Cthulhu Trek

For the longest time I have tried to work out why TOS feels so much more exciting and adventurous to me than any other Trek. Even TNG and ENT which should have pretty much the same overall themes just don't cut the mustard.

And yes, I know some will reply that nostalgia plays a part, which I would not totally deny. But still a certain "something" remains unanswered. But, reading through the old threads here, I just recently stumbled across what is probably the reason why.

For me, it is two fold:-

One, that Kirk and Co didn't always "win", and often have to muddle by with the lesser of two evils. Charlie X, Errand of Mercy, Balance of Terror, A Private Little War, Squire of Gothos etc

Tw,o there's a lot of "freaky shit" out there. The Doomsday Machine, Obsession, The Immunity Syndrome, That Which Survives etc

Both which makes TOS just a little Cthulhu (my other favourite geek-crush) /cosmic horror like. And so challenging, adventurous and a little unsettling.

Although other Trek occasionally touches these concepts, I think that TOS does it the best. Even TNG's Q-Who, which certainly embodied both concepts, is a bit let down by Picard's initial arrogance (although fate soon puts him in his place). And , ultimately weakened by the Borg-defanging of later VOY and FC.

But, still Q's comment from Q-Who certainly sums up (ironically) what TOS had, and other Trek (TNG included), just never, imho, managed to recapture.

"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross... but it's not for the timid."

 

What I think it is for me is that the Star Trek universe hasn't been set in stone yet. Some people call this, "Early Installment Weirdness." But to me it gives ST a breath of fresh air that later Trek series lack. That's why I hate seeing it retconned.

 

Yeah I hear you. I hate "retconned" and "reimagined" with a vengence!

I think that most other Trek gets too tidily swept together after 45mins and our heroes come out with the perfect solution - be that with phasers and photon torps, "inverting the babble generator to overload the verbiage inducer" or a superior speech - and all in the garden is rosy!

I just love it that TOS (although ironically slated as being "cheesy") is often less tidy and more real world in its conclusions and our heroes solutions!

And so the "weird shit" seems to me to be even weirder.

 

Hi I love your name Forbidden Planet is awesome it feels kind of like what you describe! I usually like Star Trek better when it isn't scary though, but I do like when it explores the unknown and isn't just that one Federation vs. a scary threat from outer space. My favorite episode is "The Corbomite Manuever" because of that, I just close my eyes for that Balok puppet and the rest has a good sense of mystery and a confusing ending with a plot twist not a happy ending but a nice ending and thats what Star Trek is to me!

 

For a long time I thought of DS9 as the best Trek, with TNG very nearly as good or perhaps equal.

But lately I've been watching TOS off and on, and reading the Vanguard novels, along with doing some TOS arty stuff myself, modelling ships and characters and whatnot. And I find that it's really giving me a new appreciation of that era. The look and feel of that part of the timeline is just so great, so clean and simple yet cool and awesome.

Everything from the uniforms to the interiors to the ship designs, it's all so clean and simple. You can look at most anything from TOS and really see how it's put together. Look at the enterprise herself, she's basically a collection of cylinders. It's a shape that makes sense very intuitively, and I've come to think that helps people connect with it. Or me, anyway.

The plots also tend to be a bit more straightforward. Not all, of course, but there's not generally a whole lot of ambiguity in the series. Most episodes could be summed up as "Kirk arrives, checks things out, works out what's wrong and damn well fixes it! Because he's awesome and his crew are awesome and his ship is awesome!"

I guess that's one reason Discovery angers me the way it does. Everything is so hugely over-stylized, over-designed, over-complicated. It's like somebody took that wonderfully clean beautiful TOS aesthetic and took a great big CGI dump all over it.

 

I thought that was a typo. I had to google Cthulhu to find out if it was actually a word or whatever.


Anyway, one of the reasons that I find TOS so compelling is the characters. I love the camaraderie and banter, especially between Kirk and Spock and Kirk and McCoy. They can be sniping at one another in one scene and be chummy in another. The actors who played those characters did an excellent job. There was passion in the acting.

Also, the TOS characters are colorful, just like the uniforms and sets. Too many of the characters of the other Trek series are stiff, subdued and bureaucratic. Sure the TOS acting might have been hammy and cheesy, but that, oddly enough, adds to the charm of TOS.

I agree that the TOS plots are generally straightforward. Thankfully, it wasn't over complicated as to be pretentious. Sometimes simplicity works best. And the bottom line is that TOS is very entertaining.

 

Thank you. Obviously I am an FP fan also, but until your post hadn't considered that it certainly fits the two criteria that I am using for TOS.

And, obviously the best Twilight Zone episodes are a perfect fit also.

Maybe why I love them all so much.

 

TOS was very much "anything can happen" - one day they're fighting a shape shifting monster or gigantic space amoeba, the next they're on Nazi planet or a world ruled by children, and the next theyre fighting a Greek god himself.

The later shows are far, far tamer. And they're the lesser for it.

 

Yeah the weirdness quotient was certainly high on TOS, which mostly made for exciting TV.

 

I hear what you are saying about TOS arty stuff.

I write and run Role-Playing Games for a hobby , and have played in TOS (and Cage) era's many times in the past. Being able to share new adventures and mysteries with others playing Starfleet characters gives me my TOS "fix"!

The PTB may not be able to (or choose to) keep TOS era ST alive and new - but we certainly do!

And , yeah the lines of the 1701 and the Rom Bird of Prey and D7 are certainly memorable - classy yet with such clean lines. Star Wars industrial grunge design may reign everywhere else - but in the TOS time capsule all is smooth and elegantly clean.

 

You're welcome! Wow role-playing games that sounds awesome! I never really saw the Twilight Zone maybe I should! Of course it might be to scary but I do agree about the anything can happen attitude in Star Trek!
The Shapeshifting monster was pretty scary but I do feel bad for it I just don't watch the end of that one I don't even know what the space amoeba is but its nice to see weird things in space but the world ruled by kids was intresting too! I like all Star Trek but there is something awesome about "TOS"!

 

...or trying to figure out what's inside this box that just came from Amazon.

 

There's so much more drama in TOS than in other Trek series. Partly because it's a product of the 60's. The music is so dramatic, the facial expressions of the actors, the overacting. The characters actually have conflicts! They don't always agree! They have arguments! Kirk debates with Spock and argues with McCoy, Spock and McCoy argue. Scotty panics about the engines, Sulu gives the countdown. Everything is so designed to build the tension, and it works for me. I'm on the edge of my seat watching TOS in ways I never am watching any of the other Trek series.

 

Bob Justman, in trying to fend off critical studio and network executives, said that the cast and crew of TOS were attempting to produce a show that was unlike anything seen before on television, and he was correct.

 

DON'T LOOK!!!

 

There's more than a bit of similarity between TOS and another classic from the same general era - Twilight Zone.

Both set the bar quite high in the Sci/Fi and Mystery/Fantasy type TV. Just about the only other rough contemporary that comes close is Outer Limits.

The whole core of it is, mostly good writing. The stories aren't always perfect (time constraints being what they are) and yes, the sets sometimes look a bit cheap (and they often were) but, in the end, a good story told with style by a good cast will always beat the "coolest effects" and ridiculous overuse of lens flare and shaky cam.

CGI alone does not a show make...

 

I'll cover my eyes!

 

I didn't want to look but it med(usa) me do it - arrrggghhhhhh!!

 

Better restrain those two in a hurry! Take them to sick bay!!!

 

Medusa also being the name of a mythical creature of Greek legend whose look could turn men to stone! Here it's been changed so that a view of said species can drive a man to insanity and then death!
JB