The One Thing You Could Change, TOS Edition...

[Pauln6]

I was watching 'The Enterprise Incident' today and would definitely change it. I really like the Romulan Commander but thought it was too easy the way she fell for Spock's charms.
I have queries about the Federation's morality here. I'd have liked Kirk and Spock to have been more concerned about this. If I were to change the episode I would make The Rom Commander just the Captain of one of the 3 ships and would have Tal be fleet commander and commanding her to try to seduce Spock. She would object then agree and sort of fall for Spock and eventually they would lament together that they must do as ordered by their captains.
Ooh sorry gone into fan fiction mode but the Rom Commander came out looking like a bit of a fool and I would like there to be a reason for that. Perhaps her reason for jumping into the transporter was trying to pull Spock back or something.

This is one I loved as a kid but as an adult I am left scratching my head as to how they got away with it. The Romulan ships would have had shields up except when transporting, they would have had sensors and weapons trained on the Enterprise. I think it needed an extra bit of mission impossible, an extra agent running interference, for their success to make sense. I think the script writers should have made a fraction more of Spock's 'inability' to lie in the wordplay.

The commander's reappearance in Star Trek Continues was pretty cool.

 

[Henoch]

I was watching 'The Enterprise Incident' today and would definitely change it. I really like the Romulan Commander but thought it was too easy the way she fell for Spock's charms.
I have queries about the Federation's morality here. I'd have liked Kirk and Spock to have been more concerned about this. If I were to change the episode I would make The Rom Commander just the Captain of one of the 3 ships and would have Tal be fleet commander and commanding her to try to seduce Spock. She would object then agree and sort of fall for Spock and eventually they would lament together that they must do as ordered by their captains.
Ooh sorry gone into fan fiction mode but the Rom Commander came out looking like a bit of a fool and I would like there to be a reason for that. Perhaps her reason for jumping into the transporter was trying to pull Spock back or something.

Maybe Spock put a hypnotic mind whammy on her.

 

[cooleddie74]

She fell for him. We've seen lots of interspecies romances and puppy dog eyes in Trek and this is no different, and in some ways more understandable since Romulans and Vulcans are almost the same species. It'd be like having romantic attraction to a very distant relative you've never seen, met nor even heard of and knowing it's appropriate because of said distance.

 

[Methuselah Flint]

Maybe in Turnabout Intruder, have us go off with Spock, McCoy and Coleman, so we don't see the switch or find out what's wrong until much later.

In The Mark Of Gideon, let's have no Enterprise scenes until very late, so we think Kirk is indeed alone on the Enterprise. Have the reveal of it being a fake, much later.

Have a longer time on Memory Alpha, and a bigger set, exploring the horrors of death that the Zetarians have created, before they come back for the landing party.

More of the Stratos city.

Make Spock bald in Spock's Brain.

These are just a few of mine.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

The commander's reappearance in Star Trek Continues was pretty cool.

For the first five or ten minutes, I thought it was Joanne Linville, and I was flabbergasted that she could look so good. She was exact and it was INSANE.

 

[Commishsleer]

Maybe in Turnabout Intruder, have us go off with Spock, McCoy and Coleman, so we don't see the switch or find out what's wrong until much later.

In The Mark Of Gideon, let's have no Enterprise scenes until very late, so we think Kirk is indeed alone on the Enterprise. Have the reveal of it being a fake, much later.

Have a longer time on Memory Alpha, and a bigger set, exploring the horrors of death that the Zetarians have created, before they come back for the landing party.

More of the Stratos city.

Make Spock bald in Spock's Brain.

These are just a few of mine.

I agree.
Create a bit more mystery - make us think a bit.

If I were allowed just one thing in Spock's Brain though it would be to have Spock not 'help' in the operation at all. Just wake up and be grateful to McCoy and I would be grateful.

 

[Methuselah Flint]

In The Deadly Years, Scott is reduced to the background, really just there to be 'old' with the rest of the senior staff/main players. Maybe we could have had at least one scene of him struggling in Engineering after his end-of-act reveal. Kirk's affliction was mainly mental, we could have seen the physical effects with Scotty.

We never know if he steps down from his duties, (Spock and McCoy don't, although they do gather in sickbay towards the end, sitting and conversing, so they're not as active), although he is a part of the competency hearing, so I guess not.

 

[Maurice]

Change one thing: Have someone point out the structural issues with Ellison's "City" story treatment before it went to script. As was, he wrote the script that they approved as an outline, almost to a T, and then they decided it didn't work.

 

[johnnybear]

The shields thing in Enterprise Incident like A Taste of Armageddon does leave you with a bump in your thinking but Spock not having a mark on his head or a hair out of place in Spock's Brain is considerably worse, plus Spock telling McCoy how to operate on him makes you wonder if the theory of Doctor Spock being his name in the 70s wasn't wrong after all?

 

[Maurice]

... makes you wonder if the theory of Doctor Spock being his name in the 70s wasn't wrong after all?

That's not a "theory".

 

[Commishsleer]

Change one thing: Have someone point out the structural issues with Ellison's "City" story treatment before it went to script. As was, he wrote the script that they approved as an outline, almost to a T, and then they decided it didn't work.

Were they too afraid to take Ellison on?

 

[ScottJ85]

Establish a time period and reporting agency for the Enterprise and keep it consistent from the beginning. It took until season 2 for them to commit to Starfleet, the Federation, and the 23rd century.

 

[plynch]

Don't think 23rd century was even canonical till the intro to one of the movies.

 

[Henoch]

, and the 23rd century.

Don't think 23rd century was even canonical till the intro to one of the movies.

Establishing a definitive TOS date would make this site much less voluminous. The only obvious reference to the 23rd Century was in TWOK on the label of Romulan Ale: 2283. Since the film was released in 1982, "they" finally drank the "about three hundred years in the future" Kool-Aid. Previous TOS episodes Space Seed and The Savage Curtain hint mid- to late-22nd century... (dives for cover.)

 

[Mytran]

Establishing a definitive TOS date would make this site much less voluminous. The only obvious reference to the 23rd Century was in TWOK on the label of Romulan Ale: 2283. Since the film was released in 1982, "they" finally drank the "about three hundred years in the future" Kool-Aid. Previous TOS episodes Space Seed and The Savage Curtain hint mid- to late-22nd century... (dives for cover.)

Well, that and the giant "in the 23rd Century" title on screen...
http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/twok/ch1/twok0001.jpg

 

[cooleddie74]

TMP more or less narrowed down the TOS Era to the 23rd century when Will Decker said that Voyager 6 was launched "over three hundred years ago." Although the actual Paramount-approved time gap between the two is closer to 275 years now that the Mike Okuda timelines and other reference materials have been published.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

WNMHGB says that the S.S. Valiant was lost over two centuries ago, at the edge of the galaxy.

Setting the first season less than 300 years in its future doesn't seem to allow enough time for things like that to happen.

 

[Maurice]

TMP more or less narrowed down the TOS Era to the 23rd century when Will Decker said that Voyager 6 was launched "over three hundred years ago." Although the actual Paramount-approved time gap between the two is closer to 275 years now that the Mike Okuda timelines and other reference materials have been published.

"Over three hundred years ago," would have put them at earliest at the end of the 23rd century and possibly into the 24th.

 

[cooleddie74]

I never once bought even as a kid that it was any later than the 23rd and I don't think the creators thought that TMP took place in the 24th. I'll probably never know for certain but...I'm pretty sure they'd narrowed down the century by 1979.

 

[Maurice]

They could/should have left it vague by always referring to events as "centuries ago". That makes it easier.