That One Where....

[Nardpuncher]

One thing that's great about Star Trek is that you could talk with non-fans and they'd recall so many episodes not by title of course, but by what stood out in the episode.
How many times has somebody said to you " I love that episode with the space gangsters!" , or " That one where Kirk fought the big lizard" or "The one where they go back in time and meet Joan Collins!"

TNG had a few that stuck out, but only The Original had this. I wonder if you could even do anything like it again, without it seeming too over the top.

 

[Outpost4]

Great point. Thanks for bringing it up, Nardpuncher.

Yes, Star Trek had more memorable images than the rest of the series combined. For every Picard-as-a-Borg, there is a Balok puppet. Or a green dancing alien. Or even stupid images, like Lincoln in a chair in space.

Star Trek was certainly the most visual of all of the Treks, and yet it had the most primitive special effects. Tell you anything?

 

[sbk1234]

It was the last Trek series that was truly original. When TOS came on, there was nothing like it. By the time oaf TNG, the first Star Wars trilogy had already been completed. Space shows were becoming a dime a dozen. Somehow, the first always seems to make the strongest impression.

 

[Christopher]

Star Trek was certainly the most visual of all of the Treks, and yet it had the most primitive special effects. Tell you anything?

Not really. They're only "primitive" by today's standards. By the standards of 1960s television, they were beyond state-of-the-art. They were the most sophisticated, complex, technologically advanced special effects ever created for television at the time. Four top visual-effects companies rotated on the series because the effects were far too elaborate and extensive for any one company to handle on a weekly schedule. Whole new FX techniques were invented for or popularized/standardized by TOS, and the show garnered Emmy nominations for its visual effects three years in a row.

So if you're trying to make some kind of "less is more" point, you're way off base. By the standards of the day, TOS was as "more" as you could possibly get without a feature-film budget.

 

[Nardpuncher]

Star Trek has so many memeorable images that it's almost easier to point out the episodes that are forgettable. That one may be...um....I dunno.

 

[Red Ranger]

Yep, quite true. Many a casual viewer remembers when they met: "those two half-black, half-white guys," "Nazis," or, "The Space Hippies." When my youngest brother was a kid, he would refer to Journey to Babel as "Spock's Father." LOL! -- RR

 

[Nardpuncher]

It may even be possible to do " The one with the ______ " for evey episode! It could be a game, I'll go first:

The one with that monster that sucks all your salt out.

 

[Outpost4]

Star Trek was certainly the most visual of all of the Treks, and yet it had the most primitive special effects. Tell you anything?

Not really. They're only "primitive" by today's standards. By the standards of 1960s television, they were beyond state-of-the-art. They were the most sophisticated, complex, technologically advanced special effects ever created for television at the time. Four top visual-effects companies rotated on the series because the effects were far too elaborate and extensive for any one company to handle on a weekly schedule. Whole new FX techniques were invented for or popularized/standardized by TOS, and the show garnered Emmy nominations for its visual effects three years in a row.

So if you're trying to make some kind of "less is more" point, you're way off base. By the standards of the day, TOS was as "more" as you could possibly get without a feature-film budget.

Point well taken, Christopher, but I was responding to the OP's assertion that Star Trek has the visual moments people remember today. I was amazed by Star Trek's special effects work as a teenager and agree they were cutting edge for their day. But that's not the point. The OP's point is how visually memorable Star Trek is today. The "gee-whiz" CGI effects of ENT, or even the often excellent model work of TNG, are not as memorable today as hundreds of furry balls all over the Enterprise and K-7.

There was a visual ethic to Star Trek that was often missing in later incarnations of Trek. Maybe it was because color TV was in its infancy and there was a push to make Star Trek visually striking. Now everything has pop and pizazz. Maybe it was because those striking special effects you mention were becoming available on a television series' budget and not just reserved for movies, although I think there is more to it than that. For some reason, Star Trek was more exciting visually than its contemporaries and certainly more than later Trek. Certain series have it. The Twilight Zone had it. So did Star Trek.

 

[Christopher]

One thing that's great about Star Trek is that you could talk with non-fans and they'd recall so many episodes not by title of course, but by what stood out in the episode.

On the other hand, TOS was one of the first series whose fans habitually remembered and referred to episodes by their titles rather than by "that one where..." descriptions. This is partly because a lot of series didn't show their episode titles onscreen, and partly because TOS was rerun so heavily in syndication (more so than just about any show before it) that the episode titles, along with everything else about the shows, just got ground into our memories through sheer repetition. Audiences today are much more media-savvy and well-informed, and we have the Internet and home video now, so being aware of episode titles is common even when they aren't shown onscreen, but as with so many other things in fandom, what's commonplace now pretty much started with TOS.

 

[Green Shirt]

Or even stupid images, like Lincoln in a chair in space.

I always wondered why they had him in a chair in space. I guess it was more dignified than floating around like a rag doll.

 

[Christopher]

Or even stupid images, like Lincoln in a chair in space.

I always wondered why they had him in a chair in space. I guess it was more dignified than floating around like a rag doll.

Obviously, to evoke this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:He_saved_the_union.jpg

The Excalbians took the image of Lincoln from Kirk's mind. It was meant to evoke his feelings about the man and make him curious to "meet" him. It stands to reason that his manifestation would've been based on such iconic imagery as the Lincoln Memorial.

 

[Nardpuncher]

That one with the little kid on the spaceship and the scary alien puppet.

 

[TheLonelySquire]

One thing that's great about Star Trek is that you could talk with non-fans and they'd recall so many episodes not by title of course, but by what stood out in the episode.
How many times has somebody said to you " I love that episode with the space gangsters!" , or " That one where Kirk fought the big lizard" or "The one where they go back in time and meet Joan Collins!"

TNG had a few that stuck out, but only The Original had this. I wonder if you could even do anything like it again, without it seeming too over the top.

"The one with the Easter Bunny!"

 

[Hambone]

Here's a good one:

"The one where they find out Spock's dad was really a Romulan." That always makes me laugh.

I was sitting in the day room of my dorm in college watching "Balance of Terror" with about a dozen other students...and at the Romulan commander's big reveal someone gasped "That's Spock's father!"

 

[johcomp]

Here's a good one:

"The one where they find out Spock's dad was really a Romulan." That always makes me laugh.

I was sitting in the day room of my dorm in college watching "Balance of Terror" with about a dozen other students...and at the Romulan commander's big reveal someone gasped "That's Spock's father!"

Better still - "Hey, that's the Klingon that got fragged by V'ger!!"

 

[Tan Ru]

"The one where Horshack and Vinnie put something in Kirk's coffee to 'make him go real fast' and then Mr. Woodman expels them all from Starfleet Academy".

Wait.........I think I'm getting my episodes mixed up again...........

 

[Alrik]

Or the one with the rock monster.

 

[Nardpuncher]

^^ I thought it was some sort of spahghetti monster whn I was 7 or 8!

The time they went back to Chicago in the 20s.

 

[Green Shirt]

"The one where Horshack and Vinnie put something in Kirk's coffee to 'make him go real fast' and then Mr. Woodman expels them all from Starfleet Academy".

Wait.........I think I'm getting my episodes mixed up again...........

(Holds head), I'm so confused!!!

Yeah, the show where McCoy goes around saying "Hi, there", instead of "I'm a doctor, not a . . . ".



I say a Ba Ba Ba, Ba Ba Barino.

 

[I am not Spock]

One thing that's great about Star Trek is that you could talk with non-fans and they'd recall so many episodes not by title of course, but by what stood out in the episode.

On the other hand, TOS was one of the first series whose fans habitually remembered and referred to episodes by their titles rather than by "that one where..." descriptions. This is partly because a lot of series didn't show their episode titles onscreen, and partly because TOS was rerun so heavily in syndication (more so than just about any show before it) that the episode titles, along with everything else about the shows, just got ground into our memories through sheer repetition. Audiences today are much more media-savvy and well-informed, and we have the Internet and home video now, so being aware of episode titles is common even when they aren't shown onscreen, but as with so many other things in fandom, what's commonplace now pretty much started with TOS.

That's true. I can refer to Trek episodes by name. Not so much with many other franchises. I don't think fans of ER or CSI know the writers names or episode titles, etc.