WI: 1st Star Trek goes ahead

Thanks to handwavium, instead of being canned, the first Star Trek pilot movie "The Cage" gets green light and the first season of Star Trek is made and airs.

So the Enterprise under Captain Christopher Pike starts its five years voyage to boldly go where no man has gone before.

What will change in the franchise, should it take off at all? Consider that there's a female first officer, Spock is vastly more satanic-looking (and displays emotion), and men and women do not have different uniforms (faik and iirc).
 
Hmm could be interesting. But as I understand it Jeffrey hunter might not have taken the role due to his wife being so against TV work. So he may not be the strong hero most assume he would be. Next if it starts in 64 then Desilu has not started on its run of Mission Impossible, Mannix, and I spy all at once so in terms of money the production studio will not go broke making the expensive shows.
 
Next if it starts in 64 then Desilu has not started on its run of Mission Impossible, Mannix, and I spy all at once so in terms of money the production studio will not go broke making the expensive shows.
"The Cage" was filmed in late 1964, and they'd have to make twelve more episodes minimum in addition to that, so really the earliest Star Trek could've aired was the 1965-1966 season (i.e. one year earlier than OTL).
 
The Apollo program was picking upsteam, so it may have been better for the show to start at an earlier date. It may have lasted an additional year or two.


If the show was intitially picked up. I could see Jeffrey Hunter doing it for the required time in his initial contract. Maybe even another year, but I think his wife would still insist on him leaving television. They would have the character die in some fight, with No. 1 expecting to be promoted to captain of the Enterprise. Instead a new captain is placed on board, played by Peter Graves. This causes a bit of hostility between some of the crew, since they were expecting No. 1 to become the new captain, and this stranger now in charge.

This causes the show to have a more soaperatic feel, allowing story elements from one episode to another to keep popping up. One of these being that Vulcans, after Pon Farr, lose most of their abilty to feel emotions.

In the Season of '69-'70, one episode has the crew of Apollo 11 playing Klingons in a tavern scene.
 
"The Cage" was filmed in late 1964, and they'd have to make twelve more episodes minimum in addition to that, so really the earliest Star Trek could've aired was the 1965-1966 season (i.e. one year earlier than OTL).

True but the other shows came out in 66. So that is a year without costly shows to take away the Star Trek budget.
 
Jeffrey Hunter dies in 1969 because of a stroke. The work on Star Trek could kill him off sooner which might make Star Trek finish after the second season and the fans won't want it resurrected...
 
By far the bigest contrast would have been having a woman in effect in the Spock role.

AFAIK that's one of the reasons it wasn't put into production until later.

I thought that Star Trek wasn't really popular until the 70's anyway, when they started to have Star Trek cons, etc.
 

Thande

Donor
AFAIK that's one of the reasons it wasn't put into production until later.

I thought that Star Trek wasn't really popular until the 70's anyway, when they started to have Star Trek cons, etc.

IIRC, NBC wanted to cancel after the second season but were dissuaded by a fan letter-writing campaign...so, not entirely true.
 
Jeffrey Hunter dies in 1969 because of a stroke. The work on Star Trek could kill him off sooner which might make Star Trek finish after the second season and the fans won't want it resurrected...
That stroke was brought on by a previous head injury that happened post-POD. If Jeff Hunter stayed on Star Trek his life would've been quite different, and it's almost certain he wouldn't have had that stroke and died.
 
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