Episodes so bad they are funny/good?

Hi everyone,

I've been going through the first two seasons of TOS with my 12 year old son, skipping around and watching the ones that I consider to be the better episodes I've watched and even a few episodes that are new to me. Overall, my son has really been enjoying the show - especially our recent run of City, Amok Time, Who Mourns, and Mirror Mirror. He also really enjoyed Corbomite Maneuver, Balance of Terror, Arena, and Squire. There have been a few that haven't held his interest, like but for a show written and produced 55 years ago I'm amazed at how it can still really pull in a younger audience (who also watches and loves new faster paced entertainment like Stranger Things, Marvel Movies, etc..).

Anyway, last week he asked me about what the worst episodes of TOS were and I started talking about Spock's Brain and This Way to Eden (the latter of which I have never seen) and we started watching youtube clips and reviews about them. He was laughing and getting a kick out of it so we thought it would be a good idea to sprinkle in some episodes that are maybe not good, but as the title says, so bad they end up being hilarious..especially with that campy 60s style. Any suggestions?

 

Spock's Brain is probably the best example of what you're looking for but IMO it isn't bad at all. It does have several genuinely funny moments, though.

 

Certain things may be funny because they haven't aged well and kids will have a good time chuckling over them. "Gamesters of Triskelion" probably has a few spots like that. Also "The Apple." But for me, when Star Trek wasn't good it wasn't funny, it was just hard to enjoy all the way through. but other than a small handful, I can watch them all without laughing at how it lands. Usually for me a "bad" episode is a boring episode (or an all out comedy).

 

I agree with the above assessment.

I've stated in many a thread that for me, the line:

"Brain and brain!!!...What is brain!!??"

Is literary genius.

(Yes the entire premise of the episode is completely ridiculous, especially with McCoy being able to wire Mister Spock's body up as a remote-controlled robot; and the fact that immediately after the surgery, Spock gets up with a full head of hair, and not a single strand is out of place. -- but yeah for me it's still a guilty pleasure.)

 

But that one is an intentional comedy, with Shatner riffing on Peter Falk's character from Robin and the Seven Hoods. I've always liked it along with "Tribbles" as our two full-on comedy episodes.

 

"Tribbles" is the only comedy that works for me. It's mostly character oriented and not some kind of pantomime or farce like the other two.

 

They're all pretty 'campy' at this point, but I still enjoy them. I was amazed about how good they were when they first aired (yes, even the 'effects' LOL). Is the Eden one the one with the space hippys that burned their little toesis? That one was... even for back then..
But at least hippys were relevant at the time.

Funny thing about Spock's Brain - sadly, Doctor Who did it better. The whole episode (The Girl in the Fireplace) was at least as silly as Spock's Brain, but the way it ended... classic.
Unlike ST, DW didn't actually get to remove Madame de Pompadour's brain, which would have been silly.... even Doctor Who knew where to draw the line. LOL

I might catch some flack for this, but I think The Trouble with Tribbles might fit the theme of 'so bad its good'. Maybe it was okay back then, and its still a really fun episode, but when you rewatch it these days you REALLY have to suspend your disbelief. And besides, DS9 'fixed' it (TOTALLY played into the 'camp').

The two 'Mudd' episodes were pretty silly as well. Such a great character - the only real glimpse at how humans had not changed at all in the original series, even with Rodenberry's insistence everything was 'all shiny' in the future.

 

I don't think "camp" really applies to TOS. Sure, it had a 1960s aesthetic. But so did everything else. "Camp" is generally humorous because it has an exaggerated quality of tackiness and/or a wink-wink, tongue-in-cheek sense of irony, or something like that. Batman '66 for example was campy as it was deliberately absurd and tongue-in-cheek, a piece of pop art as a live action performance.

Kor

 

Nope not the right word. "Date" maybe but it's aged better than a lot of other shows of the same vintage. So, obviously, I'm gonna disagree with whatever word can be substituted for "campy."

 

For something to be camp, it has to be (as Susan Sontag put it) "good because it's awful".

Camp generally has to be deliberate (like Batman). I've heard it can be inadvertent, caused by age, too. But I think people who find camp in Trek have a mission to mischaracterize the show, either in its original context or its current one.

 

Examples of "camp" would be "Lost in Space" (depending on the episode), Flash Gordon (1980 movie), "The A-Team," and the aforementioned "Batman."

Shows that do not fit this:
"Star Trek"
"Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" (no matter how silly the series was always played straight)
"Buck Rogers"

Now, all of these shows may have things which can be seen to have "camp value" like over the top costuming and weird, stylized alien makeups, but those are usually more of a pulp or space opera styling. People generally use "camp" too easily. I run into the same comments from people on Facebook and such: "I loved that show, it was so campy and cheesy." Cheesy the show in question may have been but campy? Usually not.

 

"Camp" in my mind is associated with the screenwriter Lorenzo Semple Jr. who wrote for and did story editing on the 60s Batman and wrote the 1980 Flash Gordon. He also wrote the 1976 King Kong, which had a lot of humor (mostly played straight), but was also serious and tragic at the end.

 

In The World of Star Trek, David Gerrold described "Spock's Brain" as "high camp".

 

David Gerrold has a ton of opinions and has made many claims I find dubious.

As far as this episode, the people involved played it straight. They did not play at it as camp.

 

This is probably not the correct definition, but when I think of campy as it related to Star Trek I think about some of the acting in certain moments (Kirk pushing out his hands as he switches places with Lester, screaming "I'm Captain Kirk!!" in 1.5), the lighting on the female guest stars and the music that plays when it shows them, some of the fight scenes). I don't consider TOS a campy show - it is a scifi/drama show and holds up that way, but it does have some campy moments to me..but that's because I'm watching it in 2022 as opposed to something that was intended to be that way.

 

"Campy" and "camp" are terms that mean different things to different people - in fact, one could argue that they mean something different to just about everyone. Typically, I find the meaning and usage to be derogatory. I actually avoid using the term at all because its varying definition makes its usage so confusing as to render it meaningless. However, I certainly would never apply it to Star Trek. Just my two cents.

 

Are these actors playing Spock's Brain straight or as camp? Or neither?

 

As a kid, I loved both Star Trek (TOS) and Lost In Space. If you think TOS is camp and/or does comedy in cringeworthy ways, well, you ain't seen nothin' if you haven't seen Lost In Space. I guess maybe that's why, for me anyway, anything that takes place in TOS is light years superior to the silliness of Lost In Space.