Were it not for Ball, Star Trek would never have happened. Here are three reasons why:
3. BALL NEEDED NEW SERIES AND STAR TREK FIT THE BILL After her divorce from Arnaz in 1960, Lucille Ball had another hit sitcom that followed I Love Lucy; a somewhat lesser-known series titled The Lucy Show. But although several shows were filmed at Desilu Studios, Ball didnt have another show that Desilu outright owned. When Desilu producer Herb Solow came to Lucy with Star Trek, she saw an opportunity to snag a show she could call her own.
2. LUCY AND DESI INVENTED RERUNS Part of Balls foresight in popularizing Star Trek was connected to the fact that she and Arnaz pioneered the concept of reruns with I Love Lucy. Before I Love Lucy, the idea that creators could monetize reruns of TV series was unheard of. In The Center Seat, historian Marc Cushman makes it clear that what Lucille Ball wanted from her producers at Desilu Studios was to bring me a show that can rerun as long as I Love Lucy.
Although Star Trek: The Original Series was canceled after only three seasons, its availability for reruns in the 1970s and beyond is what kept the franchise alive.
1. BALL GREENLIT STAR TREK AFTER ITS PILOT FAILED The Center Seat claims that Ball was the mother of Star Trek. Is this true? Short answer: yes!
Although Ball wasnt involved in the creative side of Trek, she was pivotal in financing the series. As the experts in The Center Seat make clear, what makes Balls support of Trek so unusually historic is that she refinanced a second pilot episode after the first episode The Cage was rejected outright. As Gates McFadden says in the documentary: Lucy was only too happy to put her money where her famous mouth was.