I saw that, Cheetah Boy.Well shit, there goes my respect for M'Sharak.
Does ANYONE like Alternative Factor?
- Thread starter Cakes488
- Start date
I thought the ending was incredibly sad and disturbing. Locked together in battle (iirc) for all of eternity.
I like most of your points, but it seems obvious to me that the confusion over which Lazarus is which was intended and is one of the intriguing plot points. Neither the crew nor the audience can distinguish the two.
Doug
I'll have some of whatever you're drinking.
Wild Turkey, want some?
That's the only way I can stomach "City". But I agree with your other choices.
I didn't like it... almost as bad as "And The Children Shall Lead", which was the worst of all. The story idea was interesting, but poorly written and executed.
The premises raised are not fully developed and left ambiguous. The idea of a parallel universe made of anti-matter does not function for this episode. The "good" Lazarus states that if the crazed Lazarus reaches him in the parallel universe, it'll be the end of everything. They can meet in the corridor, but not meet in the same universe. Well, it shouldn't matter if it's "opposite" beings... anti-matter and matter together obliterates each other. Thus one going to the "other" universe would cause the obliteration.
There's way too little information given about Lazarus, and as such he should have been kept under house arrest and constant surveillance, not allowed to freely roam the ship. Ridiculous.
The whole random "phasing in and out" thing with the two copies of Lazarus... it makes no sense--this ship is required to travel between the two universes.
Plus, the ship? What is it? Lazarus states it is a spaceship and a time chamber/ship. Yet, it appears incomplete. Is it wrecked there? No explanation. It looks like it was never fully completed for the episode (there is no door for full closure, so that it may travel through space). The entry way to the seat, where the dilithium crystals are mounted... Is this supposed to be the portal component to the ship? If so, it makes no sense. You'd expect that the portal beams would surround the seat where the pilot would sit, not in an exposed entry way.
And if indeed this is a timeship, then why doesn't Lazarus go back in time to intercept the other Lazarus with a prepared trap BEFORE his planet is decimated? At the end of the episode, why destroy the ship? Why not beam it aboard into the shuttlebay and dismantle it? The technology could then be cannibalized for Starfleet purposes.
Also... WHY send the crazed Lazarus back through the time chamber? Why not just kill him? Even when Kirk seeks to restrain him, he calls off the security team. Why turn down help? And ummm... Spock just stands idly by. Why didn't Spock give Lazarus the nerve pinch and save Kirk all the trouble (also the risk of Kirk being thrown back into the time capsule)? This just doesn't work...
Anyway, I could go on... there are so many holes, inconsistencies, ambiguities... it's a poorly done episode. A shame, because it had a lot of potential.
The premises raised are not fully developed and left ambiguous. The idea of a parallel universe made of anti-matter does not function for this episode. The "good" Lazarus states that if the crazed Lazarus reaches him in the parallel universe, it'll be the end of everything. They can meet in the corridor, but not meet in the same universe. Well, it shouldn't matter if it's "opposite" beings... anti-matter and matter together obliterates each other. Thus one going to the "other" universe would cause the obliteration.
There's way too little information given about Lazarus, and as such he should have been kept under house arrest and constant surveillance, not allowed to freely roam the ship. Ridiculous.
The whole random "phasing in and out" thing with the two copies of Lazarus... it makes no sense--this ship is required to travel between the two universes.
Plus, the ship? What is it? Lazarus states it is a spaceship and a time chamber/ship. Yet, it appears incomplete. Is it wrecked there? No explanation. It looks like it was never fully completed for the episode (there is no door for full closure, so that it may travel through space). The entry way to the seat, where the dilithium crystals are mounted... Is this supposed to be the portal component to the ship? If so, it makes no sense. You'd expect that the portal beams would surround the seat where the pilot would sit, not in an exposed entry way.
And if indeed this is a timeship, then why doesn't Lazarus go back in time to intercept the other Lazarus with a prepared trap BEFORE his planet is decimated? At the end of the episode, why destroy the ship? Why not beam it aboard into the shuttlebay and dismantle it? The technology could then be cannibalized for Starfleet purposes.
Also... WHY send the crazed Lazarus back through the time chamber? Why not just kill him? Even when Kirk seeks to restrain him, he calls off the security team. Why turn down help? And ummm... Spock just stands idly by. Why didn't Spock give Lazarus the nerve pinch and save Kirk all the trouble (also the risk of Kirk being thrown back into the time capsule)? This just doesn't work...
Anyway, I could go on... there are so many holes, inconsistencies, ambiguities... it's a poorly done episode. A shame, because it had a lot of potential.
Thinking back, as a kid that ending got to me too.
For me, The Alternative Factor is one of the most boring episodes.
I just watched this episode for the first time in my adult life.
Correction: I just watched part of this episode. I HATED it. Finished the episode by reading about the rest of it on Memory Alpha.
My God.
I am only using this Smilie
because there isn't one that is depicted as vomiting.
Correction: I just watched part of this episode. I HATED it. Finished the episode by reading about the rest of it on Memory Alpha.
My God.
I am only using this Smilie
because there isn't one that is depicted as vomiting.
Love the ending but the rest of the episode is a confused jumbled mess. There's a good episode in their somewhere but someone at the studio was smokin' some weird shit when this turd was produced.
I think it was more a fault of poor editing than anything. It could have been good.
Yep. A huge portion of the episode was cut out at the last minute - specifically all references to an originally scripted relationship between Lt. Masters and Lazarus, where a lovestruck Masters sells out the crew a la Lt. McGivers.
Speculation is that it was all cut by a nervous exec when a black actress was cast as Masters, but nobody knows for sure - it's one of the great mysteries of TOS, and unless someone reveals what happened soon, we'll probably never know.
QFT ... the "shadow" archetype is worthy of exploration, and the ultimate sacrifice of the "sane" Lazarus has a tragically epic ending. But everything else is a complete and utter mess.
I also think it had a lot of potential... there were some decent story elements, that I'll give you. But eh... what a disappointment. I found the Lazarus situation not properly explained and depicted to match.
It's like when the Genesis device is getting ready to blow. The Enterprise doesn't have weaponry to stop it. Why not use the transporters and beam it into particle cloud oblivion? They didn't even try it... OK, it would've nipped the Spock savior moment, but then try it and say something like "Captain, the Genesis device is generating a field that is disrupting the transporter signal". No... nobody took a look at the obvious possible solution. And you see, all Lazarus had to do was take his time ship and travel back to just before he meets his "nemesis" version and lay a trap for him. Done. Or, work with the "good" Lazarus and device a code-word scheme. When encountering the "crazed" Lazarus, the lack of a code word means he's the one to bump off. Simple as that.
number6
Vice Admiral
I agree to a point with your thoughts about the episode's shortcomings.
It's easier to see that with 40 years of hindsight. We both know that the writers and producers at that time really hadn't a handle of what a transporter could really do, beyond getting our crew to the planet every week. They were kind of evolving it as they went along. Don't forget, they didn't even have an engineering set built because GR didn't think there'd be that much of a need for engineering 400-500 years in the future. A lot of the series was still being figured out when this episode was done. That being said, the whole concept of parallel universes and a corridor protecting the universes' polar opposites from annhiliation seemed pretty cool when I first saw the episode..The concept made up for some of the minor inconsistancies of the episode as a whole.
As I saw this episode later in college with friends, it became something of a sport to spot those inconsistancies and make fun of it, but the concepts was pretty interesting. That's the redeeming factor.
Don't forget, I may have said that I don't see the hate in it, but I am not blind to the obvious problems this episode had.
It's still a lot of fun to watch for a lot of reasons.
It's easier to see that with 40 years of hindsight. We both know that the writers and producers at that time really hadn't a handle of what a transporter could really do, beyond getting our crew to the planet every week. They were kind of evolving it as they went along. Don't forget, they didn't even have an engineering set built because GR didn't think there'd be that much of a need for engineering 400-500 years in the future. A lot of the series was still being figured out when this episode was done. That being said, the whole concept of parallel universes and a corridor protecting the universes' polar opposites from annhiliation seemed pretty cool when I first saw the episode..The concept made up for some of the minor inconsistancies of the episode as a whole.
As I saw this episode later in college with friends, it became something of a sport to spot those inconsistancies and make fun of it, but the concepts was pretty interesting. That's the redeeming factor.
Don't forget, I may have said that I don't see the hate in it, but I am not blind to the obvious problems this episode had.
It's still a lot of fun to watch for a lot of reasons.
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I watched this ep the other week for the first time finally, and thought it was okay. I agree that the execution left a lot to be desired - I think about 20 minutes of the episode was spent watching the two Lazurus's fighting. And who thought letting him roam freely around the ship would be a good thing.
I did like the concept though, it kept me intrigued enough to watch right through. And I loved the last five or ten minutes, where 'Good Laz' decides that he and 'Bad Laz' need to kept fighting for an eternity to keep the universe safe. That was probably it though.
I did like the concept though, it kept me intrigued enough to watch right through. And I loved the last five or ten minutes, where 'Good Laz' decides that he and 'Bad Laz' need to kept fighting for an eternity to keep the universe safe. That was probably it though.
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