Beloved episodes you can't get into

That would be the only explanation. And it's certainly plausible: we already know that every TOS episode has prints dubbed in various languages; how much simpler it would be, for cases like the corn whiskey in SG (outside of North America, "corn" simply means "grain," so by definition, all whiskey would be "corn whiskey"), to issue slightly tweaked prints of the few episodes involved?

 

"But it is often true." - Spock.

Kor

 

The Trouble with Tribbles - I didn't find it funny and it's really overrated. I think I prefer Piece of the Action as their comedy episode.

I, Mudd - I didn't like the original Mudd (I like Rainn Wilson's Mudd from Discovery).

 

I was under the impression that Roddenberry had next to nothing to do regarding day to day operations on the show by that point. You sure that wasn't a Fred Freiberger edict?

 

Fontana blamed Roddenberry for that one, according to an old Orion Press article. Apparently he had some minor involvement in just a few scripts even though he wasn't actively working on the show anymore.

Kor

 

Bob Justman was the one who first suggested that Spock needed to reciprocate the Commander's advances. Here's an excerpt from a June 5, 1968 memo that he wrote to Freiberger concerning Fontana's revised first draft teleplay:

Two day's later, when the studio first draft was written from Fontana's revised first draft teleplay (and mimeographed), Spock was "raining kisses on every square inch above the shoulder" and doing other things. I strongly suspect that it was Freiberger who added all of this material based on Justman's recommendations.

On June 13, Fontana fired off memos to Roddenberry, Freiberger, and Justman objecting to the events depicted in the studio first draft script.

 

Like The Honeymooners' "classic 39" Star Trek has their own "Classic 79." They're all amazing. Some may just be more amazing than others.

 

I agree with you on that

 

I agree, I also did not like the ending

 

I'd rate those:
1 "The Conscience of the King"
2 "Balance of Terror"
3 "Doomsday Machine"
4 "All Our Yesterdays"
5 "The Empath"

 

1. "All Our Yesterdays"
2. "The Empath"
3. "Doomsday Machine"
4. "Balance of Terror"
5 "Conscience of the King"

(note, I'd give all of these save "Conscience" at least four stars; "Conscience" I give three.)

 

1. "Balance of Terror"
2. "The Doomsday Machine"
3. "All Our Yesterdays"
4. "The Conscience of the King"
5. "The Empath"

But I love or really, really like them all. Not a bad one in the bunch.

 

You can blame all that on the Trek staff. They stamped "SHE LET'S HITLER MAKE NUKES" on her, whereas Ellison never explicitly spelled out why she's a focal point, just that her death by way of an auto accident is a crux point. Spock merely suggests her way of thinking might spread and delay US entry into the war as a way of illustrating to Kirk the sorts of ways a small change might alter future history. The real themes of the story got whacked by Coon, Fontana and Roddenberry.

The hackneyed dialog the staff wrote to replace Ellison's didn't help, especially the dreadful Edith predicts the future scene. The casting probably didn't help.

Bad sex is awful. Some pizza is almost as awful.

 

Different experiences, I guess.

 

Sex while eating pizza, though. That's the Decathlon goal.

 

It's been forever since I read Ellison's version, but wasn't there a scene where Spock "figured out" that Keeler was the focal point because of her pipe-dreaming about a brighter future? There was no hard evidence, like tricorder recordings. So, Ellison's way was very flimsy, if I'm remembering it correctly. Sci-fi writers depicting Utopian futures better watch their backs. There's a history-policing Vulcan out there with their name on him.

No matter how you slice it, both versions invoke paradoxes—not a multiverse—which is what breaks it for me. Despite that, I "like" COTEOF, just not enough to call it a "guilty pleasure." "Assignment Earth" is better with regard to time travel and reflexive causality, but it suffers from the same general flaw as The Questor Tapes. (Mankind is a child and can't develop "properly" on his own without constant attention from an alien nanny. Maturity comes from making mistakes. And if a race can't survive its own mistakes, then it's all for the better if it's not kept around like baggage, right?)

 

How about sex, pizza and then more sex?

 

I'm listening...