I like STID. Is that wrong?

I was 12 when it premiered on NBC. My parents had no interest in it, thinking it pretty childish. The only episode my dad liked was "A Piece Of The Action" because it took some of the stuffing out of the characters.

 

I loved it! Awesome-sauce!

And No, it's not wrong to hold that opinion either.

 

I've heard TOS called the "St. Elsewhere" of its time. "St. Elsewhere" had terrible ratings (never in the top 40), but it ran six seasons because the network recognized its small audience was a fantastic commercial demographic. Demographic ratings existed in the 1960s, but from what I've ever read, no one took full advantage of them with TOS.

I'm getting to be an old man and repeating myself on these boards far too often, but I think the older fans (I'm 53) who came to the show in its original airing or in its breakout in syndication in the early 1970s have never taken it as seriously as fans who followed. It was just a fun show. It was intelligent and aimed at adults, but so were the really good westerns of the day, like "Gunsmoke", "Bonanza", or even "High Chaparall". Indeed, those shows probably broke more ground addressing social issues of the day than TOS did. They were at least comparable. Sorry folks, but in that light, TOS was in good company, but really nothing special in its day.

Put me down as another geezer who says STID captured the spirit of Trek embodied in TOS better than any other Trek movie. Growing up with the old cast, it almost pains me to say that, but it's become my favorite Trek movie for that reason.

 

Can you perhaps link to someone making that claim about TOS? Because it seems more like folklore than anything someone actually wrote to me.

Well, in my experience, there seem to have been far more frequent attempts to down play or even ignore the ethical side of TOS than there have been attempts to over emphasis it. On the other hand I can't recall ever having seen anyone claim it has no action adventure elements. That would indeed be laughable.

Since I get the feeling you are more of the action adventure persuasion, I can understand why you feel like that. But since I also value the message of hope for the future (etc) implicit in much of TOS, I would regard ST09 as "anti-Trek" (despite the healing hands of time ). STiD however is, relatively speaking, a massive improvement in that department, in my view.

I've read that all science fiction was regarded as childish by most people back then (probably still is by many today!), whether intended to be or not. There were however quite a few adult themes in TOS. So "Lost in Space" it wasn't, though as a child at the time, I might not have noticed the difference of course (They both had space ships! ).

 

I don't mind the messages that ST has clumsily tried to communicate over the years. But I want to be entertained first and foremost. If it isn't entertaining then why am I watching?

 

Intention doesn't count for much.

 

What do you mean by that?

 

Delivery does. If it hadn't been a show that was capable of outings like "The Conscience of the King," who would give a shit about anything related to it today?

(Granted it was the TNG version that won my elders over as casual viewers -- but then TOS wasn't primetime viewing when they arrived in North America.)

 

I know that's a rhetorical question, but the answer is:

Anyone and everyone who got this joke.

"Conscience of the King" is better known to TOS fans under the working title "That one episode, I forget the name, right before Balance of Terror that nobody ever watches." And you think THAT'S what most people find memorable about Star Trek? Really??

Be honest with yourself: the coolest TOS episodes were not particularly deep or sophisticated. "Balance of Terror" was just a bastardization of a well-known war movie and Devil in the Dark was a monster story with a Rod Serling twist. Then there's Corbomite Maneuver, Arena, The Enterprise Incident, Elaan of Troyus, Space Seed, Immunity Syndrome... all relatively low-concept stories served with a side of action, adventure, garnished with cool 'splosions and nail-biting tension. It's one thing to talk about the moral/political implications of Balance of Terror when you're in your twenties watching that episode for the thirty seventh time. But let's face it: you wouldn't have watched it a SECOND time if it wasn't so cool.

 

Yes, that one episode. Nothing else at all. I wasn't using it as an example or anything. Scout's honor.

I'll be honest with you: I kind of question whether your examples of "being honest with oneself" are really examples of being honest with yourself. For example:

In the future, goalposts will be equipped with warp drive! What technology!

A group of episodes we're going to lump together as supposedly comparably "low-concept" for no particular reason other than rhetorical convenience.

Come on, TOS served up many a fine slice of cheese, but be honest with yourself: nobody would care decades on if that was all it had brought it to the table. (I mean, maybe you would, and that's fine, but don't go thinking there'd be a forty-million-strong fandom.)

 

Look at it this way: Suppose you went home to your wife and although she looked the same, she said things and and acted in ways that were contrary to what you valued about her as a person. Would you be able to ignore that and just be happy that she was still fun to be with? I.e. If a movie contradicts something I see as important to the character of ST, how can I be entertained by the result?

So little that it wasn't even relevant to my point. Simply replace the words "intended to be" with "is", if you are having difficulties with my meaning. Or to rephrase: what I am saying is that due to a social bias you can't assume any particular science fiction work is childish just because it may have been viewed as such. Especially in the sixties and earlier.

 

I dunno, Jake. When you ask questions that imply nobody would give a shit about Star Trek if it wasn't capable of "outings like Conscience of the King" you're pretty strongly implying that there's something uniquely memorable about that episode, and that if it HADN'T been for that episode (or others like it) nobody would care about Star Trek.

I think that's disingenuous. Conscience of the King was a good episode, but I'd be surprised if it's even in most people's top five.

lol what?

"High concept" is what the execs at Paramount would have called "a little too cerebral" when describing an episode like "The Cage" or "City on the Edge of Forever." Intricate, thought-provoking storylines that make a very interesting point.

"Low concept" is a story with a simple dynamic: good vs. evil, man vs. monster, "Pew! Pew! He's dead Jim!" etc.

You're right that delivery makes a really big difference. But being TV being a visual medium, you're under-estimating how much of that delivery depends entirely on "Oh! Cool!" cinematography.

Of course not. That's exactly my point: the "more" it brought to the table wasn't sophistication or depth, because the lion's share of its fans weren't looking for that and generally weren't paying attention when they saw it. The coolness factor is the biggest draw by far, especially among casual fans who aren't that deep into Trek fandom to tease out some of its hidden treasures (e.g. the few really good, non-hammy scenes of "Conscience of the King").

Case in point: I grew up with the kind of family for whom the question "Well, how would Spock handle this?" started a three-hour debate at thanksgiving dinner. My mother, in particular, has a Cinescape magazine from 1987 with James Doohan's autograph, which is quite possibly her most prized possession. To say she is a die-hard trekkie would be a gross understatement.

And having asked her the question two hours ago, I can confirm that she has NO IDEA who Kodos the Executioner is. Why do you suppose that is?

 

Lots of people wouldn't, hence America's depressingly high divorce rate.

By trying to remember how Star Trek looked the FIRST time you saw it, not how it looked the four hundred and thirtieth time after years and years of growing up and maturing with it.

IOW, by watching Star Trek like the kid you used to be, instead of the nitpicky, over-analyzing pseudo-expert that most of us are slowly mutating into in our old age. Stop thinking about it, stop analyzing it, stop looking for problems with it, just go with it.

Yes, because "social bias" is the main reason people thought Star Trek was childish....



Yep. It HAS to be social bias.

B-B-Bluey...

There are certain very specific ways in which "related to TOS" would NOT be a good thing. Uhura's characterization is definitely one of them.

 

And I stand by that. There were a ton of episodes like it: episodes that adapted material from other genres (the spy thriller, the murder mystery, the courtroom drama, the submarine thriller, the sword-and-sandals movie) into SF and used it to build stories a hell of a lot more sophisticated -- "low-concept" or not (a term you're still misapplying but I'll leave that tangent alone for now) -- than you got from Lost in Space or Flash Gordon. It was one of the basic planks of Trek, which after all was sold as "Wagon Train to the Stars," and whether or not your mom knows who Kodos the Executioner is.

Of course the use of concepts from contemporary SF literature or original work by SF writers (Arena, Where No Man Has Gone Before, City at the Edge of Forever) also helped. But I'd say that adaptation-from-the-broader-genre-landscape was the more common feature of TOS Trek.

(Anyway, I guess we're kind of at the point of total threadjack now and I need to get some proverbial rack anyway, so I leave the last word to you if you want it.)

 

I am a TOS fan and I think Conscience of the King is a good episode. I don't think of it as filler.

While I don't think of TOS as 'Citizen Cane' material I don't think its as unsophisticated and meaningless as you make out. As others have pointed out its not going to have fans 50 years later if its all explosions and action/adventure.

I mean there are a lot of modern shows full of 'splosions' and a lot more pretty people that I could like better.

 

And if Star Trek had waited forty years to follow up its series with a major motion picture, it would be as popular as Lost in Space right about now. Which is to say, pretty popular, just not as big as it now is.

OTOH, despite being more sophisticated and FAR more prolific from a production standpoint Star Trek is not quite as popular or as well-known as Star Wars. Sophistication may be an admirable trait in science fiction, and it may be worth appreciating in Star Trek, but it is not and has never been what ORIGINALLY drew in those audiences.

It was the fun, not the sophistication. And it bears repeating that, strictly speaking, TOS wasn't actually that sophisticated.

All good points, all entirely true.

And all of which went ENTIRELY over the heads of everyone who saw Star Trek for the very first time and hasn't spent most of their adult life learning how those stories actually took shape. People who saw "Balance of Terror" for the very first time didn't realize right off the bat that it WAS an adaptation. It's an interesting fact about that episode, and the fact that they were able to adapt it so well and so thoughtfully speaks volumes as to the quality of the writers. But seeing how you wouldn't actually KNOW that if you didn't go out of your way to find out, then what is it about "Balance of Terror" that makes it so memorable?

Simple: it's a well-acted, highly dramatic space battle that puts strong, appealing characters in mortal danger for the viewer's entertainment. The fact that the story turns out to be a relatively deep morality play with broader social/political implications is reason to love it MORE, but if the episode wasn't as good as it was, nobody would dig any farther than the surface viewing, and even if they didn't, they probably wouldn't care.

It's kinda like how nobody seems to know much about the writing backgrounds of Voyager episodes these days. There's a simple reason for that: it's Voyager, nobody cares.

 

And would Star Trek have got those other 4/5 series and 10 movies if it hadn't been for TOS (and Star Wars).
Maybe.
But the legend continues and TOS still has its fans.

Anyway its the TNG fans who contend its the sophisticated and meaningful Star Trek.

 

I didn't say it was unsophisticated and I didn't say it was meaningless.

I said that sophistication and meaning were NOT what drew people to the series when it first aired, and they are not what draw people to it today. Partly this is because it is not nearly as sophisticated or as meaningful as alot of its fans like to think it is, but mostly that's because it's a TELEVISION SHOW, which means whatever deeper meaning it possesses is secondary to its entertainment value.

And it was its entertainment value -- NOT its depth -- that made Star Trek successful.

You sure about that?

Let me put that another way: I work with a lot of kids, and I know quite a few toddlers who know "The Enterprise" when they see it. Of course, they can't always tell them apart; the TOS and 2009 versions look similar to a lot of five-year-olds, but most of them know it's the Enterprise and they know Captain Kirk is in charge of it.

On the other hand, I haven't met anyone under the age of 17 who has any idea what this thing is. They recognized it as something out of Star Trek, but most of them ask me the same question: "What version of the Enterprise is that?"

 

I promised you the last word, but since sleep still eludes and before M'Sharak brings the hammer down, I'll go in for one more:

I neither know nor care to what extent this is actually true, since it has nothing to do with what I was talking about or so far as I can see what anyone was talking about.

You seem rather too desperate to deny that it might have been the combination and that mystifies me.

I suppose it depends on what strictures you're speaking under, but relatively speaking it quite plainly was.

What a completely bizarre thing this is to say. The average restaurant-goer doesn't know how his pizza is cooked, that has nothing at all to do with whether the ingredients influence its popularity.

Now I'm done, honest. (No, hang on...)

 

And it was the TNG movies that ultimately tanked the franchise. And it was an ill-conceived, poorly-done TNG cameo that hailed the death of its television presence.

If only they'd made a DS9 movie...