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Why so much director turnover season 1?

G

Grant

Commodore
Commodore
TOS had 16 directors in season one! Only 4 (Daniels, Pevney, McEveety & Senensky) became longtime contributors.
One (Daugherty) did 1 in season one and 1 in season 3

These guys were one and done...

Hart did "Mudd's Women" -- I guess he couldn't a weak script and got blame?
Newland did "Errand..." -- never came back. Why?.. solid job I thought.
O'Herlihey did "Tomorrow is.." -- okay episode
MacDougal did "Squire.." -- good episode
Sparr did "Shore Leave" -- solid
Gist did "Galileo..." -- I hate his direction in this
Dobkin did "Charlie X" -- good episode
Penn did "Enemy.." -- I don't like that he let Shatner emote so much as the "evil Kirk" I doubt that by the 3rd regular episode Shatner was bossing around the directors.
Sargent did "Corbomite..." -- fantastic episode...why not have him back?

Two & done directors....

Oswald did "Conscience.." & "Alt Factor" -- one good episode and one disaster....did they blame him for the 2nd one going real bad?
Goldstone did the pilot "Where No..."& "What Are Little..." -- direction seems solid on both.

Any thoughts on why the large turnover or was it just they found they guys they liked and stuck with them?
 
Trying to find people who could handle the work?

I note that Season two had very few directors. Many of whom cut their teeth in Season one.
 
Harvey Hart used a lot of carefully composed deep-focus shots in "Mudd's Women." The production ran a day over schedule.

"Who do you think you are, Orson Fucking Welles? This has to be in the can a week from Tuesday!"
 
I’ve always seen the 1st season a work in progress. Not everything is completely polished. From characters to stories to concepts. So may have been the same with directors?
Thinking Star Trek was pretty unique at its time, unlike today there’s a big pool of experienced people in science fiction television. I believe Star Trek in the 60’s was breaking new ground.
You can make a modern Star Trek episode today and bring in someone like say Jonathan Frakes who has a vast experience in front and behind the camera and knows trek very well.
 
Grant said:
TOS had 16 directors in season one! Only 4 (Daniels, Pevney, McEveety & Senensky) became longtime contributors.
One (Daugherty) did 1 in season one and 1 in season 3

These guys were one and done...

Hart did "Mudd's Women" -- I guess he couldn't a weak script and got blame?
Newland did "Errand..." -- never came back. Why?.. solid job I thought.
O'Herlihey did "Tomorrow is.." -- okay episode
MacDougal did "Squire.." -- good episode
Sparr did "Shore Leave" -- solid
Gist did "Galileo..." -- I hate his direction in this
Dobkin did "Charlie X" -- good episode
Penn did "Enemy.." -- I don't like that he let Shatner emote so much as the "evil Kirk" I doubt that by the 3rd regular episode Shatner was bossing around the directors.
Sargent did "Corbomite..." -- fantastic episode...why not have him back?

Two & done directors....

Oswald did "Conscience.." & "Alt Factor" -- one good episode and one disaster....did they blame him for the 2nd one going real bad?
Goldstone did the pilot "Where No..."& "What Are Little..." -- direction seems solid on both.

Any thoughts on why the large turnover or was it just they found they guys they liked and stuck with them?
Click to expand...
It may simply be wanting to try different people with different directing styles to see what works best.

TNG season 1 also had a lot of directors.

Corey Allen - 3
Paul Lynch - 2
Russ Mayberry - 1
Richard Compton - 1
Rob Bowman - 5
Richard Colla - 1
Cliff Bole - 3
James L. Conway - 2
Joseph L. Scanlon - 2
Michael Rhodes - 1
Kim Manners - 1
Mike Vejar - 1
Les Landau - 1
Win Phelps - 1
Robert Becker - 1



Bole, Landau, and Vejar ended up being VERY frequently used for all of the Berman era. (118 episodes between them.)

Allen, Lynch, Bowman, and Conway also directed more throughout the era... 50 episodes between them.

The others only worked season 1 or seasons 1-2.


ENTERPRISE season 1 also had a lot of directors... 17. (Though DS9 and VOYAGER had a relatively small amount, with 9 and 8 directors respectively for their first season.)
 
Last edited:
Alot has to do with timing. All three seasons only had firm commitments, starting in about February, for 16 episodes more or less. The first 16 were doled out based on personal connections and availability, and just had to get scheduled--not to mention the completed works of the pilots. The second 13 started to settle down when they liked Pevney, and Gene Coon brought in some of his connections.

Daniels had proven himself, as had Peveny, so by Season 2 they were comfortable in making the alternating commitments. Then the Paramount deal closed, Gene Coon left, adhering to the budget tightened, and in short it was a new ball game.

Same for Season 3, except the budget and schedule were even tighter and Freddie needed "firemen" to get those shows filmed on time. Daniels and Senensky left. Then Justman left and the final 8 or so went mostly to guys like Herb Wallerstein and David Alexander with no room, time, or inclination for "art".
 
If you read the behind the scenes books, it really all came down to number crunching and keeping on budget. TOS was a very ambitious series with a very tight budget. Directors needed to come in on time. If I recall correctly, they had six days to film an episode and new directors frequently ran over the deadline, necessitating expensive overtime and perhaps another day of shooting. This was the kiss of death; if a director didn’t manage to complete the episode in the allotted time, they weren’t invited back, regardless of the quality of their work.
 
I'm not sure how the used book market is in the UK, but to me that seems like a reasonable price.

Regarding the topic, was 16 directors in one season atypical for television of TOS's time?

Go back a little further and the Twilight Zone's first season in 1959 had 19 directors for 36 episodes.

Kor
 
Newt said:
Just a used copy like this
Just don’t wanna spend lots on a used book in bad quality.
Gonna keep looking
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/17686363...VYYhKjbRpa&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY
Click to expand...
If you are able to sign up at Internet Archive, you can read these books for free.

archive.org

The making of Star trek : Whitfield, Stephen E : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

414 pages 18 cm
archive.org

 
Grant said:
Any thoughts on why the large turnover or was it just they found they guys they liked and stuck with them?
Click to expand...
Honestly, finding four long term directors out of a season doesn't sound bad to me. So yeah, I'd attribute this to "They found the guys they liked and stuck with them." Same with the writers. The people who did a good job in the time allotted stuck around. The rest didn't.
 
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