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.

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. But as revealed in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation titled "Second Chances," in which Frakes acted out two William Rikers, the "T" in his case stood for “Thomas.”

The Lieutenant also brought together several other actors—among them 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.

Regulars

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.

Guest stars