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Lack of aliens in season 1

G

Grant

Commodore
Commodore
After giving it some thought--I realized one of the reasons I like TOS season one so much is the relative LACK of sentient alien life shown. Here is a list and it shows that many (especially early season) episodes had themes that didn't feel the need to show sentient "aliens of the week"

2.WNMHGB----------------
3. COBOMITE--------------SMALL CHILD SIZE
4. MUDD’S-----------------
5. ENEMY------------------
6. MAN TRAP-------------- HUMANOID SHAGGY (EXTINCT)
7. NAKED TIME------------
8. CHARLIE----------------NON COPOREAL ADVANCED RACE
9. BALANCE---------------ROMULANS--1ST “EQUAL” IN TECHNOLOGY RACE SEEN
10. WHAT ARE------------RUK--IS HE MODLED AFTER THE “OLD ONES”?
11. MIRI--------------------
12. DAGGER---------------
13. CONSCIENCE---------
14. GALILEO---------------HUGE PRIMITIVE HUMANOID
15. COURT MARTIAL----
16. MENAGARIE----------TALOSIANS, ORIONS
17. SHORE LEAVE--------CARETAKER--TRUE APPEARANCE?
18. SQUIRE-----------------NON CORPOREAL ADVANCED RACE
19. ARENA-----------------GORN--HUMANOID LIZARD, 2ND EQUAL TECH RACE---METRONS ADVANCED RACE
20. ALTERNATIVE--------1ST ALIEN RACE THAT LOOKS EXACTLY HUMAN--NOW EXTINCT
21. TOMORROW IS-------
22. ARCHONS-------------2ND ALIEN RACE THAT LOOKS EXACTLY HUMAN
23. TASTE OF--------------3RD ALIEN RACE THAT LOOKS EXACTLY HUMAN
24. SPACE SEED----------
25. THIS SIDE-------------
26. DEVIL IN THE--------SILICON BASED LIFE--1ST KNOWN
27. ERRAND OF----------KLINGONS 3RD “EQUAL’ RACE--ORGANIANS NON COPOREAL ADVANCED RACE
28. CITY ON THE----------EXTINCT RACE--APPEARANCE UNKNOWN
29. OPERATION:----------NEURAL PARASITE


12 episodes where humans are the only sentient race.
I think that this made the appearance of aliens a little more exciting. With the intro of the Klingons and the apparent "cold war in space"--the series never seemed the same.

Now it was the two most advanced "non-super" races vying for domination over all the less developed planets.

I loved it when they discovered aliens in the first season and were in awe of the discovery--rather than the nonchalant attitude toward aliens seen later.

Anyone agree?
 
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Miri- what species are the children?
Dagger of the Mind - all those inmates aren't human, are they? (background characters, not important to the plot)
 
Well, Spock was half-Vulcan. So we had a sentient alien in all 29 episodes. ;)
 
Green Shirt said:
Miri- what species are the children?
Dagger of the Mind - all those inmates aren't human, are they? (background characters, not important to the plot)
Click to expand...

Well in the teaser they go out of their way to show that Miri's planet is an exact duplicate of earth right down to the continents.
I've seen Dagger many, many times and never noticed any background aliens. But I'll look closely next time. I don't think there were any background aliens in Court-Martial either.

BillJ said:
Well, Spock was half-Vulcan. So we had a sentient alien in all 29 episodes. ;)
Click to expand...

That's very true!
 
As we've been discussing in the other thread, Lazarus in "The Alternative Factor" should be counted as the first human-appearing alien. Yes, the script described him as "human" a couple of times, but he said he was a native of the planet where he was found, that he was a time traveler from its distant past. So he definitely wasn't an Earthman.

As for Miri and the Onlies, since they were from a duplicate Earth, it's hard to say whether to count them as human or not. In my novel Forgotten History, I explained Miri's planet as an alternate-timeline Earth that had accidentally been brought into our timeline, so as far as the novels are concerned, at least, they're human.

And wouldn't the Gorn count as technological equals? That would give us four such races in season 1: Vulcans, Romulans, Gorn, and Klingons.
 
Grant said:
I've seen Dagger many, many times and never noticed any background aliens. But I'll look closely next time. I don't think there were any background aliens in Court-Martial either.
Click to expand...
I didn't mean to imply that there were extras with alien makeup in the background, so don't go looking for them. I was just assuming that not all inmates were Earth-born humans (not important to the episode.) :)
 
Christopher said:
As we've been discussing in the other thread, Lazarus in "The Alternative Factor" should be counted as the first human-appearing alien. Yes, the script described him as "human" a couple of times, but he said he was a native of the planet where he was found, that he was a time traveler from its distant past. So he definitely wasn't an Earthman.

As for Miri and the Onlies, since they were from a duplicate Earth, it's hard to say whether to count them as human or not. In my novel Forgotten History, I explained Miri's planet as an alternate-timeline Earth that had accidentally been brought into our timeline, so as far as the novels are concerned, at least, they're human.

And wouldn't the Gorn count as technological equals? That would give us four such races in season 1: Vulcans, Romulans, Gorn, and Klingons.
Click to expand...

You are 100% right on the Gorns being "tech equal"--I'll amend my opening post
 
Green Shirt said:
Grant said:
I've seen Dagger many, many times and never noticed any background aliens. But I'll look closely next time. I don't think there were any background aliens in Court-Martial either.
Click to expand...
I didn't mean to imply that there were extras with alien makeup in the background, so don't go looking for them. I was just assuming that not all inmates were Earth-born humans (not important to the episode.) :)
Click to expand...

I'm including humans born off world as human. Colonists and so forth count as human despite perhaps being born on space colonies or starbases.
I am also including humans from other dimensions or realities as "human".

TOS actually had the crew meet a lot of humans from colonies and starbases and outposts and archeology sites etc.
I loved that about season one. Humans were spread about, but meeting actual aliens was still fairly rare.
 
The problem was, the show's mission statement up front was "To seek out new life and new civilizations [and] to boldly go where no man has gone before." So focusing mainly on human colonies was kind of a failure to deliver on the show's explicit promise.
 
Christopher said:
The problem was, the show's mission statement up front was "To seek out new life and new civilizations [and] to boldly go where no man has gone before." So focusing mainly on human colonies was kind of a failure to deliver on the show's explicit promise.
Click to expand...

Very true.

But at first they made a good effort to show aliens as different than us....

Balok's race
Perhaps Ruk's extinct creators
Lizard like Gorn
Salt vampire
Horta
Galileo giant humanoid, etc.

Later it was overboard and it was just a wig or body paint (or nothing) to portray aliens and IMO it became cheap and overdone.

And I find the mission statement to be a little hollow "seeking out new life.." as if that would be amazing and fairly rare--after an episode like Babel where it's a virtual United Nations walking around the ship.
 
Yeah, but that's old life by that point. It's only new from our perspective in the past. The mission statement is to seek out forms of life that haven't already been encountered.
 
It was always part of the show's intended premise that they were going to encounter a lot of planets that resembled Earth for budgetary reasons, and that would involve a lot of aliens who looked like humans. What Season 1 does have going for it is that it's loaded with references to the Enterprise specifically being an Earth ship. Though the term "Federation" first pops up sometime in Season 1, one doesn't really get the impression that Earth is part of some larger, cosmopolitan galactic community until Season 2 with "Babel".
 
The Old Building & Loan said:
Though the term "Federation" first pops up sometime in Season 1, one doesn't really get the impression that Earth is part of some larger, cosmopolitan galactic community until Season 2 with "Babel".
Click to expand...

Well, "Errand of Mercy" did establish that Vulcan was a member of the Federation. But other than that, you're right that it wasn't until "Journey to Babel" that the UFP started to look like a real multispecies civilization.
 
Grant, I suspect you would like Firefly if you haven't seen it yet. Nary an alien life form in the whole series. Just humans doing human things in space.
 
At least in TOS the humanoid races don't have ridges in their forehead, nose bumps or blue veins on their faces to distinquish them from earthers!
JB
 
Season 1 had more of a "rare Earth" feel to it that made interstellar space really seem vast and threatening.
 
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