Missed Oppertunities in TOS

[Kagan]

Nobody has said, "More green Orion slave women!"

Ever since I was a kid, I wanted TOS to develop some of those races seen in "Journey to Babel" because some just looked cool.

 

[T'Girl]

It never successfully explores the idea of countercultures or the idea of a charismatic leader co-opting the movement for his/her own ends.

This was touched upon when "The Leader" (say it in German) told Chekov's girlfriend that the sonics would harm no one, and then turned to another of his followers and confessed that the sonics would kill everyone. Later of course it turns out the promised land was a toxic environment.

 

[AtoZ]

They should have gone back to the time portal from COTEOF and traveled back in time again.

 

[jwb]

They should have gone back to the time portal from COTEOF and traveled back in time again.

The animated series did this and had their best episode!

-jwb-
jwbraun.com

 

[Cornholio]

And you would think that by the third season, Kirk, having been burned by Khan and Lazarus and about every other guest he's brought on board, would have learned his lesson and at least posted guards in the ship's vital locations.

umm, I think he did. they were like, distracted by the cool music those space hippies were playin'.

 

[Chrisisall]

They should have gone back to the time portal from COTEOF and traveled back in time again.

The animated series did this and had their best episode!

Duly noted, Ensign.

 

[Captrek]

We never learnt much about the crew
TOS was always about the mission, but it would have been nice to learn a little about the people on it along the way. Why did Kirk, Scotty, Uhura and Sulu join Starfleet? What about McCoy's divorce?

I agree, it would've been cool to delve into the lives and history of the characters a bit more.

I also would have liked to have seen some more backstory, in general. More details and explanations about the Federation, it's inner workings, and perhaps more about the major member races.

TNG and later series relied a great deal on satisfying a loyal fan base. TOS was made during a different time. When it was on, it was one of three viewing options available, going up against the offerings from ABC and CBS. It needed to appeal not only to a loyal fan base who watched regularly (i.e., folks like us), but also to the general public, who caught only occasional episodes or hadn’t seen it at all before, and didn’t care about secondary characters, background, story arcs, and fleshing out the Trek universe.

The biggest missed opportunity I can think of is the lack of a fourth season.

One word: NOT!

The third season was, for the most part, rather bad, and a fourth season probably wouldn’t have been much better. It probably would have negatively impacted the way the series was regarded, and there might not have been a Phase II or film series.

Plus, the cast was growing unhappy. Leonard Nimoy, in particular, has stated that participating in the third season was often painfully embarrassing. He might have refused to return for a fourth season, and if he had returned, it would have left a bad taste in his mouth. He was at first reluctant to reprise the role for the films even in our reality; had there been a fourth season, there would probably would have been no Spock in the films, which would have led to a less successful franchise, and no TNG or DS9.

It's been mentioned in other threads before and I'm surprised no one has mentioned it yet. Saucer separation of a starship from its secondary hull.

I'd loved to have seen some other ship classes, not just the Connies.

Does the word “budget” mean anything to you two? They had to reuse Klingon ships for The Enterprise Incident! They couldn’t afford to make new ship models just for the heck of it. The visual effect of saucer separation would probably have been impossible given what they had to work with, and I can’t think of any reason for it other than that it looks kØØl. They were concerned with telling a good story, not dazzling viewers with special effects. Do you think saucer separation have provided us with better stories, or do you just wish you could have seen the neato effect? Episodes like Balance of Terror and The Doomsday Machine would have been weaker dramatically if the bulk of the crew could be gotten out of harm’s way by detaching the saucer.

This was a 1960’s TV series. The fact that it wasn’t a turn-of-the-21st-century TV series is not a lost opportunity. It’s just time marching on.

 

[Navigator_NCC2120]

captrek,

You have valid points, but the original poster, KingDaniel, never specified that the missed opportunities be limited by the real world time and money restrictions that the show was made under. I was just playing along with what I thought he meant, that is, opportunities we would have liked to have seen, regardless of the time and money restrictions.

The visual effect of saucer separation would probably have been impossible given what they had to work with, and I can’t think of any reason for it other than that it looks kØØl. They were concerned with telling a good story, not dazzling viewers with special effects. Do you think saucer separation have provided us with better stories, or do you just wish you could have seen the neato effect?

Ideally, I would think both a good story and a good effect would be possible if they had the resources. So given the restrictions at the time, if they had a story, that mentioned a federation starship separated its saucer section from its secondary hull, no special effect would be required to show it. It would have been an acknowledgement that saucer separation was part of the ships design and it would lay to rest any question about it.

Navigator NCC-2120 USS Entente
/\

 

[SpyOne]

I think this is a myth that somehow got started and everyone has just accepted. I don't see how this could have been initially meant to be a comedy because there's a damned good SF story at the heart of the episode.

"Find the dude's brain and put it back in?"

I think it is more like the society that has become completely dependent on the control computer.

But I like Way to Eden, so I can't really talk. There's much to like in it. If we can ignore the rubber rocks and rubber Gorn, why can't we ignore cheesy space hippie music and lingo? There's much to like in the story. Plus, nobody's walking around without a brain.

Because in their day, the rubber rocks and the rubber aliens were pretty darn cool, while TV's interpretation of contemporary popular music has always been lame.
If there had been television shows in the Napoleanic Era, and they had featured popular music, the music fans of the day would have been going "where did they get this crap? Couldn't they just hire Beethoven to write them a few songs? This is so lame! They must be so totally square to think that this sounds anything like the stuff they're playing in Vienna."
Ditto for TV's portrayal of youth slang and/or culture. Whether its skateboarding or videogames or pokemon or free love or basing your life on a Jack Kerouac book, early appearances on TV always seem to have been written by someone who read a brief (and deeply flawed) description that was itself written by someone with no first-hand experience with the phenomenon.

That said, I like both those episodes. I don't think there's any TOS episode that I really dislike. I recognize their shortcomings, but choose instead to celebrate their good points.
I recall a novel where Captain Jellico is talking about Kirk to a subordinate, saying that Kirk had been too young and immature to command a ship, and his logs proved it. It was Jellico's contention that Kirk was making things up. IIRC, he said something like, "Oh come on! His ship was eaten by a space ameoba? Aliens stole his First Officer's brain?".

 

[Timewalker]

"This Way to Eden"

This episode was a missed opportunity, the problem wasn't so much the story itself as it was the execution, the production. I understand how, given the time period, TPTB wanted to do a hippie episode, but hippie terrorists? Think how much better this story would have aged if the music had been jazz or blues.

Better still if the hippie singer casted had been Joan Baez.

Joan Baez doesn't do TV or movies, and would never have done Star Trek, especially an episode so insulting as 'The Way To Eden'.

Joan Baez appeared (and sang!) in an episode of "Fame" - the one where the students were protesting having the ROTC on campus. The students held a sit-in in the lobby of the school, and Joan Baez came down and joined them after hearing about it on the news.

It was Jellico's contention that Kirk was making things up. IIRC, he said something like, "Oh come on! His ship was eaten by a space ameoba? Aliens stole his First Officer's brain?".

All he had to do was ask Spock himself if it was true:

- Ambassador Spock, Captain Kirk was making it up that an alien stole your brain, wasn't he?

- No, sir. An alien did steal my brain.

- Then how is it that you are still alive?

- Doctor McCoy put it back where it belongs, in my head.

- I didn't know Doctor McCoy had the knowledge to do that!

- He didn't. I had to tell him how to do it.

-

 

[Captrek]

I think this is a myth that somehow got started and everyone has just accepted. I don't see how this could have been initially meant to be a comedy because there's a damned good SF story at the heart of the episode.

"Find the dude's brain and put it back in?"

I think it is more like the society that has become completely dependent on the control computer.

A story which had already been done how many times in Trek? Anybody have the time to count them?

 

[Myko]

I guess "Return of the Archons" and "The Apple", but I'd argue they were not dependant on their computers as much as forced to obey them.

"Spock's Brain" has the twist of the controller being an actual humanoid brain, a concept not present in the others. I think this was Warped9's point.