After a decade of establishing herself as the queen of television comedy, Lucille Ball quietly became the godmother of science fiction. On the Monday, October 13 premiere of TV We Love, TV experts reveal how I Love Lucy didn’t just shape sitcoms — it helped launch Star Trek, Mission: Impossible, and an entirely new era of television.
After I Love Lucy ended, Ball and Arnaz owned the show’s negatives — a fortune-making move once reruns exploded. They eventually sold those rights back to CBS for $5 million, using the profits to buy the RKO Studios lot in Los Angeles and create Desilu Productions.
Ball later bought out Arnaz in 1962, becoming the first female head of a major Hollywood studio. Desilu thrived under her leadership, producing The Untouchables and The Twilight Zone.
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By 1966, two risky pilots crossed her desk — Star Trek and Mission: Impossible. Business advisors warned her they’d bankrupt the studio. She refused to listen, and her faith paid off. Both shows became global franchises and helped make Desilu the largest producer of TV content in the world at the time.
“Lucy and Desi created television as we know it,” says Variety editor Michael Schneider. “That all started with I Love Lucy.”
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Fans still credit her as "The Mother of Sci-Fi TV" — the comedian whose business savvy put Captain Kirk (William Shatner) on the bridge of the Enterprise.
In fact, Ball was so cherished by some of the TV stars she helped launch that Robert Stack himself, the actor who won an Emmy for his portrayal of Agent Eliot Ness on The Untouchables, was on hand to introduce Ball at the 1986 Kennedy Center Honors. That year, Ball was recognized for her contribution to the arts alongside musician Ray Charles, and married actors Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy.
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