Classic episodes now considered "lame" - ?!

[Qonfounding Ghooool]

Back to the main thread, "Space Seed" is a little lame when you consider it was 1960s television trying to guess the future using some of our real-life history as a backdrop, but it was also being way too kind on the actual numbers - both in terms of genetic experimentation AND the date for the next world war starting. Other plot themes sorta hold up, some more than others, and some less. Some of this can be mitigated by accepting that Star Trek is not in our universe, which it isn't. It's its own. As the universe grows lager then more opportunities (and nitpicks) can potentially arise. Then add parallel dimensions and voila.

 

[Mr. Spook]

Some of this can be mitigated by accepting that Star Trek is not in our universe, which it isn't. It's its own. As the universe grows lager then more opportunities (and nitpicks) can potentially arise. Then add parallel dimensions and voila.

On one hand, yes. It's a fictional universe. We're not watching a documentary. They could easily have kept to that date and until the sequel shows, they did. That's where they had so make some changes. The problem is they can't do other kinds of time travel stories where the characters go back to the 21st century without showing the ravages of that war unless they change the date. So the Bell Riots would have to have been in the 80's roundabouts. But by the time DS9 came out, that would have blunted the message of showing a possible crummy future ahead of us.

 

[Sgt_G]

Screenshot-2025-10-04-231618 hosted at ImgBB

Image Screenshot-2025-10-04-231618 hosted in ImgBB

ibb.co

https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/al...alance-of-terror/balance-of-terror-br-440.jpg

Okay, fair point. I forgot about that scene. Maybe I blocked it from my memory.

 

[Shawnster]

Ditto for "The Enemy Within" despite lack of shuttlecraft as that would have negated the episode entirely, unless Scotty found space bats nesting in all their shuttles

This one is easy. Wind shear. The winds above the landing site were too strong to allow a shuttle to land. The closest landing site was 20 miles away in blizzard conditions.

 

[Vagabond Elf]

Going back to the OP's question: I think tastes certainly change over time. Despite being a Trekkie because of my father, I had to guilt him into watching a couple TOS-R episodes with me because his memory was of the original 60s broadcasts and he just found the f/x too blatant these days. And I'm sure we've all had experiences of finding some show that we loved as kids or teens... and then trying to rewatch it as adults and going "this is awful." Some of it is just shifting cultural context of course, and storytelling changes - but there are definitely things that I used to enjoy in the past, and now find just... uninteresting. Not racist or sexist or bad f/x or any of that, just the story itself no longer matters to me.

Some of the things TOS discuses are universal, sure, but even then, you have to have some understanding of both the Cold War and the Counter Culture movement to really get the framework the moral lessons are attached to.

 

[bdub76]

Well, with that episode title, I guess today's younger viewers would expect to see the crew literally naked.

I heard younger viewers are anti-nudity these days. It's not the 70s and 80s anymore, where you had random nakedness.

Gen Z Teens Want Less Sex on Screen, According to New UCLA Study

Young people age 10 to 24 are looking for fewer sex scenes in television and in movies, according to a new study from UCLA.

variety.com

Anyway, I enjoyed TNG when it first aired, but on rewatch today, the first couple of seasons don't hold up that well anymore. There are some good episodes in there, but a lot of it isn't all that great.

 

[Takeru]

... but now has people calling The Menagerie "very, very lame," ...

Are they wrong? It's a giant clip show showing the pilot, that may have had its appeal in the past when The Cage wasn't available to the public but now that it's included with the DVD/Bluray sets and on streaming services there's no point to replay the pilot just a few episodes after people saw it in its original form. What remains is a framing story that mostly an illusion, Spock was never actually on trial. I don't blame anyone watching the show today if they think The Menagerie is lame.