Revisiting Star Trek TOS/TAS...

[Warped9]

It also follows that they insisted on having complete, and I mean COMFUCKINGPLETE, information on this ship and its captain before agreeing to the meeting, and the clueless Federation bureaucrats being the helpful dolts that they are, gave them complete specs on the Enterprise, Kirk's complete medical history, maybe even have Kirk do a little match.com video from his quarters where he expresses just how excited he is to meeting these oh-so-dreamy Gideons.

And this I don't buy in any way. Firstly, while the Federation dolts might allow for specs (which I think Starfleet Command would really balk at) they couldn't thoroughly replicate the specific ship right down to distinctive variations and wear-and-tear marks. Maybe if Kirk were in a drugged state which we can see he's not.

The bigger reach is how, on a planet where supposedly there is no place one can go that isn't crowded with people, they managed to find the room to fit in an exact replica of a 947' starship, and keep some mischievous locals from sneaking inside for some quality alone time. Even if they left off the nacelles, that's still quite a lot of real estate being taken up with this con.

Replicating just the interior would take up significantly less room. And I agree that the overpopulation needn't be literally shoulder-to-shoulder. But it still all comes down to cheap writing.

"The Mark Of Gideon" is really an example of one of TOS' strengths in the face of the periodic faltering: the strength of the cast and the show's general ambience help carry it through what could be intolerable in lesser hands. With most things being equal if this story had been a first season TNG season it likely wouldn't have done as well because at the time we weren't familiar with the TNG characters and they were struggling with getting a handle on their roles. Some of third season TOS feels like first season TNG, but it's the strength of the characters and what had already been established that helped TOS plow through while early TNG was disadvantaged in that respect.

 

[SchwEnt]

"Gideon" would have been better had Kirk's adventure taken place on a "virtual Enterprise" drawn from Kirk's mind.

This would solve the problem of perfect exact details, as they would be the same as Kirk remembers them and the Gideons wouldn't have had to research every detail.

Would also solve the problem of NOT having to construct an actual physical starship on an already crowded planet.

Maybe it could have played out as Kirk under hypnosis by the Gideons rather than virtual reality. Or it could have been illusions forced upon Kirk, as the Talosians did to Pike.

Either way, why the elaborate ruse? They just needed his blood to infect Odona. Right?

 

[BillJ]

Either way, why the elaborate ruse? They just needed his blood to infect Odona. Right?

They do seem to go about getting his blood in the most complicated way possible.

 

[Warped9]

"Gideon" would have been better had Kirk's adventure taken place on a "virtual Enterprise" drawn from Kirk's mind.

This would solve the problem of perfect exact details, as they would be the same as Kirk remembers them and the Gideons wouldn't have had to research every detail.

Would also solve the problem of NOT having to construct an actual physical starship on an already crowded planet.

Maybe it could have played out as Kirk under hypnosis by the Gideons rather than virtual reality. Or it could have been illusions forced upon Kirk, as the Talosians did to Pike.

Either way, why the elaborate ruse? They just needed his blood to infect Odona. Right?

Exact on both points.

 

[Jonas Grumby]

Speaking of "The Mark of Gideon," I think James Doohan and Jonathan Frakes are in a dead heat for first place when it comes to delivering cringe-inducing romantic scenes in Trek. Doohan is just unbelievably goofy, while Frakes comes across as smarmy almost to the point of creepy.

 

[Forbin]

Speaking of "The Mark of Gideon," I think James Doohan and Jonathan Frakes are in a dead heat for first place when it comes to delivering cringe-inducing romantic scenes in Trek. Doohan is just unbelievably goofy, while Frakes comes across as smarmy almost to the point of creepy.

"I'll be in holodeck three."

 

[Warped9]

One of the things I've found somewhat eye opening during my revisit of the series has been trying to see whether widely held perceptions or myths of TOS really apply or are exaggerated.

Two come immediately to mind: Kirk's dalliances with women (which I've devoted to another thread) and Kirk's encounters with computers.


In regard to computers the popular notion is that Kirk has driven numerous computers to self-destruction with illogic. Well, this is what I've seen during this revisit:

“What Are Little Girls Made Of?” - Kirk doesn't really destroy the androids as much as confuses them. Indeed Kirk applies logic that cuts to the heart of the matter which makes Ruk turn on Corby and Corby recognize what little humanity is really left in himself.
“The Return Of The Archons” - Pyrotechnics aside it isn't illogic but rather relentless logic that freezes Landru into burning itself out.
“A Taste Of Armageddon” - No reasoning but good old-fashioned phaser fire. Here the computer wasn't the problem but the people running things.
The Apple - There was no way to reason with Vaal so it had to be destroyed or the Enterprise would have been destroyed.
“The Changeling” - Kirk forces Nomad to accept and apply its own logic to itself. It went boom.
“I, Mudd” - This is where illogic is genuinely applied. It's silly, but then so is the whole episode.
“The Ultimate Computer” - Probably the most realistic depiction of Kirk applying relentless logic to an intelligent computer. It just shut itself off.
“For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky” - No reasoning with the Oracle, but just turn it off.
“That Which Survives” - Again no reasoning with the Kalandan defense computer, but rather just having to destroy it.

So out of 79 episodes Kirk uses some form of reasoning to affect a computer no more than five times and only once out of those five does he actually use illogic.

 

[lurok]

Star Trek was supposed to be about challenging sci-fi conventions and generally trying to avoid bad cliches, but then they trot in these androids that behave and speak exactly like C-grade '50's era sci-fi.

Star Trek was never above using bad sci-fi clichés. Like the gorgeous but naïve alien babe who’s never heard of kissing, and the handsome hero who’s only too happy to give her lessons (“By Any Other Name”). Or is that a good sci-fi cliché?

Good or bad, it's long bugged me in all the many hours of sci-fi I've watched that there's an automatic assumption aliens kiss like humans But Kirk giving lip-lock lessons gives TOS a pass...

 

[Warped9]

Well in "By Any Other Name" the Kelvans did adopt "perfect" human form so it wasn't unreasonable to assume they would react in somewhat predictable human ways.

 

[plynch]

Either way, why the elaborate ruse? They just needed his blood to infect Odona. Right?

They do seem to go about getting his blood in the most complicated way possible.

It's so we can have a Kirk's-alone-on-an-empty-Enterprise episode. Creating it in/from his mind woulda been more believable from an in-universe perspective, given what we've seen other species are capable of re. Mind control.

 

[Warped9]

"The Mark Of Gideon" is quite a disappointing bottle show with only two new sets needed, and I bet they were rather easy redresses of existing sets.

And is it me or are the Enterprise sets differently and not as well lighted in the latter part of the third season from previously, particularly the bridge?

 

[HarryM]

Gerry Finnerman left halfway through season 3, could explain that alot.

 

[Warped9]

"The Cloud Minders" ****

While trying to obtain a desperately needed mineral Kirk is caught in the midst of a planet's class struggles.

This episode harkens back not only to TOS' better efforts, but also to ideas visited in previous episodes, namely: the sharp divisions of societal classes and the abuse of privilege and position in society. It's also a more showy episode with never before seen sets and mattes more befitting what has been seen in the previous two seasons as well as the earlier part of the third season.

I'm actually quite taken with this story because it has something significant to say. And I find it marred in really only small ways. The first is Spock's omniscient narrative which I find completely unnecessary as the story unfolds and reveals everything Spock was narrating aloud without it having to be spelled out for us. I also found Spock momentarily out of character by seeming quite willing to discuss pon farr which we were earlier led to believe was a rather a private issue for Vulcans. Granted, though, that the way the scene is shot one could assume that Droxine raised the subject because she had somehow heard and/or studied it previously.

This episode also underlines that the Federation needs a better vetting system for Ardana's blatant inequality toward many of its own people to have gone unnoticed until now. Yes, there is the question of whether Kirk overstepped boundaries by offering Vanna and the troglytes the filter masks, but then Plasus didn't appear to be very effective in fulfilling his planet's obligations to another Federation member.

All told while it's not superb I still think it's a reasonably well done episode particularly in light of TOS' bad rep for its third season.

 

[Brian]

^ For 20-some years, I thought the name of this episode was "The Cloud Miners". It somehow stuck in childhood, and I never really read the title word for word as an adult, just picking it up as a whole whenever I read it. The worst part is that the incorrect title made poetic sense to me; that by their labors, the troglytes were mining the cloud-dwelling lifestyle for the Stratos city residents.

And also that the outgassing (clouds) from the ore was the key to the resolution. So my retrofitting of the title even had a double entendre, lol.

 

[lurok]

Interesting political subtext...but if we're really honest, Cloud Minders = Droxine. (I assume another Thiess creation)

Wonder if Stratos was inspiration for Bespin?

 

[Warped9]

Actually Droxine was one of the episode's elements I didn't care for. She is much too Twiggy like for my tastes.

I also have to add that seeing the troglyte throw himself over the balcony to his death is a pretty edgy moment.

 

[Warped9]

“The Way To Eden” ****

The Enterprise takes aboard a group passionately disenchanted with contemporary society.

I'm a little conflicted about this one, but ultimately I have to vote with my level of enjoyment. This episode has often been ridiculed over the years because of its overt representation of the '60's era hippy culture and I, too, wasn't all that crazy about the episode all those many years ago. But I think as a science fiction story the increasing passage of time is kinder to the episode and its story primarily because we are distanced from the immediate familiarity with the era. The idea of people being disenchanted with their contemporary society is an old one yet also a perfectly valid one for science fiction.

The overall execution does give the episode something of its own ambience. The musical accompaniment beyond the traditional soundtrack seems rather more contemporary than of the era when the episode was made. It's also shown off better than some previous third season episodes.

If I have any real criticism it's in regard to Chekov's and Irina's overly thick accents---it's just too overdone---and their exchanges come across as just a little too conventional. Also I find it amusing that Shatner's hair has gotten so much attention over the years because Walter Koenig's hair looks almost like an alien lifeform in itself. The other small disappointment was seeing a moderately modified reuse of the Tholian webspinner as the stolen space cruiser Aurora.

The ending could be interpreted as somewhat contrived, what with Adam poisoned by the very Eden he sought, but then I'm challenged to imagine how else the story could have ended and still be dramatic.

I was near convinced that this would be at best just an okay 3 star episode except that I found myself enjoying it more than expected. It also didn't falter in any significant way as I had half expected it to do.

 

[lurok]

I have no idea what the hell is going on in this episode, but for sheer Austin Powers-sixties vibe, definite 4/5-star. And for semi-inspiring TFF (along with that ep where aliens in boiler suits take over Enterprise...)

 

[Warped9]

I have no idea what the hell is going on in this episode...)

How can you not understand it? It's pretty straightforward.

 

[ToddPence]

"The Way to Eden" is one of those shows which has been totally ridiculed and dismissed by Trek fans, but which has much to offer in spite of its absurd elements. I like way it acts as an expose of the real-life hippies, how so many of them gave lip service to peace and love and brotherhood but who at the same time had no problem with hurting and killing innocent people to achieve their goals.
It also was interesting to see that there were groups of malcontents within the supposedly utopian society of the 23rd century Earth and Federation. This was a radical notion to introduce into TOS at the time. And it was also a nice subtle touch that Spock, of all people, was the one who best understood the Eden movement . . . "They regard themselves as aliens in their own world, a condition I am somewhat familiar with."
Considering the amount of abuse that's been heaped on it from the peanut gallery of Trek's fanbase, this has to be considered (along with "The Omega Glory") one of the most underrated episodes of TOS.
Oh yeah, and Skip Homier gives a superb performance in the role of Dr. Sevrin.