Re: (TFT) Re: TFT Digest V4 #225

[Joe Hartley <jh@brainiac.com>]

On Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:44:06 -0800
PvK <pvk@oz.net> wrote:
> Also it was interesting you bringing up the "wagon train in space" 
> analogy, because that also seems accurate to me in the way that 
> the "wild west" featured widely spread cities and outposts across 
> a great distance that could be traveled, while leaving plenty of 
> wild lands to discover and adventure inside the frontiers of the
> US territories.

For the youngsters out there, here's Roddenberry's original pitch 
for Star Trek:
STAR TREK is a "Wagon Train" concept -- built around characters who travel
to worlds "similar" to our own, and meet the action-adventure-drama which 
becomes our stories. Their transportation is the cruiser "S.S. Yorktown", 
performing a well-defined and long-range Exploration-Science-Security mission 
which helps create our format. [1]

"Wagon Train to the stars" is how this is now usually described.
Wagon Train was a popular TV series that ran from 1957 to 1965 about 
a wagon train's journey from Missouri to California.

The concept fit exactly with PvK's thoughts of the Wild West; out on
their own, often with no law available, the travelers run into new 
situations and people every week.

Replace the wagon with a spaceship, and American Indians with the
alien-of-the-week, and voila! - new TV series about a trek to the stars.

[1] http://leethomson.myzen.co.uk/Star_Trek/1_Original_Series/Star_Trek_Pitch.pdf

-- 
======================================================================
       Joe Hartley - UNIX/network Consultant - jh@brainiac.com
 Without deviation from the norm, "progress" is not possible. - FZappa
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