"Pioneers of Television" on PBS
 

The show began this week with the first installment "Science Fiction".
It focused on the top 3 writers on TV during the 60's &70's.
Rod Sterling (Twilight Zone), Gene Roddenbury (Star Trek) and Irwin Allen (Lost in Space).
It was enjoyable, hearing some of the original stars describe their experiences and hear some of the "behind-the-scenes" stories they shared.

Here are a couple stories that I didn't know.

Star Trek: The show had the first inter-racial kiss on TV, and it almost didn't happen. The TV execs thought it was too controversial and made Gene refilm the scene. Unfortunately, Kirk (Shattner) didn't want the scene changed, so in the pivottal scene where he was "supposed" to kiss Ohura and look up at the camera, he didn't kiss her (per the execs request) and looked up to the camera WITH HIS EYES CROSSED, thus ruining that shot. They had to air the original footage, and the rest was history.

Lost in Space: Jonathan Harris (Dr. Smith) had come from a poor family in New York, and as a child, his mother rented out his bed.
Jonathan spent part of his childhood sleeping on their dining room table.

Some of the funny bits were things like Irwin Allen being "thrifty" (They fell just short of calling him cheap. He was producing a number of shows at the same time, so he would reuse cast and characters between them. A monster from Lost in Space would show up on :Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" the next week, and possibly on "The Time Tunnel" the week after that.

I found it quite entertaining and enjoyable.

The next segment is "The Westerns" which should be interesting for anyone that like Gunsmoke, Bonanza, The Big Valley, Wagon Train, and others.