My latest rewatch-o'-random was "Day of the Dove".
It's amazing that neither Kirk nor Kang figured out while bickering that mayhaps both of them got a bogus distress call, and from an alien that looks like the f/x designers pointed a camera at a flushing toidy and added a red filter in post? (It's honestly a very creative effect.)
Kirk's over-theatrics in showing to the camera that he's pressing the communicator's alert button would be in plain view of Kang and his fellow cohorts, of which all are holding disruptor pistols against Kirk's head. (In reality, it's because each film camera was the size of a Dalek and couldn't maneuver in any more nimbly, which is okay since (in general) television in the 1960s still produced shows as "televised stage plays", which is rather nice compared to the ersatz realism-based approach of more recent decades.)
Season 3 had Chekov's personality altered. My response on that? "Thank goodness." Gone were the comedy bits (either good lines like "and I'm the tsar of all the Russias!" or the catchphrase butt-of-jokes where Chekov states everything was "inwented in wussia by widdle owd wadies" or whatever, which wouldn't be funny if it weren't for Walter Koenig's delivery because on paper they're very flat - no pun intended) and replaced by a more stern and sincere character.
Seaosn 3 had other positives, but while Freiberger didn't always make the best of changes, his era isn't barrel scraping dregs just because it's his name as producer. Hell, there are overlooked values in Space 1999 season 2 despite the downsides (of which many more existed), and in both S1999 and Trek, some changes he had to oversee because the network demanded it. So it's not all on him (especially for S1999) and I might argue it could have been worse if someone else other than him had taken over. (It's neither here nor there unless one has a time machine so I can become S1999's producer and prove the fact rather quickly...)
The basic theme of enemies working together to face a common foe harks back to world war 2, if not earlier. WW2 is more recent and more accessible so I'll stick to it. Especially considering how "the war to end all wars" ended only 21 years later and what led to WW2 was pretty nasty in of itself. I'm no historian by any measure, but there were countries that weren't always friendly beforehand that became allies. To borrow a phrase from Doctor Who and apply it on a rather larger scale, "Fear makes companions of all of us." and I can't think of a bigger truism than that. Unless I go to a bar where I observe everyone getting drunk and getting past second base in the bathroom stall but that's not quite on the same level, now is it?
Also: "cooties".
Going back to Freiberger, who introduces TOS to less-than-happy endings on more than one occasion, "Dove" smartly avoids anything after the emotional vampire flees the ship and lets the audience decide how Kang and co. are returned home - and also note how Kang uses backhanded and overly strong pats on Kirk (remember, Kang did remind his crew to have patience), which almost derails their plan because the vampire fritter would surely grow stronger if the hate vibes weren't dwarfed by everyone else being shiny happy people...
Speaking of that,
So in the end, avoiding any proper resolution between both factions could easily have led to something less than optimistic except 60s Trek had that reset button so McCoy could get busy with Natira at her favorite proverbial pub...
But far bigger, "Dove" is an exercise in not just species hatred (Humans vs Klingons) but race hatred and conflating the two, since a race is a set of unique qualifiers within a species that otherwise shares identical traits or a race is said to cover all within the species ("human race", "rat race", and so on.) It spares little expense and puts out some incredibly jaw-dropping, taut scenes... such as:
(also note the "televised stage play" feel, though the dialogue and acting are far stronger than the production. That scene's first 1 minute and 51 seconds alone has far more subtle depth to it... this is truly an outstanding episode. All produced by Freiberger.)
Though at the 2:55 mark of that compilation video, Kirk claims the alien is just watching and laughing. This episode previously established this vampire needs "bad emotions" to survive and is using both Humans and Klingons the same way we use cattle and gardens. There's a bit of a difference... but the acting's too damn good to have me care.
The episode is also a great one for Spock, who isn't treated so consistently in other season 3 episodes...
Oh, Scotty gets to use "Vulcan" in the same censor-bypassing method McCoy had in "The Gamesters of Triskeleon" in the same way "Laugh-In" used "Funk'n'Wagnalls" albeit for comedic effect. Nowadays, shows just say the effenheimer (which in a way is more realistic) but there's something that I find more appealing about wordplay.
Lastly, I recall reading how Doohan was almost fired from season 3 because he was gaining weight. Note that Kirk had a similar stature. Note that Commodore Stocker from season 2 had a lot more stature...
The story is more of a visceral than intellectual exercise, which is also out of necessity to show how dire it is, but is an extremely well-crafted one at its core.
It's amazing that neither Kirk nor Kang figured out while bickering that mayhaps both of them got a bogus distress call, and from an alien that looks like the f/x designers pointed a camera at a flushing toidy and added a red filter in post? (It's honestly a very creative effect.)
Kirk's over-theatrics in showing to the camera that he's pressing the communicator's alert button would be in plain view of Kang and his fellow cohorts, of which all are holding disruptor pistols against Kirk's head. (In reality, it's because each film camera was the size of a Dalek and couldn't maneuver in any more nimbly, which is okay since (in general) television in the 1960s still produced shows as "televised stage plays", which is rather nice compared to the ersatz realism-based approach of more recent decades.)
Season 3 had Chekov's personality altered. My response on that? "Thank goodness." Gone were the comedy bits (either good lines like "and I'm the tsar of all the Russias!" or the catchphrase butt-of-jokes where Chekov states everything was "inwented in wussia by widdle owd wadies" or whatever, which wouldn't be funny if it weren't for Walter Koenig's delivery because on paper they're very flat - no pun intended) and replaced by a more stern and sincere character.
Seaosn 3 had other positives, but while Freiberger didn't always make the best of changes, his era isn't barrel scraping dregs just because it's his name as producer. Hell, there are overlooked values in Space 1999 season 2 despite the downsides (of which many more existed), and in both S1999 and Trek, some changes he had to oversee because the network demanded it. So it's not all on him (especially for S1999) and I might argue it could have been worse if someone else other than him had taken over. (It's neither here nor there unless one has a time machine so I can become S1999's producer and prove the fact rather quickly...)
The basic theme of enemies working together to face a common foe harks back to world war 2, if not earlier. WW2 is more recent and more accessible so I'll stick to it. Especially considering how "the war to end all wars" ended only 21 years later and what led to WW2 was pretty nasty in of itself. I'm no historian by any measure, but there were countries that weren't always friendly beforehand that became allies. To borrow a phrase from Doctor Who and apply it on a rather larger scale, "Fear makes companions of all of us." and I can't think of a bigger truism than that. Unless I go to a bar where I observe everyone getting drunk and getting past second base in the bathroom stall but that's not quite on the same level, now is it?
Also: "cooties".
Going back to Freiberger, who introduces TOS to less-than-happy endings on more than one occasion, "Dove" smartly avoids anything after the emotional vampire flees the ship and lets the audience decide how Kang and co. are returned home - and also note how Kang uses backhanded and overly strong pats on Kirk (remember, Kang did remind his crew to have patience), which almost derails their plan because the vampire fritter would surely grow stronger if the hate vibes weren't dwarfed by everyone else being shiny happy people...
Speaking of that,
So in the end, avoiding any proper resolution between both factions could easily have led to something less than optimistic except 60s Trek had that reset button so McCoy could get busy with Natira at her favorite proverbial pub...
But far bigger, "Dove" is an exercise in not just species hatred (Humans vs Klingons) but race hatred and conflating the two, since a race is a set of unique qualifiers within a species that otherwise shares identical traits or a race is said to cover all within the species ("human race", "rat race", and so on.) It spares little expense and puts out some incredibly jaw-dropping, taut scenes... such as:
(also note the "televised stage play" feel, though the dialogue and acting are far stronger than the production. That scene's first 1 minute and 51 seconds alone has far more subtle depth to it... this is truly an outstanding episode. All produced by Freiberger.)
Though at the 2:55 mark of that compilation video, Kirk claims the alien is just watching and laughing. This episode previously established this vampire needs "bad emotions" to survive and is using both Humans and Klingons the same way we use cattle and gardens. There's a bit of a difference... but the acting's too damn good to have me care.
The episode is also a great one for Spock, who isn't treated so consistently in other season 3 episodes...
Oh, Scotty gets to use "Vulcan" in the same censor-bypassing method McCoy had in "The Gamesters of Triskeleon" in the same way "Laugh-In" used "Funk'n'Wagnalls" albeit for comedic effect. Nowadays, shows just say the effenheimer (which in a way is more realistic) but there's something that I find more appealing about wordplay.
Lastly, I recall reading how Doohan was almost fired from season 3 because he was gaining weight. Note that Kirk had a similar stature. Note that Commodore Stocker from season 2 had a lot more stature...
The story is more of a visceral than intellectual exercise, which is also out of necessity to show how dire it is, but is an extremely well-crafted one at its core.
The slap on the back does ensure a good deal more high spirits and thankfully most of the Starfleet personnel weren't looking. Spock could easily restrict any emotional impulse... and the net amount of happy-hi-de-ho poison was far more than the hate that the whirlygig needed to survive. But it would be a calculated risk as those good spirits still stemmed from hate rather than a prevailing good. Given Kirk and Kang were likely both faking it, as their spouses otherwise reminded them often enough, it could be perceived Kang was on the right track in a gambit to up the ante... but it would be a big risk, had it backfired...
)
