Guess the Episode From This Cropped Screenshot
- Thread starter Planet of the Daves
- Start date
TOS "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky"
I just watched this one the other day (loved it; a terrific story, highly moving, and one of McCoy's best episodes for sure) and am still surprised that no one ever refers to the Oracle as a no-good computer that must be stopped. I guess the S3 showrunners figured we had gotten the point by then. 
I wonder how Kirk trying to put the Oracle in a logic trap would have worked out.I just watched this one the other day (loved it; a terrific story, highly moving, and one of McCoy's best episodes for sure) and am still surprised that no one ever refers to the Oracle as a no-good computer that must be stopped. I guess the S3 showrunners figured we had gotten the point by then.
I imagine Kirk would have prevailed. (As it stands, he does pretty much the same routine, but with Natira instead of the Oracle; I had forgotten what a nice job he did with his speech to her.)
But the Oracle was also no master tactician - instead of stunning the crew as it had done twice before, it turned up the heat without stunning them first, then allowed them to open the altar and walk right into the control room. (I feel like a snippet or two of dialogue, like Spock saying that he located the Oracle's power source and disabled its abilities to some extent, would have helped.)
There is a Ray Bradbury short story where a cocky computer hating individual locks a computer up with the "I'm lying" logic trap like what Kirk and Mudd used in "I Mudd". The result was the same as with Norman except the computer controlled the life support of the base they were on and the planet was inhospitable to humans. They couldn't reboot the computer and clear the logic bomb. The story ended with the characters worrying as the temperature began to drop.
I remember that one, which haunted me for years as a kid, as much as the one where the bullies locked the girl on Venus in a closet and prevented her from seeing the sun for years.
All Summer in a Day. I read that in reading class in school. Years later, having forgot the title, I searched for the story. Eventually, I got lucky and found it.
The rain on Venus only stopped once in every 7? years, I think it was. The girl was from Earth and painfully homesick and looking forward to seeing the sun again. She irked the other kids who didn't "get" why she was so enthused about it as they had been raised underground and had never seen a sunny day.
When they experienced the brief respite from the rain, they finally "got it."
The rain on Venus only stopped once in every 7? years, I think it was. The girl was from Earth and painfully homesick and looking forward to seeing the sun again. She irked the other kids who didn't "get" why she was so enthused about it as they had been raised underground and had never seen a sunny day.
When they experienced the brief respite from the rain, they finally "got it."
Right! And then, after the sun passed and their wonderment ceased, they remembered that they had locked her in the closet or basement or whatever and wordlessly let her out. I want to say her name was Margaret or Margot. My folks have a volume of Bradbury short stories including that one in a storage locker, along with some other interesting stuff from my childhood, which will be a pleasure to go through at some point. Among it is my original copy of Bjo Trimble's Concordance, although I was lucky enough to buy another one a few years ago.
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