The exact moment Walter Koenig of Star Trek knew that the original series had been made for

Walter Koenig came to “Star Trek” only in its second season, but it is part of the legacy of the series thanks to its role as a Pavel Chekov brand (not to mention one of the few major actors in “the original series” always with us). An American television show features a Russian character as a good guy at the height of the Cold War? It was only one of the ways in which “Star Trek” pushed the envelope.

Unfortunately, while you read it, “Star Trek” only lasted two years after Koenig joined the cast in 1967; NBC canceled the show because of the low notes and the last episode was broadcast on June 3, 1969. This cancellation was not the end of “Star Trek” – it is a full -fledged media franchise – but it seemed that it was at the time.

Interviewed by trekmovie.com, Koenig claims that he knew in advance that “Star Trek” would not do season 3:

“In the third season, Jimmy [Doohan]George [Takei]And I filmed. We made a magazine shoot for Kids magazine, he was a teenager or 16, it was something like that … But while we were there, when we were clever the horse, we learned that to guess what, we changed: our program in the third season was not going to be eight on Monday evening. It would be at 10 a.m. Friday evening. As soon as I heard that – I mean, I was still in a caliphon on my horse – and I knew [that] Was we finished. “”

Koenig highlights a phenomenon – or a curse – in network television: the Friday evening death niche.

For most of the existence of television, we understand that children aged 18 to 35 do not want to spend their Friday evening in front of the television. Finally, briefly free from their 9-5 work, they prefer to launch their weekend by going out with friends or dates. Thus, television shows broadcast on Friday evening will win low notes and will be quickly canceled. If a show was transferred to a Friday evening time slot, it was historically treated as a sign that the network had lost confidence there.

Some of the victims of the slot machine on Friday evening include “Firefly”, “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” and “Happy Endings”. “Star Trek” was one of the oldest and most infamous victims. However, the reasons for the trend are intuitive; Even in the 1960s, when television was relatively new and “Star Trek” was still in production, Koenig understood what the moving of the time slot meant. He said to trekmovie.com:

“I am cynical by nature. And I knew that I would not have the same audience as I would do it at eight on Monday. They had brought me on board for the very obvious reason for the attraction for very young people, literally eight at about fourteen. And on Friday evening at 10 years old, they are either in bed, children of eight years old, or they are at a party or a seal, which was doing a seal Make a seal, which was the seal, the Antélés.

Young adults today are more soluble and more introverted than in the 20th century, but even if they stay inside, the traditional network and cable television (which was based on advertising revenues, hence the importance of high ratings at specific time slots) were largely moved by streaming. The two factors of the Friday evening death niche – notes and social models – have evolved in such a way as to cancel each other.