5 worst episode titles
- Thread starter Grant
- Start date
ScatmanRescueMe
Lieutenant Commander
The Cage..........Menagarie was better
Mudd's women
Spock's Brain
Omega glory
Immunity syndrome
Mudd's women
Spock's Brain
Omega glory
Immunity syndrome
The Man Trap -- to make it PC, it should have been "Humanoid Trap"
Naked Time -- Time needs to have clothing?
Operation: Annihilate -- Most operations are to either heal or add/subract/divide or multiply
Return to Tomorrow -- would we all like that
Obsession -- no real mystery to what the episode was going to be about.
Naked Time -- Time needs to have clothing?
Operation: Annihilate -- Most operations are to either heal or add/subract/divide or multiply
Return to Tomorrow -- would we all like that
Obsession -- no real mystery to what the episode was going to be about.
What little girls are made of- This always just creeped me out
The Corbomite Maneuver- You lost me at corb
The Immunity Syndrome- Seemed a bit of an oxymoron
The Empath- The dullness of this title seems to fortell the episode well.
Is there in Truth no Beauty?- I read it as "Is there no truth in beauty?" every damn time.
The Corbomite Maneuver- You lost me at corb
The Immunity Syndrome- Seemed a bit of an oxymoron
The Empath- The dullness of this title seems to fortell the episode well.
Is there in Truth no Beauty?- I read it as "Is there no truth in beauty?" every damn time.
Me too.
Yeah, "The Unreal McCoy" basically gives away the climax...
First of all, I think it these 3 titles are a mistake, not because of the titles themselves, but because of their relationship to each other:
The Paradise Syndrome
This Side of Paradise
The Immunity Syndrome
What we have here is two titles containing the word Paradise, and two containing the word Syndrome. Being a long-time Trekker, of course, I have no trouble distinguishing them. But over the years, I've talked to many "casual" fans who can never keep these 3 episodes straight, they're always confusing which one is which.
I just think it's a bad idea to duplicate key words in titles(other than simple prepositions, pronouns, etc, of course).
The Immunity Syndrome is bad also, because as someone else said, it's an oxymoron, and doesn't really describe the eposide, even after you've viewed it(some titles only make sense after you see the ep, but this one really makes no sense at all. I know that Kirk makes the "anti-body" analogy, but that doesn't imply immunity. Quite the opposite, in fact, the infection is destroying the body of the galaxy.)
The two "paradise" titles make sense within the context of each ep, but again, it's just a mistake to re-use a key word like that.
I agree with the bland un-inspiring choices mentioned above, like "Court Martial".
I also agree that "Operation-Annihilate" makes no sense, it sounds more like a Mission Impossible ep, because it implies the crew have been sent on a specific mission, or "op" to destroy something. Nothing in the actual events of the ep support this.
On the other hand, I disagree about "For the World is Hollow...". While it's a long title(hence my ....), but I think it sums up the ep pretty well, and is the kind of title that when you hear it, you go "Hmmm, I gotta see what that's about."
Maybe someone should start a thread about really good TOS titles, also. Because while I can list a handful that missed, there were lots of really good titles, much more interesting in my opinion than some of the more bland titles in later series.
The Paradise Syndrome
This Side of Paradise
The Immunity Syndrome
What we have here is two titles containing the word Paradise, and two containing the word Syndrome. Being a long-time Trekker, of course, I have no trouble distinguishing them. But over the years, I've talked to many "casual" fans who can never keep these 3 episodes straight, they're always confusing which one is which.
I just think it's a bad idea to duplicate key words in titles(other than simple prepositions, pronouns, etc, of course).
The Immunity Syndrome is bad also, because as someone else said, it's an oxymoron, and doesn't really describe the eposide, even after you've viewed it(some titles only make sense after you see the ep, but this one really makes no sense at all. I know that Kirk makes the "anti-body" analogy, but that doesn't imply immunity. Quite the opposite, in fact, the infection is destroying the body of the galaxy.)
The two "paradise" titles make sense within the context of each ep, but again, it's just a mistake to re-use a key word like that.
I agree with the bland un-inspiring choices mentioned above, like "Court Martial".
I also agree that "Operation-Annihilate" makes no sense, it sounds more like a Mission Impossible ep, because it implies the crew have been sent on a specific mission, or "op" to destroy something. Nothing in the actual events of the ep support this.
On the other hand, I disagree about "For the World is Hollow...". While it's a long title(hence my ....), but I think it sums up the ep pretty well, and is the kind of title that when you hear it, you go "Hmmm, I gotta see what that's about."
Maybe someone should start a thread about really good TOS titles, also. Because while I can list a handful that missed, there were lots of really good titles, much more interesting in my opinion than some of the more bland titles in later series.
Not to mention "The Trouble With Tribbles" is oh, so much better than "A Fuzzy Thing Happened To Me..."
Totally agree.
And wasn't "The Paradise Syndrome" originally called "Paleface", or something similar? Or did I dream that? That wouldn't been terrible.
^Yes, "The Paleface" was the working title for "The Paradise Syndrome."
I like it. It has a clever double meaning. A catspaw is someone or something used as bait, a lure, like the way Kirk & co. were lured down to the planet. And it also evokes the black cat of Halloween.
Besides, anything to do with cats is automatically fine art.
Well, the pilot wasn't actually called "The Cage" at all. It was changed to "The Menagerie" before production began. But when Allan Asherman wrote The Star Trek Compendium in 1980, he referred to the pilot by its working title to distinguish it from the 2-parter. And Paramount later adopted that same practice in its video releases and official reference lists. It's the only case I know of where an episode has been retroactively retitled.
The time when people's inner selves are stripped bare.
You've never heard of a military operation? The word "operation" comes from a Latin root meaning "work." An operation is simply "a process or series of acts performed to effect a certain purpose or result," to quote my dictionary.
Wrong word order. It's "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", from the nursery rhyme that answers that question with "Sugar and spice and everything nice." So there's a wicked irony to the title, given that the "little girls" here are made of rather more disquieting ingredients.
No, it isn't. "Syndrome" means a group of symptoms that indicate an abnormal condition. That abnormal condition can involve the immune system as much as anything else. AIDS is an immunity syndrome -- an acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, to be precise, a set of symptoms resulting from immune-system failure. Arthritis is an autoimmune disorder where the body's immune system attacks its own tissues.
When what it's actually asking is the reverse, "Is there no beauty in truth?" Out of context, it could be taken to mean "Is there truly no such thing as beauty?", which is what I used to think it meant. But the full quote from George Herbert is, "Who says that fictions only and false hair / Become a verse? Is there in truth no beauty?" I.e. "Can't the truth be just as beautiful as an illusion?"
I like it. It has a clever double meaning. A catspaw is someone or something used as bait, a lure, like the way Kirk & co. were lured down to the planet. And it also evokes the black cat of Halloween.
Besides, anything to do with cats is automatically fine art.
Well, the pilot wasn't actually called "The Cage" at all. It was changed to "The Menagerie" before production began. But when Allan Asherman wrote The Star Trek Compendium in 1980, he referred to the pilot by its working title to distinguish it from the 2-parter. And Paramount later adopted that same practice in its video releases and official reference lists. It's the only case I know of where an episode has been retroactively retitled.
The time when people's inner selves are stripped bare.
You've never heard of a military operation? The word "operation" comes from a Latin root meaning "work." An operation is simply "a process or series of acts performed to effect a certain purpose or result," to quote my dictionary.
Wrong word order. It's "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", from the nursery rhyme that answers that question with "Sugar and spice and everything nice." So there's a wicked irony to the title, given that the "little girls" here are made of rather more disquieting ingredients.
No, it isn't. "Syndrome" means a group of symptoms that indicate an abnormal condition. That abnormal condition can involve the immune system as much as anything else. AIDS is an immunity syndrome -- an acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, to be precise, a set of symptoms resulting from immune-system failure. Arthritis is an autoimmune disorder where the body's immune system attacks its own tissues.
When what it's actually asking is the reverse, "Is there no beauty in truth?" Out of context, it could be taken to mean "Is there truly no such thing as beauty?", which is what I used to think it meant. But the full quote from George Herbert is, "Who says that fictions only and false hair / Become a verse? Is there in truth no beauty?" I.e. "Can't the truth be just as beautiful as an illusion?"
Don’t forget “Return to Tomorrow”, “Tomorrow is Yesterday”, and “All Our Yesterdays.”
“Return to Tomorrow” is particularly confusing because it sounds like a time travel episode but isn’t.
And me too. I've been watching TOS as long as I can remember (early '70s), but I was probably 20 years old before the correct version of the title got through to my brain.
"Return to Tomorrow" always reminds me of Chick Corea.
--Justin
^When I was a kid, I thought "A Taste of Armageddon" was "A Taste of Armeggadon" (rhymes with Megatron). Then I heard a reference to Armageddon in another context and I realized I'd been getting it wrong all this time. I guess I overlooked the log entry in "Day of the Dove" where Kirk says "Stardate: Armageddon."
Me too! Same pronunciation. Also as a young kid, when I saw the starship names on the decal sheet with my AMT Enterprise kit, not being familiar with a couple, I pronounced "Potemkin" like "pottum-kin" and "Intrepid" as "intra-pid." Some time later I realized that they said those names in episodes and figured it out.
--Justin
Frankly, "For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky" is nicely poetic, and vastly preferable to the one word titles that became de rigeur on later Treks.
"Operation: Annihilate" is an apt title. If Kirk can't figure out how to kill the space vomit, he's going to have to annihilate every human being on the planet, and, ultimately, he annihilates the flying vomit.
It's the bland on the nose titles at I don't like, but they are few and far between. "Journey to Babel" is dullsville. Is that the best title you can come up with for a tale of espionage, intrigue and family crisis?
"Operation: Annihilate" is an apt title. If Kirk can't figure out how to kill the space vomit, he's going to have to annihilate every human being on the planet, and, ultimately, he annihilates the flying vomit.
It's the bland on the nose titles at I don't like, but they are few and far between. "Journey to Babel" is dullsville. Is that the best title you can come up with for a tale of espionage, intrigue and family crisis?
Not much better than it's original title -- "Court Martial on Starbase 11."
Totally.
Also, "For The World Is Hollow Yadda Yadda" is awful. "And The Children Shall Lead" sounds too psychodelic to my modern ears, too.
Similar threads
