Beloved episodes you can't get into

[Commishsleer]

You can blame all that on the Trek staff. They stamped "SHE LET'S HITLER MAKE NUKES" on her, whereas Ellison never explicitly spelled out why she's a focal point, just that her death by way of an auto accident is a crux point. Spock merely suggests her way of thinking might spread and delay US entry into the war as a way of illustrating to Kirk the sorts of ways a small change might alter future history. The real themes of the story got whacked by Coon, Fontana and Roddenberry.


The hackneyed dialog the staff wrote to replace Ellison's didn't help, especially the dreadful Edith predicts the future scene. The casting probably didn't help.


Bad sex is awful. Some pizza is almost as awful.

Of course it had to be spelled out - its an episode not a book where we can examine what everyone is thinking. If they had just suggested that Edith was a focal point and she must die or "bad things" would happen I'm sure we would have all been complaining.
Maybe it would have been better if Kirk was in denial and said to Spock he couldn't prove any of it and still insisted that McCoy must be stopped from killing her but realised in the end and did the right thing.
I'm still very happy with the episode and its one of Star Trek's best. Perhaps the future scene could have been toned down but just a bit of tweaking. I liked the romance except the short time period but there's been worse.

 

[Maurice]

It's been forever since I read Ellison's version, but wasn't there a scene where Spock "figured out" that Keeler was the focal point because of her pipe-dreaming about a brighter future? There was no hard evidence, like tricorder recordings. So, Ellison's way was very flimsy, if I'm remembering it correctly. Sci-fi writers depicting Utopian futures better watch their backs. There's a history-policing Vulcan out there with their name on him.

No matter how you slice it, both versions invoke paradoxes—not a multiverse—which is what breaks it for me. Despite that, I "like" COTEOF, just not enough to call it a "guilty pleasure." "Assignment Earth" is better with regard to time travel and reflexive causality, but it suffers from the same general flaw as The Questor Tapes. (Mankind is a child and can't develop "properly" on his own without constant attention from an alien nanny. Maturity comes from making mistakes. And if a race can't survive its own mistakes, then it's all for the better if it's not kept around like baggage, right?)

Of course it had to be spelled out - its an episode not a book where we can examine what everyone is thinking. If they had just suggested that Edith was a focal point and she must die or "bad things" would happen I'm sure we would have all been complaining.
Maybe it would have been better if Kirk was in denial and said to Spock he couldn't prove any of it and still insisted that McCoy must be stopped from killing her but realised in the end and did the right thing.
I'm still very happy with the episode and its one of Star Trek's best. Perhaps the future scene could have been toned down but just a bit of tweaking. I liked the romance except the short time period but there's been worse.

What you're both missing is that what Edith does that causes history to change actually isn't the point. Ellison's version of the story is concerned with theme, specifically the cruelty of fate where a virtual nobody like Edith ends up being an inadvertent fulcrum whereas a veteran like Trooper, who literally lost limbs for a cause, doesn't matter to the steamroller of fate, and that the worst of us (Beckwith) can do a noble thing with terrible consequences.

Even Justman bemoaned that the staff rewrite, while filmable, lost the poetry of Ellison's version.

 

[Eddie Roth]

What you're both missing is that what Edith does that causes history to change actually isn't the point. Ellison's version of the story is concerned with theme, specifically the cruelty of fate where a virtual nobody like Edith ends up being an inadvertent fulcrum whereas a veteran like Trooper, who literally lost limbs for a cause, doesn't matter to the steamroller of fate, and that the worst of us (Beckwith) can do a noble thing with terrible consequences.

Even Justman bemoaned that the staff rewrite, while filmable, lost the poetry of Ellison's version.

Perhaps. But I've read Ellison's script as well as the graphic novel adaptation, and to my mind, this is in no way better than the episode as aired. The whole Beckwith subplot takes up way too much space and I found that his version indeed wasn't focused enough on what I've always felt was the central issue here: allowing a loved one to die for the sake of the whole universe (rather than a not-so-well-defined theme of "importance" of individuals). This, in a sense, prefigured the whole "needs of the many, needs of the few" theme that the ST movies made such excellent use of later.

 

[Commishsleer]

Ellison's story/script might be better for a movie ot a 2-parter but it is Star Trek TOS, Kirk and co must still be the main focus.

 

[BillJ]

Sex while eating pizza, though. That's the Decathlon goal.

While TOS plays in the background. If you’re going all out, might as well go full George Costanza.

 

[Maurice]

I'm not going to get into another pissing match over which version of "City" anyone finds better. I replied merely to address that several of the deficits of the aired episode were being lain at Ellison's feet, when they weren't his choices. The title actually had two meanings in his script: literally the alien city on a distant hill on the planet of the time vortex and the city of Chicago (the original setting) in which the story took place. Edith wasn't a mouthpiece for Roddenberry. Edith wasn't Hitler's enabler. The story themes were much more complicated.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

I've given this some thought, and I think I really do like all the episodes considered "beloved".

I might argue COTEOF is a bit overrated, but it's still good.

I like every episode of TOS to some degree. I know some of them are duff but they are something from another time. I could watch any TOS episode right now and find something to enjoy in it.

 

[1001001]

I like every episode of TOS to some degree. I know some of them are duff but they are something from another time. I could watch any TOS episode right now and find something to enjoy in it.

I agree with the Philip J Fry Ratio:

“79 episodes, about 30 good ones.”

 

[Talos IV]

I like every episode of TOS to some degree. I know some of them are duff but they are something from another time. I could watch any TOS episode right now and find something to enjoy in it.

Same. Even episodes I really dislike (and there are several) have at least one excellent line of dialogue, or one cool camera angle, or one inspired music cue, or one interesting guest star to get me through them.

 

[Ssosmcin]

I like any episode with William Shatner or Leonard Nimoy in it

 

[Talos IV]

I agree with the Philip J Fry Ratio:
“79 episodes, about 30 good ones.”

That's kind of like what Rod Serling said about Twilight Zone:
"I guess a third of the shows were pretty damned good. Another third would have been passable. Another third were dogs -- which I think is a little better batting average than the average show.”

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

And it's a FAR better batting average than the current crop of monuments to Kitman's Law infesting network television.

 

[cooleddie74]

While TOS plays in the background. If you’re going all out, might as well go full George Costanza.

Consider the challenge accepted!

 

[BillJ]

I agree with the Philip J Fry Ratio:

“79 episodes, about 30 good ones.”

I agree with this. But I find all of them "watchable" to one degree or another.

 

[ananta]

I actually like every episode, even the bad ones. The whole series is like therapy to me even after all these years.

 

[Noname Given]

Perhaps. But I've read Ellison's script as well as the graphic novel adaptation, and to my mind, this is in no way better than the episode as aired. The whole Beckwith subplot takes up way too much space and I found that his version indeed wasn't focused enough on what I've always felt was the central issue here: allowing a loved one to die for the sake of the whole universe (rather than a not-so-well-defined theme of "importance" of individuals). This, in a sense, prefigured the whole "needs of the many, needs of the few" theme that the ST movies made such excellent use of later.

I will say (and I assume "Beckwith" in the filmed version was the old Wino who picked of McCoy's dropped Phaser and accidently disintegrated himself - with ZERO effect of 'Federation History' - just made me go WTF, as in why did they do that - and even as a kid wondering, "Hey. why didn't his death change anything?" Narratively, I didn't feel it added anything, and it certainly wasn't amusing, but honestly I didn't feel sad, and was thinking "Well, you should never fool around with something you really don't understand; an yah, it cost him everything. But yeah, it didn't add anything to the story being told in the filmed episode in the long run.

 

[Ssosmcin]

The wino was more Trooper, the veteran who fought at Verdun in Ellison's version. He didn't matter either.

 

[fireproof78]

I agree with the Philip J Fry Ratio:

“79 episodes, about 30 good ones.”

Same. There are several I skip, for a variety of reasons. Usually my top 10 make the rotation and that's good enough for me.

 

[tomalak301]

I haven't visited this forum so I don't know if it is beloved or not, but another episode I don't like was Friday's Child. I thought the editing on that episode was pretty bad.

 

[Methuselah Flint]

1. "The Empath"
2. "All Our Yesterdays"
3. "The Conscience of the King"
4. "Balance of Terror"
5. "The Doomsday Machine"

for me. That's if I had to put them in any sort of order. But I love 'em all.