Having watched and been disappointed in the 'Westerns' entry of this 'Pioneers of Television' series, I was somewhat apprehensive in checking out this episode dealing with the early days of Science Fiction. At the height of the Golden Age Western boom, there were dozens of shows that could have been selected to represent the genre, and that was simply impossible in an hour long format. Here, the choices boiled down to three - 'The Twilight Zone', 'Star Trek', and 'Lost in Space', though quite honestly, the bulk of the show was taken up by Gene Roddenberry's space saga that lasted three years on the NBC network.
Back in the day I didn't know it, but 'The Twilight Zone' would wind up being my favorite TV series of all time. Rod Serling was a master story teller and he wrote about ninety of the series' one hundred and fifty two episodes. Though the sci-fi label fits a lot of his stories, I would argue that a lot of them also verged on the realm of fantasy as well. Clips of Serling interviews are inserted into this Pioneers episode, and it's cool to hear his take on coming up with creative concepts for the show.
Where 'Star Trek' broke new ground was in the way it took on issues of race, gender, war, and even such diverse topics as drug abuse and nuclear proliferation. A neat trivia question involves the Trek episode called 'Plato's Stepchildren' which featured TV's very first inter-racial kiss between Captain Kirk (William Shatner) and Lieutenant Uhura (Nichelle Nichols). Groundbreaking at the time, it almost didn't happen when NBC execs were summoned to the set and weighed in against the idea. In a flamboyant move, Shatner and Nichols re-shot the scene with Captain Kirk crossing his eyes to ruin the effect. The original scene stayed as is, and remains somewhat controversial even to this day depending on who's telling the story.
With 'Lost in Space', you've got a whole different animal. The show was a campy adventure series right out of the gate, and producer Irwin Allen was more interested in appealing to youngsters than tackling social issues like Roddenberry. Though I watched the show when it originally aired, I never did quite like it as a teenager, although Angela Cartwright had me show up week after week. I never could figure out how Jonathan Harris took over the show as the villainous Dr. Zachary Scott, but it turns out that was the main reason why - he was so over the top that you wanted to see him get his butt kicked by any monster of the week they could come up with.
Interestingly, when I used to watch 'Star Trek' and 'Lost in Space' in the mid-Sixties, it never occurred to me that they were filmed in color - I only ever saw them in black and white. With the passage of time that puts all of these early shows in perspective, I can only echo the word of my favorite Trek character Dr. Spock when he calmly states - "Fascinating".
Back in the day I didn't know it, but 'The Twilight Zone' would wind up being my favorite TV series of all time. Rod Serling was a master story teller and he wrote about ninety of the series' one hundred and fifty two episodes. Though the sci-fi label fits a lot of his stories, I would argue that a lot of them also verged on the realm of fantasy as well. Clips of Serling interviews are inserted into this Pioneers episode, and it's cool to hear his take on coming up with creative concepts for the show.
Where 'Star Trek' broke new ground was in the way it took on issues of race, gender, war, and even such diverse topics as drug abuse and nuclear proliferation. A neat trivia question involves the Trek episode called 'Plato's Stepchildren' which featured TV's very first inter-racial kiss between Captain Kirk (William Shatner) and Lieutenant Uhura (Nichelle Nichols). Groundbreaking at the time, it almost didn't happen when NBC execs were summoned to the set and weighed in against the idea. In a flamboyant move, Shatner and Nichols re-shot the scene with Captain Kirk crossing his eyes to ruin the effect. The original scene stayed as is, and remains somewhat controversial even to this day depending on who's telling the story.
With 'Lost in Space', you've got a whole different animal. The show was a campy adventure series right out of the gate, and producer Irwin Allen was more interested in appealing to youngsters than tackling social issues like Roddenberry. Though I watched the show when it originally aired, I never did quite like it as a teenager, although Angela Cartwright had me show up week after week. I never could figure out how Jonathan Harris took over the show as the villainous Dr. Zachary Scott, but it turns out that was the main reason why - he was so over the top that you wanted to see him get his butt kicked by any monster of the week they could come up with.
Interestingly, when I used to watch 'Star Trek' and 'Lost in Space' in the mid-Sixties, it never occurred to me that they were filmed in color - I only ever saw them in black and white. With the passage of time that puts all of these early shows in perspective, I can only echo the word of my favorite Trek character Dr. Spock when he calmly states - "Fascinating".
