Revisiting Star Trek Continues...

[CorporalCaptain]

Reinterpreting "Turnabout Intruder" as if it's not saying at every turn that women aren't allowed to command starships is a very post-1960s way of reinterpreting the episode. The sexism is painful, but it was all over shows of the era. It reads that way, no women starship captains. It's a crap episode, a hacked up rip-off of Turnabout (1940), which further supports the idea that it really was intended to be read that way.

 

[Bixby]

Reinterpreting "Turnabout Intruder" as if it's not saying at every turn that women aren't allowed to command starships is a very post-1960s way of reinterpreting the episode.

I just watched the episode, and there's only 2 instances in the dialogue which center on Lester's relationship with Starfleet: where Lester says: "Your world of starship Captains doesn't admit women." , and later the reference to her lack of temperament and training, and I find Warped9's interpretation of those lines completely valid.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I just watched the episode, and there's only 2 instances in the dialogue which center on Lester's relationship with Starfleet: where Lester says: "Your world of starship Captains doesn't admit women." , and later the reference to her lack of temperament and training, and I find Warped9's interpretation of those lines completely valid.

There are several more data points in the episode than those.

But as you said, this is a thread about Star Trek Continues.

We can continue discussion about "Turnabout Intruder" in a more appropriate thread, maybe one covering all the arguments that apparently will never end, including those about whether the Federation has money, whether Starfleet is a military, whether Tuvix should have been separated, and all that.

 

[Warped9]

There are several more data points in the episode than those.

Cite them.

There are things I like in ETW, as Bixby referenced, just as there in every STC and TOS episode. But in this case the likes aren’t stellar enough to outweigh the meh.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Cite them.

It's not like we haven't had this conversation before.

Also, to repeat myself:

We can continue discussion about "Turnabout Intruder" in a more appropriate thread

 

[Warped9]

It's not like we haven't had this conversation before.

So you’re not going to cite them.

I went back to “Turnabout Intruder” because “Embracing The Winds” uses that as a springboard to tell its story. And in the end they don’t resolve anything.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

So you’re not going to cite them.

That's untrue.

Having already been asked not to discuss off-topic subjects, what I said was, I'm not going to cite them here.

But if you'd like to review what we talked about before, wherein I already did cite at least two additional data points,* in the conversation you participated in, see the original thread on "Embracing the Winds".

STC Ep. 7: "Embrace The Winds" speculation and discussion....

While we can still discuss Ep. 6 "Come Not Between The Dragons" we can start speculating about STC's forthcoming Episode 7. We know that Ep. 7 is supposedly to be released this coming September. We also know the episode's title, "Embracing The Winds," unless there is a change between now and...

www.trekbbs.com

* - besides a third I already cited in this thread

 

[Warped9]

^^ I went through that thread wherein you could just as easily cited your own “data points” and your argument still comes up empty because it still comes down to how you choose to interpret the line I cited in my review.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

^^ I went through that thread wherein you could just as easily cited your own “data points” and your argument still comes up empty because it still comes down to how you choose to interpret the line I cited in my review.

This is obviously one of those debates that's never going to get settled.

That's all the more reason why this thread, to discuss fan films, is not really the venue for it.

 

[Warped9]

First of all how is this thread derailed when in my review of ETW I referenced “Turnabout Intruder” as the springboard for ETW? I raised the issue because it is directly pertinent to what was done in the STC story.

As far as I’m concerned the issue is settled and has been for quite some time even though STC drew the wrong conclusions from the original source materiel and fabricated a half-assed story to rationalize it.

As STC progresses it’s evermore apparent their intent wasn’t just to pick up where TOS left off, but to revisit dangling threads, tie into later productions and setup TMP, none of which TOS would have done if it had gone another season. There is still stuff to like in STC, but it’s also a glossy exercise in fan service.

 

[Maurice]

Just tell a good story. Don't worry about connecting the dots. Too many fan productions lean on the latter.

 

[Warped9]

"Still Treads The Shadow" - 2/5

Stardate 6563.4 - While studying deep space phenomena the Enterprise again encounters the starship Defiant...and a duplicate James Kirk.

Basically the Enterprise is studying a singularity when the previously encountered starship Defiant emerges from it. This time the ship is intact and appears fully operational including life support. It also has an occupant aboard. When they beam over to investigate the find a very old man in cryogenic suspension. After returning to the Enterprise they learn the old man is actually James T. Kirk.

It seems when the Enterprise retrieved Kirk previously during the events of “The Tholian Web” something about the unusual space they were in duplicated Kirk as well as the Defiant. And from the duplicate Kirk’s point of view the Enterprise left the area and left him behind marooned on the Defiant. Afterward the duplicate Kirk managed to restore the Defiant’s life support systems as well as gave all of the Defiant’s dead crew a “burial at sea” so to speak with the ship’s transporter. It also seems the Defiant was no longer in the strange Tholian space yet now it was trapped by a singularity. Duplicate Kirk also manages to create a form of intelligence within the ship’s computer that helps him repair the Defiant’s systems yet also keeps him company. Decades pass as the duplicate Kirk and the ship’s now self-aware AI seek to escape the singularity.

*Sigh* This episode is pretty much nothing but fan service. Sure it has moments, but overall it's just a retelling of TNG's sixth season episode "Second Chances" only here with two Kirks rather than two Will Rikers. They also pull from TOS' "The Deadly Years" as well as “Metamorphosis” and picking up on a dangling thread from "The Tholian Web." Indeed STC has an obvious habit of picking up on dangling threads from past TOS episodes rather than telling wholly original stories. "Pilgrim Of Eternity," "Lolani," "Fairest Of Them All," "The White Iris," "Divided We Stand," "Embracing The Winds" and " "Still Treads The Shadow" are all stories picking up on threads from TOS episodes. In fairness "Lolani" and "Come Not Between The Dragons" aren't picking up from specific episodes, but general ideas. Maybe that's why I think they feel the most authentic overall.

This story also feels laced with lines that feel lifted and rubber stamped from other episodes. That and it's rife with scientific jargon and technobabble you never would have heard in TOS. Indeed yet again it comes across as a TNG story in TOS clothing.

Chuck Huber tries too hard. He doesn't seem to have much in the way of nuance. While they make him look sorta like Deforest Kelley's McCoy I think I actually liked Larry Nemecek as McCoy better in terms of performance.

Candidly I don't really have much to say about this. Nothing about it feels original or genuinely engaging. It's a soup of stuff large and small pulled from other productions and stirred together resulting in a bowl of meh. And, of course, they have to introduce yet another (sorta) old flame of Kirk's.

I thought "The White Iris" was disappointing, but this might be even worse. It's not horrible, but it's really disappointing.

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[Ssosmcin]

Warped9 and some others here mentioned the creeping influence of TNG-type of storytelling in STC, and I found an instance here. In the early part of this episode on the bridge, Sulu teases Chekov and says Chekov wants to get some stripes...The following episode when Chekov must save Scottie and Uhura from death, he earns a new lieutenant stripe...In TOS, this would all be in the same episode.

And probably in the season premiere - if they decided to give it an actual story instead of just a mention.

While I'm grateful to Roddenberry for the kernel from which Trek was born, Gene's Coon's brilliance and overwork is more what we all see as Trek.

The "kernel" Roddenberry provided was the format for the entire series and the characters we love. He didn't drop the idea in a pitch and run. Coon added the concrete details like the UFP and the returning races. Also the lightness and comfort between the cast. No small thing, but let's not downplay how import Roddenberry was to the series. It evolved because of the people who joined him - Fontana and Justman were just as important as Coon. Hell, Justman was vital.

If STC hadn’t put itself forward as completing the 5-year mission and saying they want viewers to think it’s 1969 again then they can connect the dots to their hearts’ content.

Entirely this. If they just said "we're here to fill in the blanks connecting TOS to TMP" then fine. Go to town. But saying it's what they would have done in 1969 - 1971, then the expectation is to stay within the rules they themselves just stated.

When we first see all the names for the Constitution class starships in that early episode and since then, it was grating because ALL of the names chosen seemed taken from American or British anglo-saxon history, ignoring completely the asian, hispanic, Indian, slavic, african and european presence on the planet...not to mention ignoring Vulcans and Tellarites who were founders of the Federation.

There were some small attempts to diversify during the 1960s (the Indian actor as a Starship Captain in Court Martial, the all-Vulcan crew of a nevertheless non-Vulcan named ship), but it seemed that despite a wish to inject diversity in original Trek, there were still limits as to how far they would go.

I get it that STC was first and foremost a fan series and wasn't about to make sweeping changes to ship names and crews, but I still held out hope.

And see this is where STC is still playing by the rules of TOS. Since it was established that starships names were generally from American or British-Anglo Saxion history (Constellation was simply "spacey"), and I believe Kellam de Forest even made sure they stuck to it, it makes sense the STC would as well.

TNG fixed that and at the time it sounded odd at first because I was used to Lexington's and Farragut's and Exeter's, oh my!

"Still Treads The Shadow" - 2/5

Stardate 6563.4 - While studying deep space phenomena the Enterprise again encounters the starship Defiant...and a duplicate James Kirk.

And yep I agree with alla your review. Said it better than I could.

 

[Mudd]

And see this is where STC is still playing by the rules of TOS. Since it was established that starships names were generally from American or British-Anglo Saxion history (Constellation was simply "spacey"),

As a matter of fact...

Historic Ships in Baltimore | USS Constellation

 

[Bixby]

The "kernel" Roddenberry provided was the format for the entire series and the characters we love. He didn't drop the idea in a pitch and run. Coon added the concrete details like the UFP and the returning races. Also the lightness and comfort between the cast. No small thing, but let's not downplay how import Roddenberry was to the series. It evolved because of the people who joined him - Fontana and Justman were just as important as Coon. Hell, Justman was vital.

I give Roddenberry credit for starting the show, but more credit to Coon for making it come to life. I just have to watch the first season of TNG when Roddenberry was fully in charge and it was just so boring!!

And see this is where STC is still playing by the rules of TOS. Since it was established that starships names were generally from American or British-Anglo Saxion history (Constellation was simply "spacey"), and I believe Kellam de Forest even made sure they stuck to it, it makes sense the STC would as well.

Being stubbornly american and british only was a rule?

Ok gentlemen, let's hear your opinions on all STC shows now...

 

[Bixby]

"Still Treads The Shadow"

Some moments are really well acted/directed, such as when the bridge crew are all aghast when seeing the second, older Kirk, but especially their reactions later as they watch the visual logs of their abandoned Captain...

I can't disagree with any of Warped's points, I did feel that this episode was too much talking instead of showing. for example, during Captain Kirk's spoken chess game against Tiberius I found myself tuning out and yawning.

Rekha Sharma is a very good actress, I felt it deeply when she raced to the Bridge and desperately pleaded with Kirk to return her to the Defiant...but really apart from the viewer finding out she was Kirk's first girlfriend and that she's a master engineer (told, not shown), we really don't know anything about her.

So yeah, this episode is not bad/not good enough. At heart it is about loneliness and the toll they take on a person. There is a lot of one-on-ones between the two Kirks, or Kirk and McKenna (though no moments between old Kirk and Spock or McCoy!) As I watched it I definitely could see similarities between this one and OG Trek's METAMORPHOSIS, with Tiberius substituting for the Companion as the disembodied higher lifeform.

The biggest thing I wondered at the end, is whether or not Spock and McCoy were punished for directly disobeying a direct order...

 

[Warped9]

I agree there were moments, but overall it was a soup of stuff taken from elsewhere.

 

[Maurice]

I think everyone here is to some degree, misapprehending how the writing on the original worked.

Roddenberry originally had John D.F. Black as the Story Editor & Associate Producer on the writing side. It was Black's job to work with the freelancers to get the stories into shape, something that did not go well from accounts from multiple sources, and Roddenberry did a lot of rewriting that was nominally Black's responsibility. At Black's exit it was decided that they needed not just a Story Editor, but a writing producer as well, the latter role being taken up by Coon and the former (briefly) by Steven Carabatsos and later by Dorothy Fontana. This meant there were more people working on and contributing to the stories starting in the back half of the first season, and the show wasn't scrambling quite so desperately for shootable scripts.

Audiences don't have visibility into the writing of the show, and they don't see how much Roddenberry was contributing in terms of ideas and approaches even with Coon there. It was a team effort, and the team was stronger once there were more people there who worked well together. So to say Coon improved the show as if Roddenberry and Fontana (and Justman) weren't instrumental isn't really fair to any of them.

 

[Phoenix219]

There is a sense in TOS that not every crewman or officer we saw was aboard for the long haul of the full five years. Of course, some don’t make it because they came to an untimely end, but others evidently transferred off before the five years ended or onto the ship sometime after the ship had already embarked upon the five year voyage.

Case in point is McKennah. She is obviously assigned to the ship late in the game, and she references Lt. Carolyn Palamas having left the ship sometime after the events depicted in “Who Mourns For Adonais?”

Bringing a favoured character back isn’t necessarily fan-service-y unless theres a good reason not to bring them back. We can just assume we had no reason to see them in the interim just as we can assume Chekov was already aboard in Season 1 only we didn’t see him until he started getting regular duty on the bridge in Season 2.

Some characters like Janice Rand might be trickier. Rand was a fan favourite who was brought back as a transporter specialist or Chief in TMP (maybe she wanted to be sure no one was ever duplicated ever again). We can assume she left the Enterprise sometime during the first year and returned when the ship was being refit. Or we can assume she remained aboard, but simply transferred to a different department where she was no longer Kirk’s personal yeoman and so we never saw her again. And since we never again saw anyone else assigned as Kirk’s personal yeoman we might assume Kirk doesn’t want or really need one or the position isn’t really necessary.

Besides injecting references and callouts to later productions what I consider really fan-service-y is creating situations fans like that likely never would have happened in the original production. Reinterpreting the characters is one way fans make the established characters do want they want them to do even if it’s highly unlikely the original production would ever have done that. Introducing characters that partially supplant or minimize the established characters or writing stories like “The White Iris” is very fan-service-y.

Kirk being duplicated was done twice in TOS: “The Enemy Within” and “Mirror, Mirror.” Actually four times if you include “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” and “Whom Gods Destroy.” If you include TAS’ “The Survivor” (and STC doesn’t seem to acknowledge TAS as canon) then it’s five times we see a duplicate Kirk. Kirk has been aged abnormally in “The Deadly Years” and again if you include TAS’ “The Lorelei Signal.”

So oh-how-original and fan-service-y for STC to give us yet another duplicate Kirk only this time he’s been aged in their episode “Still Treads The Shadow” (which I haven’t revisited yet). And they bring the Defiant back from “The Tholian Web.” Seriously this was pretty much a retelling of TNG’s “Second Chances” only set in the TOS era.

For me this is a lot more fan-service-y than bringing back a character we haven’t seen since TOS’ first or second season.

I know it was later disproven, but I still am attached to the thought that this would have been a fantastic role for Shatner, if he had been on board with the idea. I can think of few opportunities that would have been this meaty and this central to actual warrant his appearance.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Way back in the '70s between TOS and TMP a lot of fans deferred to material in print to "fill in the gaps" of TOS' backstory and history

TAS served that purpose, at least where "finishing" the 5-year mission was concerned.

For a long time (and for some of us still ) the details James Blish had in his adaptation of "Balance Of Terror" were accepted as fact in terms of what happened during the Earth/Romulan War.

I place Blish in a special category of acceptable reference, since he worked from scripts (including early drafts, the latter having some connection to aired episodes. For example, in his adaptation of "The Omega Glory" (Star Trek 10 / pub. February, 1974), Blish has Captain Tracy make some pretty racist statements about Spock, the animosity probably stemming from Spock calling out the villagers' awareness of Phasers:

Kirk turned a cold face to Tracy. "Let's clear something up right now, Captain.
I have never had a better 'First' than Mr. Spock--or a better personal friend."

"You're sentimental, Jim. I've yet to meet a Vulcan capable of friendship. Certainly
this one is doing his best to sabotage ours."

Tracy's ruddy face had grown accusing. "And you know what's in his computer mind, too!
It's added up a few scanty observations--and clicked to the conclusion I've violated the Prime
Directive! He's got it into his machine head I'm interfering in this culture!"

Although this was cut from the final script, Tracy does appear to have it in / much disrespect for Spock, hence his playing on the beliefs of the Yangs by pointedly claiming Spock is Lucifer in the broadcast version. Again, Blish adapting the Tracy rant against Spock does explain his continued mistreatment of him is the acceptable, "canonical backstory" in print.

To that end it's not all that surprising the producers of STC just might defer to the TMP novelization given it was written by Roddenberry himself and thus giving it a measure of authenticity no other published work might have.

....or, they were not willing to create a new story that brought the 5-year mission to a close, but the events not immediately leading to TMP.

Concurrent with me revisiting STC I am following a Youtuber, who calls herself bunnytails, who has been reacting to the STC episodes (for the first time) after watching TOS and TAS. Her reactions are largely quite positive, but she is not watching them as critically as I am. She is watching them largely in terms of how much she enjoys a given episode and how well she thinks it was done—which is fair enough. But she is not viewing it as I am in the sense of not only is an episode entertaining (or not), but how convincing is it as something we could have seen if it had actually been made in 1969.

I've watched a few of her ST videos, and while she generally has her own, interesting opinions about the episodes, I have noticed she will occasionally open the reaction with references to what her subscribers have posted about an episode which can lead to a regurgitation of worn perspectives or long-debunked opinions about scripts or the "ranking" of an episode in terms of quality.

Although the TMP novelization is not a stellar piece of writing it is still interesting and partly due to some of the ideas Roddenberry introduces

In what was a running situation with Roddenberry since TOS is that on occasion, others captured the filmed essence of his characters (see: Alan Dean Foster's TAS novels for great examples of that) in ways he could not--certainly not with his lifeless TMP novel.

The same for the recent Han Solo movie where they felt obligated to explain the origin of his surname "Solo", or that singular bauble hanging in the cockpit of the Millenium Falcon, and so many unnecessary bits.

The entire notion of a Han Solo prequel was unnecessary, as the film proved beyond a shadow of a doubt.