A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

© 1973 Filmation and Paramount Television. STAR TREK © CBS Studios Someone on Quora asked this question: In Star Trek: The Animated Series, why was Chekov replaced by an officer with three arms as the ship's navigator? In 1973, when Filmation got the contract from NBC and Paramount Television (the entity that inherited the Star Trek intellectual property after Paramount Pictures purchased Desilu in 1967) to produce Star Trek: The Animated Series , it faced one of the main issues that dogged creator/producer Gene Roddenberry when he was making the live action show: budget limitations. Television networks are nothing but penurious when it comes to paying for production costs under most circumstances. They are, after all, a business entity and not a charity ward for actors, writers, producers, and directors, and they’re only willing to shell out top dollar for proven genres and well-known talent because, in the suits’ estimation, that’s what gets the audience to park its ...

For the entire review, please see: Relics: Scotty treks again in Star Trek: The Next Generation's Episode 130 In late 1986, when Paramount Pictures announced that its television division was producing a syndicated follow-up to  Star Trek ,  creator Gene Roddenberry decreed that  there would be very few links between  Star Trek: The Next Generation (ST-TNG)  and  The Original Series (TOS)  in order for the new show to stand on its own.  Published articles in contemporary science fiction-related magazines such as  Starlog  reported that Roddenberry had deliberately set  ST-TNG  100 years after the first season of  Star Trek  so that there would be very few possibilities for crossover appearances of the original series cast.  There would also be no references as to the fate of major characters such as Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the rest of the familiar crew, presumably because the actors who played them would still...