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The original Star Trek series was pitched by Gene Rodenberry as a wagon train in space. It’s a telling example of the fickle nature of entertainment executives that you’d be hard pressed to get any sort of Western series greenlit these days, but back in the 1960s Westerns were all the rage and a science fiction series had to be explained in those terms for it to make sense to the people with the money. This is, naturally, why the opening narration refers to space “the final frontier”, hoping to hook in that same mass demographic that kept Gunsmoke on the air for 20 years. It didn’t work so well and Trek was cancelled after only three seasons of disappointing ratings, despite a massive letter writing campaign on the part of the small but rabid fanbase it did attract. Possibly the most ironic bit of the story? The final episode of the original series aired on June 3, 1969, barely one month before Neil Armstrong’s boots hit the lunar surface and America was suddenly gripped with space madness.
Weird to think about that now since your average person, much less your average nerd, is far more likely to show recognition of the name James Kirk than Matt Dillon. A new TV Show or movie might change that for the Marshal, but again, Westerns are the hard sell now, not science fiction. Even Firefly seemed to have suffered for daring to wear its Western influences on its sleeve. The Star Trek franchise has always been a little more subtle than that… except, of course, that to this day the famous line echoes down through the voice of new Captains of the Federation: “Space… the final frontier…”
Makes you wonder what neglected series of today might become the franchises of tomorrow? I’m sure Browncoats would be quick to latch onto the parallels in Firefly‘s case, but I’d argue that’s premature, and the only final arbiter seems to be the test of time itself in terms of the legacy a given work will have. The term “Instant Classic”, fond as we might be of tossing it around, is nonsense. Things that are considered classics might have been recognized and lauded in their time, or might have been derided, or even ignored and consigned to obscurity until rediscovered by later generations.
But does the idea that your average modern Comic-Con attendee would look blankly at you for bringing up Marshal Matt Dillon diminish Gunsmoke‘s status? That’s probably a dangerous claim to make, given that the only thing perhaps more fickle than entertainment executives is pop culture. People who review television for a living still seem pretty smitten with it. Probably people who write television for a living, as well. Perhaps even though we might not know Matt Dillon specifically, we have our own versions of his likeness in Deadwood and Justified.
Speaking of which, I still have to work my way through some more episodes of Justified. Haven’t seen enough yet to really feel comfortable with a review here, but I won’t make you wait 40 years for my opinion. Time makes the classics, but that doesn’t stop us from jawing back and forth a bit in the meanwhile.