Well, with that episode title, I guess today's younger viewers would expect to see the crew literally naked.
Classic episodes now considered "lame" - ?!
- Thread starter Talos IV
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The Manson Family have entered the chat.Murder sprees AND sex orgies!
The posts after yours answer the question. Young adults used to the levels of sex and violence of Game of Thrones, Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, etc... are likely to find TOS tame. As already stated, they might at least expect to see someone naked.
Even Ash Tyler's transformation from Klingon to Human on DISCO was a level of intensity not seen on TOS.
Maybe it also depends on how young we’re going. The thing about TOS and 60s prime time generally is that even if it was meant for adults, it was okay for kids to watch. I would say that was mostly still true, but less so, in the 80s. Most prestige TV shows today are pretty firmly Not For Kids, says this old man.
Roddenberry would have loved to do a TV-MA rated Trek.
Orion pleasure slave Vina has entered the chat
See, as someone posting on this forum for the first time, I have to say that prestige TV and the mentality of those who consume it exclusively are why I don't bother with it most of the time. The fact is that, ironically, The Original Series is way more mature than "prestige TV" that came up in the wake of Game of Thrones, and I think, due to the rise of social media tribalism, that the people obsessed with stuff like The Boys, Invincible, American Horror Story et al. deep down can't handle this truth. They're so obsessed with shows that rely on gratuitous sex, swearing and violence that they become agitated when they watch an older show that requires them to use their brains and think. Ditto for shows like Twin Peaks (the third season of which, ironically, was made for Showtime).
Oh, forgot to mention that this is why I'm in the camp that wants nothing to do with the era that lasted from 2017 - 2022, aka. Kurtzman's Reign of Fucking Terror as I call it. The franchise basically became an example of trash "prestige TV" at its utter worst (the only exception being Lower Decks, which is a blatant reddit-skewed ripoff of Rick and Morty) and it lost the plot. Even to this day, there are still lingering spectres of KRoFT with stuff like Section 31.
Not really sure how tribalism or obsession comes into it (he says on a board for a 60-year-old franchise); and the idea that people who prefer modern shows necessarily don’t use their brains and think Unlike Us TOS Fans seems… unlikely?
Yeah, TBH, I really should've thought that one out better. But regardless, the rise in popularity of "prestige TV" definitely harmed Trek in more ways than one. That's what I'm trying to say.
Lower Decks is in no way a ripoff of Rick and Morty; its attitude, storytelling style, and what it’s trying to say about the world are nothing like R&M (which I like fine, but the similarities pretty much end at being science fiction cartoons).
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Then why is the humour and dialogue the exact same?
See, I would just say that it’s a shift in the culture (of TV, and generally) to more-R-than-PG. Trek has definitely followed that trend, but that’s pretty much the same phenomena as Trek having 1960s views of male/female relations in the 1960s. It’s always going to reflect the world it’s made in.
For the same reason the sky outside is bright crimson — because it plainly isn’t. There’s humor, but not the same kind of humor. R&M is cynical, dark, existentially bleak satire; LD is life-affirming, idealistic and science-positive (and not in a crazed Rick Sanchez way). They share writer DNA, but they couldn’t be more different.
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....Yeah, I think this isn't working. I guess we should call it quits before we turn this into a flame war.
Fair.
Pray tell, which scene is that??
Screenshot-2025-10-04-231618 hosted at ImgBB
Image Screenshot-2025-10-04-231618 hosted in ImgBB
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https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/al...alance-of-terror/balance-of-terror-br-440.jpg
As with "Friday's Child", the opening minutes threaten to derail by being so contrived and obtuse... but somehow make up for it. If one can roll with the clunk, the payoff is worth it. Ditto for "The Enemy Within" despite lack of shuttlecraft as that would have negated the episode entirely, unless Scotty found space bats nesting in all their shuttles and that level of camp just does not fit the tone of TOS, not even their more comedic episodes.
"Sinner repent" was pretty considerable back in 1966, but you're otherwise right. Gotta show rather than imply. The attributes that Hitchcock, et al, brought in be danged...
Possibly. He does say a few things in the 1976 Star Trek album about sex, to the loud applause of the 70s audience... even "The Naked Now" definitely tries to show an actual orgy.
^^this
Again, if one can roll with the plot holes or contrivances, then there may still be payoff.
Then again, "The Menagerie" definitely worked better in 1966 than now, and even back then we had "Dagger of the Mind" where Spock said the mind meld was rarely used due to being a "hidden, personal thing"*. Much as with TNG's warp core breach and "transporter problem of the week", guess what became a TOS trope, as well as becoming Flanderized (despite still being played utterly straight, with no self-aware camp)?
* just like his sex life, also brought into a tv episode by hyping up its secrecy but then - by season 3 - half the galaxy's inhabitants now seem to know about it, even folks on planets not aligned with the Federation. Who gossiped it to Droxine and others, it wouldn't be McCoy or Kirk and I'm sure both made medical and captain's logs babbling about Spock's spiny, cactus-shaped jiggy*... maybe the same people who sold Gideon the blueprints and specifications of the Enterprise in order to build a mock-up that had the right vibrations and bleep and hum tones had? Klingon spies? Okay, small universe syndrome or not, that might explain a few things without bringing up too many problems** as a result...
* 70s fandom had some risqué drawings from certain creative fans for sure, that's how they got desensitized, for those who wanted to
** unlike either Memory Alpha making all the logs free to listen to - which is unlikely or, and this one is even more fun, the Borg being created thanks to V'Ger and Decker merging as that doesn't begin to work given the Delta Quadrant origin., but I'm starting to digress all over the carpet..
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