The other thread about saying something good about episode you hate made me think how I liked the first 5 minutes of "And the children shall lead."
It made me think of episodes that I absolutely love until something happens.
The contenders that come to my mind for this characteristic are....
Wolf in the fold -- absolutely loved it until they beam back aboard the ship for the purpose of using the ship's computer to figure out who the Killer is. In my opinion the only reason dramatically they do this is so that the creature can now threaten the entire ship as opposed just to the people in Jaris's Residence or Arguilia.
To me it would have been much better to play it as a "Ten Little Indians" scenario where Jaris could simply have refused to allow the Enterprise people back onto the ship stating that after the death of his wife it was indisputable that the killer was in the room with them and that they should logically try to figure out who the killer was. The lack of any other potential female victims if the writer would have deemed such a thing necessary could have been taken care of by having jarus have female employees or whatever. Once they go to the ship it just becomes another entity that wants to take control of the ship which happens all too often anyway.
Next is "the changeling" which I absolutely love notwithstanding it's since become a cliche about the probe that returns to earth in search of its creator.
The moment Kirk blurts out he's not Nomads Creator and that Nomad has made a mistake kind of ruins the episode for me but I'm sure I'm in the minority of that opinion. Either don't have Kirk be in command of nomad until much later and then have Kirk dispose of nomad immediately once he does have control or never have Nomad in his control at all. I'm not saying Kurt should be infallible but for him to have trick The Entity into thinking he was its creator and would follow his instructions and then just blurt out in a fit of anger that he's not just messes the episode up for me.
Third one that pops into my head is "Obsession".
I love it until the point where the creature somehow has multi warp capabilities and decides to leave the planet and then we get the usual space battle where some how the creature is invulnerable to all their weapons and can penetrate their Shields and they have conveniently left open a hatch so that the creature can get into the ship. Man it's figured out how to avoid photons phasers and deflector Shields but when you press "reverse" on the ventilation system -- man that creature can't handle that.
And once again it's seems to me simply just the fact that they want to put not just Kirk in danger or his career or the landing party in danger but the entire crew of the ship! And then by the end we basically have Spock and McCoy falling on their knees in begging forgiveness at how wrong they were and how right Kirk was.
Giving the creature the ability to fly at warp speeds to other planets and that it's planning to spawn and that it is invulnerable to Starship attacks makes Kirk so completely justified in his obsession that there's no ambiguity as to whether he was right about staying in the first place. And of course the standard ending where despite the fact that six to eight of his crewman have died he's happily going to tell Garrovick about Tall Tales concerning his father.
I'm not saying I hate those episodes -- in fact I like them but they're knocked out of my top tier because of those particular issues.
Does anybody have their own episodes that in their opinion go astray?
It made me think of episodes that I absolutely love until something happens.
The contenders that come to my mind for this characteristic are....
Wolf in the fold -- absolutely loved it until they beam back aboard the ship for the purpose of using the ship's computer to figure out who the Killer is. In my opinion the only reason dramatically they do this is so that the creature can now threaten the entire ship as opposed just to the people in Jaris's Residence or Arguilia.
To me it would have been much better to play it as a "Ten Little Indians" scenario where Jaris could simply have refused to allow the Enterprise people back onto the ship stating that after the death of his wife it was indisputable that the killer was in the room with them and that they should logically try to figure out who the killer was. The lack of any other potential female victims if the writer would have deemed such a thing necessary could have been taken care of by having jarus have female employees or whatever. Once they go to the ship it just becomes another entity that wants to take control of the ship which happens all too often anyway.
Next is "the changeling" which I absolutely love notwithstanding it's since become a cliche about the probe that returns to earth in search of its creator.
The moment Kirk blurts out he's not Nomads Creator and that Nomad has made a mistake kind of ruins the episode for me but I'm sure I'm in the minority of that opinion. Either don't have Kirk be in command of nomad until much later and then have Kirk dispose of nomad immediately once he does have control or never have Nomad in his control at all. I'm not saying Kurt should be infallible but for him to have trick The Entity into thinking he was its creator and would follow his instructions and then just blurt out in a fit of anger that he's not just messes the episode up for me.
Third one that pops into my head is "Obsession".
I love it until the point where the creature somehow has multi warp capabilities and decides to leave the planet and then we get the usual space battle where some how the creature is invulnerable to all their weapons and can penetrate their Shields and they have conveniently left open a hatch so that the creature can get into the ship. Man it's figured out how to avoid photons phasers and deflector Shields but when you press "reverse" on the ventilation system -- man that creature can't handle that.
And once again it's seems to me simply just the fact that they want to put not just Kirk in danger or his career or the landing party in danger but the entire crew of the ship! And then by the end we basically have Spock and McCoy falling on their knees in begging forgiveness at how wrong they were and how right Kirk was.
Giving the creature the ability to fly at warp speeds to other planets and that it's planning to spawn and that it is invulnerable to Starship attacks makes Kirk so completely justified in his obsession that there's no ambiguity as to whether he was right about staying in the first place. And of course the standard ending where despite the fact that six to eight of his crewman have died he's happily going to tell Garrovick about Tall Tales concerning his father.
I'm not saying I hate those episodes -- in fact I like them but they're knocked out of my top tier because of those particular issues.
Does anybody have their own episodes that in their opinion go astray?
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