For Sci-fi fans; What if Star Trek hadn't been created at all?

This may sound blasphemous to all Trekkies, but I'e always wondered about this situation. What if Gene Roddenberry never devised the concept, or came back from war a bitter twisted man and writes a dark dystopic future sci-fi series instead or maybe the concept is devised but is rejected leaving Roddenberry depressed and feeling like a failure.

What happens to the state of Sci-fi as a genre in literature, film and television especially the sub-genre of space travel? Granted that there are many exceptionally authors and writers out there, would the absence of Star Trek really have caused much of a dent?

Dr Who reigns supreme!

Star Trek: TOS was afterall just an American take on the Doctor.

Aozhouhuaren said:

This may sound blasphemous to all Trekkies, but I'e always wondered about this situation. What if Gene Roddenberry never devised the concept, or came back from war a bitter twisted man and writes a dark dystopic future sci-fi series instead or maybe the concept is devised but is rejected leaving Roddenberry depressed and feeling like a failure.

What happens to the state of Sci-fi as a genre in literature, film and television especially the sub-genre of space travel? Granted that there are many exceptionally authors and writers out there, would the absence of Star Trek really have caused much of a dent?

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Irwin Allen's visions continue to dominate televised science fiction and he might be inspired to take "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" into space (just like seaQuest DSV did 30 years later).

Essentially, TV science fiction was more fantasy during the 50s and 60s with Buck Rodgers and Flash Gordon dominating the airwaves initially and then Irwin Allen's shows like Land of the Giants, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. And then came Thunderbirds, Joe 90, Stingray et al.

What differentiated Star Trek from other science fiction shows was the sheer power of its fanbase who successfully resurrected the show for a third season and then eventually helped convince Paramount to take a chance on the movie. Also, the show's general message was that of hope for the future where as programmes like Planet of the Apes were a little more bleak in their outlook.

I think that Thunderbirds and other Gerry Anderson shows would have dominated the airwaves and Doctor Who would have been even bigger on the other side of the Atlantic.

Given the low rating of sci-fi in the eyes of TV executives, even today with CGI, I don't think large budgets will figure highly, even with the Star Wars phenomenon.

Well you'd certainly have an impact on technology and some of the products out now that drew a lot inspiration from ST. Not to mention the affects on popular culture.

Part of what made Star Trek TOS important to scifi television was that it had some of the most powerful episodes. The quality of the writing was great and dealt with serious issues that other shows were to afraid to touch. The seriousness of the stories helped to lay the ground work for other shows that wanted to deal with more serious issues.

Now if it hadn't been around, we'd have had a lot more silly sci fi shows. It was bad enough that the networks still went on to make so many crap sci fi shows (BG, Buck Rogers, ect), but without Star Trek to layout the premise that people wanted something more serious, we'd never have gotten many of the best sci fi shows when we did.

Leej said:

Star Trek: TOS was afterall just an American take on the Doctor.

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Huh?!?

Now don't you forget the first interracial Kiss on US-television between William Shattner and Nicole Nicholls (Kirk and Uhura)...


Raumpatrouille Orion might have been way bigger without Star Trek, maybe even appaer on US television sets

Shadow Knight said:

Well you'd certainly have an impact on technology and some of the products out now that drew a lot inspiration from ST. Not to mention the affects on popular culture.

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Cellphones are a case in point. Have you noticed how many of them look almost exactly like ST (either TOS or TNG) communicators and that some people even use them like communicators? If ST never happens, would cellphones look quite the same?

-Joe-

talonbear01 said:

Part of what made Star Trek TOS important to scifi television was that it had some of the most powerful episodes. The quality of the writing was great and dealt with serious issues that other shows were to afraid to touch. The seriousness of the stories helped to lay the ground work for other shows that wanted to deal with more serious issues.

Now if it hadn't been around, we'd have had a lot more silly sci fi shows. It was bad enough that the networks still went on to make so many crap sci fi shows (BG, Buck Rogers, ect), but without Star Trek to layout the premise that people wanted something more serious, we'd never have gotten many of the best sci fi shows when we did.

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Case in point: CBS rejected ST:TOS because, as they said, they already had a SF show they liked..."Lost in Space". If ST never happens, LIS probably stays the paradigm for TV science fiction for some time, along with anthology shows like "The Twilight Zone" and "The Outer Limits" (which, to be fair to them, presented many superior SF programs among their episodes).

How much would a lack of Star Trek affect the Star Wars phenomenon? IIRC, ST wasn't that much of an influence on Lucas when he was creating SW; he drew his inspiration especially from old-time SF movies (and one of Kurosawa's samurai epics, "The Hidden Fortress"); it directly spawned "Battlestar Galactica" as a knock-off, so that probably still happens (and is probably even cheesier without the ST influence). The UFO craze had already been underway for decades anyway so I don't see why Spielberg wouldn't have made something like "Close Encounters", which also wasn't dependent on ST as an influence.

Does "Babylon 5" ever get made, though?

-Joe-

joea64 said:

Case in point: CBS rejected ST:TOS because, as they said, they already had a SF show they liked..."Lost in Space". If ST never happens, LIS probably stays the paradigm for TV science fiction for some time, along with anthology shows like "The Twilight Zone" and "The Outer Limits" (which, to be fair to them, presented many superior SF programs among their episodes).

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To be honest, I don't that Lost in Space even gets made without Star Trek. I say that because the reason CBS decided to let Roddenberry pitch Star Trek to them was because they wanted to pick his brains and find out where he wanted to take Trek and it is my understanding that many of his ideas for Trek appeared in Lost in Space. I could see where B5 and Battlestar, or their equvilents might still get made at some point though since those were attempts to bring a Star Wars-like scope to a weekly sci-fi series.

EDIT: I agree with Joe and ShadowKnight's point about Star Trek's influence on technology. I think that without Trek, we don't have cellphones and we don't have personal computers or laptops. I wwould also go so far as to say that the developement of the internet would be delayed as well.

Mike Stearns said:

EDIT: I agree with Joe and ShadowKnight's point about Star Trek's influence on technology. I think that without Trek, we don't have cellphones and we don't have personal computers or laptops. I wwould also go so far as to say that the developement of the internet would be delayed as well.

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Star Trek didn't really have new ideas, it just introduced SF-ideas to a wider audience. There where Car phones about 10 years before Star Trek...

Some effects:
- Lost in Space is never made
- A lot of people who were inspired by Star Trek (in particular, people inspired by Uhura) are not inspired
- Quite a few technological innovations (mobile phones, needle-less syringes) are not invented
- The first test Space Shuttle is named Constitution, not Enterprise
- NASA remains composed of almost entirely white men (Nichelle Nichols did a hell of a lot to integrate NASA)
- Kirk and Spock are not cultural icons. Shatner and Nimoy are never big stars. George Takei never gets a big acting break, nor does Nichelle Nichols. Patrick Stewart's career is unhurt, though.
- The son of Alexander Siddig and Nana Visitor is never born

joea64 said:

Does "Babylon 5" ever get made, though?

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Well, Battlestar Galactica may provide some history for TV sci-fi, so JMS may still come up with the idea. Apparently, Star Trek was what prevented Babylon 5 from being picked up for a long time because no one thought it could compete against The Next Generation - so without The Next Generation, Babylon 5 may have been sold and made considerably earlier than it was: perhaps as early as 1988.

Of course, the entire cast would be different, and therefore the story would come out differently (a lot of story points were scrapped and invented because of casting changes: Kyle was replaced by Franklin; Lyta was replaced by Talia who was later re-replaced by Lyta; Takashima was replaced in several capacities by Ivanova, Talia and Garibaldi's second-in-command; Sinclair was of course replaced by Sheridan, although that might happen anyway; Ivanova was later replaced by Lochley; and so on.

Being the one big sci-fi show of the '80s and '90s may also allow it to be expanded more. Perhaps it would be Babylon 5, and not Star Trek, that'd have all the spinoffs.

Londo said:

Some effects:
- Lost in Space is never made
- A lot of people who were inspired by Star Trek (in particular, people inspired by Uhura) are not inspired
- Quite a few technological innovations (mobile phones, needle-less syringes) are not invented
- The first test Space Shuttle is named Constitution, not Enterprise
- NASA remains composed of almost entirely white men (Nichelle Nichols did a hell of a lot to integrate NASA)
- Kirk and Spock are not cultural icons. Shatner and Nimoy are never big stars. George Takei never gets a big acting break, nor does Nichelle Nichols. Patrick Stewart's career is unhurt, though.
- The son of Alexander Siddig and Nana Visitor is never born

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Shatner actually was a rather promising actor when cast for Star Trek. He may have actually ended up a bigger star without the Kirk moniker to live down.

joea64 said:

Cellphones are a case in point. Have you noticed how many of them look almost exactly like ST (either TOS or TNG) communicators and that some people even use them like communicators? If ST never happens, would cellphones look quite the same?

-Joe-

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Well from what I understand mobile phones were already being worked on but I imagine that cell phone design was highly influenced by ST communicators,,,as most engineers are aware if not ST fans.

I'd say you probably would but how long till they get to that design after they flounder on others is difficult to say.

Aozhouhuaren said:

This may sound blasphemous to all Trekkies, but I'e always wondered about this situation. What if Gene Roddenberry never devised the concept, or came back from war a bitter twisted man and writes a dark dystopic future sci-fi series instead or maybe the concept is devised but is rejected leaving Roddenberry depressed and feeling like a failure.

What happens to the state of Sci-fi as a genre in literature, film and television especially the sub-genre of space travel? Granted that there are many exceptionally authors and writers out there, would the absence of Star Trek really have caused much of a dent?

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The absence of Star Trek wouldn't cause much of a dent in the sci-fi world. There's a 900+ year old alien from a planet called Gallifrey travelling in a police box to fill that gap...

Mike and Londo,

Danger! Danger!

Lost in Space preceded Star Trek by a year.

Interestingly Irwin Allen is infamous for a downward gradient to the intellectual level of his shows, but supposedly it was ABC which told him that Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea was too serious. What a shame. I really liked the first year of Voyage.

Slightly off-topic, but it's a question i've been meaning to raise and this thread is as good as any place: Could the German Raumpatrouille series ever have managed to take off? In OTL it reaped ratings of more than 80%, but was cancelled anyway after it's 1st season since the costs were too high. Lets say some bean counter realizes this and manages to sell the series abroad before it's cancelled thereby offsetting it's high costs and it get renewed.
Nowadays most Germans will tell you that Raumpatrouille was not just the 1st, but also the only German accomplishment in Sci-Fi. So a successful multi year run might have led to German TV producing more series (and perhaps a Spin Off of Raumpatrollie in the 80s ).
The reason it might have long-term impacts is because it was lightyears ahead of Star Trek when it comes to female officers. The series features a female security officer and a female General of the Fleet (Military seems to be integrated aka the Miles Vorkosigian novels), instead of miniskirted eye-candy. But those are NOT the PC approved type we see in modern Star Trek et al. Instead both of them are pretty much as ruthless and businesslike as females in South Korean historical dramas (Security officer gives "alpha order" to eradicate a station taken over by aliens without regards to friendly casulties in 1st episode, etc.).
So basically what i would hope for for this PoD to cause would be women in modern SF series to be less Janeway and more Ivanova.

Tom_B said:

Mike and Londo,

Danger! Danger!

Lost in Space preceded Star Trek by a year.

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Star Trek was first conceived in 1963. The first pilot, "The Cage", was filmed in 1964. Lost in Space only precedes Star Trek in initial airdate.

Londo said:

Star Trek was first conceived in 1963. The first pilot, "The Cage", was filmed in 1964. Lost in Space only precedes Star Trek in initial airdate.

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I'm sure Lost in Space has its original ideas going back before its first screening too...