The Lieutenant is an American television series, the first created by Gene Roddenberry. It aired on NBC on Saturday evenings in the 1963-1964 television schedule. It was produced by Arena Productions, one of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's most successful in-house production companies of the 1960s. Situated at Camp Pendleton, the West Coast base of the U.S. Marine Corps, The Lieutenant focuses on the men of the Corps in peace time with a Cold War backdrop. The title character is Second Lieutenant William Tiberius Rice, a rifle platoon leader and one of the training instructors at Camp Pendleton. An hour-long drama, The Lieutenant explores the lives of enlisted Marines and officers alike.
The series was released on DVD in two half-season sets by the Warner Archive Collection on August 14, 2012.
Video The Lieutenant
Synopsis
Gary Lockwood starred as USMC Second Lieutenant William Tiberius Rice, a recent graduate of the United States Naval Academy who had been assigned his first command, that of a rifle platoon. Rice is a young, educated idealist who still has much to learn from an older mentor. Robert Vaughn played Captain Raymond Rambridge, Rice's company commander, an up-from-the-ranks officer. Richard Anderson, remembered for playing Oscar Goldman in The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, had a recurring role as battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Steve Hiland, and Linda Evans, later known for her roles on The Big Valley and as Krystle Carrington in Dynasty, appeared in several early episodes as Colonel Hiland's daughter Nan, who flirted with Rice.
Maps The Lieutenant
Production and broadcast
Actor Gary Lockwood was twenty-six years of age and still an apprentice actor at the time the series premiered. Lockwood received his stage "family" name from early mentor Joshua Logan, who had participated in Mister Roberts and Picnic and whose middle name was Lockwood. A former UCLA college football player who could be violent and quick-tempered, and who had seriously injured a man in a brawl at a party, Lockwood tried to withdraw from the series program at the last moment, hoping to concentrate on films. He did not do so because the producers and network executives convinced him that there would be unpleasant payback if he did. Lockwood later compared being a TV star to being a jet pilot: many experts, he said, worked behind the scenes and then the pilot entered the hot seat and made it all work.
As of April 2016, The Lieutenant was being transmitted on the GetTV digital OTA network on Wednesday evenings (CDT 1900hr, EDT 2000hr) in a four, back-to-back, one hour and fifteen minute/episode 'block' format. These transmissions did not follow the original airdate order.
Controversy
One episode of The Lieutenant was never actually transmitted. The installment, titled "To Set It Right," which was written by Lee Erwin, was about racial prejudice, and featured Nichelle Nichols as the fiancee of a black Marine, portrayed by Don Marshall, with Dennis Hopper as the antagonist to that Marine. The subject of race was considered taboo in entertainment television in 1964, and because the network refused to broadcast "To Set It Right" or even pay for it, MGM had to shoulder the entire cost of production. The Paley Center for Media in New York City possesses a videotape of the episode. This episode was eventually transmitted on the cable channel TNT in the early 1990s.
It was Roddenberry's frustrations over "To Set It Right" not being broadcast, and the fact that MGM Television had to bear the installment's entire financial burden, that inspired and affirmed his decision to turn Star Trek into an allegorical production.
After The Lieutenant
The Lieutenant performed well in the ratings, considering the competition from The Jackie Gleason Show on CBS. The program had occupied the time slot previously held by the legal drama Sam Benedict, which starred Edmond O'Brien and Richard Rust. Rust also guest starred in an episode of The Lieutenant. Despite its success and promise, The Lieutenant was nevertheless canceled after only one season because, according to Roddenberry, the Vietnam War had made present-day military dramas toxic for television. In the final episode of the series, "To Kill A Man," Rice is sent to a fictitious Asian country based on Vietnam as an advisor, his assignment as such mirroring the very same real-life situation for which the series had been canceled.
Roddenberry recruited Lockwood one more time, in "Where No Man Has Gone Before," the second pilot installment for Star Trek, as Lieutenant Commander Gary Mitchell.
A middle name would be reused for Star Trek. The title character in The Lieutenant was Second Lieutenant William Tiberius Rice; on the original series of Star Trek, the title character was given as "James T. Kirk." It was not until the animated series that writer David Gerrold replaced the "T," giving us Captain James Tiberius Kirk; however, that he chose "Tiberius" was purely coincidental. According to Gerrold, he had been influenced by I, Claudius, and had approached Roddenberry with his choice of middle name, but it was not until 2014 that Gerrold learned of the earlier use.
Roddenberry would later reuse the name and initial "William T." for Commander William Riker, portrayed by Jonathan Frakes in Star Trek: The Next Generation. However, Riker's middle name was Thomas.
The Lieutenant also brought together several other actors--among them Ricardo Montalbán, Leonard Nimoy, Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig, and Majel Barrett--who would later join Roddenberry in Star Trek.
Also available on the DVD release of The Lieutenant - The Complete Series, Part 2 was a feature film version of the episode "To Kill a Man" that was released internationally, though not in the United States.
Cast members
Regulars
- Gary Lockwood - Second Lieutenant William Tiberius Rice
- Robert Vaughn - Captain Raymond Rambridge
- John Milford - Sergeant Kagey
- Henry Beckman - Major Al Barker
- Richard Anderson - Lieutenant Colonel Steve Hiland
- Don Penny - Lieutenant Harris
- Carmen Phillips - Lily
- Steve Franken - Lieutenant Samwell 'Sanpan' Panosian [Season 1, 1963]
- Chris Noel - the regular female cast member, who never had a regular "character;" Gene Roddenberry had her acting out different characters each week
Prior to his selection as The Lieutenant, Lockwood had appeared as magazine researcher Eric Jason in the ABC series Follow the Sun during the 1961-1962 season.
Robert Vaughn
Vaughn received the same compensation as Lockwood, even though he was usually in only one scene per episode. Vaughn asked both MGM Television and Norman Felton (under whose Arena Productions banner The Lieutenant was being produced) for his own series during the run of The Lieutenant. The result was The Man from U.N.C.L.E., which began the next season and proved to be highly successful.
Episodes
Guest stars
- Eddie Albert - Rodney Cameron O'Rourke in episode "O'Rourke"
- Jack Albertson - The district attorney in episode "The Cool of the Evening"
- Edward Asner - Walter Perry in episode "A Troubled Image"
- Barbara Babcock - Doris in episode "A Touching of Hands"
- Barbara Bain - Cissie Van Osten in episode "A Touching of Hands"
- Ina Balin - Jan Everest in episode "A Touching of Hands"
- Majel Barrett - Ruth Donaldson in episode "In the Highest Tradition"
- Henry Beckman - Major Barker
- Bill Bixby - Stew Sallaway, one of Rice's old high school friends, now assigned to his platoon, who tries to take advantage of the relationship to get out of work
- Madge Blake - Millie Brinkerhoff in "Instant Wedding"
- Neville Brand - Brigadier General Ira Stone, a brilliant, arrogant USMC major general to whom Rice is assigned as an aide in one installment
- Paul Burke - Captain Thomson, an ineffectual Marine captain required to leave the Corps for serving too long in his rank if he is not promoted to major in episode "Captain Thomson"
- James T. Callahan - Markley in episode "Fall from a White Horse"
- Joseph Campanella - Clark in episode "Lament for a Dead Goldbrick"
- Eddie Carroll - Sgt. Perry
- Russ Conway - Col. Curtis Morley in the episode, "In the Highest Tradition"
- Patricia Crowley - Susan Rambridge, Captain Raymond Rambridge's ex-wife
- Bob Davis - Farley Crosse
- John Doucette - GySgt Clintock, series first episode - "A Million Miles From Clary" (1963)
- Andrew Duggan - Peter Winslow Bonney, the heroic commander of Rice's platoon during World War II, a man who might not really have been a hero in episode "In the Highest Tradition"
- Linda Evans - Nan Hiland
- Chad Everett - Lt. Kingsley Kane in episode "Man with an Edge"
- Norman Fell - Jerry Belman in episode "The Cool of the Evening"
- Jerry Fujikawa - A corporal in episode "To Kill a Man"
- Frank Gardner - Private Matthews
- Harold Gould - Wade in episode "A Touching of Hands"
- James Gregory - Sgt. Horace Capp in episode "Capp's Lady"
- Dennis Hopper - Cpl. Peter Devlin, a bigot who is giving a tough time to a black man in his squad in "To Set it Right" (never actually broadcast)*
- Robert Karnes - Vilardi in episode "Operation Actress"
- Walter Koenig - Sgt. John Delwyn in episode "Mother Enemy"
- Sherry Jackson - Maggie Shea in episode "Gone the Sun"
- Richard Jeffries - Lieutenant Tait
- Ted Knight - Yeoman Mark Hollander in episode "Tour of Duty"
- Anna Lisa - Maria
- Don Marshall - the member of CPL Peter Devlin's squad to whom the bigoted CPL Devlin is giving a tough time in "To Set it Right" (never actually broadcast)*
- Ricardo Montalbán - PFC John Reading in episode "Tour of Duty"
- Greg Morris - Sgt. Perc Linden
- Leonard Nimoy - Gregg Sanders, a flamboyant actor who wants to make a movie on the Marine Corps base in episode "In the Highest Tradition"
- Nichelle Nichols - Norma Bartlett in episode "To Set it Right" (never actually broadcast)*
- Pat Priest - Waitress in episode "Fall from a White Horse"
- Denver Pyle - Major Matthew Morrissey in episode "The War Called Peace"
- Madlyn Rhue - Jackie Madian in episode "The Alien"
- Katharine Ross - Elizabeth in episode "Fall from a White Horse"
- Pilar Seurat - Lt. Manishan Joraka in episode "A Troubled Image"
- Woody Strode - Sgt. Holt, "To Set it Right" (never actually broadcast)*
- Michael Strong - Principal Peter Clay in episode "The Cool of the Evening"
- Yale Summers - Lieutenant Barry Everest
- Nita Talbot - Marie Newton in episode "Capp's Lady"
- Joan Tompkins - Mrs. Wade in "The Two-Star Giant" (1963) and Elsie Hammond in "Gone the Son" (1964)
- Rip Torn - SGT Karl Kasten, a tough drill instructor who may, indeed, be so tough that he is actually killing his own trainees in episode "The Proud and the Angry"
- Martin West - Kelso
References
External links
- The Lieutenant on IMDb
- The Lieutenant at TV.com
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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