Without naturally! Kang and Kor were the best with their dirty complexions and heavy brows! The thing that was always made me laugh with Kang was that in his first scene on the planet with Kirk on the ground, his moustache was a bit off centre!
JB
Mistakes You Thought Were Made In OS, But Weren't
- Thread starter Samuel
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Without naturally! Kang and Kor were the best with their dirty complexions and heavy brows! The thing that was always made me laugh with Kang was that in his first scene on the planet with Kirk on the ground, his moustache was a bit off centre!
JB
Without naturally! Kang and Kor were the best with their dirty complexions and heavy brows! The thing that was always made me laugh with Kang was that in his first scene on the planet with Kirk on the ground, his moustache was a bit off centre!
JB
Here I thought I was the only one who noticed that!
A mistake I thought was made - and was!
Without naturally! Kang and Kor were the best with their dirty complexions and heavy brows! The thing that was always made me laugh with Kang was that in his first scene on the planet with Kirk on the ground, his moustache was a bit off centre!
JB
I knew there was something bizarre about him.
What's so dishonorable about it?
The Klingons are perfectly capable of voluntarily giving something up, if they receive something they want in return. That's not dishonorable by any means. It's just part of normal realpolitik. Every government does that.
What's so dishonorable about it?
The Klingons are perfectly capable of voluntarily giving something up, if they receive something they want in return. That's not dishonorable by any means. It's just part of normal realpolitik. Every government does that.
They also kill sick people in their beds... and find it honorable.
The Children Shall Lead
Mistake I thought was made:
Apparently the only way to summon the "friendly angel" is by the children performing their chant. Though surprisingly even a recording works. So how was it ever possible for the "friendly angel" to manifest itself to the children in the first place?
Why it's Not a Mistake:
In the full length version of the episode, a scene that is often cut is of Spock and Kirk exploring the caverns near the Triacus expeditions camp site. While inside Kirk is virtually overcome by fear and other negative emotions that appears to be connected to the power of the "friendly angel". The expedition leader in his recordings does mention the effects he has been noticing seem to be strongest near the caverns. Thus it is quite reasonable to suspect that the children exploring in to the caverns were influenced by the power of the Gorkon initially there.
Episode still sucks but there is no mistake here.
Mistake I thought was made:
Apparently the only way to summon the "friendly angel" is by the children performing their chant. Though surprisingly even a recording works. So how was it ever possible for the "friendly angel" to manifest itself to the children in the first place?
Why it's Not a Mistake:
In the full length version of the episode, a scene that is often cut is of Spock and Kirk exploring the caverns near the Triacus expeditions camp site. While inside Kirk is virtually overcome by fear and other negative emotions that appears to be connected to the power of the "friendly angel". The expedition leader in his recordings does mention the effects he has been noticing seem to be strongest near the caverns. Thus it is quite reasonable to suspect that the children exploring in to the caverns were influenced by the power of the Gorkon initially there.
Episode still sucks but there is no mistake here.
Yes that scene was always cut by the BBC and the first time I ever saw it was on the DVDs!
JB
JB
Yeah, that's a scene I first read about before I ever saw it in the uncut version. It sounded interesting because how often does Kirk show anxiety? Dude is fearless. But it's a huge disappointment because Shatner utterly hams it up and the dialogue isn't great either (which may have led to Bill just deciding to chew some scenery). Too bad; a missed opportunity. And I don't dislike ATHC - I find much of it satisfyingly scary. Overlook the shower curtain on Belli and the masturbahonks as well as how easily Scotty was controlled (he's almost always immune to everything) and Shatner's two freakouts and it's actually a decent ep.
Totally get where you're coming from. My defense of many, many S3 eps is not an easy road. 
Particularly since I generally don't get much out of Incident, a perennial ("it was S3 but it was great") nominee.
Amazing how much weight the Shat put on between seasons one and three!
JB
JB
Inspired by the "Killer Asteroid" thread.
"The Paradise Syndrome"
Mistake I Thought Was Made:
After the phaser attack failed to destroy the asteroid why didn't the Enterprise just fire a bunch of photon torpedoes until the job was done?
Why It's Not a Mistake:
Over the years I heard all sorts of explanations like "Enterprise was out of photon torpedoes" and stuff like that. But reading up on how asteroids/meteors and stuff like that behave in real life presented a better explanation.
Spock never planned to simply blast the asteroid in to little smaller pieces and be done with it. He intended to carefully carve it into lower mass pieces that the deflectors could then handle one at a time.
I realized this reading about real life asteroid deflection concepts. One thing that stands out is that it is considered very inadvisable to protect Earth by simply blasting an asteroid to pieces as roughly the same total mass would still be on a collision coarse with Earth and still cause staggering damage.
Consider: It was a mere six mile wide asteroid that wiped out most of life on Earth when the dinosaurs met their ends 65 million years ago. How many 6 mile wide asteroids would you create out of a mass the size of Earth's moon blown apart? Probably thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands. And even one would've been enough to destroy the American Indians on the planet.
"The Paradise Syndrome"
Mistake I Thought Was Made:
After the phaser attack failed to destroy the asteroid why didn't the Enterprise just fire a bunch of photon torpedoes until the job was done?
Why It's Not a Mistake:
Over the years I heard all sorts of explanations like "Enterprise was out of photon torpedoes" and stuff like that. But reading up on how asteroids/meteors and stuff like that behave in real life presented a better explanation.
Spock never planned to simply blast the asteroid in to little smaller pieces and be done with it. He intended to carefully carve it into lower mass pieces that the deflectors could then handle one at a time.
I realized this reading about real life asteroid deflection concepts. One thing that stands out is that it is considered very inadvisable to protect Earth by simply blasting an asteroid to pieces as roughly the same total mass would still be on a collision coarse with Earth and still cause staggering damage.
Consider: It was a mere six mile wide asteroid that wiped out most of life on Earth when the dinosaurs met their ends 65 million years ago. How many 6 mile wide asteroids would you create out of a mass the size of Earth's moon blown apart? Probably thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands. And even one would've been enough to destroy the American Indians on the planet.
Obsession
Mistake I thought Was Made
In the episodes fourth act, Enterprise is pursuing the "vampire cloud" through space running at Warp 8 plus and pushing the engines to the point of destruction, yet barely gaining on the creature.
After Scotty proclaims "We can't do it! If we keep this speed up we could blow up at any second!" To which Kirk reluctantly orders Scotty to drop the Enterprise to Warp 6.
Why didn't the creature simply pull away and leave Enterprise in the dust? As it proved capable of doing after it fled the Enterprise later in the episode? Instead the creature slowed down and allowed the Enterprise to approach, attack and then the creature counterattacked.
Why its not a mistake
The creature had to feed. The pursuit by Enterprise had exhausted its strength and it knew from its previous encounter with the Farragut that a starship carried red blooded humans. So it stormed in through the open impulse engine vent and attacked three crewman (that we know of).
Mistake I thought Was Made
In the episodes fourth act, Enterprise is pursuing the "vampire cloud" through space running at Warp 8 plus and pushing the engines to the point of destruction, yet barely gaining on the creature.
After Scotty proclaims "We can't do it! If we keep this speed up we could blow up at any second!" To which Kirk reluctantly orders Scotty to drop the Enterprise to Warp 6.
Why didn't the creature simply pull away and leave Enterprise in the dust? As it proved capable of doing after it fled the Enterprise later in the episode? Instead the creature slowed down and allowed the Enterprise to approach, attack and then the creature counterattacked.
Why its not a mistake
The creature had to feed. The pursuit by Enterprise had exhausted its strength and it knew from its previous encounter with the Farragut that a starship carried red blooded humans. So it stormed in through the open impulse engine vent and attacked three crewman (that we know of).
That’s good. Also, as you're well aware, pregnant vampire clouds can sometimes do interesting things to protect their unborn.
I believe the cloud thought it would attack and disable the Enterprise as it did the Farragut. And then we get into the idea of flushing radioactive waste into a starship's ventilation system, which always struck me as a facially unsound idea that was deserving of another line of dialogue or two to explain why it actually made sense.
I kind of think the cloud creature was trying to test their strength before it full out attacked.
'They chased me pretty fast but now they are tired out, time to get them.' Maybe it doesn't differentiate between the ship and the personnel, it eats those tasty things that run around in the big metal creature. Another V'gersim?
I like it when we figure out how Trek episodes made sense all along. It's not always possible to squeeze in every piece of information, especially if the plot needs to move quickly. These were smart people. They thought these things out. I don't know what to say about the radiation flushing. Either we lack some info, or they didn't have enough of a sense of the dangers of radiation yet.
The salt-eating creature seemed illogical to me. If it wanted salt, it should just have asked for it. It's almost worthless and it could have had a lifetime supply of it without any problem but then I thought that the creature wasn't really smart. It didn't think. It just mimicked human behavior without understanding it. It didn't know how easy it was to get salt on a modern starship.
I really like it too; it's satisfying. And yeah, a lot of shows are not as tightly written as TOS these days, that's for sure. They were indeed smart people; well put.
On the radiation flushing, in the mid-to-late 60s I think pretty much everyone knew about the dangers of radiation, right? I just think that something was going on here in the mind of the writer - who otherwise did one of the best jobs in all of TOS conveying how the Enterprise functioned - that wasn't explained. Maybe Kirk should have suggested that Scotty try the flushing after confirming that it would pose no harm to the crew as they were not in the ventilation spaces themselves, which had all been sealed off. Scotty could have confirmed that and indicated that some sort of process would quickly clean everything up if it rid the ship of the cloud. That would have satisfied me (although Garrovick's open vent would have presumably irradiated him and nearby sections unless we got another 20 seconds of dialogue explaining that barriers of some sort would prevent radiation from reaching any habitable areas). As scripted and played, it comes off as "Hey, Scotty - what about releasing radioactive waste products into our life support system? Huh? Huh?" and it just sounds like a really bad idea.
That's a great analysis. It's almost the theme of Stanisław Lem's Solaris (the book, less so the movie adaptations). [No real spoilers ahead.] The sentient planet is able to mimic intelligent human communication (in often disturbing ways) but is so alien that the two species really can't find a way to meaningfully exchange ideas. But your idea that the salt creature could be not very smart, but just a great mimic, might apply to Solaris as well. Who's to say what intelligence is when the being in question just doesn't think the same way we do?
