That's disgusting, even for TOS.
To quote John Cleese, ''Oh, come on!!!!'' Of course, it's downright horrifying either way. It would have been nice to see her and Sam reappear on the bridge, but only semi-regulars got that privilege.
Episodes that start well but.....
- Thread starter Grant
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If she were suffocating and on her way to dying from it, she'd've been acting differently. It's clear she was just blind because she had no eyes and could only make muffled noises because she had no mouth. Probably couldn't smell. Otherwise she was OK. Happy Halloween!
I want it to be true, but bear in mind this is only the first 11 seconds.
Based on the combined incidents from Charlie in this episode, it might be seen as rather misogynistic. He selects six separate crewwomen for assorted ''punishments.'' Uhura nearly got electrocuted at her console.
The gymnast/wrestler he made go away because he laughed at him was a man.
In the original script (or at least the James Blish version) he gets to return on the bridge with Rand.
Exactly, we only saw a few seconds. The girl he turned into an iguana, the one he turned into an old lady, and the one he defaced all made full recoveries. The ill effects reversed a few seconds after the camera moved on, because Charlie wasn't that angry at any of them. Remember John Cleese saying "She turned me into a newt! [Sheepishly:] I got better."
THASIAN: I have taken my form from centuries ago, so that I may communicate with you. We did not realise until too late that the boy had gone, and we are saddened that his escape cost the lives of the first ship. We could not help them, but we have returned your people and your ship to you. Everything is as it was.
All true. An idiotically unbelievable plan.
Speaking of idiots, I must be one too because probably the detail that bugs me most is this:
TrekCore
What on earth were they trying to imply with this set design? It's clearly depicting a window through a portion of the ship's outer hull with a cylindrical profile, but the radius is so intensely tight for a starship that it defies explanation. Probably what comes closest are the nacelles, but we definitely aren't in that part of the ship (and they're way too large anyway).I love that we got this unusual setpiece, and I'll probably end up building one into my Stage 9 model (somewhere), but I just can't fathom where they imagined this to be taking place.
Anyway, back on topic, the fact that Kirk was allowed to glimpse people standing outside this window before they vanish – did the Gideons make a mistake? if so, how did they suddenly fix it? – is baffling. I find this a much worse episode than the usual whipping boys like Spock's Brain and Turnabout. Still better than The Alternative Factor, though!
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^^this
Also, Kirk and Spock had their legs broken in another of Charlie's telekinetic fits too... he also blew up the Antares where we know there used to be at least two men on board as well, with a bunch of others for which we know nothing about.
All true. An idiotically unbelievable plan.
Speaking of idiots, I must be one too because probably the detail that bugs me most is this:
TrekCoreWhat on earth were they trying to imply with this set design? It's clearly depicting a window through a portion of the ship's outer hull with a cylindrical profile, but the radius is so intensely tight for a starship that it defies explanation. Probably what comes closest are the nacelles, but we definitely aren't in that part of the ship (and they're way too large anyway).
The outer hull and inner (looks like 5" thick (?), 2" inside and 2~3" outside the window) could have some varied differences within as structural support? The curvature shown there can't possible be parallel with the outer hull (even mid-engineering hull where the lowest row of windows is, the bottom convex curvature is too steep.)
Ranks up there with the dinner room in "Haven" with the polygonal-shaped window that, if possibly anywhere, is on the upper neck/corner somewhere on the Engineering hull - not the saucer - but still doesn't quite match up to the model, yep I'm a little pedantic in that regard. Still cool to see other areas of the ship and to try to make it work with the mental gymnastics involved.
Sweet!
Too many ideas in "The Mark of Gideon" and none of them even remotely polished, with too many absurdities (if the planet is fully packed, how did they make that space for a full mockup of the Enterprise (complete with accurate noises, who gave 'em the blueprints! Apparently nobody...) - were people doing shoulder-standing and other cheerleader gymnastics moves? Yikes!)
Maybe this is located at the last set of windows in the aft section of the Engineering Hull just below the Hangar Deck; or more likely up in the Deck 2 or 3 blister? Also, the wall curvature may be a facade especially at the bottom to conceal/protect plasma conduits, etc. YMMV
TrekCoreWhat on earth were they trying to imply with this set design? It's clearly depicting a window through a portion of the ship's outer hull with a cylindrical profile, but the radius is so intensely tight for a starship that it defies explanation. Probably what comes closest are the nacelles, but we definitely aren't in that part of the ship (and they're way too large anyway).
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Probably all men. Charlie had to ask whether Rand was a girl [sic].
P.S. "Charlie X" starts out well and ends terrifically. Or terrifyingly. Or both. It has a really downbeat and dramatic ending, aka a great one.
I have wondered if someone on the production team imagined that the Gideons built the faux ship mostly underground, because there's no room on the surface and maybe the planet itself could provide the necessary structural support. (Kirk does seem to be looking up at the bodysuit sardines.) And maybe they only actually built the saucer, with all access points to the secondary hull mysteriously "out of order" just in case Kirk tried to go below decks. (I can't recall whether he actually did so in the episode; it's not one I rewatch on purpose.)
Today I thought about it a little more, and wondered if maybe the set builders wanted to imply this room was in the teardrop, just below ground level, but they didn't realize the wall curve should not have turned back inward at the bottom. The curvature is still way too tight, but maybe they scaled it down (and turned it back in at the floor) so it would read on camera as a curve. So I just made a quick diagram. It's not at all to scale; the heights of my little stick-people are grossly exaggerated.
This would be just another in a list of nonsensical ideas, and the room shape is still wrong, but I really don't have anything else.
EDIT: As @Kount Korbula pointd out in the next post, my first version hastily put Kirk & Odona in the bridge. I've now fixed that above, but let's immortalize what happens when you're doing three things at once and you don't check your work, and see if it shames me into being more careful next time.
Today I thought about it a little more, and wondered if maybe the set builders wanted to imply this room was in the teardrop, just below ground level, but they didn't realize the wall curve should not have turned back inward at the bottom. The curvature is still way too tight, but maybe they scaled it down (and turned it back in at the floor) so it would read on camera as a curve. So I just made a quick diagram. It's not at all to scale; the heights of my little stick-people are grossly exaggerated.
This would be just another in a list of nonsensical ideas, and the room shape is still wrong, but I really don't have anything else.
EDIT: As @Kount Korbula pointd out in the next post, my first version hastily put Kirk & Odona in the bridge. I've now fixed that above, but let's immortalize what happens when you're doing three things at once and you don't check your work, and see if it shames me into being more careful next time.
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D'oh. That's what I get for trying to knock this out during a working lunch meeting. Anyway, pretend you see what I meant, not what I showed. 
Spock’s Brain.
I liked the first half of that episode. The second half was where it fell apart.
I liked the first half of that episode. The second half was where it fell apart.
I saw "Gideon" for dozens of reruns in the 70s, and never noticed that the wall was curved. My eye was mostly on the characters, and also of course the window structure as Enterprise hardware porn. And the old CRT sets were not as sharp as these HD caps.All true. An idiotically unbelievable plan.
Speaking of idiots, I must be one too because probably the detail that bugs me most is this:
TrekCoreWhat on earth were they trying to imply with this set design? It's clearly depicting a window through a portion of the ship's outer hull with a cylindrical profile, but the radius is so intensely tight for a starship that it defies explanation. Probably what comes closest are the nacelles, but we definitely aren't in that part of the ship (and they're way too large anyway).
I love that we got this unusual setpiece, and I'll probably end up building one into my Stage 9 model (somewhere), but I just can't fathom where they imagined this to be taking place.
Anyway, back on topic, the fact that Kirk was allowed to glimpse people standing outside this window before they vanish – did the Gideons make a mistake? if so, how did they suddenly fix it? – is baffling. I find this a much worse episode than the usual whipping boys like Spock's Brain and Turnabout. Still better than The Alternative Factor, though!
Because the lighting is muted and there are exposed pipes on the wall, I think Al Francis and Matt Jefferies were told to suggest the lower decks, the bowels of the ship, the Engineering hull.
• Jefferies knew the television audience would never get a big long look like they do of the bridge.
• It never even occurred to him that nuts like me would have their mother's camera on a tripod to take photos of the TV picture tube. Who does that?
• He knew the audience does not work out the geometry of curves, and scale them to the exterior.
He just wanted to get the idea across that you're down there in the secondary hull where the walls would curve in that direction. That's all it is.
I never fully understood this objection. Odona was from the ruling family (or one of the ruling families). There are enough real world examples of the masses suffering while the state's resources are devoted to enabling the privileged few to live in obscene luxury to make this arrangement plausible, if offensive. As far as personal motivation, Hodin was going to sacrifice his daughter, so in her last moments she was given what no one else on the planet could have. There certainly are problems with this episode (how could their replica possibly fool Kirk? and why is Shatner so bored?) but for me the juxtaposition of wide open space for the one with cramped conditions for the many isn't one of them.
(For all its problems, I quite like this episode. The theatrical shorthand visual depiction of 'overpopulation' is masterful, terrifying and under budget. We see a different side of Spock, who is given an unusual obstacle in the sophistry of Hodin. David Hurst is wonderfully obnoxious as Hodin, but then the character has an unexpected redemption arc; redemption arcs for villainous-but-noble characters is common, for outright annoying and duplicitous characters less so. For me the episode only really falls apart when Odona lives anyway, which really takes the air out of everything that came before.)
"Mark of Gideon," yes, definitely, the whole premise of a life-size starship replica on a standing-room-only planet is preposterous. Unless maybe (and I'm just now thinking of this) the people of Gideon have holodeck technology?
An episode that starts well, but goes south . . . how about "The Man Trap"? It starts going south as soon as salt becomes the focal point, but there are some character moments on the way downhill to the Doc-Smith-preposterous ending with a nightmare-fodder-looking shape-shifting intractable monster that has to be killed.
In a way, "The Man Trap" and "The Devil in the Dark" are precise opposites. In the latter, the "murdering monster" turns out to be a mother protecting her offspring from the real monsters of the piece, the human miners who, once they realize what they'd been doing, and that they'd been in the wrong, are able to make peace.
An episode that starts well, but goes south . . . how about "The Man Trap"? It starts going south as soon as salt becomes the focal point, but there are some character moments on the way downhill to the Doc-Smith-preposterous ending with a nightmare-fodder-looking shape-shifting intractable monster that has to be killed.
In a way, "The Man Trap" and "The Devil in the Dark" are precise opposites. In the latter, the "murdering monster" turns out to be a mother protecting her offspring from the real monsters of the piece, the human miners who, once they realize what they'd been doing, and that they'd been in the wrong, are able to make peace.
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