That Wacky Redhead

[NCW8]

Herbert Rossoff

There's a certain "pulp" element to space opera that makes it palatable to the mainstream. "Hard" science-fiction can't appeal to as wide an audience, and remember that television, more than any other form of media, is absolutely driven by the need to reach as many consumers as possible (in order to sell advertising).

Not the BBC obviously, which may be why the Beeb has produced some hard SF - Quatermass, Moonbase 3, Survivors, Space Cops .

Well, Star Trek and Doctor Who both could have been better in many ways, at least if TTL is any indication

Well you've made Dr Who different and more popular in the US, but I'm not sure that you've made it better. As you said in a previous post:

Now I've unveiled the Scrappy-Doo of Doctor Who: Claire Barnett, played by Angela Bowie. Kept on solely to appeal to the American audiences

It takes a lot to make up for inviting Scrappy to the party

Speaking of that earlier post, I noticed this comment:

"Genesis of the Daleks" has Baker's Fourth Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith, and the Daleks. Apparently it's one of the most popular serials of all time, for whatever reason

I'd say that a major reason for its popularity is that fans do love an origin story, and Genesis was the origin story of the most popular villains in the franchise.

Cheers,
Nigel.

 

[unclepatrick]

Looking back, it's odd that most of the blatantly allegorical episodes were products of the Turd Season ("The Omega Glory" came late in the second, and was in fact a rejected pilot script, but in retrospect it seems likely that the production team believed that they would not be renewed for a third season, and chose their scripts accordingly). Star Trek could never really be described as subtle, but the show was better at integrating allegory with the plot and characters earlier on.

One wonders what might have happened if they did have a Jim Henson working for them, if that might have been what they needed to break out of the humanoid mould.

Very true. One must never underestimate the human drive to be able to say "I told you so."

Indeed. That's enough to poison it forever, in his mind. Perhaps UFO might be more to his liking.

Herbert Rossoff

We'll have to see how long the search for Earth will last.

There's a certain "pulp" element to space opera that makes it palatable to the mainstream. "Hard" science-fiction can't appeal to as wide an audience, and remember that television, more than any other form of media, is absolutely driven by the need to reach as many consumers as possible (in order to sell advertising).

There's only one way to find out!

Don't even get me started...

Much as that tickles me, he's definitely too young (much as he was for The A-Team IOTL).

Well, Star Trek and Doctor Who both could have been better in many ways, at least if TTL is any indication

Good question! I'll have to investigate that. Perhaps I can tie that into my superhero update...

There's really not much to tell. Your standard-issue science-fiction anthology series, probably "harder" than anything else in primetime. Runs for three seasons. Ellison hosts and narrates the show, writes more episodes than anyone else, and has a producer credit, but (naturally) frequently gets into fights with the studio and the network.

Thank you for your compliments!

e of pi did an excellent job of answering your other questions. Thank you, e of pi!

(And yes, they're still black.)

I thought Ellison used Cornwider Bird as his alter ego,

My point comparing Star Trek and Doctor Who to Battlestar was that fans have stronger feelings for those two show, then for Battlestar. In some fans it almost a religion. And criticizing Star Trek or Doctor Who can be the start of nasty arguments.
(Worst argument I ever gotten in at a convention happen after I referred to Captain Archer from Enterprise as Captain Beckett after the Character Scott Bakula play in Quantum Leap.)

I really have a hard time see Ellison working on any TV project for Three seasons. I heard him at conventions and it seem to me that he is one of these "I Right, You are Wrong" type of people. He does not seem to be the kind of person who could work as part of a group which is what all Television production is. I thing the only reason, He did any interaction with Hollywood and other TV production by the 1970's was so he have new stories to complain about. (Last Convention I saw Ellison at, he had been doing editorials for a program on the Sci Fi Channel and he was yelling and screaming about how badly they treated him. He continued doing the editorials for 6 more months till the show was canceled)

Thank you for answering our Questions. You do a great job and so did e of Pi.

 

[Thande]

It costs nothing to describe a maneuver, & is it really so much more expensive to shoot a model moving vertically, or around one or more of its axes, than a stationary one? Or to animate a crooked path for a notional torpedo, rather than a straight one?

No offence, but I don't think you know a whole lot about this, because the answer to this question is a resounding "YES" in Arial Bold, font size 72. The reason why they hardly showed any manoeuvres on TOS besides hard turns to port and starboard was because that was the only axis they could rotate on the model. Things got a bit more advanced by TNG, but there's a reason you hardly ever saw the dorsal side of the Enterprise-D clearly--it's because that's where the mount point for most of the models was. If you want some detail on just how frickin' hard model shots are, a good source is The Making of Star Trek Deep Space Nine, published midway through Series 2, which is a good description of the state of visual design on Star Trek before the advent of mainstream CGI. There's a big section describing how many shots they had to composite just to create a standard shot of DS9 just sitting there with three Cardassian warships next to it, it took days. That's also the reason why Star Trek tends to use so much stock footage of the ship flying past carefully non-specific-looking planets.

Now that CGI has become much cheaper and readily available, the kind of battle scenes you like have become more practical, as can be seen on the Remastered version of TOS for example. But before that, there's a reason why Kirk flying the Enterprise ON A DIFFERENT XY PLANE TO THE RELIANT in Star Trek II was treated like the most amazing thing ever: it's the first time they had ever the budget to do something like that!

 

[phx1138]

No offence, but I don't think you know a whole lot about this

None taken, because I really don't. I've understood motion control was complicated and expensive, but beyond that...

you hardly ever saw the dorsal side of the Enterprise-D clearly--it's because that's where the mount point for most of the models was.

Noted. What I have in mind is, essentially, greenscreening it once, with splitscreen for whatever enemy ship you've got, & cut it together for whatever "stunt" you need. (Or even keep them out of the same shot, to save money: show them on Enterprise's viewscreen.) I'll grant, even that may be more problematic than I think it is.

That said, you've explained the complaints I always had about the fighters "BSG" & "BRit25C"... Obviously, I had no clue.

to composite just to create a standard shot of DS9 just sitting there with three Cardassian warships next to it, it took days.

I had no idea. (See above...)

Now that CGI has become much cheaper

Which suggests the "B5" decision was much smarter than "DS9"'s ...if only for the greater flexibility it offered.

Enterprise ON A DIFFERENT XY PLANE TO THE RELIANT in Star Trek II was treated like the most amazing thing ever

o)

 

[Nivek]

Sorry for my mistake with Sony before(was pretty sleppy and with Term Exam Watch, that was horrible), thus slip that, that looks like the people here know me pretty well(from Thande or Electricmonk thread?).

That is mostly because Sony bought make a big change in Holywood business for both parties, and in a big way, make a lot of American Dramas and Soap Opera popular here in Latin America(a lot of people like GCB, but is a shame that one got canned)

 

[Thande]

Noted. What I have in mind is, essentially, greenscreening it once, with splitscreen for whatever enemy ship you've got, & cut it together for whatever "stunt" you need. (Or even keep them out of the same shot, to save money: show them on Enterprise's viewscreen.) I'll grant, even that may be more problematic than I think it is.

The main problem (this is what they go over in the DS9 book) is that you have to shoot one ship multiple times and composite in order to get the full effect, and that means you have to match the movements precisely of course--it became easier later on with computer-controlled robotic arms moving the mounts so you can programme it to do the exact same movement of the ship over and over again, like what they do with assembly robots in factories. The reason why they need multiple shots is, in order for it to look right, you need:

1) Model of the ship on its own, lit from the required side where the sun is supposed to be ;

2) Model without any external lighting, but with brightly glowing bits like warp nacelles lit up from within ;

3) Model without any external lighting, but with dimly glowing bits like windows lit up from within.

You then mix them together and you get the cool-looking ships we're used to seeing in Star Trek--try and do it all at once and it would look like, well, a little model to the human eye. And this is a simple version--for some ships they had to do separate passes for individual different glowing bits if they were arranged so that the glows would swamp each other if they were done together. And so on. (I tried to find a good picture online of all the separate shots that are mixed together, but there doesn't seem to be one--as I say the best description I've seen is in the aforementioned DS9 book).

The point is, if it's like this for a simple 'beauty pass' (ship flies dramatically past camera) you can imagine how hard it is doing the sort of sweepy loopy things to make a good battle scene. (Similar to the Star Trek II example I mentioned, the last episode of TNG also did this with the future version of the Enterprise coming in from vertically below, which can be read as "this is the last episode and we had some SFX budget left over, so let's go crazy!"

Which suggests the "B5" decision was much smarter than "DS9"'s ...if only for the greater flexibility it offered.

B5's decision is I think what Yes Minister would have called "courageous". CGI did give them more flexibility, but of course that too was expensive back then and it did not look very real. Although, weirdly, I went back and watched some series 1 Babylon 5 (I only saw odd bits when it was originally on) and the CGI looked less fake now than it did then, which doesn't seem right Maybe it's because we're so used to seeing CGI now, even if it's better CGI than what they had back then, that the mind tunes out the uncanny valley effect more.

 

[phx1138]

The main problem (this is what they go over in the DS9 book) is that you have to shoot one ship multiple times and composite in order to get the full effect, and that means you have to match the movements precisely of course--it became easier later on with computer-controlled robotic arms moving the mounts so you can programme it to do the exact same movement of the ship over and over again, like what they do with assembly robots in factories. The reason why they need multiple shots is, in order for it to look right, you need:

1) Model of the ship on its own, lit from the required side where the sun is supposed to be ;

2) Model without any external lighting, but with brightly glowing bits like warp nacelles lit up from within ;

3) Model without any external lighting, but with dimly glowing bits like windows lit up from within.

You then mix them together and you get the cool-looking ships we're used to seeing in Star Trek--try and do it all at once and it would look like, well, a little model to the human eye. And this is a simple version--for some ships they had to do separate passes for individual different glowing bits if they were arranged so that the glows would swamp each other if they were done together. And so on. (I tried to find a good picture online of all the separate shots that are mixed together, but there doesn't seem to be one--as I say the best description I've seen is in the aforementioned DS9 book).

The point is, if it's like this for a simple 'beauty pass' (ship flies dramatically past camera) you can imagine how hard it is doing the sort of sweepy loopy things to make a good battle scene. (Similar to the Star Trek II example I mentioned, the last episode of TNG also did this with the future version of the Enterprise coming in from vertically below, which can be read as "this is the last episode and we had some SFX budget left over, so let's go crazy!"

I bow to superior knowledge, sensei. The depth of my ignorance clearly knows few bounds. I can just see the FX guys' reaction to my suggestions....

B5's decision is I think what Yes Minister would have called "courageous". CGI did give them more flexibility, but of course that too was expensive back then and it did not look very real. Although, weirdly, I went back and watched some series 1 Babylon 5 (I only saw odd bits when it was originally on) and the CGI looked less fake now than it did then, which doesn't seem right Maybe it's because we're so used to seeing CGI now, even if it's better CGI than what they had back then, that the mind tunes out the uncanny valley effect more.

IDK if it's "less notice" as much as "more acceptance": we know it's animated, so we judge it on the quality of the animation, not on the faithfulness to reality.

 

[NCW8]

I thought Ellison used Cornwider Bird as his alter ego,

Sorry, that was a joke on my part that BrainBin topped very nicely. Far Beyond the Stars was an episode of DS9 where Sisko has a vision that he is a writer called Benny Russell on a 1950s SF magazine. Herbert Rossoff was another writer for the magazine, whose character was supposed to be based upon Ellison.

The producers of DS9 considered finishing the last show of the series by showing Benny Russell outside a tv studio holding a copy of a DS9 script, but unfortunately decided against it.

Cheers,
Nigel.

 

[phx1138]

The producers of DS9 considered finishing the last show of the series by showing Benny Russell outside a tv studio holding a copy of a DS9 script, but unfortunately decided against it.

I'm glad they didn't, considering "St Elsewhere" & "Newhart" did "dream series" endings...

 

[Thande]

I'm glad they didn't, considering "St Elsewhere" & "Newhart" did "dream series" endings...

I recall one sci-fi cartoon series I saw in my youth had an episode in which they used the "it was all a dream" gimmick in-universe, with it turning out that the whole universe was a dream in the mind of a sleeping giant (sort of like Alice in Wonderland).

And then at the end of the episode they had the viewpoint character wake up from a dream, thus leaving it ambiguous as to whether the show was all a dream because the revelation that the show was in a dream might itself have been within a dream "Inception" eat your heart out!

 

[unclepatrick]

Sorry, that was a joke on my part that BrainBin topped very nicely. Far Beyond the Stars was an episode of DS9 where Sisko has a vision that he is a writer called Benny Russell on a 1950s SF magazine. Herbert Rossoff was another writer for the magazine, whose character was supposed to be based upon Ellison.

The producers of DS9 considered finishing the last show of the series by showing Benny Russell outside a tv studio holding a copy of a DS9 script, but unfortunately decided against it.

Cheers,
Nigel.

I Like the Star Trek Shows, but I don't memorize every Little detail. I remember that episode, and enjoy it. I love the guy to play O'Brian's Asimov takeoff. "I like writing about Robots"

I agree that having Benny Russel on the last shtaow would have cheapen the whole series. If they wanted to have a final Russell apperance, they could have had Russell appear on the Holodeck, and either Jake or Sissco
talking to him about what it like to dare to change the Status Que.

 

[NCW8]

I agree that having Benny Russel on the last shtaow would have cheapen the whole series.

Oh, you're almost certainly right. The fans would have be up in the air about it, and of course Voyager was still in production at that time (it is something of a franchise ending trope).

I'm glad they didn't, considering "St Elsewhere" & "Newhart" did "dream series" endings...

Come to think of it, so did The Brittas Empire - that trope was a bit over used.

Edit: I've only just realised that I typed "unfortunately" in my previous post when I meant to type "fortunately". I appologise for the confusion.

Cheers,
Nigel.

 

[phx1138]

I meant to type "fortunately". I appologise for the confusion.

No apology necessary. I stand by my statement.

I do apologize, however, if offense was given. None was intended.

 

[Brainbin]

The behind-the-scenes tell-all books must be epic, though.

Isn't it always? Especially when he is involved. No doubt he'll pepper every book he writes for years to come with rants about how horrendous his experience with the show was, how he had to fight for every last concession, how everything that's good was entirely his doing and nobody else's. Some things never change...

Not the BBC obviously, which may be why the Beeb has produced some hard SF - Quatermass, Moonbase 3, Survivors, Space Cops .

This is true - PBS also provides a great example with their educational programs about scientific subjects.

Well you've made Dr Who different and more popular in the US, but I'm not sure that you've made it better.

Oh, no, I don't think it's better ITTL, but I think I've demonstrated that it could have been. And besides, you have to take the good with the bad. Those two seasons with Connie Booth as the principal companion would probably be considered up there with the very best of Doctor Who IOTL.

I'd say that a major reason for its popularity is that fans do love an origin story, and Genesis was the origin story of the most popular villains in the franchise.

What's interesting is that products which are the epitome of their wider franchise tend to be either beloved and iconic (such as Goldfinger) or are considered a disappointing letdown (such as the Sherlock Holmes story The Five Orange Pips). Therefore, I will concede that "Genesis of the Daleks" could have been the latter instead of the former.

I really have a hard time see Ellison working on any TV project for Three seasons. I heard him at conventions and it seem to me that he is one of these "I Right, You are Wrong" type of people. He does not seem to be the kind of person who could work as part of a group which is what all Television production is. I thing the only reason, He did any interaction with Hollywood and other TV production by the 1970's was so he have new stories to complain about. (Last Convention I saw Ellison at, he had been doing editorials for a program on the Sci Fi Channel and he was yelling and screaming about how badly they treated him. He continued doing the editorials for 6 more months till the show was canceled)

It probably won't surprise you to learn that he actually lasted that long for one very specific reason: spite. Ellison was still burning from his experience with Star Trek (as OTL certainly proves, that appears to be the very biggest of the many grudges he is holding). The producers of the show were also relatively canny: Ellison was a producer-in-name-only and merely hosted and wrote the show. Ellison's name was enough to attract writers whom he mostly liked, so he rarely felt the material too far beneath him. In retrospect, of course, he found plenty to hate about the job, but he kept himself in check (at least by his standards) for the first couple of years. By the time he started to wear, the show was cancelled. (Consider Star Trek IOTL. Only three seasons, and ITTL, the entire cast was ready to tear apart at the seams by season five.)

Now that CGI has become much cheaper and readily available, the kind of battle scenes you like have become more practical, as can be seen on the Remastered version of TOS for example.

Which is an abomination, and is completely incongruous with the art direction, set design, costumes, makeup, lighting, and camerawork on the entire rest of the show. It's something that really needs to be appreciated for its own sake. And they really need to take it out of syndication and restore the original version

Sorry to hijack your perfectly reasonable explanation, Thande (and thanks for all your insight on this topic!), that's just a real sore spot with me.

Sorry for my mistake with Sony before(was pretty sleppy and with Term Exam Watch, that was horrible), thus slip that, that looks like the people here know me pretty well(from Thande or Electricmonk thread?).

I miss Earthquake Weather But I remember you from there, yes. You're more than welcome to post here, too! I always appreciate new perspectives

The producers of DS9 considered finishing the last show of the series by showing Benny Russell outside a tv studio holding a copy of a DS9 script, but unfortunately decided against it.

I've heard about that, but since that show was a spinoff, it really just raises more questions than it answers.

I'm glad they didn't, considering "St Elsewhere" & "Newhart" did "dream series" endings...

The first was directly responsible for the second, of course. And I'll be honest (without spoiling the particulars of either ending): St. Elsewhere was almost (almost!) worth the fantastic finale to Newhart, which is the only time that a series-ending "All Just A Dream"-device has been properly employed.

I recall one sci-fi cartoon series I saw in my youth had an episode in which they used the "it was all a dream" gimmick in-universe, with it turning out that the whole universe was a dream in the mind of a sleeping giant (sort of like Alice in Wonderland).

And then at the end of the episode they had the viewpoint character wake up from a dream, thus leaving it ambiguous as to whether the show was all a dream because the revelation that the show was in a dream might itself have been within a dream "Inception" eat your heart out!

I think that had to be the inevitable end result of that trope's rampant overuse. Subversion up the wazoo!

Come to think of it, so did The Brittas Empire - that trope was a bit over used.

From what I understand, Brittas had already ended, but then they brought it back because it was so popular (how uncharacteristic of the British television industry!), so there were two grand finales for one program. And then there's Dallas, which we briefly discussed a little while ago. What a tangled web...

 

[NCW8]

I do apologize, however, if offense was given. None was intended.

No need - I didn't see anything offensive there.

Oh, no, I don't think it's better ITTL, but I think I've demonstrated that it could have been. And besides, you have to take the good with the bad. Those two seasons with Connie Booth as the principal companion would probably be considered up there with the very best of Doctor Who IOTL.

That's very likely. That period included a number of classic episodes in OTL - my list would include The Daemons, The Day of the Daleks and The Sea Devils. From what you've said, the script writing should have the same quality ITTL, so with better special effects, this could easily be seen as the Golden Age of Dr Who. That's before you take Connie Booth's acting ability into account - and I suspect that she would be at least as good as Katy Manning.

In fact the Pertwee era as a whole had a number of good scripts. The worst, IMO, would be Invasion of the Dinosaurs.

Edit: The New Dr Who has featured a number of enemies from the Classic Who. Apart from the perennial Daleks and Cybermen, most of these made their debut in the Pertwee Era (Autons, Silurians, The Master, Sontarans).

What's interesting is that products which are the epitome of their wider franchise tend to be either beloved and iconic (such as Goldfinger) or are considered a disappointing letdown (such as the Sherlock Holmes story The Five Orange Pips). Therefore, I will concede that "Genesis of the Daleks" could have been the latter instead of the former.

Edit: For me, Genesis of the Daleks was the story that showed Tom Baker could really be the Doctor. The Giant Robot was just dreadful and The Ark in Space/The Sontaran Experiment were OK, but nothing special.

From what I understand, Brittas had already ended, but then they brought it back because it was so popular.

With different writers as well

Cheers,
Nigel.

 

[Doctorin' Ithaca]

I personally can't stand Star Trek. All that "we are a shiny happy utopia in the future which is oddly barren of homosexual people!"

If you're not straight or Americo-Euro-centricly cultured, they don't want you in the Star Trek universe.

Take the TNG episode The Outcast which i can't bare to watch as it's massively homophobic.

 

[e_wraith]

Isn't it always? Especially when he is involved. No doubt he'll pepper every book he writes for years to come with rants about how horrendous his experience with the show was, how he had to fight for every last concession, how everything that's good was entirely his doing and nobody else's. Some things never change...

So much could be said here... But I will restrain myself. I read The Essential Ellison as a kid, though, and wow what an interesting personage. I saw there is a revised version out, too, maybe I need to get that to keep up with everyone he has come to hate since the late 1980s.

Which is an abomination, and is completely incongruous with the art direction, set design, costumes, makeup, lighting, and camerawork on the entire rest of the show. It's something that really needs to be appreciated for its own sake. And they really need to take it out of syndication and restore the original version

Yes to all of this! Ugh, why did they do this? Next step, 3D CGI! Oh, and we can also replace the original actors with the remake actors and... Wait, I shouldn't be giving anyone ideas here. And, of course, because of the cost of the new cast they will just film them saying common words and use CGI to "seamlessly" splice it all together making a superior Trek for us all! Ehem, enough ranting.

The first was directly responsible for the second, of course. And I'll be honest (without spoiling the particulars of either ending): St. Elsewhere was almost (almost!) worth the fantastic finale to Newhart, which is the only time that a series-ending "All Just A Dream"-device has been properly employed.

Newhart did this very well, how could you not appreciate the ending? Though I am sure many fans who were not exposed to the original probably felt a bit let down. I was lucky enough to have seen some of the original in reruns so as to get it, but my main exposure to Bob Newhart was through the second show at the time.

From what I understand, Brittas had already ended, but then they brought it back because it was so popular (how uncharacteristic of the British television industry!), so there were two grand finales for one program. And then there's Dallas, which we briefly discussed a little while ago. What a tangled web...

Brittas Empire used the dream trope? Wow, I missed that episode. I mean I thought I recalled how it ended, but I see it actually came back after that. I learn all sorts of new things here!

 

[Thande]

Which is an abomination, and is completely incongruous with the art direction, set design, costumes, makeup, lighting, and camerawork on the entire rest of the show. It's something that really needs to be appreciated for its own sake. And they really need to take it out of syndication and restore the original version

Do you want to share more specific reasons for why that's your opinion? Because I also grew up with the original TOS and I like the remastered version a lot. And I am certainly the sort of person to get into "They changed it, now it sucks!" when a remastering is awfully done (see, or better yet, don't see, the Red Dwarf Remastered episodes...) To my mind they managed to capture the feel of the original, and not throw in too much whiz-bang change for the sake of it--often just recreating the original shots in CGI rather than making the Enterprise fly upside down through a cartwheel just because they can.

I can understand why ONLY having the option to see the remastered version would be annoying though--most TV channels in the UK showing TOS still show the original version, except Virgin which shows the remastered one.

 

[Thande]

Also fans of classic Trek should definitely check out the interactive Google Doodle for google.co.uk (I don't know if it's on the other mirrors) for today

 

[Lord Insane]

Also fans of classic Trek should definitely check out the interactive Google Doodle for google.co.uk (I don't know if it's on the other mirrors) for today

It is on at least one other mirror.