Party like it's 1966!

[Tallguy]

Corbomite was certainly the most ambitious fx Star Trek had attempted . Were there any other TV series that were at that level ?

 

[Tallguy]

So I watched (most of) Corbomite last night.

I don't know why, but this is pure Star Trek to me. I wish the next movie would use episodes like this as a blueprint. I often (really often) say that TMP is The Corbomite Maneuver to TWOK's Balance of Terror.

I like "shouty Spock". He's still not emotional or excited. He sounds like the exec on a submarine. Unfortunately this is totally undermined when he tells Bailey there's no need to raise his voice. D'oh! (OTOH, that jack rabbit grin is definitely early episode weirdness.)

I love the briefing room scene where everyone is handing around coffee and it looks like just another day at the office. Uhura looks bored out of her mind!

Because of the production CM is an interesting mix of early season filming with mid season FX and score.

 

[UnknownSample]

So I watched (most of) Corbomite last night.

I don't know why, but this is pure Star Trek to me. I wish the next movie would use episodes like this as a blueprint.

I agree completely. It was a classic SF story of what's OUT THERE and how to deal with it... Exactly what the films should have been.

I wonder if they delayed CM specifically so the effects and music could catch up with the story. I actually hadn't noticed effects being more primitive at the start.

 

[The Old Mixer]

50 years ago this week:

November 14 – Jack L. Warner sells Warner Bros. to Seven Arts Productions, which eventually becomes Warner Bros.-Seven Arts.
November 15

• Gemini 12 (James A. Lovell, Buzz Aldrin), splashes down safely in the Atlantic Ocean, 600 km east of the Bahamas.
• Harry Maurice Roberts, who killed 3 policemen in August, is caught near London.
• A Boeing 727 carrying Pan Am Flight 708 crashes near Berlin, Germany, killing all three people on board.
• Two young couples in Point Pleasant, West Virginia reportedly see a strange moth-like creature better known as the Mothman.

November 16 – U.S. doctor Sam Sheppard is acquitted in his second trial for the murder of his pregnant wife in 1954.
November 17

• The U.N. General Assembly decides to found the United Nations Industrial Development Organization.
• A spectacular Leonid meteor shower passes over Arizona, at the rate of 2,300 a minute for 20 minutes.

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New on the U.S. charts:

"I Need Somebody," ? & The Mysterians

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(#22 US)

"(I Know) I'm Losing You," The Temptations

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(#8 US; #1 R&B; #19 UK)

"That's Life," Frank Sinatra

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(#4 US; #1 AC; #25 R&B; #44 UK)


And airing Thursday night:

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[Tallguy]

Wait... BAILY got a first name?!?

 

[Tallguy]

Good news: I actually watched an episode of the day. Bad news: I fell asleep shortly after the trial started.

What a remarkable concept. It's amazing how solidly they can sell that the pilot filmed only two years ago can be eleven years ago in universe. And remarkable that the writers had that figured out.

Watching in aired order Starbase 11, dress uniforms, and the shuttlecraft are both introduced here even though the episodes they were constructed for are yet to come.

My local syndication (at one point) must have been showing the episodes in production order at one point. I remember Court Martial, Menagerie 1 and Menagerie 2 airing back to back. LOT of trials that week.

Mendez's line "he's about your age" always cracks me up. Kirk is supposed to be the youngest starship captain but heaven forfend that anyone else be older!

For the younger crowd, Pike's wheelchair seemed a little silly in the 1970's as well. If you can figure out one beep and two beep, then why not an even slightly more sophisticated means of communication?

I wonder if Hunter ever saw this?

I'm watching Arrow these days. Steve Amell would make a pretty good Chris Pike.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Mendez's line "he's about your age" always cracks me up. Kirk is supposed to be the youngest starship captain but heaven forfend that anyone else be older!

Somebody didn't think it through...Hunter and Shatner are close to the same age (less than 5 years apart), but they didn't take into account that the pilot material took place 13 years earlier.

ETA: All the odder...Malachi Throne is in-between the two, so Mendez should be closer to Pike's age than Kirk is, even without the additional 11-year difference (taking into account that the pilot was filmed a couple years earlier).

 

[The Old Mixer]

50 years ago this week:

November 21 – In Togo, the army crushes an attempted coup.
November 24

• The Beatles begin recording sessions for their Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band L.P.
• Bulgarian TABSO Flight 101 crashes near Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, killing all 82 people on board.

November 26 – The Saskatchewan Roughriders defeat the Ottawa Rough Riders to win the 54th Grey Cup at Vancouver's Empire Stadium 29-14. Saskatchewan were led by quarterback Ron Lancaster.

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New on the U.S. charts:

"Happenings Ten Years Time Ago," The Yardbirds

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(#30 US; #43 UK)

"Mustang Sally," Wilson Pickett

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(#23 US; #6 R&B; #28 UK; #434 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time)


And since it's 1966, the stores won't be opening Thursday night...so after you've recovered from your turkey coma, you may want to catch this:

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(Anyone else get a winky-nudgy feeling when Spock describes Talos IV as "that forbidden planet"?)

 

[Tallguy]

The recording of the score for Shore Leave was 50 years ago today! Amazing to think that they were as close to Pearl Harbor then as we are to The Undiscovered Country now!

Not my favorite Fried score. But I also run very hot and cold on Mr. Fried. I love Amok Time and Friday's Child. Not a fan of Catspaw. I have been taught to appreciate Paradise Syndrome.

 

[Elder Knight]

I found this piece that I wrote last year, and note that the weekdays for 1967 and 2017 also line up.

We're out of luck for 2018 (Season III + 50), though. Dang it, Julius Caesar and Pope Gregory should have anticipated this! and set up the calendar accordingly.

As 2016 is a leap year but 1966 was not, January's and February's days did not line up, but the rest of the year will do so.
I count 13 leap years between 1968 and 2016. So we have (50 x 365) + 13 = 2,609, which divides exactly by 7.
This wouldn't work for 1866 and 1916, or for 2066 and 2116, because those century years (1900 and 2100) aren't leap years, thus there are only 12 extra days in the interval.
Many other 50-year gaps, like 1965 through 2015 would also fail, having but 12 leap years in there instead of the requisite 13.

I'll systematically test this via a program. This is Microsoft Visual Basic 6, and you can run this routine as a macro in MS Word or MS Excel or MS Access. You can change the starting and ending dates and the interval as you wish. You can see a pattern in the results.

[Edit: Rewrote the variable names. The CODE format item is interesting, but has some quirks, so the indentation is vague.]

The code:

Sub NYearGap()

'First year as a constant; increment as a constant
Dim iyFirst As Integer, iyIncr As Integer
'Key date as a constant
Dim strKeyDate As String
'First and last years as variables
Dim intYrX As Integer, intYrY As Integer
'Weekdays of both dates, derived from function
Dim intWkdayX As Integer, intWkdayY As Integer
'String representation of both dates
Dim strDayX As String, strDayY As String

'--- Change this as desired ---
intYrFirst = 1900
intYrLast = 2000
intYrAnniversary = 50
strKeyDate = "September 8"

'Loop through the range specified, testing Septrember 8 each time
For intYrX = intYrFirst To intYrLast

  'Compute the last year from the first plus the interval
  intYrY = intYrX + intYrAnniversary
  'Create the two dates as strings
  strDayX = strKeyDate & "," & Str$(intYrX)
  strDayY = strKeyDate & "," & Str$(intYrY)
  'Use the MS function to get the weekdays as a number 0-6.
  intWkdayX = Weekday(strDayX)
  intWkdayY = Weekday(strDayY)
  'If a match, output the results
  'Use Weekday function to label the weekday
  If intWkdayX = intWkdayY Then
   Debug.Print strDayX; " and "; strDayY, "; both are "; WeekdayName(intWkdayX)[/INDENT]
  End If

Next intYrX

End Sub

The output:

September 8, 1902 and September 8, 1952 ; both are Monday
September 8, 1903 and September 8, 1953 ; both are Tuesday
September 8, 1906 and September 8, 1956 ; both are Saturday
September 8, 1907 and September 8, 1957 ; both are Sunday
September 8, 1910 and September 8, 1960 ; both are Thursday
September 8, 1911 and September 8, 1961 ; both are Friday
September 8, 1914 and September 8, 1964 ; both are Tuesday
September 8, 1915 and September 8, 1965 ; both are Wednesday
September 8, 1918 and September 8, 1968 ; both are Sunday
September 8, 1919 and September 8, 1969 ; both are Monday
September 8, 1922 and September 8, 1972 ; both are Friday
September 8, 1923 and September 8, 1973 ; both are Saturday
September 8, 1926 and September 8, 1976 ; both are Wednesday
September 8, 1927 and September 8, 1977 ; both are Thursday
September 8, 1930 and September 8, 1980 ; both are Monday
September 8, 1931 and September 8, 1981 ; both are Tuesday
September 8, 1934 and September 8, 1984 ; both are Saturday
September 8, 1935 and September 8, 1985 ; both are Sunday
September 8, 1938 and September 8, 1988 ; both are Thursday
September 8, 1939 and September 8, 1989 ; both are Friday
September 8, 1942 and September 8, 1992 ; both are Tuesday
September 8, 1943 and September 8, 1993 ; both are Wednesday
September 8, 1946 and September 8, 1996 ; both are Sunday
September 8, 1947 and September 8, 1997 ; both are Monday
September 8, 1950 and September 8, 2000 ; both are Friday
September 8, 1951 and September 8, 2001 ; both are Saturday
September 8, 1954 and September 8, 2004 ; both are Wednesday
September 8, 1955 and September 8, 2005 ; both are Thursday
September 8, 1958 and September 8, 2008 ; both are Monday
September 8, 1959 and September 8, 2009 ; both are Tuesday
September 8, 1962 and September 8, 2012 ; both are Saturday
September 8, 1963 and September 8, 2013 ; both are Sunday
September 8, 1966 and September 8, 2016 ; both are Thursday
September 8, 1967 and September 8, 2017 ; both are Friday
September 8, 1970 and September 8, 2020 ; both are Tuesday
September 8, 1971 and September 8, 2021 ; both are Wednesday
September 8, 1974 and September 8, 2024 ; both are Sunday
September 8, 1975 and September 8, 2025 ; both are Monday
September 8, 1978 and September 8, 2028 ; both are Friday
September 8, 1979 and September 8, 2029 ; both are Saturday
September 8, 1982 and September 8, 2032 ; both are Wednesday
September 8, 1983 and September 8, 2033 ; both are Thursday
September 8, 1986 and September 8, 2036 ; both are Monday
September 8, 1987 and September 8, 2037 ; both are Tuesday
September 8, 1990 and September 8, 2040 ; both are Saturday
September 8, 1991 and September 8, 2041 ; both are Sunday
September 8, 1994 and September 8, 2044 ; both are Thursday
September 8, 1995 and September 8, 2045 ; both are Friday
September 8, 1998 and September 8, 2048 ; both are Tuesday
September 8, 1999 and September 8, 2049 ; both are Wednesday