Terrible TOS performances....

[Myko]

I always thought the Kyle/Cowl thing to be similar to sabotage/"sabatadge".

[TorontoTrekker]

I have a couple of scripts I've picked up over the years, and in one of them, I remember there being a character named "Kowal". So I think Kyle and Kowal were definitely intended to be two different characters, who just happened to both be played by John Winston.

[AtoZ]

Wasn't "Kowal" a championship level pinball player, circa the 23rd century?

John Winston. Has anybody ever interviewed him re his tenure on TOS?

[Forbin]

TorontoTrekker wrote:

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I've never been a fan of Frank Gorshin's performance in "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield". It's been a while since I watched it last, but my memory of the episode is primarily of Gorshin pausing every time he had to say "Cheron", as though he was trying to remember how it was supposed to be pronounced. And I'm pretty sure he pronounced it in at least two different ways.

I think Gorshin was trying to do his Kirk Douglas impression half the time.

[mb22]

Winston interviews:

http://issuu.com/plasmafire/docs/stnv_emag_004

briefly:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/ar...HDGg+hjaKLTbmQ

[AtoZ]

mb22 wrote:

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Winston interviews:

http://issuu.com/plasmafire/docs/stnv_emag_004

briefly:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/ar...HDGg+hjaKLTbmQ

Most excellent. Thank you!

[CoveTom]

I just read the interview with John Winston (the first link). Very interesting! I did notice, though, that he comments on how he is upset that Kyle was killed of in TWOK. I never got the impression from the film, though, that Kyle was killed. I thought the people on Regula I were killed, but that the crew of the Reliant were just marooned on Ceti Alpha V and that Kirk and the Enterprise retrieved them later. Am I wrong?

[A beaker full of death]

Killed off?? News to me.

[Bones_McCoy21]

The... Worst...
I.... think... Kirk.... was... the ...worst...

[ssosmcin]

Arthur Coleman in Turnabout Intruder was bland at best.

Ed McCready played the doctor on the Exeter like he was from New Jersey. He would have fit in on Janus 6.

Tige Andrews played the Klingon captain in Friday's Child with little gusto. Actually no differently than he did when he was a regular on The Mod Squad. They could almost be the same character.

Julie Newmar was pretty terrible, too. She is such an odd actress anyway. She's great to look at, but she comes off distant in everything.

I know this is heresy, but Marianna Hill played Helen Noel in the most annoying fashion. Maybe it was the character as written, but seriously, she was grating. Everything was an obvious, over the top flirt or push to make Kirk uncomfortable.

I could have lived without Barbara Anderson in Conscience of the King as well.

Seriously, though, the performance that keeps me from watching the episode goes to Jill Ireland. She was beautiful, had a smashing figure (which oddly was not shown on the series known for exploiting women's appearance), but was the worst actress to get a lot of work. No idea why she was so highly employed, she was routinely terrible.

[Melakon]

Captain Claus wrote:

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Arthur Coleman in Turnabout Intruder was bland at best.

Harry Landers' guest status must have been due to being a regular on the doctor show "Ben Casey" a few years earlier. Coleman was pretty much written as an incompetent, unethical wimp blinded by love.

Tige Andrews played the Klingon captain in Friday's Child with little gusto.

Though he apparently had some fun, because it was the first time as an actor his costume wasn't street clothes.

Julie Newmar was pretty terrible, too. She is such an odd actress anyway. She's great to look at, but she comes off distant in everything.

Watch her old series "My Living Doll", where she plays a robot. You'll find her perfectly cast.

. . .Marianna Hill played Helen Noel in the most annoying fashion. Maybe it was the character as written, but seriously, she was grating. Everything was an obvious, over the top flirt or push to make Kirk uncomfortable.

The character was hastily changed from Janice Rand, due to Grace Lee Whitney being dropped.

I could have lived without Barbara Anderson in Conscience of the King as well.

I thought her final revelation scenes were wonderfully theatrical.

[TREK_GOD_1]

Melakon wrote:

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I thought her final revelation scenes were wonderfully theatrical.

Agreed. In fact, i think she nailed her performance because she was supposed to be so caught up in her status as an actress coupled with her theatrical plotting of murders that it pays off when exposed, because she lost the ability to hide the insane level of her devotion to her father.

[Forbin]

Arnold Moss. It's hard to believe from Conscience of the King that he taught acting. I have friend who had Moss as an acting teacher. That friend later went on to become... a lawyer.

[ssosmcin]

Melakon wrote:

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Harry Landers' guest status must have been due to being a regular on the doctor show "Ben Casey" a few years earlier. Coleman was pretty much written as an incompetent, unethical wimp blinded by love.

"You are.....you are as I loved you..." Not that the best actor could have gotten much mileage out of that line, it still drove home how good he wasn't.

Watch her old series "My Living Doll", where she plays a robot. You'll find her perfectly cast.

How she was able to work this into something successful on Batman is beyond my understanding.

The character was hastily changed from Janice Rand, due to Grace Lee Whitney being dropped..

Which doesn't really excuse much. It would have been worse to see Janice acting so unprofessionally since she was lower on the totem pole as a Yeoman.

I thought {Barbara Anderson's} final revelation scenes were wonderfully theatrical.

Which was the only point in the episode I found her to be effective. I loved her climactic mad scene, but up till then, she was really intolerable for me.

Still wondering how the "surging and throbbing" line got past the NBC censors.

[A beaker full of death]

Forbin wrote:

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Arnold Moss. It's hard to believe from Conscience of the King that he taught acting. I have friend who had Moss as an acting teacher. That friend later went on to become... a lawyer.

Moss was a brilliant actor, and I find his performance on Trek to be no exception. What rings false to you?

On a side note, I often wish my fellow trial lawyers had had some theatrical training. Most could use it. Funnily enough, whenever I'm in front of a jury, I try to channel Kirk-era Shatner.