• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Favorite Title

Yep, even though I don't like TOS "City on the Edge of Forever" is one of those titles that turn on the part of my brain that gets all wistful and starry eyed...
...the more the pity that the episode is a lackluster time travel piece.

With a title like that I would have hoped for something...more Asimov perhaps? Something that truly sends the characters to the "Edge of Forever", perhaps into deep time to a point where matter starts to decay and galaxies blink out of existence. Something beautiful and frightening and haunting.

Not Kirk flirting with a rambling social worker in the 1930s. :sigh:
 
I like the ones that have a touch of poetry.

"City On the Edge of Forever"

"For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched The Sky"
 
Yep, even though I don't like TOS "City on the Edge of Forever" is one of those titles that turn on the part of my brain that gets all wistful and starry eyed...
...the more the pity that the episode is a lackluster time travel piece.

With a title like that I would have hoped for something...more Asimov perhaps? Something that truly sends the characters to the "Edge of Forever", perhaps into deep time to a point where matter starts to decay and galaxies blink out of existence. Something beautiful and frightening and haunting.

Not Kirk flirting with a rambling social worker in the 1930s. :sigh:

I was beginning to think I'm the only one who doesn't think that much of this ep. My main reaction to it is (and always has been)---boredom. Nice to see someone else who isn't too impressed by COTEOF.

Silly it might be, but I find Spock's Brain more entertaining than COTEOF.
 
"City" bothered me a little bit when I first saw it at 15. I was like, hey, this is supposed to be science fiction, what are they doing wearing real clothes! But I was young and stupid then. Now I'm old.
 
For the World is Hollow and I have touched the Sky. It's pretty much the definitive Star Trek title for me. Majorly evocative for me of lots and lots of Trek-related memories and emotions.
 
For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky and Is There In Truth No Beauty? both strike me as rather pretentious titles.
 
I'm fond of the simplicity of The Last Outpost. It's just a shame that the episode lets the title down. Absolutely anything could happen at a last outpost of a long dead civilisation (or even one that is near extinct, aside from the titular place) but instead we got Bad Ferengi in a pretty boring story.

Also, consider this another vote for For the World is Hollow... - brilliant title.

Cheesey as it is, I can't help but love the puntastic Q-Who. I love how it sums up Q's actions - he sends the E-D far across the known galaxy to say "yoo-hoo" to something nasty. Always makes me giggle a little, even now.
 
For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky and Is There In Truth No Beauty? both strike me as rather pretentious titles.

I'm fond of the simplicity of The Last Outpost. It's just a shame that the episode lets the title down. Absolutely anything could happen at a last outpost of a long dead civilisation (or even one that is near extinct, aside from the titular place) but instead we got Bad Ferengi in a pretty boring story.

Also, consider this another vote for For the World is Hollow... - brilliant title.

Yeah that's the thing with evocative titles like "The World is Hollow", "Last Outpost", and "City on the Edge of Forever". If you hear them before seeing the episode, or even learning what it is about they can conjure up powerful images the episode has no chance to live up to, for various reasons.
And if you give an average piece of 60s/80s television a title that would be more suited to an Isaac Asimov or Jack Vance story then it can end up sounding a little bit pretentious, I agree.

Though to be fair "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky" probably got as close to the images the title conjured up for me as it was possible within the format of Star Trek. It is a rather good episode imho, as far as TOS goes.

However, I don't want to fault them too much. As a hobby writer I know myself how you can start off with this beautiful, haunting image/phrase in your head and then when you write the story down and let it live it can end up depressingly mundane... that is probably doubly true for anything that has a any restrictions as screenwriting for 60s television must have had and with Roddenberry and his re-writes looming over you.
 
My favorite titles are probably "Balance of Terror" and "Deadlock," dramatic and convey the themes of the episode (and the themes are good enough that directness seems right).
 
I'm fond of the simplicity of The Last Outpost. It's just a shame that the episode lets the title down. Absolutely anything could happen at a last outpost of a long dead civilisation (or even one that is near extinct, aside from the titular place) but instead we got Bad Ferengi in a pretty boring story.

Yeah, that's a nice title for a pretty disappointing story. I remember the creators saying in Cinefantastique that they thought that story had a potential poignancy that they missed. One of the many missed opportunities in TNG's tumultuous first season.
 
Two DS9 episodes:

Far beyond the Stars: Sisko as Benny Russell, a black SciFi writer who had difficulties to sell his stories during a time where blacks had still fight for their rights. And besides, I could see some of the recurrent cast unmasked.

Treachery, Faith and the Great River: of course, as I´m a Vorta :). I liked, how they dealt with the problem of a defective clone and Odo´s interaction with Weyoun.
 
I'm partial to the longer, more whimsical ones: "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky," "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield," "Wrongs Darker than Death or Night," "In the Pale Moonlight," "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges," etc.
 
I admit I prefer the more florid TOS titles to the one-word titles the latter-day series preferred: "Symbiosis," "Unification, "Divergence," "Cathexis," etc.

Is there actually an episode titled "Cathexis"? Seems like there must be! :)
 
"For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky" always sounded to me like the name of a Jimi Hendrix song.:rommie:
 
"Dude, where's my.." Oh wait! You mean an ST title don't you?


"Nor the battle to the strong..."


It's from the Bible.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top