Thanks to all of you for your comments! And now for another long volley of responses...
Just to note my own birthday, (since I see a few others have), I was born in February, 1980. A real fan of the classic TV though, ever since I was a kid.
Glad to see you're still reading, PW MAX. I can tell you right now that you were born in the right decade, and in the right month!
PW MAX said:
Still loving this timeline, can't wait to see what's next.
Thank you very much! More is on the way.
Yeah - I like a lot of his shwos, but Kung Fu doesn't fit really.
Paramount is going to be a sitcom house in the early-to-mid-1970s, no question.
Glen said:
Agreed, but I suspect most of us are betting that That Wacky Redhead will have both the bettter taste and the better skills/resources to actually pick and foster winners in her stable. Thus we imagine her failures, at least for the foreseeable future will be few and far in between.
Fair enough, but she's not perfect. Desilu is going to drop a few bombs eventually. IOTL, Grant Tinker and even Brandon Tartikoff made their share of mistakes. That Wacky Redhead will, too. After all, we have the profound OTL miscalculation of "Life with Lucy" as evidence.
Glen said:
Thank you (I think). This is not the first time I've been recognized for my communications volume.
It's nice to have a moderator keeping such a close eye on my thread
phx1138 said:
Thinking of vested interests, where was Lucy on hiring cast & crew Desilu had worked with before? It occurs to me TTL's "Kung Fu" might use George Takei... Bruce as stunt double? (I presume having
two Asian stars
would be too much in this era.
)
So, you're thinking of a Bill Bixby/Lou Ferrigno situation? Maybe, but I doubt that Takei would ever go for it. He was extremely proud that Sulu's ethnicity was wholly incidental to his character. Would he want to "slide back" into a stereotypical role like that? I doubt it.
phx1138 said:
It's coming just at the start of VCR introduction, too, isn't it? This could make off-air tapes black market items at SF cons.
Certainly any clips, or the goodie reel, would be precious. And with The Doc on air, a variety of "Brit invasion" including *"UFO" isn't far-fetched.
Hence my earlier reference to the
second phase of the British Invasion. There's always been an appetite for "darker and edgier"; it just didn't hit critical mass until the 1980s. But there's certainly going to be a sub-culture ITTL that yearns for more cynical, pessimistic fare.
phx1138 said:
Does this mean a Midas touch? No, & it might do for there to be a real turkey bought because "I liked it".
That's an excellent look into the mindset of That Wacky Redhead.
Am I reading that right, that Desilu will only produce a handful of shows in any given year?
One in, one out, so to speak?
More or less, yes.
Falkenburg said:
Will there not be pressure to expand operations? Or will Desilu operate as a hugely influential Couture Producer?
An excellent question. That's going to be the primary decision facing the senior management at Desilu in the coming years.
Falkenburg said:
That Wacky Redhead Drinking Game.
Only to be played by those of legal drinking age (Which is damn near everyone Posting, from the look of things).
This is an explanatory Post and so does not count, for the purposes of The Game.
Dealers Rule applies.
You only take a shot when another Poster uses one of the trigger words (Or quotes your use of said in a subsequent Post)
Triggers include;
Use of the word "Intriguing"
Mention of "The Muppets"
Reference to a "TV Trope"
And now, inclusion of the Series "UFO"
Have fun. Be safe. Players participate at their own risk.
Do not operate complex machinery or drive after playing That Wacky Redhead Drinking Game.
Neither Brainbin, Desilu, nor any of their Affiliates or Subsidiaries may be held liable for any damages or losses incurred.
Now I can see the advantages of having a bartender among my regular readers
We still have the Turn-On fiasco ITTL, so I would think that we still have this shift - though it would be interesting if somehow Dreyfuss still ended up playing the Michael character.
The development history of
Those Were the Days is going to be the focus of our next update.
Suggests to me Lucas' golden touch is oversold. He gets the space opera, but, it seems, not the good stuff.
(I should, perhaps, reserve judgment. I haven't seen "THX-1138" in at least 20yr.)
I've never seen it at all. But given Lucas' iconoclastic New Hollywood nature, his stubbornness, and his insularity from changes in popular culture, we can assume that the film is mostly as IOTL.
Glen said:
Far Beyond the Stars from the DS9 episode where Sisko has visions of himself as a writer?
That's right; and, ITTL, it's from the Bobby Darin song "Beyond the Sea".
Odd but considering what's available for the "Family SF angle" it is not that surprising.
This is my rationale. There's still a need to be family-friendly, and the
Star Trek allegory-with-a-moral formula has proven very popular, which makes
Little Fuzzy a natural candidate for a film adaptation.
The Professor said:
Unfortunately it'll probably spawn an animated series for children that Fuzzie Fans will derisively call "The Fluffies"
Well, there
is a half-hour free for a new Saturday morning cartoon ITTL...
The Professor said:
Hmmm, even tho George the Mad appears to have been stopped before he starts I do wonder if he might collaborate with TV to get his early space opera vision out there. Perhaps we end up with fans arguing if
The Skywalkers series was the first screen SF to do story arcs
Not so fast! We're actually very much as IOTL at this point. Whether or not he'll get his shot at redemption is another question entirely, but you should know better than to count him out. And we
will be hearing more from Lucas in the the future.
A thought: what happens in Canadian TV SF? Does the greater success in the U.S. mean
"The Starlost" isn't a complete dog?
And look at who created it! We'll have to see how his schedule looks in the next few years to answer that question.
"Hardly an adequate substitute for Star Trek, and by comparison rather childish. But time will tell, and it's good enough in its own way." Altogether the consensus of opinion seemed to be that this new series gave every indication of becoming a Doctor Who adventure in the expected tradition - and certainly (many added) it appealed very much to children.'"
That's a very interesting analysis. We'll see if TTL American audiences share this reaction.
Uh, wasn't Ellison the guy who wrote a POSITIVE review of Turn-On? (And that doesn't count his "Dangerous Visions" books...) I think his series won't last...and may become a cult classic. Speaking of Ellison, would he be asked to write for Doctor Who? (You do know his famous quote, right?)
Typical Ellison posturing! But how long this series will last is an excellent question. Something to note is that Ellison doesn't run the show. He has about as much creative control as Rod Serling did with "Night Gallery" IOTL. If he runs afoul of anyone, then those in charge
will yank the leash; and when they do, he will
not take it well. He's a ticking time bomb; always has been, always will be.
Orville_third said:
BTW, how did "The Prisoner" do? Was "Living in Harmony" still censored in the USA?
There weren't any noteworthy changes to the program, or to its American broadcast run, from OTL.
Orville_third said:
And, I thought Mike Teevee was perfect...
I actually liked all five OTL Wonka kids. Well, maybe not Augustus, but his arc is by far the weakest anyway, so that doesn't matter as much. Charlie is a very hard character to pull off, and Ostrum did a fine job (
especially considering that he was a newcomer). Veruca, Violet, and Mike were all fantastic. But casting is a very ephemeral business, and since the butterflies have been flying around Hollywood since early 1967, they're bound to have an impact. We should consider ourselves lucky that the movie is so similar to OTL.
Thank you to everyone for 25,000 views! I'm still amazed that my timeline seems to have caught on. I'm looking forward to some of the updates I'm developing, and I hope that all of you will enjoy them as well. Coming up next is the long and convoluted history of
Those Were the Days! It should be ready in the next couple of days, so until then!