"Spectre of the Gun" set "West of Mars"?

[Christopher]

I think actual ghost-town locations would've been more for movies. TV shows could rarely afford the expense of going more than a certain distance from LA, so TV Westerns would generally have relied on backlots and on nearby locations like Vasquez Rocks, Bronson Canyon, and the like.

 

[urbandefault]

It could have worked in a backlot setting, but I don't think it would have been as effective.

Here is a panoramic view of the "40 Acres" western town set circa 1965.

http://www.retroweb.com/40acres/40acres_Western_town_panorama_b_1965.jpg

 

[Christopher]

Would Paramount have still been using 40 Acres when "Spectre" was filmed in May 1968? Paramount sold it off to a different owner sometime that year, and neither Star Trek nor Mission: Impossible used it after their 1966-7 seasons. If "Spectre" had used a backlot Western street, it would probably have been the one on Paramount's own lot.

 

[urbandefault]

Would Paramount have still been using 40 Acres when "Spectre" was filmed in May 1968? Paramount sold it off to a different owner sometime that year, and neither Star Trek nor Mission: Impossible used it after their 1966-7 seasons. If "Spectre" had used a backlot Western street, it would probably have been the one on Paramount's own lot.

No idea. That's just the first one I thought of and knew where to find the pic.

 

[plynch]

Re. DC's opinion of LiS, is there a biography of her? She seems like a quality-oriented person. She rose from the ranks of what, GR's secretary? But did she have a background in writing before that?

 

[Harvey]

In regards to the series being easily able to shoot on the backlot, the budget wouldn't have supported it. The other episodes that shot on the backlot (Miri, Archons, and City) all broke $200,000 according to my figures. That was over the first season budget and well over the third season budget.

 

[Christopher]

Re. DC's opinion of LiS, is there a biography of her? She seems like a quality-oriented person. She rose from the ranks of what, GR's secretary? But did she have a background in writing before that?

IMDb says she has TV writing credits going back to 1960. She was already a writer when she became GR's secretary.

In regards to the series being easily able to shoot on the backlot, the budget wouldn't have supported it. The other episodes that shot on the backlot (Miri, Archons, and City) all broke $200,000 according to my figures. That was over the first season budget and well over the third season budget.

What about the second-season episodes with exteriors shot on the Paramount lot, like "Piece of the Action" or "Patterns of Force" or "Assignment: Earth"? As I've said, I don't think Paramount still owned the Culver City backlot by the time "Spectre" was made, so there was no chance it would've been shot there anyway. The budgetary comparison should therefore be to episodes shot on the Paramount lot itself.

 

[Harvey]

What about the second-season episodes with exteriors shot on the Paramount lot, like "Piece of the Action" or "Patterns of Force" or "Assignment: Earth"? As I've said, I don't think Paramount still owned the Culver City backlot by the time "Spectre" was made, so there was no chance it would've been shot there anyway. The budgetary comparison should therefore be to episodes shot on the Paramount lot itself.

Unfortunately, I don't have the budget figures of "Patterns of Force" or "A Piece of the Action" at the moment (there's a big swath of season two episodes that aren't on the Roddenberry side of the UCLA collection, although I have high hopes that the Justman papers will fill in the gaps).

The figure I have for "Assignment: Earth," somewhat implausibly, indicates it was the most expensive episode of the series outside of the two pilot episodes. Clearly more research is required there.

 

[Maurice]

^^^Let's see Seven's office suite, the launch center exteriors and control room, the pen prop, the street set location, the gantry and the chunk of the rocket, trained animal and wrangler, new visual effects, rear projection...I can see where it would be more expensive than usual.

 

[Botany Bay]

Yes, and also would Lansing and Garr have cost more than the standard guest star? I mean, they were effectively the stars of the "pilot".

 

[Christopher]

Wasn't Lansing the only TOS guest star to get a credit at the top of Act I? That would surely have entailed a higher salary than normal.

 

[Harvey]

Maybe. But the figure I have, from memory, was close to $300,000. WAY over budget, obviously.

 

[Maurice]

Maybe. But the figure I have, from memory, was close to $300,000. WAY over budget, obviously.

You showed me those figures...I don't think it was anywhere near $300K, more like $240K. But I'm on a writer's retreat this week so not near my main computer, so I can't look at the docs there, and gmail is being a $#^& right now, so I can't look in my mail archive.

CORRECTION:

Assignment: Earth — $288,049.00 (estimated)
The City On the Edge of Forever — $250,396.71 (actual)

 

[Harvey]

Yep, those are the numbers I have. I actually have copies of all the budget information about "Assignment: Earth" (at least, those from the Roddenberry half of the archives) in my possession now, because the cost seemed a little bewildering.

 

[SpHeRe31459]

Just wanted to make a little aside in the thread and say thanks to excellent discussion going on in this thread I was drawn to go and watch "Spectre..." and "The Empath" tonight. Both episodes are ones I didn't really like much as kid and so I've just sort of continued to skip over them. I think I like "Spectre..." now that I've really given it a proper re-watch. "The Empath" still isn't all that hot and much of it feels like it belongs in an Outer Limits episode not Trek. However I fully enjoyed the use of minimalism, eerie shadows and light, etc.

 

[plynch]

I like the Empath's emphasis on someone learning self-sacrifice; and Kirk's seeming to get through to the aliens at the end, though it is left a bit ambiguous.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

"The Empath" still isn't all that hot and much of it feels like it belongs in an Outer Limits episode not Trek.

There's a lot of parallels to The Cage though (if flipped around a bit). The Vians were reminiscent of the Talosians. There was a caged experiment with emotional manipulation, though this time focused on the captive subject not the Captain. In The Cage Pike's strong emotions allows him to break his captivity while in The Empath it's through keeping emotions in check. It's not one-to-one but there's similarities.

 

[SpHeRe31459]

"The Empath" still isn't all that hot and much of it feels like it belongs in an Outer Limits episode not Trek.

There's a lot of parallels to The Cage though (if flipped around a bit). The Vians were reminiscent of the Talosians. There was a caged experiment with emotional manipulation, though this time focused on the captive subject not the Captain. In The Cage Pike's strong emotions allows him to break his captivity while in The Empath it's through keeping emotions in check. It's not one-to-one but there's similarities.

Agreed. As a kid I actually thought The Empath was some kind of continuation of the The Cage storyline, and the whole dark formless minimalism thing actually kind of freaked me out at the time. The Vians look a heck of a lot like the Talosians, and they even use an illusion when they trick Kirk, Spock, and Gem into seeing Scotty and a rescue party.

 

[SpHeRe31459]

I like the Empath's emphasis on someone learning self-sacrifice; and Kirk's seeming to get through to the aliens at the end, though it is left a bit ambiguous.

Yes, that's the more Trek-like part of it for sure. To me the beginning is very Outer Limits-ish and then starts to take on a more Trek tone.