Only When They Laugh

[Gojirob]

Captain Kirk, your brother and sister-in-law are dead. So are many people on Deneva 3 colony. Those who aren't are waking up from a nightmare of the Heinlein/Lovecraft variety. Your nephew/nephews need to hear the worst possible news. Sir, what is your response?

"You've been so concerned about his Vulcan eyes, Doctor.
You forgot about his Vulcan ears."

I guess this was either a 60's or a network thing, but am I off in thinking a lot of rather grim TOS eps ended with joking around? Sometimes all you can do is laugh, but these often seemed forced or out of place, at least to me.

 

[Green Shirt]

Gojirob said:
am I off in thinking a lot of rather grim TOS eps ended with joking around?

No, it happened quite a lot. I can think offhand of only two times it didn't. So I'm going to correct those oversights.

Charlie X: "I wanna stay, stay, stay . . . "
Kirk: "Sorry, Charlie. Only the best tasting boys get to be Starfleet."

Kirk: "And whut of Lazarus?"
Spock: "Fuck 'im".
Kirk: "Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk."

 

[Professor Moriarty]

You're forgetting one of the grimmest endings of all: At the end of "A Private Little War", Kirk tiredly orders Spock to "beam us up home". The bleak reality of the proxy war between the Federation and the Klingons clearly shows on Kirk's anguished face, and the chilling musical score reflects his mood. It was one of the few pitch-perfect endings in TOS.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I think there are a lot of good endings in the first year of TOS - "City On The Edge Of Forever," of course, but I particularly like the endings of "A Taste Of Armageddon" and "Charlie X." "This Side Of Paradise" is good, but not "pitch perfect" as you say - it delivers Kirk at his most superficial and pompous, but Spock's reaction is suitably reflective and brief. "Errand Of Mercy" is rather nice, too - just to name a few.

The "let's always end it with a joke" became more characteristic of the show in Season Two (not that it never happened inappropriately in the first year).

 

[EnsignJulka]

Those endings almost seemed like a competition on who could laugh the loudest...

 

[Shatmandu]

The jabs at Spock's expense usually boil down to: "Take that, ya fuckin' minority!"

Especially with McCoy. Imagine Spock were a black guy, and McCoy were making fun of his facial features and his people's emotional structure.

Yikes.

Joe, whitey

 

[Redfern]

How about the end of "The Changling"? Here a pint-sized Berserker/Dalek "wannabe" exterminates the entire population of a planet, millions, if not billions, dead, and how does Kirk respond? "My 'son', the doctor!" (Praising it's ability to revive Scotty) Forgive me for invoking "Godwin's law", but that's like glossing over the Nazi war crimes and praising Hitler for proposing the Volkswagon (which, twisted as it reads, he actually did).

Sincerely,

Bill

 

[Warped9]

Sometimes humour, however seemingly inappropriate, is the only way to deal with a serious circumstance.

 

[David cgc]

Shatmandu said:
The jabs at Spock's expense usually boil down to: "Take that, ya fuckin' minority!"

The best example of that has to be "The Naked Time," when the first guy to freak out is eating in the mess hall with Sulu and another guy. Sulu asks how he's doing, since he's clearly about to freak out, and he just says, loudly and angrily, "Hey, you ain't that pointed-eared, green-blooded freak, so quit riding my ass!"* Sulu lays off, and no one else notices the outburst. But when the guy picks up the dinky little tin lid off his plate and slams it onto the table, everyone in the mess hall looks over aghast. It made me wonder exactly how many times people made loud racial comments about Spock at dinner, considering that it was considerably less shocking than putting your little tin lid down with enough force to make a noise.

*That may be a bit of an exaggeration for effect. But he definitely referred to Spock disrespectfully, focusing on his race.

 

[cooleddie74]

Maybe there are only so many pieces of mess hall crockery and silverware to go around, and some crewmembers get awfully fidgety and worrisome when some of it gets slammed and knocked around?

 

[MoonlightSinatra]

By far the most inapproriate laugh-fest was at the end of Galileo Seven. The bridge crew laughing at the end at a lame joke at Spock, when 2 members of the shuttle crew where horribly killed. And they not only laughed, but were in total hysterics. It reminded me of the Frank Grimes' funeral on The Simpsons.
I'd come back as a ghost and haunt those fucking heartless assholes.

 

[Dane_Whitman]

Yes, when this happens it is really inappropriate ("The Galileo Seven" is the worst example), but I can think of one instance where it happened on another Star Trek show: DS9 "The Way of the Warrior", in the battle with the Klingons to save the Cardassian Detapa council leaders, an ensign dies after a bridge console explodes in her face. Sisko checks her for vital signs, but she's obviously dead. A couple of moments later he is joking with Dax on the bridge about wether the first thing Dukat does when he gets to the bridge is to thank him for the rescue or start complaining.

 

[AC84]

I remember reading somewhere about Norman Spinrad objecting to Gene Roddenberry adding in the humorous last line in "The Doomsday Machine". While the line did make me smile, I sympathize with Spinrad. He didn't get the Doomsday Machine he wanted, nor the actor he wanted for Decker.

 

[ClayinCA]

^^ Really? I hadn't heard that. Who did Spinrad want to play Decker?

 

[Green Shirt]

ClayinCA said:
^^ Really? I hadn't heard that. Who did Spinrad want to play Decker?

Robert Ryan?

 

[AC84]

I think it was Robert Ryan. Unfortunately I can't remember if Spinrad wanted Ryan or was asked to write the role with Ryan in mind.

 

[ToddPence]

In that scene from "The Naked Time", when Sulu and Riley struggle for control of the knife from Tormolen, you gotta love how the rest of the crew in the longue looks on with bored and barely interested expressions.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

AC84 said:
I sympathize with Spinrad. He didn't get the Doomsday Machine he wanted, nor the actor he wanted for Decker.

Of course he didn't. He was writing for television.

 

[TheLonelySquire]

Shatmandu said:
The jabs at Spock's expense usually boil down to: "Take that, ya fuckin' minority!"

Especially with McCoy. Imagine Spock were a black guy, and McCoy were making fun of his facial features and his people's emotional structure.

Yikes.

Joe, whitey

Sure, but it didn't matter. Sarek: "Offense is a human emotion"

Can't insult spock unless he's spored up!

 

[AC84]

Starship Polaris said:

AC84 said:
I sympathize with Spinrad. He didn't get the Doomsday Machine he wanted, nor the actor he wanted for Decker.

Of course he didn't. He was writing for television.

Yeah, but from reading the interviews about the behind-the-scenes atmosphere of TOS, you get the impression that it really was guerrilla television where the writers shared their suggestions and were enthusiastically listened to by Roddenberry, Justman, Fontana and Coon. Sometimes the writers actually got what they wanted. You got the sense that they were almost equals, even if they weren't.