A Need For TOS

[OtherGene]

We all enjoy Star Trek and, in particular, The Original Series but does anybody else other than me sometimes have a need to watch it? Obviously, I enjoy watching it anyway but some times these days I find myself having some sort of visceral need to get away from modern television programs, from the aesthetics and often depressing stories and plug into the more vibrant and optimistic Original Series.

 

[Methuselah Flint]

Oh yes!!!

 

[RColtrane]

For sure! Today's contents are extremely boring, repetitive and all of them have very bland characters with no sense of purpose. They are not as creative as it used to be, because studios don't want to risk too much money in something completely new. They want to have low risks and maximum profits, which is really bad in terms of new productions.

 

[OtherGene]

One thing The Original Series does which no other series has managed to, including the other Trek shows, is convey the sense of vastness of the space in which the Enterprise is voyaging in. Due to cost (I suppose) the star fields are nearly always quite bare which I think instills that sense of, erm, space. I think that has something to do with it, that sense of getting away from today and onto a five year mission.

 

[feek61]

does anybody else other than me sometimes have a need to watch it?

Pretty much everyday for me.

 

[BillJ]

I've been watching TOS since before I can remember, it is part of who I am. It ranks right behind food and water in what I need to survive.

 

[Kor]

Yes. I would be perfectly happy only watching TV shows and movies from that era. It's part of my identity.

Kor

 

[geotrek]

Absolutely, sir! The trash that passes for entertainment these days is, to me, revolting. Every excruciating detail about egocentric characters is applauded... give me the selflessness, ingenuity, strength, and camaraderie of TOS every day over that tripe.

Seconded, BillJ!

 

[RandyS]

I've been watching TOS since before I can remember, it is part of who I am. It ranks right behind food and water in what I need to survive.

"Behind"?? You're clearly doing it wrong.

As for me, no I don't "need" TOS, I can stop any time I want! I just CHOOSE not to! Yeah.....THAT'S it........I CHOOSE not to.......

 

[C57D]

Must be a (in my case at 56) nostalgic obsession, although no less real for that! I too cannot stand the needy, semi-psychotic, arrogant so called characters in many modern dramas and long for TOS's can-do, right-stuff attitude. I dont get a lot of time to indulge myself due to an extremely busy family life. But I have two days of total peace next week and a TOS fest is eagerly awaited!!

 

[Galileo7]

TOS has always been a must watch as certain music albums are a must listen.

 

[The Old Mixer]

"Behind"?? You're clearly doing it wrong.

What if he's eating food cubes and drinking out of a square glass?

 

[OtherGene]

Must be a (in my case at 56) nostalgic obsession, although no less real for that! I too cannot stand the needy, semi-psychotic, arrogant so called characters in many modern dramas and long for TOS's can-do, right-stuff attitude. I dont get a lot of time to indulge myself due to an extremely busy family life. But I have two days of total peace next week and a TOS fest is eagerly awaited!!

Two days of total peace? Two days? You have no idea how jealous I am right now. With three young children I'm lucky if I get two hours (enough for two and a half episodes!)

 

[C57D]

Two days of total peace? Two days? You have no idea how jealous I am right now. With three young children I'm lucky if I get two hours (enough for two and a half episodes!)

OtherGene my situation is similar to yours, and so I salute you for being able to squeeze in a few episodes here and there.
My family are away for a few days hence my two days of TOS viewing peace.

 

[johnnybear]

TOS is the lightning caught in the bottle that Leonard Nimoy once described it to be! Can't say the movies were as good or the other television series that followed. Maybe someone uncorked that bottle before it was ready?
JB

 

[OtherGene]

What I did like in the movies was that they didn't try to pretend the series didn't happen, as some productions do when they move from the small to the silver screen. These were the days when 'rebooting' meant putting your boots back on and nothing more.

 

[C57D]

What I did like in the movies was that they didn't try to pretend the series didn't happen, as some productions do when they move from the small to the silver screen. These were the days when 'rebooting' meant putting your boots back on and nothing more.

And when that other bane of my existence word "canon" was not at the forefront of half the fan discussions.
Why has canon come to mean "the fictional background, but only after, and with primary reference to, the re-boots"??

 

[C57D]

Ah, the heady days when all we had were TOS and TAS, the movies, the novels (some good, some bad and some wonderfully amazing), FJ and the original Spaceflight Chronology. The days of "USS Enterprise, NCC1701, no bloody A, B,C,D" (or E, or NX-01!!).
And now we get shown a million changes made in re-boot's, that overrule things that had been a part of Trek-dom for twenty or thirty years. And told that the newer version is "canon" so anyone who clings to the original must be heretics.
Okay, rant over, move along people, there's nothing more to see................!

 

[OtherGene]

Don't misunderstand, I love most of what came after and wouldn't be without my copies of them (Into Darkness was bloody awful but that's for another thread!) and a part of my enjoyment of TOS comes from the fact it's part of a much larger, for want of a better word, mythology. It's the roots of everything Star Trek since.

When I watch it now, going beyond current broadcasting standards and scripting, I yearn for the hope for the future that was imbued into it, for that belief that things will improve as time goes by. Despite it being set in future centuries the writers were writing about now and right now we're further away from that hopeful optimistic outlook than, I think, ever before.

 

[C57D]

I too loved TNG (at the time and now find the arrogance and superiority insufferable) and had high hopes for Enterprise ( until the 9/11 in space storyline). But I guess nothing for me tops TOS.
And yes the hope for the future is a huge part of the reason why I love it so much. And YES it feels like Humanity is moving further and further from any hope of achieving anything positive as a species. Half the world unable to put aside petty differences and caveman territorial obsessions, and the other half obsessed with spoilt airhead "celebrities" and their overpaid selfish pointless lifestyles.
As one of my favourite songs says:-"Heroes and heroines are scarcer than they've ever been. So much more to lose than win. The distance never greater."