50th Anniversary Rewatch Thread

Maybe it's taking them longer than expected?
JB

 

Generational Research?

 

It was like a gold mine in there but one that takes years to investigate! That or Kirk abandoned the planet for another adventure and never told Starfleet!
JB

 

Generational Research: It's a new form of study taught at Starfleet Academy. It teaches you to study any topic in so much detail, that you cannot finish your study or write a final report in your lifetime. It also teaches you on how best to arrange the data so that your offspring and their offspring can continue the research. This guarantees job security for you and your whole family for generations. It is a mandatory class required by the government's Federation's Department of Education.

 

That reminds me of the Nexialists (an A. E. Van Vogt concept) who are basically people who not only know everything of their time but are capable of making unexplored connections between the things they know. That makes them capable of coming up with solutions that seem like magic to other people even people who are specialists. Van Vogt's Sci. Fi. has always been a lot of fun to me.

 

Fascinating.

 

That's a dangerously easy conclusion to jump to, as many fans are quick to assign to Trek pioneering status to things which had happened on TV years before (e.g. "Hell" as an epithet). The relative modern invisibility of most 60's TV can lead us to see as "firsts" things which were no such thing.

 

The Planet of Hats webcomic take on the episode (link)

 

Bragging about what? That their lines express thoughts and ideas? I'm just saying that if it seems as if they're trying to deal with an issue, they are. We get used to thinking of TV as "product" churned out for the lowest common denominator. In Trek's case, it's often assumed it's just escapist action-adventure. If one expects it to be that, that's all they'll see. Look for the intelligence, and a whole new side to this very smart show reveals itself.

 

Whatever good ideas went into the crafting of "Gideon," and I think there seem to have been some, both that I and others have indicated, my take has always been that they don't generally get attention, because the episode has numerous glaring problems that overshadow and outnumber anything else of merit. I don't know enough about the behind-the-scenes story to say much, and I think it would be interesting to find out, but I always just basically assumed that since the end of the series was coming, the people left polishing scripts weren't putting forth the same kind of effort that people had been giving in the first and second seasons.

 

Third season story development is much more of a mystery than the 1st and 2nd because the people making it apparently did far less of the notes on scripts via memos, so there's not much of a paper trail by comparison to when GR, Fontana, Coon, etc. were working on the show.

 

The progressiveness of Star Trek.
Surely you've noticed that whenever the show gets talked about, inevitably someone will mention having a black woman, a Japanese helmsman and a Russian on the bridge, the interracial kiss, tackling racism, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, and whatnot. I just don't see this ever being mentioned and comparatively speaking being pro-choice in the 60s was probably more progressive than all those things combined...

 

I just look and listen. There were many intelligent dramas, and films. Trek wasn't just shlock.

Dodge, I don't know what "this" refers to. I'm not talking about any one quote or issue.

 

The question remains: Was Trek (socially) rather ahead of its time or the opposite? I know for example that it took them ( as a franchise) way too long to even recognize homosexuality as something that happens!!!

 

That Which Survives is a good episode that I enjoy. Lee Merriweather is good and a sympathetic character. I also like D'Amoto and Lt. Rhada. Fascinating to see her IMDB credits only Star Trek and some television series in the 1970s. I noticed also that both Spock and Kirk are a little harsh with subordinate in this episode. I do enjoy when Spock describes how he hit his head. Uhura had to stifle a laugh. Even Scotty yells at Watkins right before he is killed. The Spock and Scotty dialog is well done. "Don't be a fool, push the button". I also like "I am for you James T. Kirk."

 

You say that but I first watched it in the 70s and I personally was excited to see women in roles not as secretaries or wifes/girlfriends etc.
Now people are pointing out there are shows that did that before or better but I don't remember it at the time.

Looking back its easy to say that TOS was rubbish at gender equality compared to what happens today on television and in movies (even compared to VOY and DS9) but at the time it was better than a lot of series around even in the 70s.

I really dislike this episode. Spock is just awful and disrespectful to a senior officer. Other times he took command he didn't put more stress on the crew by pointing out a lot of irrelevant details. He just did it for too long a time in the episode. I imagine they thought it was supposed to be funny dialog but it just made me angry with Spock. I wanted to punch him.
Kirk was a bit of a jerk too.
Then there was the Spock Scotty interaction where Scotty kept saying blast him out presumably to his death if he broke the seal or something but they were going to die anyway. While the scene was exciting (and frankly I didnt like Spock's tone in this) it made no sense.

 

There are a lot of nice science fiction moments in this one. I enjoy the way the landing party puzzles out the situation and I enjoy Sulu's more prominent role. I agree that some of the stuff that takes place on the ship is a bit apocryphal but with Deep Portrait upcoming AI technology it should be possible to edit some of the dialogue to make more sense :-D

 

I thought that for years, but recently figured it out. This is my explanation:

First they said that nothing in the universe could prevent the antimatter reactor from exploding. Then they said it could be prevented if you stop up the fuel line. And then it seems you can prevent the explosion by jettisoning the service crawlway compartment out to space, which would take a section of the fuel line with it and shut down the reactor. So why did Scotty ever have to get into the crawlway in the first place? They could have jettisoned it right away, with no one inside.

My explanation is that Scotty was trying to prevent the explosion without crippling the ship. If you jettison that compartment to break the fuel line, the ship will coast to a stop and be stranded in interstellar space. There would be no way to restore the warp drive. A predicament like this actually happened in "The Paradise Syndrome", and we just have to assume the Enterprise puttered around Miramanee's solar system after the story ended, waiting for a space tug to arrive. They still have subspace radio, but it's a big deal for a capital ship to become helpless and need its nanny. Very embarrassing and very expensive. So Scotty got in the crawlway and risked his life to save the ship from being stranded between the stars.