Fans, what don't you like about TOS?

[Warped9]

Another companion thread. I'm compartmentalizing in an effort to avoid derailing the main subject matter of the threads.

Seriously, though, as much as we love our favourite shows there are always things we're not content with, wholly or in part. There are always things we feel could have been better.

So what didn't you like about TOS?

For myself although I recognize ensemble shows were pretty much an alien concept in the '60s I would have liked the secondary characters to have gotten a little more focus.

I also would have liked a little more time and resource to finish off the Enterprise filming miniature (if you can call 11ft. miniature) on both sides.

Finally I'd have liked a little more money to better showcase some of the third season episodes. And while at it dress up the sets a bit more particularly those areas like crew quarters and recreation rooms.

 

[TigerOfDarkness]

Well, the lack of a S4 is a bit disappointing.

 

[Warped9]

Well, the lack of a S4 is a bit disappointing.

What would you have liked to see in a season four?

 

[TigerOfDarkness]

Well, more TOS really. Some of the things I would have liked are:

Sarek and Amanda, McCoy's daughter, more consitiution class starships, more strange new worlds, etc. An appearence by Number One from the Cage? A Sulu centric story, more of Uhura.

I realise that the likelyhood of some of this is pretty small, but it would have been nice.

 

[Brutal Strudel]

As much as I like the legs, the sexism was a bit much.

And about a third to a half of the episdes ranged from "meh" to "feh."

 

[freak]

The....Shatner....acting..at times made me cringe. And I would have also liked to have seen an ending to the show. "The Turnabout Intruder" was NOT an ending to the series and that angered me most about TOS. I'm sitting thinking, "end the show on a high note, dammit!"

 

[Gorn Captain]

I would say the unfortunate casting necessitated by the budget and time constraints of weekly television. This is a comment mostly directed at bit part actors who get killed or are more or less extras, but also the occasional guest star. For instance, the fellow from Barney Miller who played Dr. Adams in Dagger of the Mind did NOT seem like a brilliant scientist. He seemed more like...oh, I dont know...some guy from Barney Miller.

 

[Ro Boat]

Too much Deus Ex Machina.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I would say the unfortunate casting necessitated by the budget and time constraints of weekly television. This is a comment mostly directed at bit part actors who get killed or are more or less extras, but also the occasional guest star. For instance, the fellow from Barney Miller who played Dr. Adams in Dagger of the Mind did NOT seem like a brilliant scientist. He seemed more like...oh, I dont know...some guy from Barney Miller.

Other way around.

 

[Botany Bay]

The way it completely imploded in Season 3.

 

[Noname Given]

Honestly, the fact that, after the first season, it got away from telling a lot of actual science fiction stories to honestly just telling 'Star Trek' stories with science fiction as a backdrop. I also agree that the third season's writing was overall, very disappointing (with a few notible exceptions).

Overall, I still feel that, while it was by no means perfect, and it had its share of mediocre to bad episodes; the first season of Star Trek was the best, and more entertaining overall than anything Star Trek that came after it.

 

[Praetor]

A bigger budget and four more seasons would have been nice.

I also wish they had been able to keep the visual styling more in line with the way things were set up in "The Cage." I preferred it that way, down to the more respectable female uniforms.

I also wish Uhura had gotten more attention, maybe even get to sit in the chair at least once.

 

[Fish1941]

Most of Season 3 seemed unoriginal. I got tired of them ending up on some planet that resembled Earth's past. I would have liked more emphasis on Uhura, Sulu, Scotty, and Chekov. "Spock's Brain". "A Taste of Armaggeddon" (which I absolutely loath). The sexism.

 

[Brutal Strudel]

I would say the unfortunate casting necessitated by the budget and time constraints of weekly television. This is a comment mostly directed at bit part actors who get killed or are more or less extras, but also the occasional guest star. For instance, the fellow from Barney Miller who played Dr. Adams in Dagger of the Mind did NOT seem like a brilliant scientist. He seemed more like...oh, I dont know...some guy from Barney Miller.

Other way around.

I love how Dr. Adams didn't fit the "Mad Scientist" mold but just looked like "some guy." I thought Inspector Luger was great in the part. If it makes you feel better, Lt. Scanlon of Internal Affairs was killed at Wolf 359.

 

[Warped9]

Honestly, the fact that, after the first season, it got away from telling a lot of actual science fiction stories to honestly just telling 'Star Trek' stories with science fiction as a backdrop.

I don't completely agree and I wouldn't phrase it quite like this, but the essence of this statement really resonates for me.

 

[Isis]

That Kevin Riley appeared in only two episodes.

 

[Zachary Smith]

It doesn't appear in the series so much as it's part of the general arc of the TOS crew including the films but what I like LEAST is the gradual reduction of the character of Scotty from a tough-as-nails, by the book and VERY competant Star Fleet officer in the first season to, essentially complete comic-relief by the time later films.

Early in the series, Scotty occasionally HAD a humor about him that was intrinsic to the character but didn't assault its basic integrity. By the later TOS movies, he's a bufoon and a whiner, banging his head on pipes and when you get to TNG, it's reported that his entire reputation is built on lies and deceit.

I really HATE that.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

I dislike how the verisimilitude of a lived-in future seems to disappear mid-first season, as does some of the more naturalistic drama. The lived-in look is something that is hardly ever seen again, making a come back in TWOK and, in the extreme, in TUC.

TMP shows us how possibly the 23rd century is going to look, feel, and function, and is, perhaps, the most verisimilar of all the films in that regards. (Thank you, Jesco Von Puttkamer and Lee Cole! ) However, TMP still lacks the lived-in look that tell us people inhabit this particular future.

In the early first season, there is the detritus of human existence whereas there is none in TMP. It is too austere in that regards.

Moreover, I don't like that Roddenberry, out of ego or pride or "vision," didn't let other writers really go as far as they could with the format.

A lot of potential, imo, was sacrificed for the sake of "format." Things that could have truly pushed the limits of 60s science fiction and drama.

Take Ellison's original ending to CEOTF, which I think says far more about humanity than all 79 episodes of the series, TNG and its spin-offs, or the movies. If that had aired as in the 60s, how much more daring that would've been than having Kirk make the easy heroic choice.

 

[Redfern]

As Warped9 pointed out, it wasn't really a part of 60s television, but the motif of an interacting ensemble cast would have added "something". Ironically, we got a hint how it might have worked in the very first episode to air, the one many fans "regret" having played first because it gave the false impression of a "monster of the week" motif, "Man Trap".

Consider, It was not exactly "Kirk-centric" or even "Kirk/Spock-centric". Just about all of the "bridge regulars" had their moments to shine. Uhura "teasing" Spock about moonlit nights on Vulcan. She even rebuts Spock with an observation the Likes McCoy would have thrown in his face. Rand and Sulu in the botany lab as they exchange friendly banter and then observe the odd behavior of the "crewman". There's of course, the famous "encounter" between Uhura and her idealized "crewman", but a less discussed scene among fans involves Uhura, Sulu and Rand on the bridge realizing their two incidents are connected and the "crewmen" involved are both the "thing" (to use their words). Shatner nor Nimoy are in those scenes as I guess they had not yet gotten around to "counting their lines". Halfway through the first season, scenes began to focus almost exclusively upon the "dynamic duo". Of course, later Trek series got to do that kind of thing on a somewhat regular basis, but it's shame what was presented on Sept. 8th, 1966 did not continue. Had they kept at it, we might have learned Uhura's and Sulu's first names decades before we did.

Oh, and I wish when the cast were stage-bound for their planetside scenes, they could have employed painted backdrop vistas as they did for the two pilots. True, they may not have been realistic by "hi-def" standards today, but I think it would have provided added ambiance to a scene.

Sincerely,

Bill

 

[Joker]

A lot of the crap stuff that peppers the seasons.

The McCoy/heartbeat stuff in Court Martial was beyond stupid.
Kirk's superiors being mentally retarded in virtually every episode in which they appear. Example: The Captain in The Doomsday Machine automatically assuming that Kirk, as opposed to the far more likely M-5, is happily phasering other federation ships.
Spock being "incapable" of lying.
Any occassion where a Starfleet death penalty is mentioned.

There are more, that's all I can remember off of the top of my head.