Production Order Group Viewing 2018

Sorry, I can't find the original post but this interests me. In what ep is the "nuclear electronics" reference?

 

Who Mourns for Adonais.

 

It was mine!

 

Thanks, both! I love that line! I have not been able to keep up with the rewatch and had completely forgotten that dialogue, although I did recall that Spock's command scenes were very low-key (as you'd expect) and nicely done, more Doomsday Machine than That Which Survives or (oof) Galileo Seven. And now you've added Who Mourns to the top of my needs-a-rewatch list along with two more coming up here.

 

That it the most techno-babbley part from all of TOS.

And I love Kyle's expression, kind of like Huh can you say that again in English?

 

Now I imagine McCoy dreaming up a scheme to set Spock up with her, a la Lucy Ricardo. "Leonard! You have some 'splaining to do."

 

AMOK TIME
What a classic! Great music accompanies a long awaited, deep exploration into Mr Spock and Vulcan culture.
Also, this episode has a rare instance of Kirk disobeying orders – something that he has unfairly earned a reputation for in pop culture, since it hardly ever happened in TOS

The first half of this episode takes place entirely on board ship. After so many planetside stories this season, it’s good to see the old girl again, albeit with a few changes:

• New ladder! It is triangular in nature, allowing for 3 crewmembers to use it simultaneously. Also, it extends DOWN underneath the corridor set as well as up, presenting a more convincing appearance.
• The Season One ladder has been extended DOWN as well! Someone in the production staff really liked digging holes in the S1/S2 break…
• The corridor set has been extended slightly at one end – there’s an extra door on the outer wall at one end.
• Both ends of the corridor set have been modified in fact – that odd “bulb” from S1 is gone altogether.
• McCoy’s got a new office! And he has a large collection of skulls adorning the shelves, um okay…

It's one of the styluses that they use to sign those electronic data slate thingies (AKA electronic Feinberger boards). It was clearly to show that Spock has shaky hands, but it's resemblance to a shiv is unfortunate and distracting.

The remastered effects feature a lovely landscape shot on planet Vulcan – I’m not usually fussed on TOS-R but this was a nice addition.

It's a nice moment for Spock and McCoy in the turbolift, revealing the depth of their friendship. And a viable reason for just the three leads to beam down to the planet!

T’Pau casts some racial shade at Spock, with regard to his Vulcan blood being thin. Yikes!

Finally, some notable firsts:

• First Vulcan salute!
• First instance of “Live Long And Prosper”
• The mind meld returns, this time Vulcan to Vulcan! (T’Pau melds with Spock when they meet)

At this point in the series there was no mention of the 7-year cycle, this was supposed to be a once in a lifetime biological urge. The repeating cycle aspect isn't retconned into canon until Season 3's The Cloud Minders.
As for Spock, it might be that his human half is disrupting the normal Vulcan cycle, or that he has been hitherto able to suppress the urge...mostly. Remember how emotional he was acting during the events of The Cage? That occurred 14 years before this episode, more or less.
Coincidence?
Probably, yes. But it fits.

 

Yeah Amok time is awesome and I agree it's one of the few remastered episodes where the Cgi really adds something. T'Pau rocks as a Vulcan and a powerful female leader and T'pring is smoking cold. I love Spock's sick burn to her and Stonn at the end of the episode. It's nice to see the Vulcan bitchy side every now and then.

I was a bit perturbed that Kirk wasn't required to sign a disclaimer before engaging in a spur of the moment fight to the death. If the Vulcans really are desperate to keep the madness off the books you would think that a death match with a Starfleet officer is not the way to go. Where's your logic then T'Pring?

Although Chapel was humiliated in this one, I thought the exchange between her an Spock was one of her better scenes to date. You can see how a stronger understanding between them could have elevated her character - move it beyond infatuation towards understanding.

 

People have said that when Chapel came to Spock to tell him they were changing course that he was umm propositioning her and she chickened out.
I'm not sure that's what was intended by the scene. Blish's version is useless because it differs so significantly from the episode.

 

Ew no. He's barely lucid, clearly struggling for clarity, and understanding that she's trying to help him. I don't see any sexual undertones for either of them. Emotional undertones but not sexual.

 

Agreed! Chapel has always been attracted to Spock but he finds her annoying until the virus from Psi 2000 (Or LaPig in the Blish novelization) takes a hold of him in The Naked Time!
JB

 

If it hadn't been a cycle, Vulcan females would often have to have multiple births to keep the population growing.

 

Wasn't she still annoying him then too.
He couldn't get out of there fast enough.

Look it seems I'm going to have to spell it out here. Avert your eyes young viewers.
In "Cloud Minders" its implied that Spock is only interested in women every 7 years which is frankly ridiculous. It makes Vulcans seem weird and not in a good or interesting way.
Thank goodness ENT retconned that by T'Pol being able to have sex every day.

 

Well, I would assume only interested to the point of life or death every seven years.

 

The real trick here, to me at least, is it's NOT a biological urge that drives Spock to Vulcan but mental distress from the mind link with T'pring. The mind link is broken when she rejects him. That's it. The fight didn't cure him, it came as a result of the challenge but it didn't cure him. And just like Sarek said, Vulcans have emotions, they just keep them in control.

I wonder if Gerrold remembered the line about Mr. Spock being seven when the mind link was created and somehow that morphed into "every seven years".

Also, Spock was very embarrassed to speak about this while later with Droxine not embarrassed at all. Could it have been a line? I only go every seven years but I'll make an exception for you .

 

Spock is such a playa.

 

The Doomsday Machine

OMG people here it is, get ready, it's MY FAVORITE EPISODE EVER!!!!!!! WOO-HOO!!!!!
DOOMSDAY MACHINE IN THE HOUSE!!!!!

When I was a kid I recorded this episode from the tv with a cassette player and I used to listen to it.

Kirk rockin the green wraparound jersey.

Where Uhura?

It's cool to see another starship, and it's cool later on to see the two ships working together to fight the Planet Killer (PK).

It's been talked about before on the site about how nutty an idea it is to beam your whole crew down to a planet when there's a machine specifically designed to eat planets around. From a story telling and production standpoint, they needed for there not to already be a crew on the Constellation so Kirk could ram 'er down the thing's throat later. In-story, seems like a nutty decision.

I really feel like it's overblown when I'm watching a sci-fi story and they talk about how something came from another galaxy. Our own galaxy is so big and we know so little about it. Surely, the PK could have come from a remote sector of our own galaxy. Anyway, how did it fuel itself for such a long trip with no planets in between? How fast does the PK go, anyway? How long did the trip take?

Oh, you're going to regret sending Decker over to the Enterprise, Kirk.

Oh oh, what's that? The music! It's the Planet Killer! It's after the Enterprise! I get chills!

I remember George Lucas saying something about the importance of giving characters theme music. A leitmotif I believe? It's really effective when we see Vader or the Emperor and hear the Imperial March. The PK has theme music! And it's great. Really builds the drama and excitement.

Did the Enterprise just take a hit from the PK's weapon with her shields down? The Enterprise is quite durable.

Spock's learned something since his trip to Taurus II. He is very effective in command here.

Oh, I love the power struggle between Decker and Spock. It's just great.

It does seem odd not to be able to relieve an insane Captain of command unless he's submitted to a medical exam first. I guess he has to do something suicidal first?

I'm never clear about the speeds here. The Enterprise is unable to outrun the PK. But are they ever at warp?

Impressive display of the Enterprise's deflectors, able to withstand several hits from the PK's beam which is designed to chop up planets.

Even more impressive when the Enterprise survives a couple hits after the shields are down, though not without significant damage.

It's going to eat the Enterprise and they can't break away! I'm on the edge of my seat! Decker you fool!

Kirk and Scotty working together to get the Constellation working is pretty cool too.

"I think that's great. Scotty, get us out of here." So many great lines in this episode.

Sulu's smile when Spock is back in command.

Oh, Montgomery. You fell for the fake cough trick. But really, Montgomery couldn't take Decker in a fight?

I'm often confused by the distances between the Enterprise and the Constellation. Sometimes they are much closer and sometimes farther than I would think.

Holy cow, Windom's OTT acting sells his terror in the face of death. Poor Matt.

I always thought that Decker was just committing suicide, but was Decker trying to destroy the PK? Did he rig the shuttlecraft's engines to blow when he entered the PK?

"I'm going to ram 'er right down that thing's throat." YEAH.

OMG! Kirk's going to be eaten! The transporter's not working!

And Shatner's acting is great here, Kirk's facial expressions showing that he's realizing he might have gone too far this time.

"Gentlemen, I suggest you beam me aboard." GAAAAAH, I can't look!

That music. BA-dum BA-dum BA-dum BA-dum. Ba ba BAAAAAAAAAAA.

Scotty truly is a miracle worker to be able to fix the transporter in 30 seconds.

Kirk just almost died, now he's having a casual conversation with Spock two minutes later. I guess when you're life's in danger every week it becomes old hat? I need more time than that to recover from watching it.

Moral of the story: NUKES ARE BAD

"I certainly hope not. I found the one quiet sufficient." Haha. There really needs to be a sequel. Or maybe a prequel. Maybe a PK could eat Burnham?

This episode is so bold, so brassy, so in your face, and maybe a tad OTT, but I love it. Easily the most exciting episode. I'm on the edge of my seat from the time the PK shows up. The music, the acting, the writing, just great stuff all around.

Alien Watch! No new aliens, just a big white Bugle crispy corn snack.
Season 1
Talosians
That big ugly Rigellian guy Pike fought in illusion
Vina as an Orion girl in illusion
Glimpse of other aliens captured by Talosians
Ron Howard's brother
That dog from Enemy Within
Salt monster
That hand plant...Gertrude
Spock (duh)
Charlie's parents (Thasians)*
Romulans!
(Ruk)
Miri's planet kids (bonk bonk)
Giant ape creatures of Taurus II
Shore Leave Caretaker guy
Trelaine and his folks*
Gorn
Metrons*
The Lazerii
The remarkably human-looking aliens of Beta 3. (RotA)
The remarkably human-looking aliens of Emineminar VII (AToA)
The Triffids of Omicron Ceti III (TSoP)
The refreshingly non-human-looking Horta
Organians*
Klingons! (Remarkably human looking).
(The Guardian of Forever)
Flying pancakes

Season 2
Sylvia and Korob
The Companion
The remarkably human looking (though tall) Cappellans.
Native Pollux IV-ians (Apollo and his gang)
Full-blooded Vulcans

*Alien Watch sublist: omnipotent aliens!

 

DOOMsday Machine!

Wow. I dislike when certain things are bandied about as "the best" but I really can't argue with this one too much.

Lt. Palmer is Great! I wish she was around more. I love how she seems totally engaged with everything, relaying communications, repairing the equipment, coordinating damage control and when Spock takes back command she looks like it's about time. I think it's interesting that on top of the whole plot of the planet killer there's this very serious power struggle happening as well. No dead air here.

I wonder why there are no bodies on the Constellation. Did they beam them down, too, for a burial? There must have been someone seriously injured on that ship, there were serious injuries on Enterprise, hopefully Dr. McCoy was able to save them. Could that have been a consideration in beaming them to the 3rd planet? It seems like a horrible mistake, in hindsight, but maybe 200+ survivors would have suffocated slowly with the ship in that condition with over 100 corpses starting to stink. Ugh.

Security officer Montgomery. If there's a worst part of this episode he is it! Ok, so maybe Matt is a cagey old guy, he certainly seemed to be full of tricks but couldn't Montgomery, instead of attacking from his "battle pose" done something useful like run 3 feet up the hall and hit the red alert button that's on every intercom in the ship? Maybe Matt still slips away but at least he doesn't look like a doofus being left in Rand's quarters.

And Matt. I think he's not just acting scared, that thing was probably putting out a ton of radiation, if the remastering guys really wanted to do something, they could have had his face melting off his skull like the end of Raiders because it's probably like a nuclear furnace inside that thing. That's probably it's power source, the uranium and other radioactive elements in the planets it chops up. I could believe the thing came from another galaxy, as it was leaving it could have propelled itself and went in to dormant mode until an occasional sensor probe indicated close targets, it may have taken 1000 years but there's no drag in space.

A lot of greats in this one, including guest stars, but one thing that is really great is the soundtrack. I just can't emphasize that enough, it is so good for this episode I can listen to the soundtrack CD and I can just see the scene from the musical cues. A+

Is this the only episode where the left side of the bridge is shown? It's a little jarring having Kirk and Spock walk in front of the viewscreen around to his station when every other time that side isn't shown. It's neat but the second time at the end in the single episode makes me think it was in response to a dare or complaint as if they only had that side of the set for that episode so they better get it in.

How many times does Scotty hang of the fence in front of the forced prospective unit?

I also notice that the Enterprise seems like the 2nd ship to encounter a lot of things. There's a first ship that got beat up or went missing that Spock analyzes their data and has the jump on whatever attacked or caused the problem. Random chance favoring you is clearly important.

 

Yes, one of my best episodes. Windom was a great guess star. I'm glad he got the role over Robert Ryan.

Nope, the DM deactivated the ship's anti-matter and disrupted comms with a dampening field.

There's a battle analysis I saw on the net, but I can't find it anymore.

That's his duty position. He got really good at it by the end of the series.

When the B Team fails, you send in the A Team.

 

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"Weird" eh... Weird is in the eye of the beholder. Science fiction is weird. It's supposed to be. Out there, expect our ideas about what's "weird" and what isn't to get blown out of the water.
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Vulcans are aliens. They are weird to us, we are weird to them.
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It isn't really about not being able to have sex. It's that the repression of feeling and urges, that control, is so deep and thorough that this pon farr thing has to come along periodically to jolt Vulcans into the needed reproductive urge again.
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As Janeway said, in Starfleet weird is part of the job!