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)
Showing posts with label Blake's 7. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blake's 7. Show all posts
Thursday, May 28, 2015
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)
Friday, May 24, 2013
Spock's Brain
The weirdest thing
about Spock's Brain is that
anyone thought this was the ideal episode to open season three. The
second weirdest thing about Spock's Brain is how close the
episode comes to working.
To stick with the second point. Yes, the premise is dumb. An alien woman scoops Spock's brain out of his head and runs off with it because they need its processing ability to run their city. Still Star Trek has taken less promising ideas and turned them into workable stories before. Spock must have sex or he'll die; that's Amok Time. Or there's the incident Leonard Nimoy recalls in his memoir I Am Spock. “But that day in 1967, when [D.C. Fontana ] came onto the Star Trek soundstage and told me, “Hey I have an idea for a Spock love story,” I was taken aback. Worse than taken aback – I was frightened... the very phrase “Spock love story” seemed oxymoronic.” “Trust me,” Nimoy reports Fontana saying to him, “there's a way to pull it off properly,” and of course she was right, This Side Of Paradise was the result.
Taken individually each element of the story feels like it could work. The goofiest idea is the women of Sigma Draconis VI exiling unneeded men to the icy surface of the world. This war of the sexes concept is one other programmes have played with but no one has ever really made it work sucessfully; there's Power the series four episode of Blake's 7, and the Doctor Who story Galaxy 4.
In isolation everything else works. The idea of a brain as the central processing unit of a complex machine can be seen echoed in films like RoboCop. The idea of a pampered civilisation cared for and surrounded by the technology of their ancestors which they no longer understand is straight out of E. M. Forster's The Machine Stops (on YouTube you can find BBC2's outstanding 1966 adaptation for the series Out Of The Unknown). The idea of aliens harvesting organs for their own purposes occurs again as the basis of the Vidiians in Star Trek: Voyager.
Gene L. Coon's script (writing under the pseudonym Lee Cronin) characterises the regulars very well. McCoy gets some great lines which Deforest Kelly uses to good effect. Most notably after using The Teacher to gain the necessary surgical knowledge, “a child could do it. A child could do it.” There's the discussion on the bridge as the crew work through the problem of which of the three inhabited planets in the Sigma Draconis system is the correct one. There's also a scene which perfectly captures Kirk as the man who never gives up even in the face of insurmountable odds.
KIRK: Then we'll take him with us.
MCCOY: Take him? Take him where?
KIRK: In search of his brain, Doctor. From what you say, the moment we find it we must restore it to his body, or we lose him.
MCCOY: Jim, where are you going to look? In this whole galaxy, where are you going to look for Spock's brain? How are you going to find it?
KIRK: I'll find it.
MCCOY: Even if you do, I can't restore it. I don't have the medical technique.
KIRK: It was taken out. It can be put back in.
MCCOY: But I don't know how.
KIRK: The thief that took it has the knowledge. I'll force it out of her.
MCCOY: If you don't find it in twenty four hours, you'd better forget the whole thing, Jim.
KIRK: You and Scotty have Spock ready.
To stick with the second point. Yes, the premise is dumb. An alien woman scoops Spock's brain out of his head and runs off with it because they need its processing ability to run their city. Still Star Trek has taken less promising ideas and turned them into workable stories before. Spock must have sex or he'll die; that's Amok Time. Or there's the incident Leonard Nimoy recalls in his memoir I Am Spock. “But that day in 1967, when [D.C. Fontana ] came onto the Star Trek soundstage and told me, “Hey I have an idea for a Spock love story,” I was taken aback. Worse than taken aback – I was frightened... the very phrase “Spock love story” seemed oxymoronic.” “Trust me,” Nimoy reports Fontana saying to him, “there's a way to pull it off properly,” and of course she was right, This Side Of Paradise was the result.
Taken individually each element of the story feels like it could work. The goofiest idea is the women of Sigma Draconis VI exiling unneeded men to the icy surface of the world. This war of the sexes concept is one other programmes have played with but no one has ever really made it work sucessfully; there's Power the series four episode of Blake's 7, and the Doctor Who story Galaxy 4.
In isolation everything else works. The idea of a brain as the central processing unit of a complex machine can be seen echoed in films like RoboCop. The idea of a pampered civilisation cared for and surrounded by the technology of their ancestors which they no longer understand is straight out of E. M. Forster's The Machine Stops (on YouTube you can find BBC2's outstanding 1966 adaptation for the series Out Of The Unknown). The idea of aliens harvesting organs for their own purposes occurs again as the basis of the Vidiians in Star Trek: Voyager.
Gene L. Coon's script (writing under the pseudonym Lee Cronin) characterises the regulars very well. McCoy gets some great lines which Deforest Kelly uses to good effect. Most notably after using The Teacher to gain the necessary surgical knowledge, “a child could do it. A child could do it.” There's the discussion on the bridge as the crew work through the problem of which of the three inhabited planets in the Sigma Draconis system is the correct one. There's also a scene which perfectly captures Kirk as the man who never gives up even in the face of insurmountable odds.
KIRK: Then we'll take him with us.
MCCOY: Take him? Take him where?
KIRK: In search of his brain, Doctor. From what you say, the moment we find it we must restore it to his body, or we lose him.
MCCOY: Jim, where are you going to look? In this whole galaxy, where are you going to look for Spock's brain? How are you going to find it?
KIRK: I'll find it.
MCCOY: Even if you do, I can't restore it. I don't have the medical technique.
KIRK: It was taken out. It can be put back in.
MCCOY: But I don't know how.
KIRK: The thief that took it has the knowledge. I'll force it out of her.
MCCOY: If you don't find it in twenty four hours, you'd better forget the whole thing, Jim.
KIRK: You and Scotty have Spock ready.
Scrape away the melodramatic dialogue, “in this whole galaxy, where are you going to look for Spock's brain?” and you'll find a perfect sketch of Kirk's “I don't believe in the no win scenario” personality. He's got two impossible problems to solve, finding Spock's brain and then getting it back inside Spock's head, and his immediate reaction is to solve them one at a time.
Yet, even though that scene captures the essence of Kirk it's next to impossible not read it and die a little inside. Somehow almost everything Gene L. Coon writes turns to ashes when realised on screen. The same is true of Marc Daniels' direction. As in The Doomsday Machine Daniels uses back projection for the bridge viewscreen, but where it was a throwaway moment in that story it's used repeatedly in Spock's Brain. It looks brilliant, and it really adds to the believability of the bridge to see the crew interacting with the images. The best moment may be a single close up of Kirk standing right in front of the screen with stars moving in the background. Unfortunately very little else of Daniels' direction works as intended. The episode has no clarity of tone. Star Trek has done silly stories before, but even in an episode like The Apple it's always clear that Vaal is a threat. Unless he's stopped he can, and will destroy the Enterprise. Here the tone is all over the place, the characters are treating the danger to Spock as real but the editorial style of the story is very arch; as if the audience are meant to be laughing at the characters for taking it so seriously.
Probably the biggest mistake of the episode is bringing the remote controlled body of Spock to Sigma Draconis VI. At various times both Marc Daniels and Robert Justman have gallantly taken responsibility for this idea. Again on paper it makes perfect sense. The episode is called Spock's Brain and Leonard Nimoy is one of the real assets of the series. Why wouldn't you want him on screen as much as possible instead of occasionally cutting back to Spock unconscious in sickbay with Nurse Chapel looking concerned? Unfortunately as with much else in the episode, it's an idea which doesn't work. Mistake one is adding a ticking effect to the remote controlled Spock which is probably meant to suggest the clicking of electrical relays but actually sounds like he is now run by clockwork. Mistake number two is having Spock's body on screen while Kirk is talking to his disembodied brain. Again in theory it's a good idea, that Spock can be physically present and also absent in the same scene, but the result is a slack-faced Nimoy who distracts from the scene precisely because he is motionless or left gazing in the wrong direction. Possibly the silliest decision comes from film editor Bill Brame who occasionally cuts to Spock for reaction shots; pointless when the whole episode is about Spock's body being incapable of reacting.
It's easy to understand why at the planning stage this episode seemed like a good curtain raiser for the third season. Exactly the same rationale was behind choosing Amok Time to open season two. Spock is Star Trek's breakout character, probably the most identifiable character from the series. Why wouldn't you start a new season with a story based on him? However once the episode was finished it's amazing anyone still wanted to run it first. Spock's Brain was the sixth third season episode made, also available to air would have been Spectre Of The Gun (made first) and The Enterprise Incident (made fourth). Both are superior Spock heavy stories. There's some logic behind holding Spectre Of The Gun back to air near Halloween (what better night to broadcast a story in which Captain Kirk dresses up as a cowboy?) but 31st October 1968 was a Thursday so Spectre Of The Gun ended up showing over a week before on Friday 25th. Far enough away that the Halloween link was vague. The Enterprise Incident would have been a good first episode, but presumably it wasn't wanted because NBC only ever seemed to value stories set on planets and, whatever its faults, Spock's Brain is a planet story.
It's something of a cliché to hold Spock's Brain up as an example of everything rubbish about Star Trek. Just as it's also something of a cliché to try and be all revisionist and pretend this episode is good. Boringly the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Spock's Brain has too many bad moments to be good, but too many good moments to be truly bad. In the end it fails even to be the worst episode of the third season.
Enterprise crew deaths: The third season starts with no one dying.
Running total: 46
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