Which episode most breaks your suspension of disbelief?

[scotpens]

If I was married to Harry Mudd, I might be a nagging harridan, too. Probably not - I'd probably throw his sorry ass out. But possibly. Harry could have that effect on a person.

When I think about it, Harry and Stella probably deserved each other.

And the way aliens who've never been on a Star Fleet vessel can get on there and do whatever they want with no trouble. Lazarus, for example, can not only steal the Enterprise's dilithium crystals with ease, but he can then install them into his ship in just a few seconds. Are dilithium crystals one size fits all or something?

I suppose they could be something like all of today’s devices that plug into USB ports.

Dr. Elizabeth Dehner (Sally Kellerman), the psychiatrist who got zapped into having telekinetic powers in “Where No Man Has Gone Before”? She was never batshit crazy. Not by a long shot.

No...the zapping drove Dehner crazy.

For her part, it took Dehner a lot longer to go megalomaniac than it did Gary Mitchell. Which seems to indicate that Mitchell already had predispositions towards that kind of worldview. If not, why did he turn evil so quickly? Think about it.

And Dehner was persuaded to turn against Mitchell after a good inspirational pep talk from Kirk. I don’t think she really had it in her to be an evil, super-powered bitch goddess.

 

[Wingsley]

While there are some prime examples of cheesiness already mentioned in this thread, I would say the cringe-worthy example that gets under my skin would have to be "And the Children Shall Lead". And it's cringe-worthy for several reasons:

1: It features the gratuitous use of child actors which look more cute than serious in the so-called plot.

2: despite the cute kids, some of them did try to make a good impression and the addition of Melvin Belli makes me step back and say "How can they have hired so many actors, for such a silly story?"

3: The episode features one convoluted gimmick after another. I fail to see how these kids acquired the power to make Scott, Checkov, Sulu or Uhura so delusional. The endless swords thing quickly becomes grating from its obvious goofiness.

4: The alleged story seemed to me to be a bad retread of "The Naked Time". Been there, done that, had mixed results before. Why are we here again?

All this having been said, the story does make me wonder if there were a way to tell it without all the cheesy theatrics. (I think it would've been next to impossible to tell a more direct story about children being manipulated by an alien menace in 1968.)

Other stories mentioned here probably could've been better executed with some better writing. This one would probably be the hardest to salvage.

 

[number6]

In Court Martial, McCoy uses an unimaginatively modified Shure SM58S micrphone to mask the heartbeats on the bridge. I don't have a problem with anything else in the series.. It's all a bunch of nitpicking and finding silly reasons to complain about something that was totally more appropriate for a show in the sixties than it is today.

I like how some of the wall pieces in engineering are just metal grilles from a home barbeque.

 

[scotpens]

In Court Martial, McCoy uses an unimaginatively modified Shure SM58S microphone to mask the heartbeats on the bridge. I don't have a problem with anything else in the series...

Not even the mid-20th-century squirt bottle used to poison Lt. Riley’s milk? Or the drum chronometer on the helm-nav console? Or Kirk’s Samsonite suitcase in “This Side of Paradise”?

I like how some of the wall pieces in engineering are just metal grilles from a home barbeque.

And lots of the crap stuck on the walls throughout the Enterprise was spray-painted styrofoam packing material. Looked pretty cool at the time, though.

 

[number6]

In Court Martial, McCoy uses an unimaginatively modified Shure SM58S microphone to mask the heartbeats on the bridge. I don't have a problem with anything else in the series...

Not even the mid-20th-century squirt bottle used to poison Lt. Riley’s milk?

No. There are several such bottles in McCoy's cabinet, right next to the trombone mutes.

Or the drum chronometer on the helm-nav console?

Not enough to suspend my disbelief, though I do like how they re-did it for the Hi-Def reissue.

Or Kirk’s Samsonite suitcase in “This Side of Paradise”?

How does one pack their clothes in the 23rd century?? I don't think suitcases are really going to go away.

I like how some of the wall pieces in engineering are just metal grilles from a home barbeque.

And lots of the crap stuck on the walls throughout the Enterprise was spray-painted styrofoam packing material. Looked pretty cool at the time, though.

At least they look functional.. I thought of another one: The weeper plant obviously being a hand wearing a leafy glove.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

"The Omega Glory" is my answer to all "What <bad thing> in TOS?" threads.

 

[Myasishchev]

I agree about the characters of Marla McGivers

McGivers was a freedom fighter.

 

[maryh]

People get their panties in a wad when a woman is portrayed as being a sap for love.

However, I never see the same attitude when Trek does the same thing with men. They never get their boxers in a wad from any of the following:

1. The Man Trap -- McCoy acts like an idiot and almost can't bring himself to phaser the vampire because it can resemble an old love.

2. The Conscience of the King -- Kirk gets suckered by Lenore.

3. Is There in Truth No Beauty -- Marvick, the jealous lover tries to beat up the Ambassador in the Box, stupid sappy behavior out of sappy love.

4. Way to Eden -- Checkov is played for a fool by Irina

5. Lights of Zetar & Who Mourns for Adonis -- Scotty behaves like a love-sick schoolboy. He throws himself at Adonis, disobeys orders...

6. Mudd's Women -- all the men act like idiots and sucker to the women.

And worst of all.. when Zephran Cochran falls in love he has to apologize for it:
COCHRANE: Captain, don't tell them about me.

Makes men look like immature weaklings who care what "the guys" think. They might possibly doubt his masculinity if he behaved out of love.

Seems like the usual selective sensitivity to sexism.

 

[Harvey]

Remember that NBC rejected the female First Officer in “The Cage.” Whether that was because they didn’t think audiences would accept the character or because they didn’t like the producer giving a major role to his then-girlfriend, that’s a topic for another thread.

I don't think there's any debate over the matter. NBC rejected the casting of Majel Barrett, not the role, which they supported. Roddenberry wouldn't budge on the matter, and the role was dropped.

In fact, at a time when the only women serving aboard naval vessels were nurses on hospital ships, Trek TOS was quite progressive in making fully one-third of the Enterprise crew female.

That number appears in The Making of Star Trek, but I've always wondered if it's supported on-screen. It's certainly not supported by the main cast. Of the starring roles, all three are men. Of the featured roles, three of five are men (three of six if you count Rand, but the character was dropped pretty swiftly). That's six of eight of the main roles being men, and one of the two female characters, Chapel, appears pretty infrequently.

6. Mudd's Women -- all the men act like idiots and sucker to the women.

You have to go pretty far to read that episode as sexist towards men. Weren't the women, you know, on drugs that made all the men attracted to them?

 

[maryh]

6. Mudd's Women -- all the men act like idiots and sucker to the women.

You have to go pretty far to read that episode as sexist towards men. Weren't the women, you know, on drugs that made all the men attracted to them?

I think it is sexist both ways.

The black haired girl struts past McCoy and easily get all the info she needs out of him. Madga did the same to a communications officer and gets a communicator as well. All these men fall for the pretty faces so easily, the miners are even duped into marriage merely based upon a pretty face.

According to Mudd:
MUDD: Well, what it does is give you more of whatever you have. Well, with men, it makes them more muscular. Women, rounder. Men, more aggressive. Women, more feminine,


All this translates to me into showing that men of the 23rd century will still be a sucker for a pretty face, and a nice set of knockers... to the point of endangering the ship.

Did the Venus Pill actually effect the men by some unexplained force (besides sexual attraction)? That would be odd since the men did not take any drugs. I am open to the possibility of it though.

I think this does further demonstrate my idea -- that the sexism is applied selectively.

 

[Gorn Captain]

I think a huge stretch occurred in Assignment: Earth. They just randomly were ordered to time travel to observe Earth in 1968?!?

 

[scotpens]

I think a huge stretch occurred in Assignment: Earth. They just randomly were ordered to time travel to observe Earth in 1968?!?

Of course, that rather awkward contrivance was needed to make Roddenberry's spinoff idea work as a Star Trek episode.

 

[The Grim Ghost]

None of them. I guess I was never really concerned with everything needing to fit together or be perfect.

I just enjoyed it for the fun sci-fi FANTASY show that it was.

I was more bothered by the plain bad episodes that would come up now andthen.

 

[JustKate]

I think it is sexist both ways.

The black haired girl struts past McCoy and easily get all the info she needs out of him. Madga did the same to a communications officer and gets a communicator as well. All these men fall for the pretty faces so easily, the miners are even duped into marriage merely based upon a pretty face.

According to Mudd:
MUDD: Well, what it does is give you more of whatever you have. Well, with men, it makes them more muscular. Women, rounder. Men, more aggressive. Women, more feminine,


All this translates to me into showing that men of the 23rd century will still be a sucker for a pretty face, and a nice set of knockers... to the point of endangering the ship.

Did the Venus Pill actually effect the men by some unexplained force (besides sexual attraction)? That would be odd since the men did not take any drugs. I am open to the possibility of it though.

I think this does further demonstrate my idea -- that the sexism is applied selectively.

I don't think most of your examples of masculine misbehavior, MaryH, are comparable in shear...infamy, really, to McGivers and Palamas. They didn't just show bad judgement - they actually went to the other side, at least for a while. There's a difference between foolish behavior and treason, and they were actually treasonous. And all for loooOOOOoooove.

Re. "Mudd's Women," I was also under the impression that there was something about the women - something more than plain ol' sex appeal - that drew men to them. I haven't looked up the exact dialog but I did watch this episode recently and isn't there something in there about Kirk going on and on about how incredibly beautiful they are, and McCoy counters with something along the lines of how they aren't really any more beautiful "pound for pound" than lots of other women? That does indicate that the Venus drug does something besides just make them attractive. I don't know what. Pheromones or something? We're never told so who knows?

But in any case, one difference is that McCoy might indeed act like a lust-crazed goofball in this particular episode, but he's in lots of episodes where he doesn't act that way, and so we know that he's not always like that. Marla? Not so much. She's only in one episode, and in that one, she's an idiot - a besotted fool who cares more about a hunky guy than in her shipmates and the oaths she took. It seems to me that's a lot worse than anything even Kirk did. Kirk made lots of mistakes but I don't think any of them can be called treason.

The one episode I can think of where a male crew member did do something along the same lines as McGiver and Palamas is "In the Wink of an Eye," when that one crewman, after being taken by the Scolosians, gives in and joins them. That could definitely count as treason.

But if I remember correctly, doesn't he die in the end? Whereas McGivers (I can't remember what happens to Palamas) is pardoned. Because she did it for loooOOOOoooove. So basically, less was expected of women than of men - there are lower standards for women than for men. Can anything be more sexist than that?

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

All this having been said, the story does make me wonder if there were a way to tell it without all the cheesy theatrics. (I think it would've been next to impossible to tell a more direct story about children being manipulated by an alien menace in 1968.)

Wasn't that kind of what The Exorcist did? If you just substituted aliens...

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Makes men look like immature weaklings who care what "the guys" think. They might possibly doubt his masculinity if he behaved out of love.

Seems like the usual selective sensitivity to sexism.

Your examples actually reflect poorly on BOTH parties. Portraying women as poisonous Delilah-temptresses, and also the weakness of the men involved.

But if you want to hear about anti-male sexism, you should skip over to the DS9 forum and hear my anti-Jadzia rant. (Seriously, she treated men like TRASH...Bashir and Worf both, and it disgusts me.)

I think a huge stretch occurred in Assignment: Earth. They just randomly were ordered to time travel to observe Earth in 1968?!?

In its own time it's a strange conceit. But in retrospect...I can actually defend this one. I think that 1968 was one of the years where American society came the closest to falling apart, with the benefit of being able to look at it in retrospect. (I don't think we are quite at such a flashpoint again, but I think we could easily go that way without much of a push.)

 

[Duane]

Watching the episodes as an adult, it always throws me when they cut to a stock shot of Sulu and that actor named Billy something manning Chekov's station, when Chekov has already been shown manning that station. But I never noticed it as a child.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I think a huge stretch occurred in Assignment: Earth. They just randomly were ordered to time travel to observe Earth in 1968?!?

In its own time it's a strange conceit. But in retrospect...I can actually defend this one. I think that 1968 was one of the years where American society came the closest to falling apart, with the benefit of being able to look at it in retrospect. (I don't think we are quite at such a flashpoint again, but I think we could easily go that way without much of a push.)

Spock did say that history recorded that the events unfolded exactly like they saw. So perhaps whoever ordered the Enterprise back in time, already knew this, and so they sent the ship to 1968 just *so* Kirk and crew would fulfill their function in history?

 

[scotpens]

The one episode I can think of where a male crew member did do something along the same lines as McGiver and Palamas is "In the Wink of an Eye," when that one crewman, after being taken by the Scolosians, gives in and joins them. That could definitely count as treason.

But if I remember correctly, doesn't he die in the end? Whereas McGivers (I can't remember what happens to Palamas) is pardoned. Because she did it for loooOOOOoooove.

McGivers wasn’t pardoned. Kirk gave her a choice of facing a court martial or joining Khan and his people on Ceti Alpha 5. She chose to go with Khan.

Spock did say that history recorded that the events unfolded exactly like they saw. So perhaps whoever ordered the Enterprise back in time, already knew this, and so they sent the ship to 1968 just *so* Kirk and crew would fulfill their function in history?

Ah, the old predestination paradox. Like having to go back in time and have sex with your own great-grandmother so that . . . never mind.

 

[skylark14]

Re. "Mudd's Women," I was also under the impression that there was something about the women - something more than plain ol' sex appeal - that drew men to them. I haven't looked up the exact dialog but I did watch this episode recently and isn't there something in there about Kirk going on and on about how incredibly beautiful they are, and McCoy counters with something along the lines of how they aren't really any more beautiful "pound for pound" than lots of other women? That does indicate that the Venus drug does something besides just make them attractive. I don't know what. Pheromones or something? We're never told so who knows?

Wow - this is fun! My first thread and people actually discussing it. I can see how this could become addictive.

Anyway, about Mudd's Women, I'm confused by the discussion here because I always thought that the drug was determined to be just a placebo - that the powerful attractiveness that the women were supposedly radiating was based on nothing more than their profound belief that they were actually supernaturally attractive. That's why I found the freshly styled hair and new makeup so ridiculous in that context. I can actually buy into this notion because I've known plain people that convinced others they were attractive and pretty people who convinced others they were plain just by their own confidence or lack thereof.

Which is one of the reasons I always found this particular show interesting even though I can't really relax into it and enjoy it. This was one of just a few that I can remember where nothing extraordinary was really happening - no superpowered aliens, no monsters, no bizarre civilizations. Just some underprivileged women looking to improve their lot in life and some very lonely and horny miners on the backside of nowhere, and a con man of course peddling phony wonder drugs. Like some of the early first season shows, it depended more on the novelty of Star Trek's premise, than on any additional far-out science fiction premises.