Some episodes simply lack, ignore, or get around obvious plot points so painfully that the episodes in question are otherwise 49 minutes of muck if there's nothing else of interest.
One example of this is...
...insert lame drumroll here...
"The Enemy Within"
Let's get some of the whiny nitpicks out of the way first, and I won't mention them all since I'd rather get to what works:
The shuttlecraft are not discussed despite being an obvious workaround to a never-dire situation. Unless none were delivered until Tuesday but as excuses go, that would "B" wimpy.
Despite seeing orange rabid Fido as a duplicate, it takes until a commercial break several minutes for anyone to realize Kirk's negative half was separated and made corporeal. There was no real sense of "What if", as Spock would have figured it out a lot earlier. But hadn't.
If someone spilled a substance that looks like powdered orange drink and got beamed up and that wrecks the entire transporter, but we've already seen bio-filters in "The Naked Time", surely there'd be filters to deal with strange substances with magnetic properties so off the charts it causes a transporter to beam back half a person's mind, wait 30 seconds out of convenience, then automatically beam back the remaining half?
At the episode's start, Kirk's uniform lacks the command rank insignia and it's too conspicuous not to ignore.
What makes this episode stand out as a well above average episode of TOS:
The direction is first rate when dealing with both Kirks and their respective scenes, this works marvelously as an episode of horror and the camerawork bams it up a notch.
Ditto for the acting. Shatner is genuinely tour de force in his two split selves (the evil side and the good side.) Grace Lee Whitney is on par with Shatner and makes Rand more than what's on paper.
The make-up for the blood is pretty fantastic.
The use of eyeliner for evilKirk is impressive, now I want to go watch some new wave music videos from 1979 for some reason.
And set lighting - especially for evilKirk. Really nicely done, which holds up.
The episode is more visceral, as the plot is thin - made even thinner by the fact one shuttle trip would save the crewmen on the planet from turning into crewsicles. (Technically, behind the scenes, the deal to get the shuttle built hadn't been completed by this point, but still...)
But the plot isn't the talking point. It's showing the raw nature of human nature and how a person needs to combine both the gentle side and the vicious one and to temper, both.
It knows how it needs to keep the viewer's attention. And does so remarkably well, via horror and suspense.
It is a robust piece of Star Trek, doing what Star Trek does best: Focus on the human condition, this time using the ship as nothing more than a plot device as opposed to anything more intricate.
What other episodes would you say work best at human nature discussion while leaving big plot points out the window?
One example of this is...
...insert lame drumroll here...
"The Enemy Within"
Let's get some of the whiny nitpicks out of the way first, and I won't mention them all since I'd rather get to what works:
The shuttlecraft are not discussed despite being an obvious workaround to a never-dire situation. Unless none were delivered until Tuesday but as excuses go, that would "B" wimpy.
Despite seeing orange rabid Fido as a duplicate, it takes until a commercial break several minutes for anyone to realize Kirk's negative half was separated and made corporeal. There was no real sense of "What if", as Spock would have figured it out a lot earlier. But hadn't.
If someone spilled a substance that looks like powdered orange drink and got beamed up and that wrecks the entire transporter, but we've already seen bio-filters in "The Naked Time", surely there'd be filters to deal with strange substances with magnetic properties so off the charts it causes a transporter to beam back half a person's mind, wait 30 seconds out of convenience, then automatically beam back the remaining half?
At the episode's start, Kirk's uniform lacks the command rank insignia and it's too conspicuous not to ignore.
What makes this episode stand out as a well above average episode of TOS:
The direction is first rate when dealing with both Kirks and their respective scenes, this works marvelously as an episode of horror and the camerawork bams it up a notch.
Ditto for the acting. Shatner is genuinely tour de force in his two split selves (the evil side and the good side.) Grace Lee Whitney is on par with Shatner and makes Rand more than what's on paper.
The make-up for the blood is pretty fantastic.
The use of eyeliner for evilKirk is impressive, now I want to go watch some new wave music videos from 1979 for some reason.
And set lighting - especially for evilKirk. Really nicely done, which holds up.
The episode is more visceral, as the plot is thin - made even thinner by the fact one shuttle trip would save the crewmen on the planet from turning into crewsicles. (Technically, behind the scenes, the deal to get the shuttle built hadn't been completed by this point, but still...)
But the plot isn't the talking point. It's showing the raw nature of human nature and how a person needs to combine both the gentle side and the vicious one and to temper, both.
It knows how it needs to keep the viewer's attention. And does so remarkably well, via horror and suspense.
It is a robust piece of Star Trek, doing what Star Trek does best: Focus on the human condition, this time using the ship as nothing more than a plot device as opposed to anything more intricate.
What other episodes would you say work best at human nature discussion while leaving big plot points out the window?
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