"Great" episodes that you don't really care for

VOY - Body and Soul leaves me ... quite unsatisfied.

 

City on the Edge of Forever and Measure of a man are both pretty terrible. I think people tend to like them based on the writers' reputations.

 

Relics, TNG.

 

I liked City before I even knew who Ellison was.

 

Yesterday's Enterprise. It's a great premise, & there's good parts in it, but Crosby, Goldberg & McDonald just kill it for me. It's just too much blah acting from them

 

Die hard TOS fan here. For myself, everyone seems to love/applaud "City on the Edge of Forever".

While I love the concept of and scenes with The Guardian of Forever, I've never cared for the rest of the story nor find the Kirk/Edith 'romantic' dynamic compelling or interesting. In the end, were they successful, she'd be LONG DEAD to Kirk whether she died in that car accident or not. Unless he and Spock were content living the rest of there lives in the 20th century - Kirk could NEVER have had any type of long term relationship. She was dead centuries before he was born; so yeah, I never got his angst over the whole situation with her.

 

Kirk found her "most uncommon, Mister Spock." He should have brought her with them to the future.

Kor

 

The symbiont did. It's the Jadzia in her that's awed to see it for herself.

 

The angst was purely emotional. First, having to freely elect to allow someone to die and to die dramatically would piss off anyone. The argument of "Oh! But you knew so-and-so was terminally ill, you should've been well-prepared when they finally died" doesn't really work It's not the way it FEELS. When it comes to commanding soldiers to their doom, well ... that's different. They sign on knowing it means their ass belongs to Uncle Sam, now. Taking on the responsibility of having to elect someone to die, especially someone you love, or at least, someone who you know is destined for greatness ... that's worse than frustrating. It's unfair and it would have to hurt.

Again, this is mostly emotional and if Mister Spock was the one Edith was hot for, you might've gotten a more measured response to it all, in the end. But, oh, well. That's entertainment ... what we crave for, inside. I do have to say though, when Edith turns to Kirk in the upstairs hallway, all excited talking about what the future could hold, that "they would take all of the money they spend on war and death" ... "and spend it on Life" .... I melt like buttah!

 

WTF?! I can see why there are other episodes people could enjoy more, but are they "terrible"?

 

Measure of a Man's premise is flawed. Never mind what happens in today's military, Riker and Picard would never have been put in that situation. And then the whole "You called Data "Him"." line take away all subtlety of the previous line. I guess CotEoF isn't "terrible" exactly, but Ellison's diva attitude about getting edited leaves a sour taste in the mouth. Every writer gets rewrites, even His Majesty, Cordwainer I.

 

"The Inner Light"
"In the Pale Moonlight"

 

Most fans have no clue about the behind the scenes story of the making of "City on the Edge of Forever"...Hardcore fans that want to know...yes, they are aware of it.

Sometimes its good not to know so much. It's a beautiful episode. It has most of the elements that made "Star Trek" so great. Good writing. Fine acting. A great story. Fine effects. Put it all together and you have pure magic.

Whether Ellison liked it or not is superfluous to whether the fans liked it and they have for 50 years now.

 

I had absolutely no idea who Melinda Snodgrass was when I first watched "The Measure of a Man." Even today I still know her largely through her Trek work. And I'm pretty sure that COTEOF was my very first exposure to Harlan Ellison's work. I loved both of those episodes before I had any idea who wrote them.

 

Artistic/dramatic license.

With all the specialists on Starfleet ships (sociologists, historians, etc.) it would have made sense for the Ent-D to have a legal expert or two somewhere amongst its vast staff. But then the sense of drama wouldn't have been quite the same, and Picard wouldn't have gotten to pontificate on android rights in court.

Kor

 

I understand, Kor. That means that the premise is weak. Or at least the writer couldn't think of something that made more sense.

 

No mate. People like the acting, the cinematography, the writing. maybe it's the lighting. It's cool if you don't like it, we're not expected to like everything, but accept that people have real concrete reasons for why they like something themselves.

 

I just see the typical trope in which the main characters of a show are the ones who do all the heavy lifting. Hell, in most in most engineering related situations, Geordi and Data wouldn't be the ones solving the problems, they'd just be supervising the engineering staff while one of the other engineers comes up with the solution.

 

I also did not like "The Inner Light" however, the Jay Chataway orchestral suite of the episode music is one of my all-time favorites.

 

I'm not a huge fan of "The Inner Light," either.

I love "In the Pale Moonlight." I like anything that challenges the utopian fantasies of TNG.

Kor