That Wacky Redhead

[Thande]

I think Lucas had always intended to make a series, at least one of the earlier scripts refers to a sequel and gives a bit of a teaser.
Of course it's a teaser that bears no resemblance whatsoever to any of the later films, so, especially given how the basic plot of the original was largely unchanged from the start, it's probable that he just wanted to make a sequel, and only started actually planning it after the film was a success.

Yeah, Star Wars is a bit more ambiguous than most at least, but it wasn't filmed as a trilogy from the start (well, it couldn't have been considering they had no idea how well it would do).

It is curious how the trilogy has risen up as a format. At least in literature, The Lord of the Rings is probably responsible, and the irony is that The Lord of the Rings isn't meant to be a trilogy - it's one continuous story, subdivided into six "books", and was only published that way because there was a paper shortage after the war. A few years ago I actually saw an edition of LOTR where they split it into seven books (six plus appendices) and claimed it was "as the author intended" (which is a bit debatable but still interesting).

 

[Barbarossa Rotbart]

He always wanted to make 9 movies!

Remember that Episode IV ends in a way that makes clear that there will be a sequel. If I remember correctly Episode IV got its title and number at the time the movie was released a second time (and that happened before Episode V was released or even produced).

 

[NCW8]

It is curious how the trilogy has risen up as a format. At least in literature, The Lord of the Rings is probably responsible, and the irony is that The Lord of the Rings isn't meant to be a trilogy - it's one continuous story, subdivided into six "books", and was only published that way because there was a paper shortage after the war. A few years ago I actually saw an edition of LOTR where they split it into seven books (six plus appendices) and claimed it was "as the author intended" (which is a bit debatable but still interesting).

There's also Asimov's Foundation Trilogy which was first published in book form in 1951-53. It also wasn't originally a trilogy but was written as a series of short stories and novellas in 1942-1950.


Cheers,
Nigel.

 

[Lord Insane]

No-no-no.

Don't feel sorry for Paramount.

Feel sorry for every other Hollywood studio looking at this precedent and their own operations.

One could feel sorry for Paramount because they didn't really do anything special by Hollywood standards - it could really have been almost any of the studios, so feeling sad for the one it ended up being (even as one acknowledges the need for the sacrifice, and the inevitability that someone would fall) is not so strange.

He always wanted to make 9 movies!

Remember that Episode IV ends in a way that makes clear that there will be a sequel. If I remember correctly Episode IV got its title and number at the time the movie was released a second time (and that happened before Episode V was released or even produced).

Honestly, even knowing that there are sequels and having seen them, Episode IV still feels like a decent self-contained story - taken on its own, the big bad of the story is dead, the 'heavy' was last seen in a situation he is unlikely to survive, an early scene establishes a reason why the Rebel victory at the end might very well cause the Empire to collapse, and the mood at the end is one of jubilant celebration. So... in what way does the end make clear that there will be a sequel?

 

[THE OBSERVER]

Indeed you were, though I wonder if you were aware of when he died IOTL, and whether that might have influenced your prediction...

I knew when he died IOTL. I figured that a very costly verdict, as well as the stress of the trial, would cause him to die a few years earlier, particularly after the initial defeat in court.

 

[Barbarossa Rotbart]

Honestly, even knowing that there are sequels and having seen them, Episode IV still feels like a decent self-contained story - taken on its own, the big bad of the story is dead, the 'heavy' was last seen in a situation he is unlikely to survive, an early scene establishes a reason why the Rebel victory at the end might very well cause the Empire to collapse, and the mood at the end is one of jubilant celebration. So... in what way does the end make clear that there will be a sequel?

Not in the initial release but only because 20th Century Fox prohibited Lucas to use the full title. This changed after the release of Episode V (IMHO the best part of the whole series).
Hints were that the real big bad was never shown and only mentioned and that the other bigbad survived and escaped (he managed to stabilize his TIE-fighter). Also it was clear that the whole Imperial Navy still exists, only the Emperor's superweapon had been destroyed.
All (or at least most) epigones produced at that time ended with a complete victory of the good guys (or with an ambigious ending).

 

[e of pi]

Well, I think you'll all remember this image by Nixonshead. Personally, I really liked it.
In fact, I liked it so much I took a crack at it myself. Sadly, I'm not nearly as good with CGI as Nixonshead is, so I had to go with a mere physical recreation:

In all seriousness, Brainbin and Nixonhead sent me the mug as a very much appreciated birthday gift, and I just wanted an excuse to show it off.

 

[AndyF]

Brainbin,

Congratulations on writing such an enthralling timeline, definitely one of the best I've read (& the best Pop Culture TL) on AH. It took me a few months to catch up (I prefer to read everyone's comments as well ), but I finally made it here - shame we're nearing the end!

For your reader statistics, my year of birth is 1969. My top 5 Star Trek episodes are (in no particular order):
Space Seed
Balance of Terror
Mirror, Mirror
The Doomsday Machine
The Trouble with Tribbles
Special mention to The City on the Edge of Forever, The Enterprise Incident & The Tholian Web.

Incidentally, my first memory of any TV is Doctor Who - episode 2 of Colony in Space. Unsurprisingly, DW is my favourite TV programme!
I'd definitely be amongst the fans declaring (& wishing fervently that the Production Team of DW would agree) that "Starship of the Future/Lords of Time & Space" was a Parallel Universe crossover...

I have to congratulate you on disassembling my childhood - you've butterflied away Charlie's Angels (the series keeping the title "Alley Cats" means no Kate Jackson - she demanded the title change or she walked), The A-Team & Hill Street Blues are gone (a double whammy with Hill Avenue Beat there), Knight Rider may well not happen (depending on how Galactica's run goes, Glen Larsen may be thinking of other ideas), Magnum P.I. (never existed due to the early exit from SEA, which may have a knock-on effect; no Thomas Magnum may mean Don Bellisario might not go on to create Tales of the Golden Monkey, Airwolf, Quantum Leap, JAG or NCIS... ), no Star Wars (Journey of the Force would be draft #2 or possibly #3, so George stopped re-writing before getting to the IOTL script making it a very different film), Bushnell remains in charge of Syzygy (the OTL Atari) & there's no mention of either Apple or the IBM PC... You weren't kidding about this not being a utopia!

 

[nixonshead]

Well, I think you'll all remember this image by Nixonshead. Personally, I really liked it.
In fact, I liked it so much I took a crack at it myself. Sadly, I'm not nearly as good with CGI as Nixonshead is, so I had to go with a mere physical recreation

Hah! Great to see it in physical form!

Items from TWR keep on leaking into OTL. The way fan-films are taking off, it wouldn't surprise me if episodes from TWR's Seasons 3-5 started appearing online over the next decade.

 

[Ogrebear]

Fantastic update on the 'Trial of the Century' - I wonder when the movie version gets made? or is it TV mini-series material instead?

The Trial's effects however will be huge and reverb across the industry, if indeed they play ball, legislation or not! I wonder if any studio would consider ditching California for another country with accounting more to their tastes or will multiple countries enact similar laws to the US to pull their home grown studios in line?

Speaking of movies- I was wondering if Fire and Ice still gets made? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_and_Ice_(1983_film)

 

[Yvonmukluk]

Fantastic update on the 'Trial of the Century' - I wonder when the movie version gets made? or is it TV mini-series material instead?

The Trial's effects however will be huge and reverb across the industry, if indeed they play ball, legislation or not! I wonder if any studio would consider ditching California for another country with accounting more to their tastes or will multiple countries enact similar laws to the US to pull their home grown studios in line?

Speaking of movies- I was wondering if Fire and Ice still gets made? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_and_Ice_(1983_film)

Maybe they'll decamp north to Canada, like a lot of film production has IOTL.

With the end of the timeline in sight, I'm especially interested to see the direction Doctor Who goes, since 1986 is a rather infamous year in the calenders of Doctor Who fans as the beginning of the end. (Hopefully there's still a few multi-doctor stories tucked away as there were in OTL (assuming there's an anniversary special in 1983, there's a whole bunch of different directions it could have gone-see the 'production' section of the wikipedia page for details. I mean the most obvious would be if the Fourth Doctor appeared in the show (assuming he's not the incumbent, naturally). I could see Pertwee reprising his role on TV more willingly, since he obviously left under happier circumstances than he did in our universe But then I suppose that might be beyond the bounds of the TL.)

But literally everything about this timeline is great, and I'm interested to see how the whole thing wraps up. Thanks for everything, Brainbin!

 

[Brainbin]

As many of you have noticed, my most recent update (which effectively brings the 1982-83 cycle to a close, though a special interlude post is in development) marks the beginning of the end for this timeline, since only three cycles remain. In fact, for the first time, I've been sketching out the list of updates for all remaining cycles, rather than just the upcoming cycle. That's one of the reasons the latest More to Come has been slow in... well, coming. That said, I don't foresee completing this timeline until well into 2015, so there's still plenty of time before we reach the end.

And both are the worst movies of the series.

You're arguing that Jedi was worse than Attack of the Clones, or merely that each was the worst installment of their respective trilogies?

Because arguing that Jedi is worse than Attack of the Clones? I thought only Darth Vader could be so bold!

Having a group of primitives defeat a more technically advanced and powerful enemy does have something of a resonance with the [verboten]. I wonder how much the Battle of Endor was influenced by the Seventies films of that conflict - which won't have been made ITTL.

Including, of course, Apocalypse Now, directed by his friend and colleague, Francis Ford Coppola. I should point out that a more timely (and somewhat less provocative) inspiration for the Ewoks would be the Afghans (with the Soviets as the Empire), although I don't doubt that Lucas had the opposing forces of the overseas quagmire in mind, given how it cast such a long shadow over his generation.

They actually described Genevieve Bujold as a "Canadian Dis-Connection". Seriously.

I can't decide whether that quote is worthy of praise or scorn

I might be able to achieve that, though not right now as video editing takes a large investment of time.

All the same, thank you very much for offering!

Now my opinions of the Star Wars films seems to be a bit different to most, I think because I saw them so relatively late in life--the first time I had ever seen any Star Wars (except a vague memory of the opening chase of the original film being on telly in Wales on a holiday in 1987ish before someone changed the channel) was when the original film's Special Edition was released as "Episode IV: A New Hope" (very confusing for me at the time, though I now know that subtitle had been added to previous re-releases too) in 1997. Actually, I tell a lie, I had seen a vague glimpse of the three films when they were previewed at the start of a VHS tape I bought advertising upcoming releases, so that would've been when the trilogy was first released on VHS. Remember when you could actually fast forward through previews? But I digress[FONT=&quot].[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] Funnily enough, you and I first saw the original trilogy at roughly the same stage in our lives - I first saw them on television in the run-up to the television premiere of The Phantom Menace in the autumn of 2001. Which means I also saw the Special Edition versions first (in fact, I've never seen the original versions). I'm therefore old enough to remember my perception of each film going into them.[/FONT]

Anyway, because of this I had a different experience. I rate the original Star Wars trilogy as Return of the Jedi - Empire Strikes Back - original (A New Hope) in descending order of awesome. When I first went to see the Special Edition of A New Hope in 1997, I found it very underwhelming. It was partly that I had seen a lot of ripoffs and 'inspired by' things before the original (e.g. "Battle Beyond the Stars", "The Last Starfighter", and the 80s Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers series). So the original looked kind of...generic by comparison. I lost interest in Star Wars until I got a technical manual for research and got into the Expanded Universe, then got Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi out of the video rental place on VHS to watch. Because that technical manual happened to never mention that Vader was Luke's father, that was a genuine surprise to me at the time--in those days when the internet was still flashing green Courier New text on a black background (and was obsessed with the X-Files to the exclusion of all else), I had somehow managed to miss that spoiler[FONT=&quot].[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] I "knew" very little about Jedi through pop-cultural osmosis, to the point that I didn't even know how the original trilogy ended! (I did know about Vader being Luke's father, of course, which surely must be one of the top five "spoilers" that everyone knows - how you were able to dodge that particular bullet, Thande, is one for the ages.) Based on first impressions, I'd rank the films in the exact opposite order that you did - Star Wars, then Empire, then Jedi. I actually enjoyed already knowing everything about the first movie - I can't help but be reminded of Umberto Eco's critique of Casablanca (about how the sheer volume of clichés somehow propel the material into profundity) and feel that it also applies here. The archetypes are strong with this one [/FONT]

I think Lucas had always intended to make a series, at least one of the earlier scripts refers to a sequel and gives a bit of a teaser.
Of course it's a teaser that bears no resemblance whatsoever to any of the later films, so, especially given how the basic plot of the original was largely unchanged from the start, it's probable that he just wanted to make a sequel, and only started actually planning it after the film was a success.

Yeah, Star Wars is a bit more ambiguous than most at least, but it wasn't filmed as a trilogy from the start (well, it couldn't have been considering they had no idea how well it would do).

I'm inclined to agree with this assessment. Once new input was sought in the making of Empire (primarily from Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan), the story went off in whole new directions that Lucas had not originally planned. The classic example is the characterization of Darth Vader, who was a wholly separate character from Luke's father in the early drafts. The apparent reference to a "dark father" in his name is purely coincidence. Likewise, Leia wasn't originally planned to be Luke's long-lost sister (explaining those kisses in the earlier films) - the Economy Cast trope in action.

It is curious how the trilogy has risen up as a format. At least in literature, The Lord of the Rings is probably responsible, and the irony is that The Lord of the Rings isn't meant to be a trilogy - it's one continuous story, subdivided into six "books", and was only published that way because there was a paper shortage after the war. A few years ago I actually saw an edition of LOTR where they split it into seven books (six plus appendices) and claimed it was "as the author intended" (which is a bit debatable but still interesting)[FONT=&quot].[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] The popularity of the format in film is easy enough to understand, because it's basically the traditional three-act structure stretched out to cover three films. Of course, because so many of these "trilogies" follow the pioneering Star Wars example of one mostly self-contained film followed by two closely-integrated sequels (many of which are shot back-to-back), there's very often only enough material for one more movie... which is ultimately stretched out into two. (I consider the "last book in the franchise is adapted into two movies" trend started by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to be a natural outgrowth of this practice.) As a result, either the middle installment[/FONT] or the final installment is distinctly weak compared to the other, as well as to the original.

He always wanted to make 9 movies[FONT=&quot]! [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] I'd always heard the original number was 12, which was then cut down to nine, and finally six.[/FONT] (As you note, in cutting nine down into six, most of that planned sequel trilogy was tacked onto Jedi.)

If I remember correctly Episode IV got its title and number at the time the movie was released a second time (and that happened before Episode V was released or even produced).

Star Wars was given the subtitle Episode IV: A New Hope upon its third release, in 1981. This was after the release of The Empire Strikes Back in 1980, so I can only imagine how confused audiences must have been by the proclamation that it was Episode V without that frame of reference. (Then again, it was marketed solely as The Empire Strikes Back - and it's only been since the 2004 DVD releases that the original trilogy has been marketed by their cumbersome long-form titles (and kudos to Wikipedia for holding out, though shame on IMDb for caving in).

One could feel sorry for Paramount because they didn't really do anything special by Hollywood standards - it could really have been almost any of the studios, so feeling sad for the one it ended up being (even as one acknowledges the need for the sacrifice, and the inevitability that someone would fall) is not so strange.

Paramount were the ones caught with their hands in the cookie jar, but what they did was by no means exceptional. They just happened to try it against the only people who wouldn't back down.

Honestly, even knowing that there are sequels and having seen them, Episode IV still feels like a decent self-contained story - taken on its own, the big bad of the story is dead, the 'heavy' was last seen in a situation he is unlikely to survive, an early scene establishes a reason why the Rebel victory at the end might very well cause the Empire to collapse, and the mood at the end is one of jubilant celebration. So... in what way does the end make clear that there will be a sequel?

Hints were that the real big bad was never shown and only mentioned and that the other bigbad survived and escaped (he managed to stabilize his TIE-fighter). Also it was clear that the whole Imperial Navy still exists, only the Emperor's superweapon had been destroyed.

Vader's survival was definitely a sequel hook - he lives to fight another day, which provides motive for Luke to avenge Obi-Wan's death. (To their credit, they do follow up on this in Empire, even if it gets sidetracked by the paternity bomb.) And, of course, the Empire endures, even though they've suffered a decisive - perhaps even catastrophic - defeat. To be sure, there was more than sufficient closure in case a sequel was never made, which makes the film work very well as a self-contained story. It's very difficult for a movie to walk that fine line, but Star Wars pulls it off with aplomb.

Congratulations on writing such an enthralling timeline, definitely one of the best I've read (& the best Pop Culture TL) on AH. It took me a few months to catch up (I prefer to read everyone's comments as well ), but I finally made it here - shame we're nearing the end[FONT=&quot]![/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] Thank you very much for your exceedingly generous praise, AndyF - and welcome aboard! Anyone who [FONT=&quot]has[/FONT] managed to read through over 4,000 posts eek:[FONT=&quot])[/FONT] has earned my respect. [/FONT]

For your reader statistics, my year of birth is 1969. My top 5 Star Trek episodes are (in no particular order):
Space Seed
Balance of Terror
Mirror, Mirror
The Doomsday Machine
The Trouble with Tribbles
Special mention to The City on the Edge of Forever, The Enterprise Incident & The Tholian Web[FONT=&quot].[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] Thank you for sharing, this has all been noted and logged - alongside all the other data points[FONT=&quot] (and those who haven't yet sub[FONT=&quot]m[FONT=&quot]itted are welcome to add their[FONT=&quot] ow[FONT=&quot]n[FONT=&quot]!).[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]

Incidentally, my first memory of any TV is Doctor Who - episode 2 of Colony in Space. Unsurprisingly, DW is my favourite TV programme!

[FONT=&quot]Impressive that you have such a precise memory! If I had to guess what the first thing I remember watching was, I would say Wheel of Fortune, but that's purely hypoth[FONT=&quot]e[FONT=&quot]sis[/FONT][/FONT].[/FONT]

I have to congratulate you on disassembling my childhood [...] You weren't kidding about this not being a utopia!

A very impressive roundup of changes from OTL! You've done half my job for me already

Items from TWR keep on leaking into OTL. The way fan-films are taking off, it wouldn't surprise me if episodes from TWR's Seasons 3-5 started appearing online over the next decade[FONT=&quot].[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] I would love to see one of the big fan-film series take on "The Meeting of the Minds" - I'd be more than happy to flesh out the story and tweak the details so that they agree with OTL canon [/FONT][FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]

Fantastic update on the 'Trial of the Century' - I wonder when the movie version gets made? or is it TV mini-series material instead?

[FONT=&quot] Let's just say I've been mulling over potential cast members in my head, and I like the look of some of them! [/FONT][FONT=&quot] You're all welcome to suggest who might play the principals as well![/FONT]

The Trial's effects however will be huge and reverb across the industry, if indeed they play ball, legislation or not! I wonder if any studio would consider ditching California for another country with accounting more to their tastes or will multiple countries enact similar laws to the US to pull their home grown studios in line?

Excellent question. In fact, the Financial Accounting Act will probably inspire many other countries to pass similar legislation, in part because of close economic ties, but also because it was inspired in part by International Financial Reporting Standards, which have been adopted by countries all around the world - though there is one prominent laggard: the United States (surprise, surprise).

Speaking of movies- I was wondering if Fire and Ice still gets made? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_and_Ice_(1983_film)

I'll be sure to mention if it does... the next time I cover the movies

Maybe they'll decamp north to Canada, like a lot of film production has IOTL.

That's certainly a possibility, especially since not one, but two of the remaining studios (United Artists-cum-Paramount and MGM) happen to be owned by Canadian interests.

With the end of the timeline in sight, I'm especially interested to see the direction Doctor Who goes, since 1986 is a rather infamous year in the calenders of Doctor Who fans as the beginning of the end. (Hopefully there's still a few multi-doctor stories tucked away as there were in OTL (assuming there's an anniversary special in 1983, there's a whole bunch of different directions it could have gone-see the 'production' section of the wikipedia page for details. I mean the most obvious would be if the Fourth Doctor appeared in the show (assuming he's not the incumbent, naturally). I could see Pertwee reprising his role on TV more willingly, since he obviously left under happier circumstances than he did in our universe But then I suppose that might be beyond the bounds of the TL.)

All I can say is that you're very much helping to justify my decision to give Doctor Who one more update all to himself!

But literally everything about this timeline is great, and I'm interested to see how the whole thing wraps up. Thanks for everything, Brainbin!

Well, thank you for such lovely compliments!

 

[Barbarossa Rotbart]

You're arguing that Jedi was worse than Attack of the Clones, or merely that each was the worst installment of their respective trilogies?

Because arguing that Jedi is worse than Attack of the Clones? I thought only Darth Vader could be so bold!

Yes, Episodes I and VI are the worst of the whole series, followed by II and III. My personal favorites are IV and V.

Why is VI worse that the whole prequel trilogy?
Because of the second Death Star and of the Ewoks (well, the Gungans are not really better) and because it is really lacking plot. The first part with Jabba is good but too short, the scenes on the fleet could have been longer, etc. You can say that the only thing the prequels did make right was that all the mistakes of VI were prevented.

Was the main problem of the prequel trilogy?
The main problem of the prequels are the many contradicting informations. Facts we knew from the original trilogy were dismissed. The best example is the time of Padme's death. In VI is was said that Leia remembers her and Luke does not. Thus she must have lived long enough to take Leia to Alderaan, but III shows us Padme' dying shortly after giving birth. The age of Anakin in I is also a problem. In IV Obi-Wan said that Anakin was already a great pilot and strong in the force, together with Owen saying that Anakin should have stayed home and not participating in the Clone Wars, suggest that Anakin should have been atleast ten years older at the time of their first meeting.

 

[AndyF]

It's not that the idea of dedicated children's programming didn't exist at the time, far from it--it's just that Doctor Who was not considered part of it. The difference between Who and Trek is that Who's writers realised from the start that children would be a part of their audience, whereas I think Trek was written with the assumption that its audience would be all adult.

I think the differences between the two shows' audience makeups would at least partially be a reflection of their timeslots during the period they were both broadcast.
Doctor Who was a teatime/early evening broadcast, which made it easily accessible by younger children but possibly lost some of the older audience (who would be eating or otherwise preparing for their Saturday night out).
Star Trek was a late evening/nighttime broadcast, which was too late for younger children but attracted older children & teens (especially in the later timeslots for Seasons 2 & 3).
Another difference between Doctor Who & Star Trek would be the companies/corporations that made the programmes.
Desilu would have operated with the minimal bureaucracy, with all programmes aimed ideally at a family audience. (I see Paramount operating essentially the same way, just with a bigger middle-management.)
BBC TV, as befits a public - rather than private - company, is organised into different departments, many of which had a different target audience & are subject to significant infighting. Despite it’s public popularity, the programme wasn’t highly thought of in the corridors of the Beeb; it was in a no-man’s land between two sub-departments with neither claiming responsibility & was regarded as an unwanted assignment in the late ‘70’s (probably the reason why Nathan-Turner was showrunner for so long as no-one else wanted to take over. Food for thought: his career basically ended after the show was cancelled).

It's pretty easy to butterfly Michael Grade's career, actually - he did a lot of job-hopping between 1966 and 1984. He could have stayed put at just about any of the positions he held in that eighteen-year interim, or seen any one of them branch out into totally different opportunities. It might just spare him the wrath of Her Majesty!

Indeed… the job of Controller of BBC1 might have gone to someone who didn’t hate Science Fiction so much, or the programme might not have been so cancellable (more on this in another post).

 

[AndyF]

More Redheaded era DW...

Well, the 1980s were a ten-year period, and Doctor Who appeared to have sufficient momentum to keep running all through the 1970s - the strike which gave it a new lease on life was in 1979. Therefore, cancellation in the 1980s is very likely - there are simply too many factors favouring such an outcome (and remember, it happened twice IOTL).And this is probably why the show was allowed to lay to rest IOTL - it had been running for a quarter-century and was out of gas - or petrol.

With the end of the timeline in sight, I'm especially interested to see the direction Doctor Who goes, since 1986 is a rather infamous year in the calendars of Doctor Who fans as the beginning of the end. (Hopefully there's still a few multi-doctor stories tucked away as there were in OTL (assuming there's an anniversary special in 1983, there's a whole bunch of different directions it could have gone-see the 'production' section of the wikipedia page for details. I mean the most obvious would be if the Fourth Doctor appeared in the show (assuming he's not the incumbent, naturally). I could see Pertwee reprising his role on TV more willingly, since he obviously left under happier circumstances than he did in our universe. But then I suppose that might be beyond the bounds of the TL.)

In contrast to a lot of correspondents on the TL, I can see the greater popularity in North America (most likely continued even after the end of the Yank Years, although at a lower level) actually RAISING the cachet of the programme with the BBC. It’s a little involved to explain why, but I’ll try & keep this as concise as possible!

Doctor Who originated in the Drama Department, which was primarily targeted at an adult or late teen audience. (The Children's Department was broken up in 1961, re-titled The Family Programmes Unit & prevented from making Children's drama or light entertainment programmes. It was renamed & partially restored in 1967.)
In 1963/64 Sydney Newman re-organised BBC Drama into 3 sub-departments; Series (for ongoing dramas with self-contained episodes such as Z-Cars, Doctor Finlay's Casebook & The Grove Family), Serials (for individual stories in multi-episode runs such as The Quatermass Experiment) & Plays (for any one-off single broadcast Drama such as the adaption of Nineteen Eighty Four).
In theory Doctor Who belonged to the Series sub-department (although it contained multi-episode stories as with Serials), but the programme was not well regarded at the Corporation & commonly seen as lowbrow entertainment (the deprecating remark "It's no Quatermass, is it?" is supposed to have originated in the BBC during DW's development or first year in production). Certainly it's remit to educate as well as entertain with the historical stories didn't help (even though the historical settings were supposed to help instruct children right to the end of Secondary School).
Regardless of viewing figures or approval ratings, it tended to end up at the back of the queue for budget & resources, with production until 1970 being based at the Beeb's Lime Grove (former Gaumont Films) or Riverside (ex-Triumph Film Company) studios instead of the nearby modern Television Centre in Wood Lane (Lime Grove was originally built in 1915 & in a poor state of repair even then, Riverside was a converted industrial building from the turn of the century, better than Lime Grove but inferior to TVC, which is where most of the prestigious dramas were based). The budget (as has been noted already) started small & was steadily reduced throughout the programme’s run & responsibility for the programme was batted between Series & Serials until they were combined in 1980; by then it was the most unwanted permanent assignment in the entire Drama department.

How will this change ITTL? Well, the co-production with NBC (it would HAVE to be co-production, or the BBC will reject any kind of script approval/modification for the North American audience, to say nothing of casting and it will only be with the production partner; Desilu doing all the Post-Production is a little unlikely too, but maybe they caught the Beeb at a weak moment!) would result in more cash in the Corporations’ coffers (only a proportion of which will find it’s way back to the programme itself) plus the popularity of the show (exceeding even UFO:1999?) in the US & Canada would probably make the Drama department take the programme more seriously (so no Douglas Adams as Script Editor after Philip Hinchcliffe & less/no ascended fans on the show too). Certainly Higher Management (such as the Head of Department, Controller of BBC1 & perhaps even the Director-General) would be better inclined to think of Doctor Who as a valuable asset (the ONLY BBC non-news programme of the time to have such widespread syndication to the rest of the world OTL & ITTL) to the Beeb overall, rather than a quaint but popular schedule-filler between the afternoon sports & the evening schedule proper with a minor following overseas. A knock-on effect not discussed until now is that the increase in the quality of production would hugely boost Doctor Who’s popularity in the remainder of the Commonwealth & the Anglo-sphere as well; hell, it might even overcome Europe’s prejudices against the show!
Even after the co-production agreement with NBC ends, with a small nudge (from Desilu possibly, as they would gain from the increased syndication) the BBC might well seek out a new agreement with CBS or ABC; even if that’s not forthcoming, the programme would retain a larger budget/resource allocation over OTL, better promotion on the network & a more respected attitude in general. (Plus in case no-one’s noticed, Brainbin… er, I mean GALACTICA’s greater success ITTL has removed Doctor Who’s main late-‘70’s competition – Buck Rogers in the 25th Century is another casualty of butterflies here!)
Add all these together & I can see Doctor Who enjoying better ratings, better story-writing & certainly better treatment than OTL, which means no hiatus & no cancellation in the ‘80’s. As for anniversary specials, The Five Doctors (Richard Hurndall standing in for William Hartnell, Pat Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Jim Dale & Richard Griffiths) would undoubtedly be made in some form or other… The Two Doctors is possible depending on who’s cast as the Sixth Doctor & the production team’s scheduling.

"second phase" of the British Invasion.

It’s always interesting to see misconceptions like this! The “British Invasion” was in fact a continuous cross-Atlantic exchange in most forms of media; theatre, television & music being the main ones. Taking music as the prime example, The Beatles in 1965 were followed later by the likes of The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds. Cream, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Hawkwind, Fleetwood Mac… the list rolls from the 60’s through the 70’s into the 80’s & beyond, while of course there were acts crossing in the other direction at the same time. And all likely to occur ITTL too (although we might see some of the premature demises of Rock Stars change… John Bonham & Bon Scott surviving would be nice for a start).

 

[Thande]

[FONT=&quot] The popularity of the format in film is easy enough to understand, because it's basically the traditional three-act structure stretched out to cover three films. Of course, because so many of these "trilogies" follow the pioneering Star Wars example of one mostly self-contained film followed by two closely-integrated sequels (many of which are shot back-to-back)

Ah, so there is a trope for that now. I wondered why they hadn't come up with one for a while.

What I find more interesting is the very rare reversal, where it's a two-part story followed up by a self-contained third part. One of the more interesting (literary) examples again comes from the Riftwar cycle, the Conclave of Shadows "trilogy" to be precise. The first two books are a two-part story telling the old archetype of a boy whose family and indeed entire tribe are slaughtered by the minions of a villain and, with the help of others, he sets out to have his revenge. At the end of the second book, the villain is defeated and exiled to a distant land. And then the third book switches to the villain's perspective, it turns out that he had been duped by an evil advisor who had magically affected his mind, and he becomes a hero who saves this distant land from destruction before meeting up with his destroyers from the last book who accept him as a friend. VERY odd take on a story format.

 

[NCW8]

I think the differences between the two shows' audience makeups would at least partially be a reflection of their timeslots during the period they were both broadcast.

Are you talking about the US schedule, because the first season of Star Trek on the BBC was broadcast in the same timeslot as Doctor Who.

Doctor Who was a teatime/early evening broadcast, which made it easily accessible by younger children but possibly lost some of the older audience (who would be eating or otherwise preparing for their Saturday night out).

Originally it was broadcast early enough on a Saturday evening to avoid that, but it did gradually shift later in the schedule as the Sixties rolled into the Seventies.

Star Trek was a late evening/nighttime broadcast, which was too late for younger children but attracted older children & teens (especially in the later timeslots for Seasons 2 & 3).

From BBC's second season onwards, Star Trek was broadcast at about 19:00 on weekday evenings. That's probably early enough for all but the youngest children to watch - certainly it didn't stop me from seeing it.

Cheers,
Nigel.

 

[AndyF]

Yes, Episodes I and VI are the worst of the whole series, followed by II and III. My personal favorites are IV and V.

Why is VI worse that the whole prequel trilogy?
Because of the second Death Star and of the Ewoks (well, the Gungans are not really better) and because it is really lacking plot. The first part with Jabba is good but too short, the scenes on the fleet could have been longer, etc. You can say that the only thing the prequels did make right was that all the mistakes of VI were prevented.

I’m almost equally fond of both original & prequel trilogies (my theory being that too long elapsed between the trilogies & our own attitudes and perceptions changing too much – I don't think even the original trilogy, if it were made in the late 90’s for the first time, would have been the huge hit it was OTL. Then again, George’s lack of proper feedback during scripting for the prequels didn’t help… ). My favourites are V, then II/IV, III, VI & I (The Jedi/Sith duel at the end of Phantom is the best bit for me).
Return of the Jedi does suffer quite a bit from the turmoil in Lucas’ private life OTL – the Ewoks were the worst thing in the entire saga to date (worse than the Gungans even – blatant kiddy-appeal for the merchandising). That said, the plot wasn’t scripted as tightly either; they excised the original intro scene in Obi-Wan’s hut (Luke finishing construction of his new lightsaber & loading it into R2-D2), the sequence in Jabba’s palace was too long (I’m not complaining about the fanservice… ), the whole Endor storyline was too convoluted (what’s so complicated about find your way to the shield generator back door WITH the entire commando unit, infiltrate it by tailgating someone & blow it up? An 8-person elite unit could have successfully held off the Imperials while the charges were planted, & if they were trapped inside it would have fulfilled the “Death of Han Solo” that Harrison Ford wanted!) & included the OTT celebration at the end.

Was the main problem of the prequel trilogy?
The main problem of the prequels is the many contradicting pieces of information. Facts we knew from the original trilogy were dismissed. The best example is the time of Padme's death. In VI is was said that Leia remembers her and Luke does not. Thus she must have lived long enough to take Leia to Alderaan, but III shows us Padme' dying shortly after giving birth. The age of Anakin in I is also a problem. In IV Obi-Wan said that Anakin was already a great pilot and strong in the force, together with Owen saying that Anakin should have stayed home and not participating in the Clone Wars, suggest that Anakin should have been at least ten years older at the time of their first meeting.

Actually these were never presented as facts in the Original Trilogy. Luke asked Leia “Do you remember your Mother?” Leia then states that she remembers her mother was beautiful but sad & died when she was little. This doesn’t necessarily mean Padme; Leia has no idea she & Luke are twins at this point, or that Darth Vader is her father, so presumably Bail Organa kept the secret to his grave & Leia could quite easily be speaking of Bail’s wife.
Similarly Anakin’s age in The Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones isn’t that problematic; in the former he was strong enough in the Force to be a capable Podracer, with the starfighter battle over Naboo showing the latter – in both cases the proof is staying alive to grow up! Never mind blundering into the Droid Control Ship & accidentally blowing it up… And Owen could be quite easily talking about either Anakin's original departure from Tatooine (not gotten involved AT ALL), or his subsequent departure after Shmi's death (as the Clone Wars began almost immediately afterwards).
The only problem was the quality of George’s writing… depending on your perception of Padme being 7 years older than Anakin & any squick factor at the later romance! Oh, and the overturn of EU Canon in favour of the Clone Wars cartoon where the writing was even worse!
Of course ITTL we won’t have these problems; Journey of the Force is an earlier draft with no Luke & Leia, no Obi-Wan & no Vader (what would become the Imperial Stormtroops wore black armour & were Force users in earlier drafts, making the Vader analogue one of the Army of Sith instead of the “last of the Jedi”). Also, George & Marcia are still together as a happier couple – there will be no Skywalker Ranch, so no separation with him directing movies & her supervising construction (and falling in love with the Glass-making Artist). Instead we will have a united Team Lucas to take the saga forward; the problem ITTL is the suitability of William Katt & Kurt Russell for Annikin Skywalker & Han Solo (does anyone else feel from the audition tape that both of them did better the other way around? )

 

[AndyF]

I think the differences between the two shows' audience makeups would at least partially be a reflection of their timeslots during the period they were both broadcast.
Doctor Who was a teatime/early evening broadcast, which made it easily accessible by younger children but possibly lost some of the older audience (who would be eating or otherwise preparing for their Saturday night out).
Star Trek was a late evening/nighttime broadcast, which was too late for younger children but attracted older children & teens (especially in the later timeslots for Seasons 2 & 3).

Are you talking about the US schedule, because the first season of Star Trek on the BBC was broadcast in the same timeslot as Doctor Who.
Originally it was broadcast early enough on a Saturday evening to avoid that, but it did gradually shift later in the schedule as the Sixties rolled into the Seventies.
From BBC's second season onwards, Star Trek was broadcast at about 19:00 on weekday evenings. That's probably early enough for all but the youngest children to watch - certainly it didn't stop me from seeing it.

Cheers,
Nigel.

Thanks Nigel; I was referring to the original broadcasts for both (UK for DW, US for Trek). The UK fanbase for Star Trek & Doctor Who would tend be similar during ST's first season (although I certainly wasn't old enough to watch Trek at the late evening slot as my schoolday bedtime was 7:30pm until 1977/78; I had strict parents!)
I did know about the post-6pm timeslot for Doctor Who in the late seventies, it was one of the reasons I got to see less of the show; we visited my grandparents every two weeks (followed by my Aunt & Uncle once a month), so we would be out of the house & away from a telly those days, not getting home until after DW had finished.

Regards, Andy.

 

[NCW8]

In contrast to a lot of correspondents on the TL, I can see the greater popularity in North America (most likely continued even after the end of the Yank Years, although at a lower level) actually RAISING the cachet of the programme with the BBC. It’s a little involved to explain why, but I’ll try & keep this as concise as possible!

You make some good points. Buck Rogers was certainly a good rival to Doctor Who. It's interesting that after several attempts to make an answer to Doctor Who, they eventually imported one instead. In the one season they went head to head, Doctor Who's viewing figures dropped to around 5 million. In the final season before going on permanent hiatus, Doctor Who's viewing figures were also around 5 million, so that might be a good estimate for Who's core audience. The rest of the 10 million the show was attracting in the Seventies are more fickle.

However, it's quite possible that one of the other American SF shows could be broadcast by ITV and play the same role as Buck Rogers. To the part of the audience who were attracted by the Yank Years effects, that could be quite a draw.

Like you, I find it a little hard to believe that the BBC would hand over post production to Desilu. In the Seventies, co-production with the BBC generally meant that the American partner could influence some decisions, such as casting, but the actual show would be a BBC production. Colditz is a good example. For their money, Universal got Robert Wagner cast in a key role and that was it.

Also the Unions were unlikely to simply accept this sort of out-sourcing at that time. They'd have to be bought off - maybe by providing equivalent work on another series, e.g. more episodes of Quatermass. That, of course, will build up an internal rival to Doctor Who. As budgets are cut at the end of the Yank Years and audiences fall, there's going to be many in the Corporation who will think that Who has had a very good run, but some new series should be given a chance now.

Cheers,
Nigel