Star Trek was burning up syndication in 1976, making Paramount millions! The anticipation for some type of Star Trek return was palpable and the release of the album Inside Star Trek seemed like more evidence that fact. The record is a collection of interviews with members of the cast and audio clips from Gene Roddenberry’s college tour. Those actors who appear are William Shatner, DeForest Kelley, Nichelle Nichols and Mark Lenard. Leonard Nimoy was invited to participate but he declined because of his declining relationship with Roddenberry. Also on the album is an interview with Science Fiction author Isaac Asimov. …
70s TREK - Star Trek in the 1970s
The Enemy Below is the story of a battle between an American Destroyer captain and a German U-Boat commander during World War II. It stars Robert Mitchum as Captain Murell and Curt Jurgens as the German commander. As you watch The Enemy Below, similarities to the Star Trek episode Balance of Terror jump out. Trek writer Paul Schneider had never written a science fiction story before. So when Gene Roddenberry asked him to submit ideas to the show, Schneider looked to The Enemy Below for inspiration. When Roddenberry sees what Schneider did, he gets behind the effort. The result is one…
In 1976, Gene Roddenberry’s first attempt to bring Star Trek back was rejected by Paramount. That story, known as The God Thing (see 70s Trek Episode 45), explored the nature of God. It explained that the all powerful was actually a broken robot spaceship that visited Earth multiple times. This was not a story that Paramount wanted to make, never mind sink millions of dollars into. So while the studio looked elsewhere for Star Trek movie ideas, Gene decided to ask his assistant, Jon Povil, to give it a try. Tat treatment was known as Star Trek II. This was…
This is a rebroadcast of Episode 11. It was just 47 days after Star Trek was cancelled when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon. The timing also seems intentional today. Co-hosts Bob Turner and Kelly Casto talk about the first moon landing and its impact on the original series on this episode of 70s Trek. As American astronauts walked on the moon in the years between 1969 and 1972, Star Trek entered syndication. Suddenly, what seemed far-fetched in the 1960s, was becoming real in the 1970s. Apollo 11 helped people realize that space exploration was real. Star…
While many believe he played the first Star Trek doctor, DeForest Kelley actually played the third. He followed John Hoyt’s Dr. Phillip Boyse from the first Star Trek pilot, The Cage and Paul Fix’s Dr. Mark Piper from Where No Man Has Gone Before, the second pilot. But it was DeForest Kelley’s portray of Dr. Leonard McCoy that has become iconic in popular culture. “Bones” was cantankerous, irritable, irascible, and even at times belligerent! But what would Captain Kirk or Mr. Spock be without Dr. McCoy? The character regularly questioned Kirk’s or Spock’s stance on a topic and made them think about the…