Did any TOS episodes run "short"--?

[The Old Mixer]

The first couple times I tried watching "The Alternative Factor," I found myself nodding off (in the middle of the day), and assumed that I wasn't understanding the episode because I'd missed something important. The first time I managed to get through it awake, I found that I hadn't missed anything.

 

[Herbert]

The best thing about the Alternative Factor is....

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[Methuselah Flint]

Hm, maybe that's right. I just remember him being fairly calm as Bele took over the ship (twice), he threatened to blow everyone up, etc. But I have not seen this one in several years. Added together with Mark of Gideon for a rewatch soon.

I agree he was pretty calm during the countdown sequence, but it was a pretty tense moment.

 

[Herbert]

Hm, maybe that's right. I just remember him being fairly calm as Bele took over the ship (twice), he threatened to blow everyone up, etc.

The best poker players will never let you know what they're holding.

 

[Phaser Two]

The best poker players will never let you know what they're holding.

Very true. And of course Shatner has many, many outstanding keep-his-cool moments as Kirk. Right away, an early scene in The Devil in the Dark springs to mind, with Kirk looking at Ed Appel when the latter says, "You think you're pretty tough" and just blowing him off like he was ordering takeout. But I don't remember the same attitude coming off right in LTBYLB. Hence the looming rewatch.

 

[alensatemybuick1]

At the risk of beating a dead horse, don't read these books.

Go ahead and beat that horse. I saw Cushman claim in an interview in some special aired around the 50th anniversary that Star Trek introduced the minskirt. Any thought I might have had towards buying those books ended right then and there.

 

[alchemist]

As an FYI, after Star Trek: Lost Scenes is published, Curt and I will have a page on startrekhistory.com where readers of the book can come for answers to their frequently asked questions, get the notes on our controversial statements, download corrections to errors, etc. We'll be doing something on our site kind of like what Christopher L. Bennett has been doing on his for his work.

Of course, Curt and I are hoping that the book is error free but, hey, one of us is only human...

 

[Marsden]

The best thing about the Alternative Factor is....

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For being such a train wreck, the episode is still very quotable.

SPOCK: Annihilation, Jim. Total, complete, absolute annihilation.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Redundancy, Jim. Total, complete, absolute redundancy.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

You think The Alternative Factor was bad as it was? Try and watch it with the usual cuts made by the BBC! HaHa, it's totally impossible to follow and even afterwards you cannot identify which Lazarus was which due to not seeing one of the winking out moments which was excised in their purging!

I've got news for you, JB: the US cut doesn't make any more sense. I've seen the episode half a dozen times and I still couldn't really tell you what happens in it.

 

[Commishsleer]

The best thing about "Alternative Factor" was that they had a woman ordering men on the Enterprise like it was normal and she didn't even betray anyone. Thats what was great about cutting the romance subplot. Who cares if the rest of the story didn't make sense in what subsequently became the Star Trek universe?

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Shame they couldn't put her in the right uniform color, though.

 

[Marsden]

Maybe the didn't want to repeat red for her and Uhura, also, maybe you need to know science to monitor the dilithium crystals.

I know most of the uniform color choices were based on how it appeared on camera and that department stuff was justified later. Such as Uhura was in command color the first episode she was in.

 

[Commishsleer]

Shame they couldn't put her in the right uniform color, though.

No lieutenant braid either.
Oh well we can't have everything.

 

[johnnybear]

Shame they couldn't put her in the right uniform color, though.

Maybe she was transferred from the science department but couldn't quite cut the mustard in engineering and that's why we didn't see her again?
JB

 

[Greg Cox]

Shame they couldn't put her in the right uniform color, though.

I fought this battle with a copyeditor once. I put Masters in a novel, wearing the same blue uniform she had on TV, and the copyeditor kept "fixing" it by changing it to red. And I kept changing it back to blue.

Can't remember which of us won in the end.

 

[Phaser Two]

I fought this battle with a copyeditor once. I put Masters in a novel, wearing the same blue uniform she had on TV, and the copyeditor kept "fixing" it by changing it to red. And I kept changing it back to blue.

Can't remember which of us won in the end.

Did you at least give her a rank braid??

 

[tomswift2002]

I fought this battle with a copyeditor once. I put Masters in a novel, wearing the same blue uniform she had on TV, and the copyeditor kept "fixing" it by changing it to red. And I kept changing it back to blue.

Can't remember which of us won in the end.

Do you remember which novel?

 

[Greg Cox]

The Weight of Worlds maybe?

I tend to use Masters whenever I need a spare engineer and Scotty is busy.

 

[Marsden]

I know the thread asked for TOS but a TAS that seemed to be short was the Lorelei Signal, there's a good minute plus coming back from commercial of Scotty singing while the Enterprise just floats there, it's not pretty, or a good use of time.