• In Defense of Fred Freiberger

    From Ubiquitous@21:1/5 to All on Mon May 6 13:35:38 2024
    XPost: rec.arts.tv

    Last week I created a video claiming that Fred Freiberger was responsible for the demise of such shows as "Star Trek", "Space 1999", "The Six Million
    Dollar Man" and others, but was he? We'll re-examine that today!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqn_DJdZQGw

    --
    Let's go Brandon!

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From anim8rfsk@21:1/5 to Ubiquitous on Mon May 6 14:46:02 2024
    XPost: rec.arts.tv

    Ubiquitous <weberm@polaris.net> wrote:
    Last week I created a video claiming that Fred Freiberger was responsible for the demise of such shows as "Star Trek", "Space 1999", "The Six Million Dollar Man" and others, but was he? We'll re-examine that today!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqn_DJdZQGw

    Man was an incompetent menace.


    --
    Let's go Brandon!





    --
    The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it is still on my list.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Rhino@21:1/5 to anim8rfsk@cox.net on Mon May 6 20:46:50 2024
    XPost: rec.arts.tv

    On Mon, 6 May 2024 14:46:02 -0700
    anim8rfsk <anim8rfsk@cox.net> wrote:

    Ubiquitous <weberm@polaris.net> wrote:
    Last week I created a video claiming that Fred Freiberger was
    responsible for the demise of such shows as "Star Trek", "Space
    1999", "The Six Million Dollar Man" and others, but was he? We'll re-examine that today!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqn_DJdZQGw

    Man was an incompetent menace.

    I recently saw a quote from Shatner where he defended Freiberger,
    saying he did the best he could with a severely reduced budget.

    Maybe Shatner wrote the IMDB article on Freiberger which says:

    ===========================================================
    Because of a planned European vacation, he then spurned an offer by
    Gene Roddenberry to produce Star Trek (1966) from the onset. However,
    in 1968, he took up the option to produce the show in its final season.
    By then, severe budgetary cuts (which resulted in many 'bottle show'
    episodes and lower quality scripts), the exodus of top creative talent
    and the take-over of Desilu by Paramount all had detrimental effects on
    a series which (despite its ever-loyal following) had not seen an
    increase in ratings since season one. Freiberger often butted heads
    with writers and directors and was criticised for overemphasizing
    action at the expense of character development. In the end, many people
    laid blame for the cancellation of "Star Trek" firmly at Freiberger's
    feet. Not everybody, including William Shatner and Robert H. Justman,
    agreed. Moreover, NBC's unreasonable re-slotting of "Star Trek" to the
    Friday 'hour of death' (10 P.M.) was definitely a chief contributing
    factor to the show's demise.

    After "Star Trek", Freiberger managed to get Space: 1999 (1975) to be
    picked up for a second season. He created new characters (dashing Tony Verdeschi and shape-shifting Maya, played by Catherine Schell) in an
    effort to boost ratings. He also penned three episodes himself under
    nom de plume Charles Woodgrove. However, the series did not survive and Freiberger's subsequent unhappy association with the final season of
    The Six Million Dollar Man (1974) put him again in the public mind as a scapegoat, earning him in some quarters the unkind, and certainly
    undeserved sobriquet 'the series killer'.

    The first interracial kiss on U.S. television (between Kirk and Uhura
    in the episode "Plato's Stepchildren") took place on his watch, though
    the praise went to Roddenberry who was not in any way associated with
    the episode.
    ===========================================================

    Let me stress that *I* am not taking sides here! I'm just providing a
    contrary view which may or may not be reasonable.

    --
    Rhino

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From BTR1701@21:1/5 to anim8rfsk@cox.net on Tue May 7 01:37:25 2024
    XPost: rec.arts.tv

    On May 6, 2024 at 6:27:29 PM PDT, "anim8rfsk" <anim8rfsk@cox.net> wrote:

    Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:
    On Mon, 6 May 2024 14:46:02 -0700
    anim8rfsk <anim8rfsk@cox.net> wrote:

    Ubiquitous <weberm@polaris.net> wrote:
    Last week I created a video claiming that Fred Freiberger was
    responsible for the demise of such shows as "Star Trek", "Space
    1999", "The Six Million Dollar Man" and others, but was he? We'll
    re-examine that today!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqn_DJdZQGw

    Man was an incompetent menace.

    I recently saw a quote from Shatner where he defended Freiberger,
    saying he did the best he could with a severely reduced budget.

    Maybe Shatner wrote the IMDB article on Freiberger which says:

    ===========================================================
    Because of a planned European vacation, he then spurned an offer by
    Gene Roddenberry to produce Star Trek (1966) from the onset.

    I’ve never heard that before and I’d go far enough as to call it a blatant
    lie

    However,
    in 1968, he took up the option to produce the show in its final season.
    By then, severe budgetary cuts (which resulted in many 'bottle show'
    episodes and lower quality scripts), the exodus of top creative talent
    and the take-over of Desilu by Paramount

    I’ll also call that a blatant lie. While it happened, it had happened at the first season.

    And weren't *all* the episodes of TOS "bottle show" episodes? I don't remember there being any kind of multiple episode or season-long story arcs.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From danny burstein@21:1/5 to atropos@mac.com on Tue May 7 01:53:25 2024
    XPost: rec.arts.tv

    In <z42cnSuzWbxIGKT7nZ2dnZfqn_GdnZ2d@giganews.com> BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> writes:

    [snip]

    And weren't *all* the episodes of TOS "bottle show" episodes? I don't remember

    there being any kind of multiple episode or season-long story arcs.

    well, the two episodes with Harcourt Fenton Mudd kind of,
    err, muddy the waters a bit on that one..




    --
    _____________________________________________________
    Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
    dannyb@panix.com
    [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From anim8rfsk@21:1/5 to Rhino on Mon May 6 18:27:29 2024
    XPost: rec.arts.tv

    Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:
    On Mon, 6 May 2024 14:46:02 -0700
    anim8rfsk <anim8rfsk@cox.net> wrote:

    Ubiquitous <weberm@polaris.net> wrote:
    Last week I created a video claiming that Fred Freiberger was
    responsible for the demise of such shows as "Star Trek", "Space
    1999", "The Six Million Dollar Man" and others, but was he? We'll
    re-examine that today!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqn_DJdZQGw

    Man was an incompetent menace.

    I recently saw a quote from Shatner where he defended Freiberger,
    saying he did the best he could with a severely reduced budget.

    Maybe Shatner wrote the IMDB article on Freiberger which says:

    ===========================================================
    Because of a planned European vacation, he then spurned an offer by
    Gene Roddenberry to produce Star Trek (1966) from the onset.

    I’ve never heard that before and I’d go far enough as to call it a blatant lie


    However,
    in 1968, he took up the option to produce the show in its final season.
    By then, severe budgetary cuts (which resulted in many 'bottle show'
    episodes and lower quality scripts), the exodus of top creative talent
    and the take-over of Desilu by Paramount

    I’ll also call that a blatant lie. While it happened, it had happened at
    the first season.

    all had detrimental effects on
    a series which (despite its ever-loyal following) had not seen an
    increase in ratings since season one. Freiberger often butted heads
    with writers and directors

    Because he was an idiot. For instance, what’s wildly considered the worst episode,Spock brain, was written as a comedy. Fryberger made the
    pronouncement that Star Trek doesn’t do comedy (because apparently none of the whole three episodes he had watched were comedy) and made them produce
    a comedy script as drama. This is, a deeply incompetent wretched waste of protoplasm.


    and was criticised for overemphasizing
    action at the expense of character development. In the end, many people
    laid blame for the cancellation of "Star Trek" firmly at Freiberger's
    feet. Not everybody, including William Shatner and Robert H. Justman,
    agreed. Moreover, NBC's unreasonable re-slotting of "Star Trek" to the
    Friday 'hour of death' (10 P.M.) was definitely a chief contributing
    factor to the show's demise.

    But that’s why Rodenberry left, and Fryberger got the job in the first
    place.



    After "Star Trek", Freiberger managed to get Space: 1999 (1975) to be
    picked up for a second season. He created new characters (dashing Tony Verdeschi and shape-shifting Maya, played by Catherine Schell) in an
    effort to boost ratings. He also penned three episodes himself under
    nom de plume Charles Woodgrove. However, the series did not survive

    Because he changed it from goofy stupid to vile derivative garbage


    and
    Freiberger's subsequent unhappy association with the final season of
    The Six Million Dollar Man (1974) put him again in the public mind as a scapegoat, earning him in some quarters the unkind, and certainly
    undeserved sobriquet 'the series killer'.

    Completely deserved


    The first interracial kiss on U.S. television (between Kirk and Uhura
    in the episode "Plato's Stepchildren") took place on his watch, though
    the praise went to Roddenberry who was not in any way associated with
    the episode.

    It’s not true in the first place. They don’t actually kiss and I’ve seen cites for half a dozen earlier interracial kisses.

    ===========================================================

    Let me stress that *I* am not taking sides here! I'm just providing a contrary view which may or may not be reasonable.


    It’s not.

    The two best anecdotes about Fryberger:

    They brought him in to see if he wanted to take the job and they wanted to
    show him a lot of Star Trek episodes. He watched three and told them to
    stop because he knew what they wanted. “tits in space“

    In the book about the making of space 1999, the author is in Fryberger‘s office when he throws a script at a writer and screams “why do you give me whipped cream when I want shit?”
    He then goes on to explain to the book author that television is supposed
    to be bad and it’s his job to make sure it is.

    I’ve known lots of producers like that that hate their job and hate the
    work and hate the audience, and I can only hope hate themselves

    --
    The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it is still on my list.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Rhino@21:1/5 to atropos@mac.com on Mon May 6 23:14:53 2024
    XPost: rec.arts.tv

    On Tue, 07 May 2024 01:37:25 +0000
    BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> wrote:

    On May 6, 2024 at 6:27:29 PM PDT, "anim8rfsk" <anim8rfsk@cox.net>
    wrote:

    Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:
    On Mon, 6 May 2024 14:46:02 -0700
    anim8rfsk <anim8rfsk@cox.net> wrote:

    Ubiquitous <weberm@polaris.net> wrote:
    Last week I created a video claiming that Fred Freiberger was
    responsible for the demise of such shows as "Star Trek", "Space
    1999", "The Six Million Dollar Man" and others, but was he?
    We'll re-examine that today!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqn_DJdZQGw

    Man was an incompetent menace.

    I recently saw a quote from Shatner where he defended Freiberger,
    saying he did the best he could with a severely reduced budget.

    Maybe Shatner wrote the IMDB article on Freiberger which says:

    ===========================================================
    Because of a planned European vacation, he then spurned an offer
    by Gene Roddenberry to produce Star Trek (1966) from the onset.

    I’ve never heard that before and I’d go far enough as to call it a blatant lie

    However,
    in 1968, he took up the option to produce the show in its final
    season. By then, severe budgetary cuts (which resulted in many
    'bottle show' episodes and lower quality scripts), the exodus of
    top creative talent and the take-over of Desilu by Paramount

    I’ll also call that a blatant lie. While it happened, it had
    happened at the first season.

    And weren't *all* the episodes of TOS "bottle show" episodes? I don't remember there being any kind of multiple episode or season-long
    story arcs.


    There *was* one two-parter early in the first season, The Menagerie -
    made up largely of scenes from the 1st pilot - which they made because
    they were behind schedule and had to get caught up.

    Season-long arcs weren't done by *anyone* in those days. That didn't
    begin until the early 80s with St. Elsewhere and Hill Street Blues
    (unless I've forgotten an earlier example).



    --
    Rhino

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From anim8rfsk@21:1/5 to atropos@mac.com on Tue May 7 00:15:45 2024
    XPost: rec.arts.tv

    BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> wrote:
    On May 6, 2024 at 6:27:29 PM PDT, "anim8rfsk" <anim8rfsk@cox.net> wrote:

    Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:
    On Mon, 6 May 2024 14:46:02 -0700
    anim8rfsk <anim8rfsk@cox.net> wrote:

    Ubiquitous <weberm@polaris.net> wrote:
    Last week I created a video claiming that Fred Freiberger was
    responsible for the demise of such shows as "Star Trek", "Space
    1999", "The Six Million Dollar Man" and others, but was he? We'll
    re-examine that today!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqn_DJdZQGw

    Man was an incompetent menace.

    I recently saw a quote from Shatner where he defended Freiberger,
    saying he did the best he could with a severely reduced budget.

    Maybe Shatner wrote the IMDB article on Freiberger which says:

    ===========================================================
    Because of a planned European vacation, he then spurned an offer by
    Gene Roddenberry to produce Star Trek (1966) from the onset.

    I’ve never heard that before and I’d go far enough as to call it a blatant
    lie

    However,
    in 1968, he took up the option to produce the show in its final season.
    By then, severe budgetary cuts (which resulted in many 'bottle show'
    episodes and lower quality scripts), the exodus of top creative talent
    and the take-over of Desilu by Paramount

    I’ll also call that a blatant lie. While it happened, it had happened at >> the first season.

    And weren't *all* the episodes of TOS "bottle show" episodes? I don't remember
    there being any kind of multiple episode or season-long story arcs.


    They used the wrong wording. They meant “ship board shows”
    The studio and the network we’re always at odds because the network wanted planet shows which were more expensive and the studio wanted ship board
    shows because they were more economical for obvious reasons.

    --
    The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it is still on my list.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From BTR1701@21:1/5 to anim8rfsk@cox.net on Tue May 7 12:33:05 2024
    XPost: rec.arts.tv

    In article
    <397877434.736757449.237126.anim8rfsk-cox.net@news.easynews.com>,
    anim8rfsk <anim8rfsk@cox.net> wrote:

    BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> wrote:
    On May 6, 2024 at 6:27:29 PM PDT, "anim8rfsk" <anim8rfsk@cox.net> wrote:

    Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:
    On Mon, 6 May 2024 14:46:02 -0700
    anim8rfsk <anim8rfsk@cox.net> wrote:

    Ubiquitous <weberm@polaris.net> wrote:
    Last week I created a video claiming that Fred Freiberger was
    responsible for the demise of such shows as "Star Trek", "Space
    1999", "The Six Million Dollar Man" and others, but was he? We'll
    re-examine that today!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqn_DJdZQGw

    Man was an incompetent menace.

    I recently saw a quote from Shatner where he defended Freiberger,
    saying he did the best he could with a severely reduced budget.

    Maybe Shatner wrote the IMDB article on Freiberger which says:

    ===========================================================
    Because of a planned European vacation, he then spurned an offer by
    Gene Roddenberry to produce Star Trek (1966) from the onset.

    I've never heard that before and I'd go far enough as to call it a
    blatant lie

    However, in 1968, he took up the option to produce the show in its
    final season. By then, severe budgetary cuts (which resulted in many
    'bottle show' episodes and lower quality scripts), the exodus of top
    creative talent and the take-over of Desilu by Paramount

    I'll also call that a blatant lie. While it happened, it had happened at >> the first season.

    And weren't *all* the episodes of TOS "bottle show" episodes? I don't remember there being any kind of multiple episode or season-long story arcs.

    They used the wrong wording. They meant "ship board shows"
    The studio and the network were always at odds because the network wanted planet shows which were more expensive and the studio wanted ship board
    shows because they were more economical for obvious reasons.

    Makes sense.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From dwilfong@domesticfabrics.com@21:1/5 to weberm@polaris.net on Thu May 9 13:20:32 2024
    XPost: rec.arts.tv

    In article <v1b4da$2mg70$3@dont-email.me>, weberm@polaris.net wrote:

    Last week I created a video claiming that Fred Freiberger was responsible
    for the demise of such shows as "Star Trek", "Space 1999", "The Six Million >Dollar Man" and others, but was he? We'll re-examine that today!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqn_DJdZQGw

    I disagree. Freiberger was a cut-rate producer/ writer / showrunner. Barry Morse left Space: 1999 initially over a request to take a salary cut for the second season. Morse did try to return and accept the pay cut, but other cast members had since been included so it was too late. The entire tone of 1999 changed for the worse. The interior base set was cut by half its size from season one. Freiberger was brought onto shows much cheaper than other showrunners at that time. Basically, he was like Glen Larson over at
    Universal. Cheap scripts, hack villains, pointless action scenes. Freiberger also helped kill off Six Million Dollar Man in its last season. The common theme among both series? The previous producers were either edged-out or quit on both and both show budgets were cut.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)