The Ambergris Element vs. The Eye of the Beholder

[Botany Bay]

Another week, and time for another episode to bow out from our TAS episode showdown...up next :

The Ambergris Element vs. The Eye of the Beholder

Vote for the one you think is best...

 

[Warped9]

I'm really on the fence with this one. I really can't choose between two episodes I'm not that crazy about.

 

[Christopher]

I went with "Eye of the Beholder." The Lactrans are cool aliens, nicely nonhumanoid, impressively advanced but not falling into the "godlike incorporeal" cliche; and it's nice to see another Starfleet crew, something that rarely happened in TAS (I think this and "The Pirates of Orion" are the only cases). "Ambergris" isn't as appealing; the whole water-breather transformation is rather implausible, and it suffers from the annoying Margaret Armen conceit of alien terminology that's thinly and ridiculously disguised Greek/Latin/English, like "surgo-op" for a surgical operation (not to mention "The Lorelei Signal"'s "opto-aud" for an audiovisual display and "lura-mag" for a device that lured men with a "magnetic" pull).

 

[Warped9]

I went with "Eye of the Beholder." The Lactrans are cool aliens, nicely nonhumanoid, impressively advanced but not falling into the "godlike incorporeal" cliche; and it's nice to see another Starfleet crew, something that rarely happened in TAS (I think this and "The Pirates of Orion" are the only cases). "Ambergris" isn't as appealing; the whole water-breather transformation is rather implausible, and it suffers from the annoying Margaret Armen conceit of alien terminology that's thinly and ridiculously disguised Greek/Latin/English, like "surgo-op" for a surgical operation (not to mention "The Lorelei Signal"'s "opto-aud" for an audiovisual display and "lura-mag" for a device that lured men with a "magnetic" pull).

You observations swung it for me. Thanks. I'll go with "Eye Of The Beholder."

 

[Basill]

I'd have to say "Eye of the Beholder." It just seems more... colorful. Though I actually like "The Ambergris Element," I have to agree with Christopher that some of the plot devices are a tad silly (sillier).