50th Anniversary Rewatch Thread

[Tallguy]

I would be curious to read Fontana's original. Forget City on the Edge of Forever. Give us the "Real" Enterprise Incident.

 

[Phaser Two]

Interesting thought. I hope her drafts were better than the finished product.

 

[Poltargyst]

But there is a lot in this episode that is cool that makes it easier to overlook the plot contrivances. TOS Romulans are cool. The Enterprise surrounded by Romulan ships is cool. The Romulan Commander is cool. The would-be romance between Spock and the Commander is intriguing. It would be interesting to read a story where Spock takes her up on her offer and commands his own Romulan ship in concert with the Commander's ship.

I'd like to think that Kirk wasn't the first surgically altered Federation spy aboard, that members of the crew were secretly helping Kirk and Spock thereby explaining some of the plot holes.

 

[Commishsleer]

I'd like to think that Kirk wasn't the first surgically altered Federation spy aboard, that members of the crew were secretly helping Kirk and Spock thereby explaining some of the plot holes.

Great idea!

 

[dahj]

I would be curious to read Fontana's original. Forget City on the Edge of Forever. Give us the "Real" Enterprise Incident.

I had no idea it was rewritten, nor that Fontana was unhappy about it.

This is from memory alpha quoting Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, don't know if she spoke more about it elsewhere:

Fontana remarked, "Overall it was not a bad episode, but I did have a lot of complaints about it and things that weren't approached or handled right… Let's face it, the romantic scene between the Romulan commander and Spock was totally out of context. Any Romulan worth her salt would have instantly suspected Spock because they are related races. That was wrong. Kirk's attitudes were wrong. A simple thing – the cloaking device was supposed to be a very small thing, about the size of a watch, for instance, and it could be easily hidden. Here's Kirk running around with this thing that looks like a lamp. You know, highly visible. This is stupidity as well as illogical thinking. Visually it was stupid, conceptually it was very bad. There were a lot of things, little things, that were changed, but my biggest objection is the scene between Spock and the woman, because I really did not believe it. And I did not believe that the Romulan did not suspect Spock of something underhanded. She does know enough about Vulcan and Vulcans to know that something's afoot."

 

[Phaser Two]

I had no idea it was rewritten, nor that Fontana was unhappy about it.

This is from memory alpha quoting Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, don't know if she spoke more about it elsewhere:

Holy smokes. I had no idea that D.C. Fontana had many of the same problems with this (honestly borderline ridiculous) episode that I did!! My respect for her, already enormous, grows even further!

 

[The Old Mixer]

I'd like to think that Kirk wasn't the first surgically altered Federation spy aboard, that members of the crew were secretly helping Kirk and Spock thereby explaining some of the plot holes.

Maybe Barney was hiding inside the wall pushing buttons....

 

[dahj]

I'd like to think that Kirk wasn't the first surgically altered Federation spy aboard, that members of the crew were secretly helping Kirk and Spock thereby explaining some of the plot holes.

It was Leslie!

That's why he faked his death way back in Obsession, to make it more believable, and he was back alive and well at the end of this episode.

 

[Poltargyst]

(honestly borderline ridiculous) episode

No it isn't.

 

[Phaser Two]

Oh.

 

[Tallguy]

Maybe that's why it's so loved: The performances are good, the situation is memorable, it has lots of spaceships, and the ideas are decent. It's just the execution that isn't always so hot. So fans understand what SHOULD be going on and give it a pass.

 

[johnnybear]

Maybe Mirror Spock allied himself with the Romulans as in this universe they were a free thinking, peace loving coalition of planets instead of the dictatorship that we know of in TOS?
JB

 

[Discofan]

Maybe mirror people are the opposite of what they are in the regular universe, in which case the bad ones would be good.

 

[UnknownSample]

The only real problem is the silly, corny "love scenes". I've heard conflicting reports on what DCF thought about Vulcans and love. Once I got the impression that she thought there was no reason Vulcans wouldn't ever be in love, and she wanted these scenes to be sincere. As if she wasn't paying attention when they established what being a Vulcan is all about, suppressing emotion, including some of her own scripts, I think.
=============
The script is at odds with itself. It may very well have started with an actual seduction. As it turned out, Spock has to make her think he's getting romantic, but he has to do it in extreme slow motion and very lamely, because Vulcans don't actually do that. He can't actually start doing anything....

 

[plynch]

Yeah, honestly, a number of T rek eps work because of the cool things and despite plotholes or some el ements that are off.

 

[Discofan]

I thought the scene where Edith talks about space exploration a bit weird and even inappropriate. Seriously, why would homeless people from the 1930' care if there ever was space exploration? Given the time and the place, it seems a preoccupation for rich people with "nothing better to do" than people worried about where their next meal is coming from?

 

[dahj]

Maybe mirror people are the opposite of what they are in the regular universe, in which case the bad ones would be good.

Well we've seen mirror versions of characters on TOS, DS9, Enterprise and Disco and it's all a bit random...

 

[jaime]

I thought the scene where Edith talks about space exploration a bit weird and even inappropriate. Seriously, why would homeless people from the 1930' care if there ever was space exploration? Given the time and the place, it seems a preoccupation for rich people with "nothing better to do" than people worried about where their next meal is coming from?

I sat and read Doctor Who and Star Trek novelisations by candlelight when the power went out because the money had gone as a child, after dinner consisting of a pot noodle on toast split between two of us. Poor people still get to dream. And maybe we dream of a world where there’s room for everyone, and food for everyone, and the monsters aren’t just unpleasant people, the difficulties aren’t as mundane as being freezing cold in handmedown clothes, and decent people do important things because they aren’t cold or afraid. Where differences between class, creed, skin colour etc all don’t matter a damn, because people are people, and no one is telling that ‘you are’ something because of these things, but ‘you are’ something you choose to be. And let’s be honest...space is far from the nation states and problems of earth, and the place itself is hostile without giving a rats bum what your skin tone is, or your bank balance is, or where you went to school or what you do on Sunday. It makes those problems small, and makes humans into a group that has to band together and find new friends to band together with. There’s no ‘privilege’ when there’s a vacuum or an entirely alien race blasting holes in your tin can home, in any direction. And it’s a future so far from the past that just maybe older and older grudges can be put to the side.
You can argue it’s a bit OTT in the episode, but that’s TOS for you.

 

[Tallguy]

I thought the scene where Edith talks about space exploration a bit weird and even inappropriate. Seriously, why would homeless people from the 1930' care if there ever was space exploration? Given the time and the place, it seems a preoccupation for rich people with "nothing better to do" than people worried about where their next meal is coming from?

1) Edith is clearly not homeless.
2) Are you saying that only rich people in 1930 were interested in technology or even science fiction?

 

[Discofan]

1) Edith is clearly not homeless.
2) Are you saying that only rich people in 1930 were interested in technology or even science fiction?

Take a trip to one of these countries where normal people can barely feed themselves and see how many are interested in the future of space exploration.

BTW, to Edith it wasn't science fiction, it was speculation about the future, a different kettle of fish.