Star Trek having a cheap / low budget a misnomer?

[trekfan_1]

Today I asked chatbot "During the 60s what were considered the most expensive TV shows to produce?

Star Trek came up first at 190K per episode.

I have seen Trek retrospectives where even the production people themselves lament about the " low budget " they had to work with. Obviously compared to motion pictures it had a low budget but not compared to other shows of the time apparently.

Is the whole TOS was done " on the cheap " a misnomer?

Primitive sets, effects and costumes compared to today for sure. But it was not "cheap" to produce at all.

 

[fireproof78]

Yes, it is. It was not cheap to produce, nor was it "low effort." The effects were appropriate for the era, and many of the props were produced purely by designer imagination, not utilizing existing items, which added to the cost.

Quick research says roughly 190k an episode production cost, which comes to a million in today's dollars, based upon the math of one dollar in the 60s is now worth 10.33 today.

That's simple math for me. Others could probably speak more accurately.

 

[Esteban]

$190,000 in September of 1966 was worth $$1,833,139.76 in November of 24, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

FWIW, a report from FilmLA in 2018 said the average budget of a TV drama then was between 3.1 and 15 million dollars per episode...but of course lavish entries from HBO, etc, were factored in.

In 1969, reportedly the most expensive TV hour was "Land of the Giants" at $250,000.

From that information, I would judge that Star Trek was not cheap, but a hell of a good bargain!

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

They didn't have enough money to do what they wanted, but they had a very good budget for a US TV show at the time. You get less production value for your money with science fiction, especially back then, so it looked cheaper than it was.

 

[Noname Given]

Today I asked chatbot "During the 60s what were considered the most expensive TV shows to produce?

Star Trek came up first at 190K per episode.

I have seen Trek retrospectives where even the production people themselves lament about the " low budget " they had to work with. Obviously compared to motion pictures it had a low budget but not compared to other shows of the time apparently.

Is the whole TOS was done " on the cheap " a misnomer?

Primitive sets, effects and costumes compared to today for sure. But it was not "cheap" to produce at all.

The show had the highest per episode budget foe a science fiction TV show in the first two seasons and the visual effects were on par with theatrical science fiction films of the era. You could compare it *especially in the 3rd season - with some (not all) shots from 2001 A Space Odyssey even. The sound design was also very well done and consistent.

 

[Qonundrum]

Yes, it is. It was not cheap to produce, nor was it "low effort." The effects were appropriate for the era, and many of the props were produced purely by designer imagination, not utilizing existing items, which added to the cost.

Quick research says roughly 190k an episode production cost, which comes to a million in today's dollars, based upon the math of one dollar in the 60s is now worth 10.33 today.

That's simple math for me. Others could probably speak more accurately.

TOS was extremely expensive, even if it looked cheap by the late-80s due to advancements in effects and production technologies.

In 1987 dough, it'd be $666,172.84 per episode. Each TNG episode had cost at least $1million per episode, after divvying up the whole season into individual episodes' needs and all the other budgeting fun stuff. So TNG got nearly double that of TOS and as season 1 of TOS had 29 episodes.

$190k to 2024 dough is $1,850,113.27...

And how the money put into "The Cage" could only be recovered if other shows used the same sets, etc, hence the clever ways of putting "The Cage" into "The Menagerie", airing WNMHGB despite it being a pilot (hence being aired nearly mid-season and with big changes that would have confused many on initial viewing) and so on.

Heck, a lot of 60s shows had sets for hotels, airports, etc, that clearly looked like a small studio space cutoff. This started to change in the 70s, of course, as location filming became cheaper to do. Side fun note, NBC's other show, "I Spy" (1965), helped pioneer a lot of efficiencies in location production - which was crucial as they flew around the world, but still had time for the occasional studio shoot where it's... still sometimes obvious that it's a studio set, but that's par for the course and a fair amount of it matched up considerably well for the time.

 

[BillJ]

...airing WNMHGB despite it being a pilot (hence being aired nearly mid-season and with big changes that would have confused many on initial viewing) and so on.

Wasn't it the third episode aired?

 

[Qonundrum]

Wasn't it the third episode aired?

Oops. Just looked it up and it was aired third. Still, two weeks after seeing big bold red everywhere and now it's more austere and different looking control panels and screens, a fair portion of the audience still would have been confused if they'd remembered enough detail.

 

[BillJ]

Oops. Just looked it up and it was aired third. Still, two weeks after seeing big bold red everywhere and now it's more austere and different looking control panels and screens, a fair portion of the audience still would have been confused if they'd remembered enough detail.

Trek fans are mostly smart, I'm sure they figured it out.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Wasn't it the third episode aired?

yep.

In 1987 dough, it'd be $666,172.84 per episode. Each TNG episode had cost at least $1million per episode, after divvying up the whole season into individual episodes' needs and all the other budgeting fun stuff. So TNG got nearly double that of TOS and as season 1 of TOS had 29 episodes.

I thought some of the sets in TNG looked like they could have come from the Sixties. (Not the ship interiors)

 

[Ssosmcin]

Star Trek was more expensive than Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Lost in Space, the two contemporary weekly SF shows. Voyage was more effects intensive than LiS, generally, and both shows often went over budget. However, they were able to do more with their money because they shared props, sets and costumes and also because a lot of their overhead was absorbed by Fox - both were studio productions, while Star Trek wasn't until Paramount bought Desilu (and then immediately cut the budget).

Star Trek created all of their sets from scratch. A lot of the Irwin Allen shows either relied on movie props (Voyage used sets from the feature film), military surplus or NASA cast offs (the Burroughs computers were everywhere) and because they were from the real world, they had a lot of details that wouldn't necessarily find in sets from scratch. As far as visually, there was a sense of reality to the standing sets of the IA shows. Star Trek had a more sleek, smooth look. And TBH the planet sets looked no more or less real than the Pondarosa set or the Dodge City set with the painted background.

The effects were great for their time and the Enterprise banking away from camera into the moving stars is a lot more dynamic than the Jupiter 2 flying from left to right against a painted planet. Don't get me wrong, the Lydecker's did amazing work with models and the Flying Sub footage is incredible. But Roddenberry didn't want models on stings and the Enterprise miniature was too damned big for that. It's precisely that size which makes it as real as it is.

Star Trek was not cheap and even in the third season was more expensive than its contemporaries.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

The other show being filmed on the Desilu lot, 'Mission: Impossible' was given a budget by CBS, of $170,000 per episode in its first season, with Desilu kicking in additional funds to cover overruns, bringing the total per episode budget to $186,865 per episode.

The pilot was budgeted at $440,346 and ended up costing Desilu $575,744.

Twenty-two of the twenty-eight episodes filmed in the first season went over budget - the episode that went the least over budget 'Shock!' was over by $820. The episode that went over budget the most, 'Old Man Out', cost CBS an additional $84,000.​

 

[ZapBrannigan]

The other show being filmed on the Desilu lot, 'Mission: Impossible' was given a budget by CBS, of $170,000 per episode in its first season, with Desilu kicking in additional funds to cover overruns, bringing the total per episode budget to $186,865 per episode.

The pilot was budgeted at $440,346 and ended up costing Desilu $575,744.

Twenty-two of the twenty-eight episodes filmed in the first season went over budget - the episode that went the least over budget 'Shock!' was over by $820. The episode that went over budget the most, 'Old Man Out', cost CBS an additional $84,000.​

Seems like Mission: Impossible was forgiven. As Kirk would say, high viewership covers a multitude of sins.

 

[Frontis]

Well when you see the stings holding the puppets who are the aliens sometimes it looks somehow cheap.
But for me this also represents the charme that makes me love TOS.

 

[M'Sharak]

Well when you see the st[r]ings holding the puppets who are the aliens sometimes it looks somehow cheap.

Bear in mind that those strings were also completely invisible until 2-3 decades after the original airing. Viewed from that far after the fact (and with 90s / later visual effects to which to compare them) a lot of 60s effects lose some of the impact they once had.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

Seems like Mission: Impossible was forgiven. As Kirk would say, high viewership covers a multitude of sins.

Mission's ratings were no better than Star Trek.
Season One - #51
Season Two - #32
Season Three - #11
Season Four - #53
Season Five - #33
Season Six - #31
Season Seven - #57

Only one 'M:I' episode, Season Three's 'The System', made the Neilsen Top Ten, peaking at #8. Only one other episode made the Top Twenty.

And Season Three was the most expensive yet - every episode had a budget of $185,000, and every episode except one, 'The Diplomat', went over budget.

The two part episode, 'The Bunker', budgeted at $370,000, went three days over schedule and $142,600 over budget, exceeding $511,000. The series cost Desilu/Paramount $830,000 for the season.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Mission's ratings were no better than Star Trek.
Season One - #51
Season Two - #32
Season Three - #11
Season Four - #53
Season Five - #33
Season Six - #31
Season Seven - #57

Only one 'M:I' episode, Season Three's 'The System', made the Neilsen Top Ten, peaking at #8. Only one other episode made the Top Twenty.

And Season Three was the most expensive yet - every episode had a budget of $185,000, and every episode except one, 'The Diplomat', went over budget.

The two part episode, 'The Bunker', budgeted at $370,000, went three days over schedule and $142,600 over budget, exceeding $511,000. The series cost Desilu/Paramount $830,000 for the season.

Well if they cost so much, and if the ratings really were no better than Star Trek, then why did M:I get seven seasons?

 

[IanFryer]

The other show being filmed on the Desilu lot, 'Mission: Impossible' was given a budget by CBS, of $170,000 per episode in its first season, with Desilu kicking in additional funds to cover overruns, bringing the total per episode budget to $186,865 per episode.

The pilot was budgeted at $440,346 and ended up costing Desilu $575,744.

Twenty-two of the twenty-eight episodes filmed in the first season went over budget - the episode that went the least over budget 'Shock!' was over by $820. The episode that went over budget the most, 'Old Man Out', cost CBS an additional $84,000.​

Did it cost CBS an additional $84,000? I would have thought any budget overruns would have been paid by Desilu, on the principle of deficit funding. Desilu would in theory start to get their money back when the show entered syndication. That's one reason why Lucy sold the studio to Paramount. It was a relatively small entity with four network shows on air, three of which were costing more to make than the networks were paying them.

 

[IanFryer]

Well if they cost so much, and if the ratings really were no better than Star Trek, then why did M:I get seven seasons?

That's a really good question.

 

[Christopher]

Star Trek was more expensive than Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Lost in Space, the two contemporary weekly SF shows. Voyage was more effects intensive than LiS, generally, and both shows often went over budget. However, they were able to do more with their money because they shared props, sets and costumes and also because a lot of their overhead was absorbed by Fox - both were studio productions, while Star Trek wasn't until Paramount bought Desilu (and then immediately cut the budget).

Desilu was a studio. They filmed Trek, M:I, and Mannix on their own studio lot on Gower Street and the Culver City backlot, both of which they'd purchased from RKO in 1957. The Gower Street lot was adjacent to the Paramount lot, and the two were merged when Gulf & Western bought them both. (Paramount didn't buy Desilu; G&W bought Paramount Pictures and Desilu in succession and renamed Desilu as Paramount Television.)

Star Trek created all of their sets from scratch. A lot of the Irwin Allen shows either relied on movie props (Voyage used sets from the feature film), military surplus or NASA cast offs (the Burroughs computers were everywhere) and because they were from the real world, they had a lot of details that wouldn't necessarily find in sets from scratch. As far as visually, there was a sense of reality to the standing sets of the IA shows. Star Trek had a more sleek, smooth look. And TBH the planet sets looked no more or less real than the Pondarosa set or the Dodge City set with the painted background.

In Roddenberry's original 1964 series pitch, he proposed a couple of budget-saving measures that weren't used: acquiring sets from recently completed movies or TV movies, and setting 3-4 stories on the same world so the sets could be reused. I'm surprised they never did either of those. (I particularly like the latter; how can you explore an entire world in just a few days? Sticking around the same planet for multiple adventures would've made a lot of sense.) I'm also surprised they never built an episode around stock footage like The Time Tunnel did routinely. There weren't that many Paramount sci-fi movies that would've worked, but maybe something historical could've worked for an Earth-parallel planet. They did use a bit of historical-movie stock footage in the Guardian of Forever, but that was it.

The other show being filmed on the Desilu lot, 'Mission: Impossible' was given a budget by CBS, of $170,000 per episode in its first season, with Desilu kicking in additional funds to cover overruns, bringing the total per episode budget to $186,865 per episode.​

I presume Mannix was filmed there too.

Bear in mind that those strings were also completely invisible until 2-3 decades after the original airing.

That's actually not true at all. Allan Asherman's 1981 The Star Trek Compendium, published less than 14 years after "Catspaw" came out (dated January '81 and thus probably on the shelves by December '80) and decades before TOS was remastered in HD, points out that the alien puppets were "disappointing" because they were "operated with thick, black threads that are painfully obvious even after the puppets have stopped moving." Even for its day, it was a badly done effect.

As I recall, part of the reason the Lydeckers' miniature ships were flown on horizontal wires is that it was easier to hide horizontal wires in a TV image because they could vanish between the scan lines, while vertical wires tended to be easy to spot.