world of Captain Kirk portrays a fantastic future, but how plausible are warp drives, transporters and photon torpedoes? Eminent scientists such as Stephen Hawking , Roger Penrose and Lawrence Krauss , author of The Physics of Star Trek, describe how Star Trek science fiction measures up to real-life science fact. Star Trek's science adviser Andre Bormanis explains how he tries to keep one step ahead of reality, while still presenting a plausible vision of the future, and experts at the cutting edge of science describe how they are experimenting with Star Trek's vision and coming up with answers of their own.
9.00 Spoof Trek. Over the years many comedians have seen the funny side of the Star Trek universe. Alistair McGowan introduces a collection of send-ups inspired by the programme.
Followed by Star Trekkers Jonathan Ross recalls his adolescent longing for a girlfriend with blue skin, and artist Damien Hirst contemplates the Borg.
9.25 Star Trek Story. Gene Roddenberry's Utopian vision of humanity in the 24th century had a profound effect on American viewers. During the height of the Cold War, the tension of the civil rights movement and the jingoism of the Vietnam War, they saw a multicultural crew working together on the bridge of the Enterprise. Leonard Nimoy , Patrick Stewart ,
Nichelle Nicols, Brent Spiner and others reflect on Star Trek's cultural impact over its 30-year history, and contemplate its future on the small screen.
10.20 Funk Me Up Scotty. In this tribute to the stars, John Peel forages in the archives for a collection of musical performances by Star Trek cast members, as well as various records inspired by Star Trek over the years.
Followed by Star Trekkers Astronomer Patrick Moore praises the qualities of the eternally logical Mr Spock , and feminist Camille Paglia reveals why she once wrote Data a love letter
10.50 Star Trek: Voyager. The pilot episode of the latest Star Trek series, starring Kate Mulgrew Caretaker. Agroup of "freedom fighters" called the Maquis take up arms to combat a new treaty between Cardassia and the Federation. Captain Kathryn Janeway of the USS Voyager has pursued a Maquis ship into the Badlands, but then both ships are catapulted 70,000 light years into an uncharted quadrant of space.
Star Trek: the Next Generation continues on Wednesday at 6.00pm
12.20am Star Trekkers Shaun Ryder and Kermit from Black Grape yearn for the fantasy world of the Holodeck.
Thursday, April 30, 2015
Star Trek on the BBC: 1990 to 1994
Click here for part one: 1969
Click here for part two: 1970
Click here for part three: 1971
Click here for part four: 1972
Click here for part five: 1973
Click here for part six: 1974 to 1976
Click here for part seven 1977 to 1982
Click here for part eight: 1984 to 1986
1990
The BBC had a new series to schedule. Star Trek: The Next Generation finally appeared on BBC2 on 26 September 1990; almost exactly three years after Encounter At Farpoint premièred on 28 September 1987.
According to fanzine DWB (issue 79 July 1990) the BBC had paid £8 million for the rights to the Paramount Star Trek package which consisted of all 79 original series episodes, the first four Star Trek films, the 13 animated episodes, and "the 70 or so episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation made so far." Included in the package were resale rights and behind the scenes the BBC made an unprecedented deal with new satellite broadcaster Sky Television. The original series rights were sold on to Sky TV who began showing the series on their channel Sky One with the UK première of The Cage; Sunday 29 July 1990 at 8pm. During this repeat run Sky One also became the first channel to show Plato's Stepchildren, The Empath, and Whom Gods Destroy in the UK, and also repeated Miri for the first time since the BBC1 broadcast on 2 December 1970.
For many UK fans this would have been their first chance to see Plato's Stepchildren, The Empath, and Whom Gods Destroy. There had been two video releases in December1983 (Miri and The Empath) and October 1984 (Plato's Stepchildren and Whom Gods Destroy). By 1990 CIC Video was releasing Star Trek in production order on VHS with two episodes per tape. Miri was probably released on VHS before the Sky One broadcast but with its twice daily showings Sky One might have just shown the other three episodes before they were released on VHS; The Empath was released 5 November 1990; Plato's Stepchildren, January 1991; and Whom Gods Destroy, February 1991.
Sky also obtained the rights to show Star Trek: The Animated Series from 1991, and the first three season of Star Trek: The Next Generation once the BBC run ended in 1992. It's not clear from the DWB article if these rights were resold by the BBC or purchased independently by Sky. The BBC did not purchase the first run rights to anything beyond series three of Star Trek: The Next Generation. A decision which would come back to bite the channel.
For no readily apparent reason the BBC shuffled around the episode order of Star Trek: The Next Generation, as it had previously done with Star Trek. The series started in US broadcast order but after that the sequence breaks down.
1991
Star Trek: The Next Generation ran weekly on BBC2; generally at 6pm on Wednesday, opposite the Six O'Clock News. To keep this article from becoming impractically large I'm not going to list every episode but generally speaking there was almost no disruption to the run and, starting from the beginning of season two it was shown in the correct order.
1992
And then suddenly the BBC ran out of Star Trek: The Next Generation. DWB reported in July 1992 (issue 103), "The BBC have admitted they fouled up the rights to the highest-rated programme on BBC2." The BBC's rights to first run Star Trek: The Next Generation only covered seasons one to three. According to DWB 103 the BBC had to organise a special deal to allow The Best Of Both Worlds, Part II to be shown on 6 May 1992. Sky One would begin showing Star Trek: The Next Generation in the autumn of 1992 and had snapped up the first run rights to seasons four and five. The series had been popular on BBC2 from the start. Encounter At Farpoint drew an audience of 5.07 million and was the top rated programme for the week. The Naked Now placed second with 3.94 million. Code Of Honour returned to the number one slot with 4.38 million. With the rights to Star Trek: The Next Generation lost until 1994 the BBC turned back to the original series.
Speaking personally, original Star Trek seemed very stale at the time. I remember feeling that a repeat run of Star Trek was no substitute for the new adventures of Captain Picard. This feeling was compounded because Star Trek was now completely available on VHS. There was no longer any need to wait for the series to be scheduled on television, episodes could be watched in any order at any time; hated episodes could be skipped, and favourites watched and re-watched until video fatigue set in.
1993
A huge 48 week run with breaks only for cricket, 19 May and 7 July, and Wimbledon, 23 and 30 June. Only 1973 had more Star Trek, with 49 weeks of repeats.
1994
The last remaining episodes of season three were were shown and Star Trek: The Next Generation returned with the fourth season episode Family on Wednesday 13 April. Whatever deal the BBC struck to allow them to show The Best Of Both Worlds, Part II in 1992 didn't allow them a second showing in 1994. Requiem for Methuselah was postponed on 23 February 1994, because of the Winter Olympics. The BBC decided it would rather show then media sensation Tonya Harding's entry in the figure skating contest.
In the list below the number in brackets shows the number of times an episode has been broadcast. The Cage is being shown for the first time so it has no number, The Man Trap is on its sixth transmission (a first run plus five repeats), while Miri has been shown twice (once in 1970, and now the first repeat).
1992
1992-08-19 18:00 The Cage
1992-08-26 18:00 The Man Trap (6)
1992-09-02 18:00 Charlie X (6)
1992-09-09 18:00 Where No Man Has Gone Before (6)
1992-09-16 18:00 The Naked Time (6)
1992-09-23 18:00 The Enemy Within (6)
1992-09-30 18:00 Mudd's Women (6)
1992-10-07 18:00 What Are Little Girls Made Of? (6)
1992-10 14 18:00 Miri (2)
1992-10-21 18:00 Dagger Of The Mind (6)
1992-10-28 18:00 The Corbomite Manoeuvre (6)
1992-11-04 18:00 The Menagerie Part I (6)
1992-11-11 18:00 The Menagerie Part II (6)
1992-11-18 18:00 The Conscience Of The King (6)
1992-11-25 18:00 Balance Of Terror (6)
1992-12-02 18:00 Shore Leave (6)
1992-12-09 18:00 The Galileo Seven (7)
1992-12-16 18:00 The Squire Of Gothos (6)
1992-12-23 17:50 Arena (6)
1993-01-06 18.00 Tomorrow Is Yesterday (6)
1993-01-13 18.00 Court Martial (6)
1993-01-20 18.00 The Return Of The Archons (6)
1993-01-27 18.00 Space Seed (6)
1993-02-03 18.00 A Taste Of Armageddon (6)
1993-02-10 18.00 This Side Of Paradise (6)
1993-02-17 18.00 The Devil In The Dark (6)
1993-02-24 18.00 Errand Of Mercy (6)
1993-03-03 18.00 The Alternative Factor (6)
1993-03-10 18.00 The City On The Edge Of Forever (6)
1993-03-17 18.00 Operation -- Annihilate! (6)
1993-03-24 18.00 Amok Time (6)
1993-03-31 18.00 Who Mourns For Adonais? (6)
1993-04-07 18.00 The Changeling (6)
1993-04-14 18.00 Mirror, Mirror (6)
1993-04-21 18.00 The Apple (6)
1993-04-28 18.00 The Doomsday Machine(6)
1993-05-05 18.00 Catspaw (6)
1993-05-12 18.00 I, Mudd (6)
1993-05-26 18.00 Metamorphosis (6)
1993-06-02 18.00 Journey To Babel (6)
1993-06-09 18.00 Friday's Child (6)
1993-06-16 18.00 The Deadly Years (6)
1993-07-14 18.00 Obsession (6)
1993-07-21 18.00 The Wolf In The Fold (6)
1993-07-28 18.00 The Trouble With Tribbles (6)
1993-08-04 18.00 The Gamesters Of Triskelion (6)
1993-08-11 18.00 A Piece Of The Action (6)
1993-08-18 18.00 The Immunity Syndrome (6)
1993-08-25 18.00 A Private Little War (6)
1993-09-01 18.00 Return To Tomorrow (6)
1993-09-08 18.00 Patterns Of Force (6)
1993-09-15 18.00 By Any Other Name (6)
1993-09-22 18.00 The Omega Glory (6)
1993-09-29 18.00 The Ultimate Computer (6)
1993-10-06 18.00 Bread And Circuses (6)
1993-10-13 18.00 Assignment: Earth (6)
1993-10-20 18.00 Spock's Brain (6)
1993-10-27 18.00 The Enterprise Incident (6)
1993-11-03 18.00 The Paradise Syndrome (6)
1993-11-10 18.00 And The Children Shall Lead (6)
1993-11-17 18.00 Is There In Truth No Beauty (6)
1993-11-24 18.00 Spectre Of The Gun (6)
1993-12-01 18.00 Day Of The Dove (6)
1993-12-08 18.00 For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky (6)
1993-12-15 18.00 The Tholian Web (6)
1993-12-22 18.00 Plato's Stepchildren
1993-12-29 18.00 Wink Of An Eye (6)
1994-01-05 18.00 The Empath
1994-01-12 18.00 Elaan Of Troyius (6)
1994-01-19 18.00 Whom Gods Destroy
1994-01-26 18.00 Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (6)
1994-02-02 18.00 The Mark of Gideon (6)
1994-02-09 18.00 That Which Survives (6)
1994-02-16 18.00 The Lights of Zetar (6)
1994-02-23 18.00 Requiem for Methuselah POSTPONED
1994-03-02 18.00 The Way to Eden (6)
1994-03-02 18.00 Requiem for Methuselah (6)
1994-03-16 18.00 The Cloud Minders (6)
1994-03-23 18.00 The Savage Curtain (6)
1994-03-30 18.00 All Our Yesterdays (6)
1994-04-06 18.00 Turnabout Intruder (6)
Click here for part two: 1970
Click here for part three: 1971
Click here for part four: 1972
Click here for part five: 1973
Click here for part six: 1974 to 1976
Click here for part seven 1977 to 1982
Click here for part eight: 1984 to 1986
1990
The BBC had a new series to schedule. Star Trek: The Next Generation finally appeared on BBC2 on 26 September 1990; almost exactly three years after Encounter At Farpoint premièred on 28 September 1987.
According to fanzine DWB (issue 79 July 1990) the BBC had paid £8 million for the rights to the Paramount Star Trek package which consisted of all 79 original series episodes, the first four Star Trek films, the 13 animated episodes, and "the 70 or so episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation made so far." Included in the package were resale rights and behind the scenes the BBC made an unprecedented deal with new satellite broadcaster Sky Television. The original series rights were sold on to Sky TV who began showing the series on their channel Sky One with the UK première of The Cage; Sunday 29 July 1990 at 8pm. During this repeat run Sky One also became the first channel to show Plato's Stepchildren, The Empath, and Whom Gods Destroy in the UK, and also repeated Miri for the first time since the BBC1 broadcast on 2 December 1970.
For many UK fans this would have been their first chance to see Plato's Stepchildren, The Empath, and Whom Gods Destroy. There had been two video releases in December1983 (Miri and The Empath) and October 1984 (Plato's Stepchildren and Whom Gods Destroy). By 1990 CIC Video was releasing Star Trek in production order on VHS with two episodes per tape. Miri was probably released on VHS before the Sky One broadcast but with its twice daily showings Sky One might have just shown the other three episodes before they were released on VHS; The Empath was released 5 November 1990; Plato's Stepchildren, January 1991; and Whom Gods Destroy, February 1991.
Sky also obtained the rights to show Star Trek: The Animated Series from 1991, and the first three season of Star Trek: The Next Generation once the BBC run ended in 1992. It's not clear from the DWB article if these rights were resold by the BBC or purchased independently by Sky. The BBC did not purchase the first run rights to anything beyond series three of Star Trek: The Next Generation. A decision which would come back to bite the channel.
For no readily apparent reason the BBC shuffled around the episode order of Star Trek: The Next Generation, as it had previously done with Star Trek. The series started in US broadcast order but after that the sequence breaks down.
Season 1
|
BBC Order
|
Encounter At Farpoint
|
Encounter At Farpoint
|
The Naked Now
|
The Naked Now
|
Code Of Honor
|
Code Of Honor
|
The Last Outpost
|
Where No One Has Gone Before
|
Where No One Has Gone Before
|
Lonely Among Us
|
Lonely Among Us
|
The Last Outpost
|
Justice
|
The Battle
|
The Battle
|
Haven
|
Hide And Q
|
Justice
|
Haven
|
Hide And Q
|
The Big Goodbye
|
Too Short a Season
|
Datalore
|
The Big Goodbye
|
Angel One
|
Datalore
|
11001001
|
Angel One
|
Too Short a Season
|
11001001
|
When The Bough Breaks
|
Home Soil
|
Home Soil
|
When The Bough Breaks
|
Coming Of Age
|
Coming Of Age
|
Heart Of Glory
|
Symbiosis
|
The Arsenal of Freedom
|
The Arsenal of Freedom
|
Symbiosis
|
Heart Of Glory
|
Skin Of Evil
|
Skin Of Evil
|
We'll Always Have Paris
|
We'll Always Have Paris
|
Conspiracy
|
Conspiracy
|
The Neutral Zone
|
The Neutral Zone
|
Star Trek: The Next Generation ran weekly on BBC2; generally at 6pm on Wednesday, opposite the Six O'Clock News. To keep this article from becoming impractically large I'm not going to list every episode but generally speaking there was almost no disruption to the run and, starting from the beginning of season two it was shown in the correct order.
1992
And then suddenly the BBC ran out of Star Trek: The Next Generation. DWB reported in July 1992 (issue 103), "The BBC have admitted they fouled up the rights to the highest-rated programme on BBC2." The BBC's rights to first run Star Trek: The Next Generation only covered seasons one to three. According to DWB 103 the BBC had to organise a special deal to allow The Best Of Both Worlds, Part II to be shown on 6 May 1992. Sky One would begin showing Star Trek: The Next Generation in the autumn of 1992 and had snapped up the first run rights to seasons four and five. The series had been popular on BBC2 from the start. Encounter At Farpoint drew an audience of 5.07 million and was the top rated programme for the week. The Naked Now placed second with 3.94 million. Code Of Honour returned to the number one slot with 4.38 million. With the rights to Star Trek: The Next Generation lost until 1994 the BBC turned back to the original series.
Speaking personally, original Star Trek seemed very stale at the time. I remember feeling that a repeat run of Star Trek was no substitute for the new adventures of Captain Picard. This feeling was compounded because Star Trek was now completely available on VHS. There was no longer any need to wait for the series to be scheduled on television, episodes could be watched in any order at any time; hated episodes could be skipped, and favourites watched and re-watched until video fatigue set in.
1993
A huge 48 week run with breaks only for cricket, 19 May and 7 July, and Wimbledon, 23 and 30 June. Only 1973 had more Star Trek, with 49 weeks of repeats.
1994
The last remaining episodes of season three were were shown and Star Trek: The Next Generation returned with the fourth season episode Family on Wednesday 13 April. Whatever deal the BBC struck to allow them to show The Best Of Both Worlds, Part II in 1992 didn't allow them a second showing in 1994. Requiem for Methuselah was postponed on 23 February 1994, because of the Winter Olympics. The BBC decided it would rather show then media sensation Tonya Harding's entry in the figure skating contest.
In the list below the number in brackets shows the number of times an episode has been broadcast. The Cage is being shown for the first time so it has no number, The Man Trap is on its sixth transmission (a first run plus five repeats), while Miri has been shown twice (once in 1970, and now the first repeat).
1992
1992-08-19 18:00 The Cage
1992-08-26 18:00 The Man Trap (6)
1992-09-02 18:00 Charlie X (6)
1992-09-09 18:00 Where No Man Has Gone Before (6)
1992-09-16 18:00 The Naked Time (6)
1992-09-23 18:00 The Enemy Within (6)
1992-09-30 18:00 Mudd's Women (6)
1992-10-07 18:00 What Are Little Girls Made Of? (6)
1992-10 14 18:00 Miri (2)
1992-10-21 18:00 Dagger Of The Mind (6)
1992-10-28 18:00 The Corbomite Manoeuvre (6)
1992-11-04 18:00 The Menagerie Part I (6)
1992-11-11 18:00 The Menagerie Part II (6)
1992-11-18 18:00 The Conscience Of The King (6)
1992-11-25 18:00 Balance Of Terror (6)
1992-12-02 18:00 Shore Leave (6)
1992-12-09 18:00 The Galileo Seven (7)
1992-12-16 18:00 The Squire Of Gothos (6)
1992-12-23 17:50 Arena (6)
1993-01-06 18.00 Tomorrow Is Yesterday (6)
1993-01-13 18.00 Court Martial (6)
1993-01-20 18.00 The Return Of The Archons (6)
1993-01-27 18.00 Space Seed (6)
1993-02-03 18.00 A Taste Of Armageddon (6)
1993-02-10 18.00 This Side Of Paradise (6)
1993-02-17 18.00 The Devil In The Dark (6)
1993-02-24 18.00 Errand Of Mercy (6)
1993-03-03 18.00 The Alternative Factor (6)
1993-03-10 18.00 The City On The Edge Of Forever (6)
1993-03-17 18.00 Operation -- Annihilate! (6)
1993-03-24 18.00 Amok Time (6)
1993-03-31 18.00 Who Mourns For Adonais? (6)
1993-04-07 18.00 The Changeling (6)
1993-04-14 18.00 Mirror, Mirror (6)
1993-04-21 18.00 The Apple (6)
1993-04-28 18.00 The Doomsday Machine(6)
1993-05-05 18.00 Catspaw (6)
1993-05-12 18.00 I, Mudd (6)
1993-05-26 18.00 Metamorphosis (6)
1993-06-02 18.00 Journey To Babel (6)
1993-06-09 18.00 Friday's Child (6)
1993-06-16 18.00 The Deadly Years (6)
1993-07-14 18.00 Obsession (6)
1993-07-21 18.00 The Wolf In The Fold (6)
1993-07-28 18.00 The Trouble With Tribbles (6)
1993-08-04 18.00 The Gamesters Of Triskelion (6)
1993-08-11 18.00 A Piece Of The Action (6)
1993-08-18 18.00 The Immunity Syndrome (6)
1993-08-25 18.00 A Private Little War (6)
1993-09-01 18.00 Return To Tomorrow (6)
1993-09-08 18.00 Patterns Of Force (6)
1993-09-15 18.00 By Any Other Name (6)
1993-09-22 18.00 The Omega Glory (6)
1993-09-29 18.00 The Ultimate Computer (6)
1993-10-06 18.00 Bread And Circuses (6)
1993-10-13 18.00 Assignment: Earth (6)
1993-10-20 18.00 Spock's Brain (6)
1993-10-27 18.00 The Enterprise Incident (6)
1993-11-03 18.00 The Paradise Syndrome (6)
1993-11-10 18.00 And The Children Shall Lead (6)
1993-11-17 18.00 Is There In Truth No Beauty (6)
1993-11-24 18.00 Spectre Of The Gun (6)
1993-12-01 18.00 Day Of The Dove (6)
1993-12-08 18.00 For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky (6)
1993-12-15 18.00 The Tholian Web (6)
1993-12-22 18.00 Plato's Stepchildren
1993-12-29 18.00 Wink Of An Eye (6)
1994-01-05 18.00 The Empath
1994-01-12 18.00 Elaan Of Troyius (6)
1994-01-19 18.00 Whom Gods Destroy
1994-01-26 18.00 Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (6)
1994-02-02 18.00 The Mark of Gideon (6)
1994-02-09 18.00 That Which Survives (6)
1994-02-16 18.00 The Lights of Zetar (6)
1994-02-23 18.00 Requiem for Methuselah POSTPONED
1994-03-02 18.00 The Way to Eden (6)
1994-03-02 18.00 Requiem for Methuselah (6)
1994-03-16 18.00 The Cloud Minders (6)
1994-03-23 18.00 The Savage Curtain (6)
1994-03-30 18.00 All Our Yesterdays (6)
1994-04-06 18.00 Turnabout Intruder (6)
Sunday, February 1, 2015
Star Trek On The BBC: 1984 to 1986
Click here for part one: 1969
Click here for part two: 1970
Click here for part three: 1971
Click here for part four: 1972
Click here for part five: 1973
Click here for part six: 1974 to 1976
Click here for part seven 1977 to 1982
Click here for part two: 1970
Click here for part three: 1971
Click here for part four: 1972
Click here for part five: 1973
Click here for part six: 1974 to 1976
Click here for part seven 1977 to 1982
1984
Two episodes of Star Trek were shown in 1982; Operation -- Annihilate! and an unscheduled showing of The Savage Curtain. Apart from that the series had been off the air since May 1981. The longest gap since the BBC began showing Star Trek in 1969.
News of this repeat run leaked out into the UK Star Trek fan community. Fans began writing to the BBC to request that the four withdrawn episodes (Miri, The Empath, Whom Gods Destroy, and Plato's Stepchildren) be included. An example of the BBC's standard negative response is available online. Presumably fans had also been writing to the BBC about the eccentric episode order used to schedule Star Trek and here they had more success. For the first time the series would be shown in NBC broadcast order. This change in policy does not seem to have been extended to other imported programmes. Mission: Impossible repeats would run after Star Trek in 1986 and the episodes shown were a random selection of stories from seasons two to five.
That said, it's not long before the BBC breaks with the NBC order. The Squire Of Gothos and The Return Of The Archons are both missing from the 1984 repeats. The scheduling of the 1984 repeats is quite disrupted. The series starts on Tuesday at 18.40 and changes after six weeks to Monday at 19.10 where it replaces Manimal. Then on 20 August Star Trek is pushed into an earlier slot by a combination of International Athletics at 18.15 and a worthy but frankly depressing sounding programme at 20.00 called Still The Biggest Epidemic*. After a break for the August Bank Holiday the series is on the move again, back to Tuesday but this time at the much earlier time of 17.10. This is the earliest the BBC has ever scheduled Star Trek; except for the morning Christmas repeats of 1974/75/76 under the Holiday Star Trek banner.
1985
Two episodes of Star Trek were shown in 1982; Operation -- Annihilate! and an unscheduled showing of The Savage Curtain. Apart from that the series had been off the air since May 1981. The longest gap since the BBC began showing Star Trek in 1969.
News of this repeat run leaked out into the UK Star Trek fan community. Fans began writing to the BBC to request that the four withdrawn episodes (Miri, The Empath, Whom Gods Destroy, and Plato's Stepchildren) be included. An example of the BBC's standard negative response is available online. Presumably fans had also been writing to the BBC about the eccentric episode order used to schedule Star Trek and here they had more success. For the first time the series would be shown in NBC broadcast order. This change in policy does not seem to have been extended to other imported programmes. Mission: Impossible repeats would run after Star Trek in 1986 and the episodes shown were a random selection of stories from seasons two to five.
That said, it's not long before the BBC breaks with the NBC order. The Squire Of Gothos and The Return Of The Archons are both missing from the 1984 repeats. The scheduling of the 1984 repeats is quite disrupted. The series starts on Tuesday at 18.40 and changes after six weeks to Monday at 19.10 where it replaces Manimal. Then on 20 August Star Trek is pushed into an earlier slot by a combination of International Athletics at 18.15 and a worthy but frankly depressing sounding programme at 20.00 called Still The Biggest Epidemic*. After a break for the August Bank Holiday the series is on the move again, back to Tuesday but this time at the much earlier time of 17.10. This is the earliest the BBC has ever scheduled Star Trek; except for the morning Christmas repeats of 1974/75/76 under the Holiday Star Trek banner.
1985
Star
Trek returned after Christmas. It was shifted to Wednesday and
a later slot around 19.00. The first two episodes shown were The
Squire Of Gothos and The
Return Of The Archons. Could
ongoing concerns over their content have caused both episodes to be held back
so they could be shifted into a later time slot? In the case of The
Return Of The Archons it's quite
possible. This was an episode which went unrepeated between 1969 and
1974; my best guess is because the Festival scenes were felt to be
too intense. It's
interesting to note that four of the five episodes shown at
the start of 1985 were transmitted at 18.55 while The
Return Of The Archons
is preceded by a Daffy Duck cartoon which pushes the start time back
to 19.00. This might seem insignificant but programming before the 21.00
watershed tends to be done on the assumption that less
child friendly material is shown later, by starting dead on 19.00 the
BBC might have felt it was sending a message that this programme was
not suitable for very young children.
Home video recorders were more common by 1984. So it was probably in 1984 that this happened (it's next to impossible to tell if this was 1979 or 1984). The BBC edited their copies of Star Trek to put the titles first followed by the teaser which ran into act one. This seems to have been done on the assumption that the BBC was not a commercial channel so it shouldn't use commercial tactics to hook viewers. Cutting and rejoining the film left a weak point which is why it snaps where it does. There's an example of how the BBC went straight into the opening titles here along with a nice slow fade from the BBC globe into the Star Trek stars; one continuity announcer seems to have been particularly fond of the way that looked.
There is no obvious reason to explain why The Squire Of Gothos was held back.
The last episode of Star Trek to be shown on BBC1 was Who Mourns For Adonais? The channel was undergoing radical changes and the following week was a key moment in the BBC's history. On Monday 18th February BBC1 was relaunched with a new look, a simplified schedule with more programmes starting on the hour or half hour, and the chat show Wogan to anchor the evening schedule on Monday Wednesday and Friday, and soap opera EastEnders on Tuesday and Thursday. This new broom approach included moving Star Trek to BBC2. In itself not an unreasonable decision, the series was by now nearly 20 years old and most episodes had been shown five times, but it seemed to also mark a sea change in the BBC's attitude to science fiction. Before 1985 science fiction had been populist -Star Trek, Doctor Who, Blake's Seven, Doomwatch, Survivors, The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy- after 1985 it seems to have been regarded largely as a failed genre (see the cancellation of The Tripods, planned as a trilogy but cancelled because of poor ratings while the second series was still being made) suitable only for the "minority" channel BBC2. This was a decision which cast a long shadow and into the 1990s series like Star Trek: The Next Generation, Quantum Leap, and The X-Files premièred on BBC2 when they might otherwise have been seen on BBC1. Actually The X-Files became one of the few science fiction series to escape from BBC2. It made the transition to BBC1 in 1996 and amusingly BBC1 accidentally revived an old tradition. The first three episodes shown on the channel were in the wrong order.
The week before the repeats kicked off on BBC2 the channel showed a special produced in 1983 called Leonard Nimoy: Star Trek Memories. According to Memory Alpha this special was often included in syndication packages to increase the number of episodes to 80. If the BBC was being supplied with syndication copies of episodes then it explains my surprise in 1990 when I discovered the VHS version of And The Children Shall Lead included a lengthy scene of Kirk in a cave on Triacus missing from the BBC2 repeat; listed as a syndication cut in The Nitpicker's Guide for Classic Trekkers. The regular repeats ran weekly on Thursday at 18.00. The BBC was now using Star Trek as counterprogramming to the hour of national and local news on BBC1. Exactly what happened to Star Trek when it first entered syndication in 1969.
There is no obvious reason to explain why The Squire Of Gothos was held back.
The last episode of Star Trek to be shown on BBC1 was Who Mourns For Adonais? The channel was undergoing radical changes and the following week was a key moment in the BBC's history. On Monday 18th February BBC1 was relaunched with a new look, a simplified schedule with more programmes starting on the hour or half hour, and the chat show Wogan to anchor the evening schedule on Monday Wednesday and Friday, and soap opera EastEnders on Tuesday and Thursday. This new broom approach included moving Star Trek to BBC2. In itself not an unreasonable decision, the series was by now nearly 20 years old and most episodes had been shown five times, but it seemed to also mark a sea change in the BBC's attitude to science fiction. Before 1985 science fiction had been populist -Star Trek, Doctor Who, Blake's Seven, Doomwatch, Survivors, The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy- after 1985 it seems to have been regarded largely as a failed genre (see the cancellation of The Tripods, planned as a trilogy but cancelled because of poor ratings while the second series was still being made) suitable only for the "minority" channel BBC2. This was a decision which cast a long shadow and into the 1990s series like Star Trek: The Next Generation, Quantum Leap, and The X-Files premièred on BBC2 when they might otherwise have been seen on BBC1. Actually The X-Files became one of the few science fiction series to escape from BBC2. It made the transition to BBC1 in 1996 and amusingly BBC1 accidentally revived an old tradition. The first three episodes shown on the channel were in the wrong order.
The week before the repeats kicked off on BBC2 the channel showed a special produced in 1983 called Leonard Nimoy: Star Trek Memories. According to Memory Alpha this special was often included in syndication packages to increase the number of episodes to 80. If the BBC was being supplied with syndication copies of episodes then it explains my surprise in 1990 when I discovered the VHS version of And The Children Shall Lead included a lengthy scene of Kirk in a cave on Triacus missing from the BBC2 repeat; listed as a syndication cut in The Nitpicker's Guide for Classic Trekkers. The regular repeats ran weekly on Thursday at 18.00. The BBC was now using Star Trek as counterprogramming to the hour of national and local news on BBC1. Exactly what happened to Star Trek when it first entered syndication in 1969.
1986
A
much more straightforward year in contrast to all the changes of
1985. Leonard Nimoy: Star Trek Memories was given a second
repeat on Monday 2 June 1986 at 17.40. The one mystery of the year is
the showing of The Galileo Seven on Tuesday 30 December. It's
possible this was a delayed repeat after the showing on 9 October
1984 was postponed; that's what happened to Operation --
Annihilate! in 1982. However there's no obvious reason for why
this could have happened. It's possible coverage of the 1984
Conservative Party Conference over ran but there's no evidence that
this was the case. Nothing particularly newsworthy appears to have
happened on 9 October 1984 which could have caused disruption to the
schedule.
Numbers in brackets below show the number of times each episode has been broadcast.
1984-06-26 18.40 BBC1 The Man Trap (5)
1984-07-03 18.40 BBC1 Charlie X (5)
1984-07-10 18.40 BBC1 Where No Man Has Gone Before (5)
1984-07-17 18.40 BBC1 The Naked Time (5)
1984-07-24 18.40 BBC1 The Enemy Within (5)
1984-07-30 19.10 BBC1 Mudd's Women (5)
1984-08-06 19.10 BBC1 What Are Little Girls Made Of? (5)
1984-08-13 19.10 BBC1 Dagger Of The Mind (5)
1984-08-20 18.45 BBC1 The Corbomite Maneuver (5)
1984-09-04 17.10 BBC1 The Menagerie Part I (5)
1984-09-11 17.10 BBC1 The Menagerie Part II (5)
1984-09-18 17.10 BBC1 The Conscience of the King (5)
1984-09-25 17.10 BBC1 Balance Of Terror (5)
1984-10-02 17.10 BBC1 Shore Leave (5)
1984-10-09 17.10 BBC1 The Galileo Seven (5)
1984-10-16 17.10 BBC1 Arena (5)
1984-10-23 17.10 BBC1 Tomorrow is Yesterday (5)
1984-10-30 17.10 BBC1 Court Martial (5)
1984-11-06 17.10 BBC1 Space Seed (5)
1984-11-13 17.10 BBC1 A Taste of Armageddon (5)
1984-11-20 17.10 BBC1 This Side of Paradise (5)
1984-11-27 17.10 BBC1 The Devil In The Dark (5)
1984-12-04 17.10 BBC1 Errand of Mercy (5)
1984-12-11 17.10 BBC1 The Alternative Factor (5)
1984-12-18 17.10 BBC1 The City On The Edge Of Forever (5)
1984-07-03 18.40 BBC1 Charlie X (5)
1984-07-10 18.40 BBC1 Where No Man Has Gone Before (5)
1984-07-17 18.40 BBC1 The Naked Time (5)
1984-07-24 18.40 BBC1 The Enemy Within (5)
1984-07-30 19.10 BBC1 Mudd's Women (5)
1984-08-06 19.10 BBC1 What Are Little Girls Made Of? (5)
1984-08-13 19.10 BBC1 Dagger Of The Mind (5)
1984-08-20 18.45 BBC1 The Corbomite Maneuver (5)
1984-09-04 17.10 BBC1 The Menagerie Part I (5)
1984-09-11 17.10 BBC1 The Menagerie Part II (5)
1984-09-18 17.10 BBC1 The Conscience of the King (5)
1984-09-25 17.10 BBC1 Balance Of Terror (5)
1984-10-02 17.10 BBC1 Shore Leave (5)
1984-10-09 17.10 BBC1 The Galileo Seven (5)
1984-10-16 17.10 BBC1 Arena (5)
1984-10-23 17.10 BBC1 Tomorrow is Yesterday (5)
1984-10-30 17.10 BBC1 Court Martial (5)
1984-11-06 17.10 BBC1 Space Seed (5)
1984-11-13 17.10 BBC1 A Taste of Armageddon (5)
1984-11-20 17.10 BBC1 This Side of Paradise (5)
1984-11-27 17.10 BBC1 The Devil In The Dark (5)
1984-12-04 17.10 BBC1 Errand of Mercy (5)
1984-12-11 17.10 BBC1 The Alternative Factor (5)
1984-12-18 17.10 BBC1 The City On The Edge Of Forever (5)
1985-01-09 18.55 BBC1 The Squire of Gothos (5)
1985-01-16 19.00 BBC1 The Return of the Archons (5)
1985-01-23 18.55 BBC1 Operation -- Annihilate! (5)
1985-02-06 18.55 BBC1 Amok Time (5)
1985-02-13 18.55 BBC1 Who Mourns For Adonais? (5)
1985-09-05 18.00 BBC2 The Changeling (5)
1985-09-12 18.00 BBC2 Mirror, Mirror (5)
1985-09-19 18.00 BBC2 The Apple (5)
1985-09-26 18.00 BBC2 The Doomsday Machine (5)
1985-10-03 18.00 BBC2 Catspaw (5)
1985-10-10 18.00 BBC2 I, Mudd (5)
1985-10-17 18.00 BBC2 Metamorphosis (5)
1985-10-24 18.00 BBC2 Journey To Babel (5)
1985-10-31 18.00 BBC2 Friday's Child (5)
1985-11-07 18.00 BBC2 The Deadly Years (5)
1985-11-14 18.00 BBC2 Obsession (5)
1985-11-21 18.00 BBC2 Wolf In The Fold (5)
1985-11-28 18.00 BBC2 The Trouble with Tribbles (5)
1985-12-05 18.00 BBC2 The Gamesters Of Triskelion (5)
1985-12-12 18.00 BBC2 A Piece Of The Action (5)
1985-12-19 18.00 BBC2 The Immunity Syndrome (5)
1986-01-09 18.00 BBC2 A Private Little War (5)
1986-01-16 18.00 BBC2 Return To Tomorrow (5)
1986-01-23 18.00 BBC2 Patterns Of Force (5)
1986-01-30 18.00 BBC2 By Any Other Name (5)
1986-02-06 18.00 BBC2 The Omega Glory (5)
1986-02-13 18.00 BBC2 The Ultimate Computer (5)
1986-02-20 18.00 BBC2 Bread And Circuses (5)
1986-02-27 18.00 BBC2 Assignment: Earth (5)
1986-03-06 18.00 BBC2 Spock's Brain (5)
1986-03-13 18.00 BBC2 The Enterprise Incident (5)
1986-03-20 18.00 BBC2 The Paradise Syndrome (5)
1986-03-27 18.00 BBC2 And the Children Shall Lead (5)
1986-04-03 18.00 BBC2 Is There in Truth No Beauty? (5)
1986-04-10 18.00 BBC2 Spectre of the Gun (5)
1986-09-04 18.00 BBC2 Day of the Dove (5)
1986-09-11 18.00 BBC2 For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky (5)
1986-09-18 18.00 BBC2 The Tholian Web (5)
1986-09-25 18.00 BBC2 Wink of an Eye (5)
1986-10-02 18.00 BBC2 Elaan of Troyius (5)
1986-10-09 18.00 BBC2 Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (5)
1986-10-16 18.00 BBC2 The Mark of Gideon (5)
1986-10-23 18.00 BBC2 That Which Survives (5)
1986-10-30 18.00 BBC2 The Lights of Zetar (5)
1986-11-13 18.00 BBC2 Requiem for Methuselah 5)
1986-11-20 18.00 BBC2 The Way to Eden (5)
1986-11-27 18.00 BBC2 The Cloud Minders (5)
1986-12-04 18.00 BBC2 The Savage Curtain (5)
1986-12-11 18.00 BBC2 All Our Yesterdays (5)
1986-12-18 18.00 BBC2 Turnabout Intruder (5)
1986-12-30 18.00 BBC2 The Galileo Seven (6)
1985-01-16 19.00 BBC1 The Return of the Archons (5)
1985-01-23 18.55 BBC1 Operation -- Annihilate! (5)
1985-02-06 18.55 BBC1 Amok Time (5)
1985-02-13 18.55 BBC1 Who Mourns For Adonais? (5)
1985-09-05 18.00 BBC2 The Changeling (5)
1985-09-12 18.00 BBC2 Mirror, Mirror (5)
1985-09-19 18.00 BBC2 The Apple (5)
1985-09-26 18.00 BBC2 The Doomsday Machine (5)
1985-10-03 18.00 BBC2 Catspaw (5)
1985-10-10 18.00 BBC2 I, Mudd (5)
1985-10-17 18.00 BBC2 Metamorphosis (5)
1985-10-24 18.00 BBC2 Journey To Babel (5)
1985-10-31 18.00 BBC2 Friday's Child (5)
1985-11-07 18.00 BBC2 The Deadly Years (5)
1985-11-14 18.00 BBC2 Obsession (5)
1985-11-21 18.00 BBC2 Wolf In The Fold (5)
1985-11-28 18.00 BBC2 The Trouble with Tribbles (5)
1985-12-05 18.00 BBC2 The Gamesters Of Triskelion (5)
1985-12-12 18.00 BBC2 A Piece Of The Action (5)
1985-12-19 18.00 BBC2 The Immunity Syndrome (5)
1986-01-09 18.00 BBC2 A Private Little War (5)
1986-01-16 18.00 BBC2 Return To Tomorrow (5)
1986-01-23 18.00 BBC2 Patterns Of Force (5)
1986-01-30 18.00 BBC2 By Any Other Name (5)
1986-02-06 18.00 BBC2 The Omega Glory (5)
1986-02-13 18.00 BBC2 The Ultimate Computer (5)
1986-02-20 18.00 BBC2 Bread And Circuses (5)
1986-02-27 18.00 BBC2 Assignment: Earth (5)
1986-03-06 18.00 BBC2 Spock's Brain (5)
1986-03-13 18.00 BBC2 The Enterprise Incident (5)
1986-03-20 18.00 BBC2 The Paradise Syndrome (5)
1986-03-27 18.00 BBC2 And the Children Shall Lead (5)
1986-04-03 18.00 BBC2 Is There in Truth No Beauty? (5)
1986-04-10 18.00 BBC2 Spectre of the Gun (5)
1986-09-04 18.00 BBC2 Day of the Dove (5)
1986-09-11 18.00 BBC2 For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky (5)
1986-09-18 18.00 BBC2 The Tholian Web (5)
1986-09-25 18.00 BBC2 Wink of an Eye (5)
1986-10-02 18.00 BBC2 Elaan of Troyius (5)
1986-10-09 18.00 BBC2 Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (5)
1986-10-16 18.00 BBC2 The Mark of Gideon (5)
1986-10-23 18.00 BBC2 That Which Survives (5)
1986-10-30 18.00 BBC2 The Lights of Zetar (5)
1986-11-13 18.00 BBC2 Requiem for Methuselah 5)
1986-11-20 18.00 BBC2 The Way to Eden (5)
1986-11-27 18.00 BBC2 The Cloud Minders (5)
1986-12-04 18.00 BBC2 The Savage Curtain (5)
1986-12-11 18.00 BBC2 All Our Yesterdays (5)
1986-12-18 18.00 BBC2 Turnabout Intruder (5)
1986-12-30 18.00 BBC2 The Galileo Seven (6)
1986-11-06: No Star
Trek. All week the BBC was marking its 50th anniversary with archive
repeats. On Thursday 6 from 18.00 you could have watched episodes of
What's My Line?, Z Cars, Bruce Forsyth and The Generation Game, The
Royal Ballet in The Firebird, Monty Python's Flying Circus, and Blue
Remembered Hills.
*"Road accidents are the single biggest killer for people aged between 4 and 45. Accident statistics show that we are all likely to be injured on the road at some time in our lives.
One in three corpses dragged from a crashed car was 'drunk".'
Today the same is still true.... The wearing of front seat belts has brought the figures down to their lowest level in 30 years - 'the best piece of public health legislation this century'. It shows what can be done. But there are still 75,000 deaths and serious injuries each year. Why is this epidemic allowed to continue? Does no one care about the thousands of needless killings, twisted bodies, crippled minds ... because 'it'll never happen to me'? The carnage could be cut in half -this film shows how. "
*"Road accidents are the single biggest killer for people aged between 4 and 45. Accident statistics show that we are all likely to be injured on the road at some time in our lives.
One in three corpses dragged from a crashed car was 'drunk".'
Today the same is still true.... The wearing of front seat belts has brought the figures down to their lowest level in 30 years - 'the best piece of public health legislation this century'. It shows what can be done. But there are still 75,000 deaths and serious injuries each year. Why is this epidemic allowed to continue? Does no one care about the thousands of needless killings, twisted bodies, crippled minds ... because 'it'll never happen to me'? The carnage could be cut in half -this film shows how. "
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Star Trek On The BBC: 1977 to 1982
Click here for part one: 1969
Click here for part two: 1970
Click here for part three: 1971
Click here for part four: 1972
Click here for part five: 1973
Click here for part six: 1974 to 1976
1977
For the first time in eight years no live action Star Trek was shown on BBC1. Star Trek: The Animated Series was run for the last time on BBC1 between March and May.
1978
Repeats of live action Star Trek began again on BBC1 in September 1978. It's tempting to link this to the hype over Star Trek: The Motion Picture, announced at a huge press conference on March 28 1978, but it seems more likely the plan was always for Star Trek to take a break before resuming repeats. In previous years Star Trek had filled the gap between series of Doctor Who but in 1978 the 17 episodes repeated ran alongside the fourth Doctor's search for the Key to Time. This time Star Trek would prime audiences for the return of Blake's Seven which started a second series on 9 January 1979. In fact, for one glorious week in late1978 it was possible to see all three series. Episode 1 of the Doctor Who story The Power Of Kroll was shown on 23 December, followed by a repeat of the final episode of Blake's Seven series one on 27 December (to remind audience of the end of series cliffhanger "space vehicle will be destroyed"!), and What Are Little Girls Made Of? on Friday 29 December.
Once again episodes are shown in the same order as the 1969 BBC1 broadcasts. With the exception of Charlie X which should have been sandwiched between The Devil In The Dark and Shore Leave. There is no obvious reason for Charlie X's disappearance from the schedule although The Prince of Wales turned 30 on 14 November 1978 four days after the episode would have been shown. Maybe it was felt in bad taste to broadcast a programme about a strange out of touch man raised in unusual circumstances and called Charles.
Its still not clear why the BBC persisted in using its own episode order. By the mid-70s BBC Enterprises was producing a sales brochure called A Quick Guide To Dr Who which listed all the episodes of Doctor Who made to date in order along with the production code. It seems unlikely the BBC was unique in making supplementary material like this for overseas broadcasters but, for whatever reason, they treated bought in programmes differently.
1979
The tenth anniversary of the Apollo Moon landings, and of Star Trek's BBC1 première. On 20 July the BBC marked the Apollo anniversary by following the repeat of Arena with a documentary presented by James Burke, Project Apollo: The Men Who Walked on the Moon.
The Squire Of Gothos kicked off the 1979 repeats. The planned 1978 transmission had been affected by a strike which took BBC1 and BBC2 off the air for two days on 21 and 22 December. This was a longer run of repeats than the year before, starting in July and ending at Christmas just before the third series of Blake's Seven began in January 1980. Once again all the episodes were in BBC transmission order, including The Return Of The Archons slotted back in between Arena and This Side Of Paradise for the first time since 1969. Well not all the episodes. The broadcast order of some stories in this block of repeats was swapped. Bread And Circuses was pulled forwards to 31 August, instead of being placed between The Trouble With Tribbles and Journey To Babel where it had always been in the past. The Enemy Within and Court Martial also swapped round in the schedule, this had previously happened during the 1974 repeats so it's possible someone consulted different paperwork when looking for the broadcast order. Charlie X, delayed from 1978, was transmitted between The Enemy Within and Court Martial.
The Galileo Seven was placed on the schedule twice after the first broadcast was preempted by coverage of the state funeral of Lord Mountbatten, killed by an IRA bomb on 27 August 1979.
All the episodes in this block of repeats should have been on their fourth showing; with the exception of The Return Of The Archons which is only on it's third repeat having gone unbroadcast between 1969 and 1976. Surprisingly it turns out The Deadly Years, A Private Little War, and Obsession
are also only on their third repeat. Checking BBC Genome shows that for
some reason these three episodes were omitted from the 1975 repeats
when they would have been expected to be shown in the three weeks after Journey To Babel. UPDATE 02/05/20 see Star Trek: the Unscheduled for more information.
On 8 December 1979 BBC1's Saturday morning children's show Swap Shop marked the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture on 8 December. According to the Radio Times, "The Star Ship Enterprise has been rebuilt for its greatest and most exciting adventure yet - so beam down to the Paramount studios in Hollywood, USA, with Maggie Philbin. Join her behind the scenes of the new Star Trek movie and meet not only ADMIRAL KIRK (yes - he's been promoted!) and MR SPOCK , but two new crew members played by STEVE COLLINS and PERSIS KHAMBATTA" On 17 December the film was reviewed, along with The Black Hole and Apocalypse Now, by Barry Norman on Film 79.
1980
By now the repeats had settled into a pattern. They would begin in the summer and run through to Christmas. The 1980 repeats began with By Any Other Name an episode which, like The Deadly Years, A Private Little War, and Obsession, was missed from the 1975 repeats.
Episodes were shown on a Monday in the same slot used by Blake's Seven from January to March. This meant that the repeat of I, Mudd scheduled for 25 August fell on the August Bank Holiday Monday and was bumped by special programming. Instead of simply shifting I, Mudd to the following week the schedulers kick the episode further down the year to 10 November. This displaces Operation - -Annihilate! (going by the original BBC1 broadcast order) which disappears completely from the schedule. Something similar happens to Day Of The Dove, due to be shown on 8 December, which is replaced by The Society of West End Theatre Awards.
1981
The BBC1 repeats of Star Trek resumed after Christmas instead of taking a break for the new series of Blake's Seven. Star Trek repeats ran until May and were followed by a repeat of Blake's Seven series three. The final series of Blake's Seven started in September.
Day Of The Dove was repeated on 2 February after The Enterprise Incident. No episodes appear to be displaced by this move because the three episodes following The Enterprise Incident are in a different order to the original 1971 BBC1 broadcasts. After Day Of The Dove comes Let That Be Your Last Battlefield and Wink Of An Eye which both seem to have dropped down the order from where they were scheduled in 1971 and 1973. It will come as no surprise to find there is no apparent reason for the moving of these two stories. It seems to have first occurred in 1975 when the BBC moved episodes around for the Christmas repeats called Holiday Star Trek.
On 13 April, the Monday before Easter, BBC1 showed part one of Irwin Allen's The Return of Captain Nemo in place of Star Trek. Going by the BBC order The Savage Curtain was due to be shown that week, between The Lights Of Zetar and The Tholian Web. Instead of being postponed to the following week The Savage Curtain drops off the schedule completely. As happened to I, Mudd and Day Of The Dove in 1980. Presumably the plan was to delay it until a slot later in the repeat run, except there isn't one. The repeats end three weeks later on 18 May.
1982
A single episode of Star Trek is repeated in 1982; perhaps the most bizarre piece of Star Trek scheduling ever. Operation - -Annihilate! is given a fourth BBC1 repeat nearly two years after it was bumped from BBC1 by the rescheduled I, Mudd. Operation - -Annihilate! was shown after a six week repeat run of Doctor Who called Doctor Who And The Monsters. Presumably, in 1982 a BBC bean counter must have noticed Operation - -Annihilate! had not been shown and seized the chance to get value for money by scheduling the episode before the rights expired.If that is the case
then it's a shame no one also noticed the omission of The Savage Curtain.
UPDATE 26/1/15: Over at The Trek BBS user johnnybear remembers seeing an unscheduled repeat of The Savage Curtain in 1982.
"The BBC showed The Savage Curtain as an extra programme on a Saturday morning in 1982! I remember they placed it opposite the Space 1999 episode Death's Other Dominion on LWT if that helps? I missed videoing it and was annoyed for a long time about it but at least they showed it, sort of but no one knew!"
As other Trek BBS users have pointed out Death's Other Dominion was repeated by London Weekend Television at 11.15 on 1 May 1982.
According to BBC Genome the schedule for BBC1 that morning included a cartoon called Lucky Luke which was due to start at 11.00. 1 May was also the day of the first significant British offensive action in the Falklands war as Vulcan bombers attacked the Port Stanley airfield. Could Lucky Luke have been bumped for a news update and followed by a repeat of The Savage Curtain to fill the remaining time before Grandstand? Something disrupted the morning schedule because Lucky Luke shows up again on 5 June 1982 with a note that the programme was postponed from 1 May.Without access to the Programme as Broadcast information held by the Written Archive Centre it's impossible to be sure. UPDATE 14/05/17: BBC Written Archive Centre records confirm the 1982 repeat
"The Savage Curtain:
01/05/1982 broadcast – Duration 45’14” (no other footage details available)
According to the PasB this was broadcast at 11.00.50 until 11.46.04 and was a repeat of The Savage Curtain broadcast on 24/11/1971 at 19.24.52"
Numbers in brackets below show the number of times each episode has been broadcast.
1978-09-05 18.50 Where No Man Has Gone Before (4)
1978-09-12 18.50 The Naked Time (4)
1978-09-19 18.50 The City On The Edge Of Forever (4)
1978-09-26 18.55 A Taste Of Armageddon (4)
1978-10-03 18.55 Mudd's Women (4)
1978-10-10 18.50 Tomorrow Is Yesterday (4)
1978-10-20 19.10 The Menagerie Part 1 (4)
1978-10-27 19.10 The Menagerie Part 2 (4)
1978-11-03 19.10 The Devil In The Dark (4)
1978-11-10 19.10 Shore Leave (4)
1978-11-17 19.10 Space Seed (4)
1978-11-24 19.10 The Man Trap (4)
1978-12-01 19.10 Dagger Of The Mind (4)
1978-12-08 19.15 The Corbomite Maneuver (4)
1978-12-15 19.10 Balance Of Terror (4)
1978-12-22 19.10 The Squire Of Gothos [cancelled due to strike]
1978-12-29 18.00 What Are Little Girls Made Of? (4)
1979-07-13 18.55 The Squire Of Gothos (4)
1979-07-20 18.55 Arena (4)
1979-07-27 18.50 The Return Of The Archons (4)
1979-08-03 18.50 This Side Of Paradise (4)
1979-08-10 18.50 The Doomsday Machine (4)
1979-08-17 18.50 Errand Of Mercy (4)
1979-08-24 18.50 The Conscience Of The King (4)
1979-08-31 18.35 Bread And Circuses (4)
1979-09-05 19.10 The Galileo Seven [not shown]
1979-09-12 19.10 The Enemy Within (4)
1979-09-19 19.10 Charlie X (4)
1979-09-26 19.10 Court Martial (4)
1979-10-03 19.10 Catspaw (4)
1979-10-10 19.10 Who Mourns for Adonais? (4)
1979-10-17 19.10 The Apple (4)
1979-10-24 19.10 Metamorphosis (4)
1979-10-31 19.10 The Galileo Seven (4)
1979-11-07 19.10 Wolf In The Fold (4)
1979-11-14 19.10 The Changeling (4)
1979-11-21 19.10 The Trouble with Tribbles (4)
1979-11-28 19.10 Journey To Babel (4)
1979-12-05 19.10 The Deadly Years (4)
1979-12-12 19.10 A Private Little War (4)
1979-12-19 19.10 Obsession (4)
1980-08-11 19.20 By Any Other Name (4)
1980-08-18 19.20 Return To Tomorrow (4)
1980-09-01 19.20 Patterns Of Force (4)
1980-09-08 19.20 The Immunity Syndrome (4)
1980-09-15 19.20 The Omega Glory (4)
1980-09-22 19.20 A Piece of the Action (4)
1980-09-29 19.20 The Ultimate Computer (4)
1980-10-06 19.20 Friday's Child (4)
1980-10-13 19.20 Assignment: Earth (4)
1980-10-20 19.20 Mirror, Mirror (4)
1980-10-27 19.20 The Gamesters of Triskelion (4)
1980-11-03 19.20 Amok Time (4)
1980-11-10 19.20 I, Mudd (4)
1980-11-17 19.20 The Paradise Syndrome (4)
1980-11-24 19.20 Requiem for Methuselah (4)
1980-12-01 19.20 All Our Yesterdays (4)
1980-12-15 19.20 The Way to Eden (4)
1981-01-05 19.20 The Cloud Minders (4)
1981-01-12 19.20 Spectre Of The Gun (4)
1981-01-19 19.20 Elaan Of Troyius (4)
1981-01-26 19.20 The Enterprise Incident (4)
1981-02-02 19.20 Day Of The Dove (4)
1981-02-09 19.20 Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (4)
1981-02-16 19.20 Wink Of An Eye (4)
1981-02-23 19.20 And the Children Shall Lead (4)
1981-03-02 19.20 Spock's Brain (4)
1981-03-09 19.20 Is There In Truth No Beauty (4)
1981-03-16 19.20 For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky (4)
1981-03-23 19.20 That Which Survives (4)
1981-03-30 19.20 The Mark of Gideon (4)
1981-04-06 19.20 The Lights of Zetar (4)
1981-04-27 19.20 The Tholian Web (4)
1981-05-11 19.20 The Alternative Factor (4)
1981-05-18 19.20 Turnabout Intruder (4)
1982-05-01 11.00 The Savage Curtain (4)
1982-08-23 19.20 Operation -- Annihilate! (4)
Click here for part two: 1970
Click here for part three: 1971
Click here for part four: 1972
Click here for part five: 1973
Click here for part six: 1974 to 1976
1977
For the first time in eight years no live action Star Trek was shown on BBC1. Star Trek: The Animated Series was run for the last time on BBC1 between March and May.
1978
Repeats of live action Star Trek began again on BBC1 in September 1978. It's tempting to link this to the hype over Star Trek: The Motion Picture, announced at a huge press conference on March 28 1978, but it seems more likely the plan was always for Star Trek to take a break before resuming repeats. In previous years Star Trek had filled the gap between series of Doctor Who but in 1978 the 17 episodes repeated ran alongside the fourth Doctor's search for the Key to Time. This time Star Trek would prime audiences for the return of Blake's Seven which started a second series on 9 January 1979. In fact, for one glorious week in late1978 it was possible to see all three series. Episode 1 of the Doctor Who story The Power Of Kroll was shown on 23 December, followed by a repeat of the final episode of Blake's Seven series one on 27 December (to remind audience of the end of series cliffhanger "space vehicle will be destroyed"!), and What Are Little Girls Made Of? on Friday 29 December.
Once again episodes are shown in the same order as the 1969 BBC1 broadcasts. With the exception of Charlie X which should have been sandwiched between The Devil In The Dark and Shore Leave. There is no obvious reason for Charlie X's disappearance from the schedule although The Prince of Wales turned 30 on 14 November 1978 four days after the episode would have been shown. Maybe it was felt in bad taste to broadcast a programme about a strange out of touch man raised in unusual circumstances and called Charles.
Its still not clear why the BBC persisted in using its own episode order. By the mid-70s BBC Enterprises was producing a sales brochure called A Quick Guide To Dr Who which listed all the episodes of Doctor Who made to date in order along with the production code. It seems unlikely the BBC was unique in making supplementary material like this for overseas broadcasters but, for whatever reason, they treated bought in programmes differently.
1979
The tenth anniversary of the Apollo Moon landings, and of Star Trek's BBC1 première. On 20 July the BBC marked the Apollo anniversary by following the repeat of Arena with a documentary presented by James Burke, Project Apollo: The Men Who Walked on the Moon.
The Squire Of Gothos kicked off the 1979 repeats. The planned 1978 transmission had been affected by a strike which took BBC1 and BBC2 off the air for two days on 21 and 22 December. This was a longer run of repeats than the year before, starting in July and ending at Christmas just before the third series of Blake's Seven began in January 1980. Once again all the episodes were in BBC transmission order, including The Return Of The Archons slotted back in between Arena and This Side Of Paradise for the first time since 1969. Well not all the episodes. The broadcast order of some stories in this block of repeats was swapped. Bread And Circuses was pulled forwards to 31 August, instead of being placed between The Trouble With Tribbles and Journey To Babel where it had always been in the past. The Enemy Within and Court Martial also swapped round in the schedule, this had previously happened during the 1974 repeats so it's possible someone consulted different paperwork when looking for the broadcast order. Charlie X, delayed from 1978, was transmitted between The Enemy Within and Court Martial.
The Galileo Seven was placed on the schedule twice after the first broadcast was preempted by coverage of the state funeral of Lord Mountbatten, killed by an IRA bomb on 27 August 1979.
On 8 December 1979 BBC1's Saturday morning children's show Swap Shop marked the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture on 8 December. According to the Radio Times, "The Star Ship Enterprise has been rebuilt for its greatest and most exciting adventure yet - so beam down to the Paramount studios in Hollywood, USA, with Maggie Philbin. Join her behind the scenes of the new Star Trek movie and meet not only ADMIRAL KIRK (yes - he's been promoted!) and MR SPOCK , but two new crew members played by STEVE COLLINS and PERSIS KHAMBATTA" On 17 December the film was reviewed, along with The Black Hole and Apocalypse Now, by Barry Norman on Film 79.
 |
| The Daily Express 13/12/79 |
1980
By now the repeats had settled into a pattern. They would begin in the summer and run through to Christmas. The 1980 repeats began with By Any Other Name an episode which, like The Deadly Years, A Private Little War, and Obsession, was missed from the 1975 repeats.
Episodes were shown on a Monday in the same slot used by Blake's Seven from January to March. This meant that the repeat of I, Mudd scheduled for 25 August fell on the August Bank Holiday Monday and was bumped by special programming. Instead of simply shifting I, Mudd to the following week the schedulers kick the episode further down the year to 10 November. This displaces Operation - -Annihilate! (going by the original BBC1 broadcast order) which disappears completely from the schedule. Something similar happens to Day Of The Dove, due to be shown on 8 December, which is replaced by The Society of West End Theatre Awards.
1981
The BBC1 repeats of Star Trek resumed after Christmas instead of taking a break for the new series of Blake's Seven. Star Trek repeats ran until May and were followed by a repeat of Blake's Seven series three. The final series of Blake's Seven started in September.
Day Of The Dove was repeated on 2 February after The Enterprise Incident. No episodes appear to be displaced by this move because the three episodes following The Enterprise Incident are in a different order to the original 1971 BBC1 broadcasts. After Day Of The Dove comes Let That Be Your Last Battlefield and Wink Of An Eye which both seem to have dropped down the order from where they were scheduled in 1971 and 1973. It will come as no surprise to find there is no apparent reason for the moving of these two stories. It seems to have first occurred in 1975 when the BBC moved episodes around for the Christmas repeats called Holiday Star Trek.
On 13 April, the Monday before Easter, BBC1 showed part one of Irwin Allen's The Return of Captain Nemo in place of Star Trek. Going by the BBC order The Savage Curtain was due to be shown that week, between The Lights Of Zetar and The Tholian Web. Instead of being postponed to the following week The Savage Curtain drops off the schedule completely. As happened to I, Mudd and Day Of The Dove in 1980. Presumably the plan was to delay it until a slot later in the repeat run, except there isn't one. The repeats end three weeks later on 18 May.
1982
A single episode of Star Trek is repeated in 1982; perhaps the most bizarre piece of Star Trek scheduling ever. Operation - -Annihilate! is given a fourth BBC1 repeat nearly two years after it was bumped from BBC1 by the rescheduled I, Mudd. Operation - -Annihilate! was shown after a six week repeat run of Doctor Who called Doctor Who And The Monsters. Presumably, in 1982 a BBC bean counter must have noticed Operation - -Annihilate! had not been shown and seized the chance to get value for money by scheduling the episode before the rights expired.
UPDATE 26/1/15: Over at The Trek BBS user johnnybear remembers seeing an unscheduled repeat of The Savage Curtain in 1982.
"The BBC showed The Savage Curtain as an extra programme on a Saturday morning in 1982! I remember they placed it opposite the Space 1999 episode Death's Other Dominion on LWT if that helps? I missed videoing it and was annoyed for a long time about it but at least they showed it, sort of but no one knew!"
As other Trek BBS users have pointed out Death's Other Dominion was repeated by London Weekend Television at 11.15 on 1 May 1982.
According to BBC Genome the schedule for BBC1 that morning included a cartoon called Lucky Luke which was due to start at 11.00. 1 May was also the day of the first significant British offensive action in the Falklands war as Vulcan bombers attacked the Port Stanley airfield. Could Lucky Luke have been bumped for a news update and followed by a repeat of The Savage Curtain to fill the remaining time before Grandstand? Something disrupted the morning schedule because Lucky Luke shows up again on 5 June 1982 with a note that the programme was postponed from 1 May.
"The Savage Curtain:
01/05/1982 broadcast – Duration 45’14” (no other footage details available)
According to the PasB this was broadcast at 11.00.50 until 11.46.04 and was a repeat of The Savage Curtain broadcast on 24/11/1971 at 19.24.52"
Numbers in brackets below show the number of times each episode has been broadcast.
1978-09-05 18.50 Where No Man Has Gone Before (4)
1978-09-12 18.50 The Naked Time (4)
1978-09-19 18.50 The City On The Edge Of Forever (4)
1978-09-26 18.55 A Taste Of Armageddon (4)
1978-10-03 18.55 Mudd's Women (4)
1978-10-10 18.50 Tomorrow Is Yesterday (4)
1978-10-20 19.10 The Menagerie Part 1 (4)
1978-10-27 19.10 The Menagerie Part 2 (4)
1978-11-03 19.10 The Devil In The Dark (4)
1978-11-10 19.10 Shore Leave (4)
1978-11-17 19.10 Space Seed (4)
1978-11-24 19.10 The Man Trap (4)
1978-12-01 19.10 Dagger Of The Mind (4)
1978-12-08 19.15 The Corbomite Maneuver (4)
1978-12-15 19.10 Balance Of Terror (4)
1978-12-22 19.10 The Squire Of Gothos [cancelled due to strike]
1978-12-29 18.00 What Are Little Girls Made Of? (4)
1979-07-13 18.55 The Squire Of Gothos (4)
1979-07-20 18.55 Arena (4)
1979-07-27 18.50 The Return Of The Archons (4)
1979-08-03 18.50 This Side Of Paradise (4)
1979-08-10 18.50 The Doomsday Machine (4)
1979-08-17 18.50 Errand Of Mercy (4)
1979-08-24 18.50 The Conscience Of The King (4)
1979-08-31 18.35 Bread And Circuses (4)
1979-09-05 19.10 The Galileo Seven [not shown]
1979-09-12 19.10 The Enemy Within (4)
1979-09-19 19.10 Charlie X (4)
1979-09-26 19.10 Court Martial (4)
1979-10-03 19.10 Catspaw (4)
1979-10-10 19.10 Who Mourns for Adonais? (4)
1979-10-17 19.10 The Apple (4)
1979-10-24 19.10 Metamorphosis (4)
1979-10-31 19.10 The Galileo Seven (4)
1979-11-07 19.10 Wolf In The Fold (4)
1979-11-14 19.10 The Changeling (4)
1979-11-21 19.10 The Trouble with Tribbles (4)
1979-11-28 19.10 Journey To Babel (4)
1979-12-05 19.10 The Deadly Years (4)
1979-12-12 19.10 A Private Little War (4)
1979-12-19 19.10 Obsession (4)
1980-08-11 19.20 By Any Other Name (4)
1980-08-18 19.20 Return To Tomorrow (4)
1980-09-01 19.20 Patterns Of Force (4)
1980-09-08 19.20 The Immunity Syndrome (4)
1980-09-15 19.20 The Omega Glory (4)
1980-09-22 19.20 A Piece of the Action (4)
1980-09-29 19.20 The Ultimate Computer (4)
1980-10-06 19.20 Friday's Child (4)
1980-10-13 19.20 Assignment: Earth (4)
1980-10-20 19.20 Mirror, Mirror (4)
1980-10-27 19.20 The Gamesters of Triskelion (4)
1980-11-03 19.20 Amok Time (4)
1980-11-10 19.20 I, Mudd (4)
1980-11-17 19.20 The Paradise Syndrome (4)
1980-11-24 19.20 Requiem for Methuselah (4)
1980-12-01 19.20 All Our Yesterdays (4)
1980-12-15 19.20 The Way to Eden (4)
1981-01-05 19.20 The Cloud Minders (4)
1981-01-12 19.20 Spectre Of The Gun (4)
1981-01-19 19.20 Elaan Of Troyius (4)
1981-01-26 19.20 The Enterprise Incident (4)
1981-02-02 19.20 Day Of The Dove (4)
1981-02-09 19.20 Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (4)
1981-02-16 19.20 Wink Of An Eye (4)
1981-02-23 19.20 And the Children Shall Lead (4)
1981-03-02 19.20 Spock's Brain (4)
1981-03-09 19.20 Is There In Truth No Beauty (4)
1981-03-16 19.20 For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky (4)
1981-03-23 19.20 That Which Survives (4)
1981-03-30 19.20 The Mark of Gideon (4)
1981-04-06 19.20 The Lights of Zetar (4)
1981-04-27 19.20 The Tholian Web (4)
1981-05-11 19.20 The Alternative Factor (4)
1981-05-18 19.20 Turnabout Intruder (4)
1982-05-01 11.00 The Savage Curtain (4)
1982-08-23 19.20 Operation -- Annihilate! (4)
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