TOS Rewatch

Yeah, I never got a "creepy" vibe from Kirk's interaction with Miri either. She may have had a schoolgirl crush and he may have used that to further the goal of saving his crew, but it's not like he was sexually interested in her.

The other white meat!

Well, they did the best they could on a TV production schedule with the Mayberry set on the Forty Acres lot.

 

It might not be super great. Maybe it's just ubiquitous because it's a very common commodity due to the Saurians flooding the market.

Kor

 

You were using TNG crewmen to transporter room ratios to give reason why Kirk's Enterprise might have more than one transporter based on its crew size. But you don't know that TNG's ratio has any relevance whatsoever for TOS. I was using my invented reason to combat your invented reason.

Not particularly. It's not like episodes haven't contradicted each other before.

The Making of Star Trek is...not canon.

There might be a away to prove there's only one transporter room. Consider times when Kirk is on the bridge and asks Uhura to call someone to the transporter room. Like

Kirk: "We're beaming down. Lt. Uhura, have Dr. McCoy meet us in the transporter room.”

If there is more than one transporter room, without designating which one to go to, there is no way to know if McCoy will end up in the right transporter room. I’m sure this kind of thing happens in TOS. How do people know which transporter room to meet in?

I have it in my head a scene of someone unconscious being held by someone else and beaming up to the ship and ending up on the same transporter pad. Am I making that up? What happens if two people are hugging and the Enterprise beams them up? Do they end up hugging on the same transporter pad or end up on separate pads?

 

BTW, "it could be a beaker full of death" is the best line ever.

 

See my post #197 upthread.

(Okay, so Kirk and Plasus weren't exactly hugging.)

 

Grace was pretty. She suffered under that super unflattering woven basket wig. There's a memo where Gene R. suggesting bringing her back for a guest role with a more flattering hairstyle, which is funny since Grace said it was Gene who kept telling them to make her wig taller. I mean, here's what she looked like in 1967 with a less goofy hairstyle (link)

 

She's absolutely gorgeous there.

 

The ratio of crew to transporters would likely be set, unless new systems greatly improved transportation speeds, but the limiting factor there would probably be how quickly they can get to their emergency transporter stations without becoming an unruly mob too difficult to sort out in a short time. If in TNG they figure it should be 50 to 1, it seems reasonable to assume that ratio would hold or be approximately true, all other factors being equal.

But more to the point, I don't have a problem inventing and using something as long as it does not violate known Trek lore, but you explicitly said you did, and that you do not wish to use invented stuff not explicitly found in the dialogue. So if you wish to counter my argument on that basis, you shouldn't use invented stuff to support your initial assertions. Yet what you seemed to do was not counter my proposal, but support your own - there is only one TR, because I will invent the notion that in Kirk's time it is precluded from having more than one. It's kind of circular reasoning.

But it's only a contradiction if one assumes there is only one transporter room. Otherwise, it is not a contradiction at all.

Well that's true, but it is highly suggestive well beyond what we two might think they were shooting for, isn't it?

Like I said, one may be the workhorse or best positioned for speed or convenience, so 95% of the time that one is the default. Therefore, unless somebody is told otherwise, it is implied that TR is the one they are talking about (let's call that TR01).

Or SOP (standard operating procedure) lets one know, like planetary away mission surveys disembark from TR02, cargo from TR08, security contingents from TR05 (right next to the security facilities and armory on board), etc. etc. You can do a lot just by learning how things operate on a starship. Ask Savik. The fact we don't know just makes it seem more magical at times.

I'm not sure which scene you mean right off the top of my head. More often than not, however, since the transporter puts each molecule back in its original position in the body (or with quantum reasoning, duplicated them while the original is read and destroyed and puts the duplicate back in its original relative position), they will normally have no problem keeping two people separate even when on one pad. If anything, it's only dangerous since that much extra information might overload systems if something goes wrong, so if an emergency occurred, that makes it more likely they won't be able to sort you out, and even cross-circuiting to B won't help you then.

 

Still having Christmas in the 23rd century is interesting, but more than one party on a ship of over 420 crewmembers with dozens of departments and different social clicks isn't really too surprising. I wonder why Kirk went to the science department's party, or maybe he floated through them all and just got lucky there. What other name is better suited for a Christmas party girl than Noel, though? It's worth noting Kirk doesn't like his private affairs to be publicly known, lest it probably be viewed poorly by the crew and affect his ability to command respect and them. Do you really think McCoy aimed that little brunet at our good captain? I bet he didn't, but Kirk seemed to think so. But I've notice Kirk often assumes ill intent from doctor McCoy, like Bones is the type to make a practical joke so Kirk dismisses his observations a lot.

Even if not a total lack of violence, no emotion certainly equates to less violence, I would think. But you know Spock; while he won't lie, he does often exaggerate.

Yeah, apart from wanting to do his illegal and immoral and unethical research, I don't think Adams had a long-range plan. He was a bit unhinged. Let's assume he used, to ill effect, the device on himself (ah, the medical mind again), and while not reduced to a quivering mound of jelly, he lost some empathetic restraints, and he was off to the races. Yeah, I like that.

Dagger Of The Mind


Read Full Review

Spoiler

The remastered work gives the planet here (Tantalus V) some rings, like Saturn's, which we get to see from orbit and from the planet surface, so that's pretty cool.

Side-By-Side Comparison


This episode introduces the Vulcan Mind Meld. It's supposed to be pretty dangerous, but apparently they learn it's not all that bad and do it far more frequently in later episodes. Morgan Woodward, who plays Simon Van Gelder (and who also later plays Captain Ronald Tracey) gives a powerful performance as a mentally tormented individual. It's fantastic. Wow.


There's often more violence in these TOS episodes than in later Trek series, I think, as Dr. Noel (played by Marianna Hill) pushes a man into some Megavoltage hardware, frying him to a crisp. Well done, doctor. Well done.

And is Marianna a babe? Well, maybe, but not one of my favorites. But then, maybe it's just the way she looked there, and not elsewhere, for example.




I liked the episode well enough, but nothing about it made me want to re-watch it all that often. One must keep it in mind later for Whom Gods Destroy, of course. I gave this a 3.5, or maybe 4 before. But now with the planetary rings, the mind meld, Woodward's performance, and some background stuff that might lend weight to the assertion there's more than one transporter room, etc. that even if the main story is lacking, some elements are truly great, so up to 5 out of 10.

 

Oh, I wasn't saying Rand isn't pretty only that I find Noel more so.

 

It's been celebrated since the reign of Emperor Constantine, so why not in the 23rd century?

As many of us geeks are aware, the Vulcan mind meld was the result of TV censorship restrictions. The script for "Dagger of the Mind" originally had Spock hypnotizing Van Gelder. The network censors objected on the grounds that (A) Spock isn't a qualified medical practitioner, and (B) you can't depict hypnosis on screen because we don't want to accidentally hypnotize someone watching the show! So the scene was rewritten to introduce the mind meld. Just to make the point absolutely clear, Spock was given the line: "This will not affect you, Dr. McCoy, only the person I touch. It is not hypnosis."

 

You are saying the transporter to crewmen ratio from TNG should hold for TOS. I am saying there is no reason to assume this is true. There are any number of reasons why that ratio may not be appropriate for TOS. I didn't throw out the idea that the technology of Kirk's day may not allow for more than one transporter as something I'm advocating that I necessarily believe to be true. I was using it as an example of something that would make your use of that TNG ratio invalid for TOS. And there may be any number of such things.

Right. You don't know that all other factors are equal.

 

It's not so much that Christmas (or Thanksgiving) is being celebrated as the obvious lack of other religious holidays or ones of other nationalities, let alone other alien cultures. One might also wonder if, or exactly how or in what form, Christianity would survive the contact and assimilation of many other worlds' creation beliefs, Gods, etc., particularly the literal fundamentalists and such, or how these things might survive or change with the information age. Maybe the Federation or the Enterprise in particular is still mostly human and lacking in sufficient alien representation to make conflicts a problem or other holiday parties noticeable, or there is a deep and overriding Federation principle that all conflicts will not be tolerated. Anyway, I'm mostly making note of it – not saying it was wrong or right or likely or unlikely. Just interesting.

Cool. And I wonder if they were overreacting, but suits and bean counters – better safe than sorry, and worry not like Spock, we have no medical degree that would suggest this stuff was likely to happen. We just don’t want to be sued just in case.

There are reasons. The time of an emergency would be approximately the same, so the time it takes for people to get to a transporter and for that one transporter to get 50 people off the ship seems to be the mark.

True, but I do know there isn't dialogue stating it's different, so again, not using things to counter arguments unless they are backed up in dialogue is also the mark. So unless you move off the position that only explicit dialogue will be accepted as evidence, and that it's O.K. to think something may be so for a variety of reasons other than explicit dialogue, one would have to accept things are equal (until told otherwise).

I, OTOH, do not believe one needs explicit dialogue to believe something is, or may be, or even is probably true on the show.

 

Given that Star Trek was an American television series aired on network prime time in the 1960s, the fact that it was mentioned that the crew celebrated these holidays, without mention of any other, is completely unremarkable. It provided a point of contact between the audience and the characters.

 

Well certainly, but that's the RL reason. What's fun is seeing if you can find or invent a plausible in universe reason. The rules are simply you can't contradict anything already known about that universe, or other normal or natural laws assumed to be in play.

 

The early TOS episodes were also much more Earth-centric, with the idea that the Enterprise was sent out from some vaguely unified Earth of the future. The United Federation of Planets wasn't mentioned until "A Taste of Armageddon."

 

And I suppose that it being a science dept party is notable in that history falls under the science dept, and therefore they might be more in touch with or have more appreciation for heritage and traditions of their home.

There's no reason to think that secular Christmas traditions will disappear from Earth by then, and hopefully uniquely Christian ones won't have either.

 

History falls under science? The scientific method probably doesn't apply much there, though maybe at some point they might use the science of time travel to look at historical events and, I bet, many might be in for a bit of shock.

True, the Christmas celebration may have been more a secular celebration of the birth of conspicuous consumption than a Christian holiday, and Thanksgiving could have broader appeal than just with the Americans and Canadians and a few others, but as a monotheistic culture (for Kirk does find "the one" quite adequate), one might hope humanity had somehow consolidated Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, or the Abrahamic religions by then, but if not completely unified in some way, at least found a way we aren't trying to kill each other over the differences. I mean, compared to the differences we'd begin seeing on other worlds, those differences might begin to seem pretty small.

Anyway, a TV show in the 60's, and even today, often does well to give those topics a wide berth. And that's probably true here, too.

He probably disabled the sound after jumping out of his skin a few times and tossing a few test tubes around, or spilling this or that, or whatever slip he might make after a jarring and shocking sound like that hits you. Just hope it wasn't during surgery. Or maybe it was already done by other doctors or this is SOP for sickbays, since, I don't know about you, but for me, I sure wouldn't want to be doing anything delicate when that alarm suddenly starting screaming at me.

I still just assume such uniform changes are best explained (in universe) as floating between departments to gain experience, so while you may put on a different uniform if you start your day in a different department, you probably would keep it on during the day, even if you had to spend a few hours in your regular department.

Spock is usually smarter, more logical, and far less likely to lose his cool in an argument/debate, so yeah - tread lightly if you feel the need to go there. Even Kirk wouldn't presume to debate Spock to which Spock simply said, "That is wise."

One of the Federation's proudest moments, and maybe humanity's. A very touching scene.

The Corbomite Maneuver


Read Full Review

Spoiler

This is one of my favorite episodes. Humor, tension, conflict, drills, risks, the unknown, and a surprise ending. Also, a feeling of great pride when Kirk (and by extension, The Federation) rises up to prove the meaning of their lofty sounding words of peace and cooperation with new life and new civilizations, by mounting a rescue mission to their former foe, who themselves threatened to destroy them, all despite great personal risk.

First there's the space buoy, a cube 107 meters on a side and only 11,000 tons. What's that thing made of - popcorn or Styrofoam? Actually, it's only 7 times denser than air, so not even that solid. Impressive. Almost holographic. I wonder if that was intentional.

Anyway . . . the remastered version has the buoy's colored lights playing across Enterprise's hull, so that's pretty cool. And this is the first time we see the ship using its phasers. I recall the original had a rare shot of the Enterprise - one of the coolest - as it fired its reddish weapons while in retreat, destroying the cube. Here they use the new blue look for the phasers - tighter, cleaner, definitely more certain about where they emerge, but it's different. I'm glad to have both versions on the Blu-Ray set.

Side-By-Side Comparison (extensive 20 minutes or so)




This is the first episode shot after the pilots, so it has many firsts in it. This is the first time Uhura, Rand, and McCoy are together. Let's hear it for Rand's ingenuity by making hot coffee using a phaser when the power in the galley was out (spoken of, not shown), and Bone's humorous remark (the funniest in the episode), "Humph . . . if I jumped every time a light flashed around here, I'd end up talking to myself," he said to himself. Also the first time the ship's phasers were fired.

I have a soft spot for the original image here.


And of course the Fesarius, easily the largest ship ever seen in TOS, now with cool detailed geodesic domes atop mechanical detail below that tied them all together. The way it dwarfed the Enterprise was always mind bogglingly impressive, given the already impressive size of the Enterprise (which we only know at this point to be larger than the cube, or larger than 107 meters long).

Oops - I guess technically the Yonada - the asteroid ship that was 200 miles in diameter - is the largest ship ever seen in TOS.

Ted Cassidy (Lurch, aka Ruk, the android) also lends his voice here as Balok, and that creepy puppet along with that ominous voice really sells the chill factor.

All in all, a great episode.

Interesting Bits:

I never knew Scotty (James Doohan) was missing his right, middle finger. This is usually hidden by having his right hand off screen, behind a prop, or something, but when they needed to show his hands in close ups, they had to use a hand double. But you can occasionally see (or not see) his missing finger, as you can in this episode during the conference room scene.

The Tranya was actually grapefruit juice, IIRC, and Clint Howard hated it.

Jonathan Goldsmith (stage name Jonathan Lippe), better known as "The Most Interesting Man in the World" in the popular Dos Equis brand beer commercials, was briefly seen on camera as an unnamed crewman. What's more: Goldsmith wore a red shirt. And he didn't die. I don't always drink alien beverages, but when I do, I drink Tranya. Son of a bitch. He really is the Most Interesting Man in the World.

I loved this episode. It had nearly everything you'd ever want. I gave it a solid 9 out of 10, and with the enhancements, 9.5 out of 10 is about right. I've only given one episode a 10 out of 10, but this one is close.

 

The Menagerie Parts 1 and 2


Read Full Review

Spoiler

Not everybody's favorite, but I really like these episodes. The clever use of the now two-year old original pilot footage, The Cage, as part of the Enterprise's past lends HUGE weight to the Star Trek Universe as not something that's been around for only a few weeks, but for years, decades, and perhaps longer, with a real history (and the Enterprise will have a 40-year history, so it's good to see this part of it).

Here we see glimpses of the on-going evolution of Technology, uniforms, crew compliments, etc., and gain insight into crew rotation, see what Starbases are like, learn about a threat to the Federation so dire it alone still carries the death penalty (general order 7), see a trial, discover what Spock was like in the past compared to what he's like now, ~13 years later, and we gain insight into how much genuine loyalty he holds for his friends. We also learn Kirk took command of the Enterprise directly from Pike (around 2 years ago).

We see, for the first time, the shuttlecraft (and the hanger bay is mentioned), too. In the re-mastrered version, they give that shuttlecraft a name in a shot there, too - Picasso.

New visuals are cool, though I think they corrected a continuity error (before re-mastering, they arrived at noon but apparently held their first meeting at night, judging from window shots. Did they go out to dinner and drinks first and then have the meeting? But it's day time now). Anyway, good work with all that roto-scoping or whatever in new window shots and space shots throughout these episodes, including Pike's cabin windows on the Enterprise, the shuttle craft's windows, and Starbase 11's windows, complete with "flying" lights in the sky - ostensibly ships flying at night - flying cars, FINALLY! But after showing a cool daytime shot of the sky that includes a ringed planet, they later show it as a darker, nighttime shot, that also includes that same ringed planet but a darker sky. I'm sorry, but I doubt you could still see that same planet at night as the world would have rotated and you'd be looking in the opposite direction at night. That's why it's night. Kudos when they use the same scenic imagery (of the ringed planet in the sky) for starbase 11 (both in The Menagerie and Court Martial.) That's continuity for you. However, oddly enough, due to stated star dates, the episode Court Martial occurred before Spock illegally took control of the Enterprise to help Commodore Christopher Pike in The Menagerie. In any event, I think this starbase is partially, or mostly, on a planet/moon orbiting that gas giant, for what it's worth.

They only have part 2 for a Side-By-Side Comparison, but here it is:


I love they correct things they discover are wrong - not just camera jitters, but things like where Spock studies the view screen (moving forward) pondering the shuttlecraft that's following them, like they're looking at it. They change from forward stock footage to this new rear view (with nacelles) footage, and now they're actually looking in the direction of the trailing shuttlecraft they're pondering.

Massive failure, still, for the mistaken belief communication would be so difficult for Pike. Morse code, at least, and they totally didn't predict how well we could tie into the brain. And that's weird since they have the chair respond to his brain. If they can do that, they should have been able to communicate better than just yes or no. But then I guess they wanted it for the story, so . . .

Fascinating story all around.

And once again, a former yeoman was way hotter than Rand, IMO, though YMMV. Though I didn't catch her name in the show, Laura Goodwin's character is listed elsewhere as Yeoman J.M. Colt.




And she's got unusually strong female drives, so there's that.


I gave this a 6 or 6.5 before, but I'm fine giving it a 7 out of 10 now. Those extra effects are something to look at all right.

 

I believe the Arcturian are a different species and culture, so they have a different style of dress, but they're into Shakespeare.

The Conscience Of The King


Read Full Review

Spoiler

A bit of the silly premise insofar as there are only 9 who can identify a man that, apparently, yet they have pictures of him? Sure, they probably didn't anticipate DNA evidence identifications in the late 60's, but since they must have it by then, it must be the case outer colonies don't have access to all the tech at the Federation's disposal. Most new colonies are probably quite primitive, even by today's standards, just getting started so far out in space and all, so the fact there's no DNA record of Kodos isn't too surprising.

So, 4000 slaughtered colonists weigh heavily on some survivors' minds. Is this man really Kodos the Executioner?

I always thought the most exciting scene was when Kirk called for a Double Red Alert since there was a phaser on overload somewhere in his cabin and they narrowly discovered and disposed of it in the nick of time. The fact it takes time for the build up to start to make a noticeable sound for a type 2 phaser (unlike the older model which seemed pretty quick) just says it was planted just prior to Kirk and Spock entering the quarters. Though it might be more than that since Kirk couldn't shut it off (controls seemed fused, so that took some knowhow) so maybe it was triggered remotely, or automatically when somebody came into the quarters. There's a lot more than a trigger on those things, so some electronics are involved, even if we don't see them.

In this episode we see Eddie Paskey's main character finally gets his name, Mr. Leslie, though he's not a lieutenant yet. They recycle Kevin Riley's character since the same actor got a new part, and we hear Uhura sing to him. I was not impressed (more with the song than the voice, though, since she can sing).

This is the last appearance of Yeoman Rand (Whitney was fired after this due to the belief they didn't need two blondes, and one of them was married to the boss, so . . . And besides, Kirk's love interests had to be more varied, so some say). She shows up again later in some already shot and canned episodes, but this was the last episode she made - until she returned to reprise her role in the movies. Honestly, I never fully realized how fleeting her character was in this show. If you had asked me, I would have said she was in all three seasons, but nope. She knew she was on her way out, too, so one wonders if the disapproving look Rand gave the guest star (during Rand's walk on bit) had anything to do with that.

In Star Trek: Enterprise's fourth season episode In A Mirror, Darkly: Part 2 the future biographical information displayed for Hoshi Soto states that she was one of the 4,000 people killed by Kodos on the Tarsus colony, though they never intended for the data to be readable on screen, so it's not "official." I recall doing some math at the time and seeing how she would have been quite old at the time, which was probably one of the larger factors for putting her in the group slated for death. Considering what the mirror universe is like, even if she was Empress there, I suspect she eventually met a quick and untimely death there, too, so Hoshi may have still lived a longer and more fulfilling life here, even if Kodos took her out.

I like this episode more today than I did as a kid. The nuances of Shakespeare are more apparent to me, now that I'm a little more familiar with Shakespeare. Others who know his work better might enjoy this episode even more than I.

There wasn't a lot to redo in this episode, Special effects wise, as it relied mostly on the performances of the actors. They did not, for example, add that exploding phaser outside the ship. They probably couldn't, though, since there's no room for it unless they cut out the reaction shot with Kirk and Spock rocking across the hallway as it explodes.

Side-By-Side Comparison


[SIZE=4]Guest star Barbara Anderson (Lenore Karidian) shares the record (with Ricardo Montalban and Joan Collins) for the most costumes worn in a single Trek episode by a guest star (six). I recall the fur mini-dress, particularly. I don't rank her all that highly on the Babe factor, but others may.[/SIZE]


Fun Fact: In The Simpsons, the reoccurring Alien duo are named Kodos and Kang, after two Trek characters, one of them from this episode.


I gave this a 5 out of 10 before, and that still sounds about right, so 5 out of 10.

I guess that's 3 posts in a row, and even when nearly 24 hours have passed since the last one, 4 in a row is pushing it on BBS, so unless or until somebody else posts . . .