The Lieutenant - After The Lieutenant

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 starring 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, Rice is sent to a fictitious Asian country based on Vietnam as an advisor, mirroring the same real-life situation that the series had been canceled for.

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 Star Trek the title character would be Captain James Tiberius Kirk.

The Lieutenant also brought together several other actors—amongst them Leonard Nimoy, Nichelle Nichols, and Majel Barrett—who would later join Roddenberry in Star Trek.