That shot actually illustrates my big issue with the Nebula class: from a lot of angles all that reads is the saucer.
Revisiting Star Trek TOS/TAS...
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“Assignment: Earth” ***
The Enterprise intercepts an enigmatic man beaming to Earth in 1968.
There is a lot of fun in this episode, but candidly it's the ending that ruins it a little for me. It's at the end that it is really nailed home that this something of a backdoor pilot for another series. Honestly I think a Gary Seven series idea might have been served better with its own standalone pilot episode.
That said what we do see here is rather intriguing and makes you wonder what could have been made of it with more fleshing out. there is a decent mix of drama and humour to it, but the cast of characters at this point seems rather slim: Gary Seven, Roberta Lincoln and Isis the cat(?).
I rather like the juxtaposition of seeing the Saturn V rocket on its launch pad and then lifting off with the idea of the starship Enterprise simultaneously orbiting overhead.
If nothing else I would also say that this episode helps nail home the idea that Star Trek's history and reality is entirely fictional and definately not our own.
The Enterprise intercepts an enigmatic man beaming to Earth in 1968.
There is a lot of fun in this episode, but candidly it's the ending that ruins it a little for me. It's at the end that it is really nailed home that this something of a backdoor pilot for another series. Honestly I think a Gary Seven series idea might have been served better with its own standalone pilot episode.
That said what we do see here is rather intriguing and makes you wonder what could have been made of it with more fleshing out. there is a decent mix of drama and humour to it, but the cast of characters at this point seems rather slim: Gary Seven, Roberta Lincoln and Isis the cat(?).
I rather like the juxtaposition of seeing the Saturn V rocket on its launch pad and then lifting off with the idea of the starship Enterprise simultaneously orbiting overhead.
If nothing else I would also say that this episode helps nail home the idea that Star Trek's history and reality is entirely fictional and definately not our own.
Season 2
Overall Rating = 97 of a potential 130 = 74.6% = average rating of 3.73 of 5
***** Excellent (6 episodes = 23%)
“Amok Time”
“The Doomsday Machine”
“Mirror, Mirror”
“Journey To Babel”
“Return To Tomorrow”
“The Ultimate Computer”
**** Good (10 episodes = 38.4%)
“Metamorphosis”
“Who Mourns For Adonais?”
“The Changeling”
“The Deadly Years”
“The Trouble With Tribbles”
“Bread And Circuses”
“A Private Little War”
“Obsession”
“The Immunity Syndrome”
“The Omega Glory”
*** Fair (7 episodes = 26.9%)
“Catspaw”
“Friday’s Child”
“Wolf In The Fold”
“The Gamesters Of Triskelion”
“By Any Other Name”
“Patterns Of Force”
“Assignment: Earth”
** Poor (3 episodes = 11.5%)
“The Apple”
“I, Mudd”
“A Piece Of The Action”
* Bad (0 episodes = 0%)
Comparison
Good to Excellent:
Season 1 = 82.7%
Season 2 = 61.5%
Season 1 had more excellent than good episodes while Season 2 reverses that result. Even so after a stellar premiere season Star Trek slips a bit, but still manages more than 60% of the second season being noteworthy work.
Fair:
Season 1 = 17.2%
Season 2 = 26.9%
Season 2 gives up some good episodes to having about 50% more Fair episodes. But like Season 1 these average episodes can still have much to recommend them and still are enjoyable to watch.
Poor to Bad:
Season 1 = 0%
Season 2 = 11.5%
Star Trek finally stubs it toe. The poor episodes here are not complete write-offs by any means, but they definately flawed conceptually.
Season 2 is still a reasonably solid season with a fair mixture in quality of work. And candidly it would have been hard to repeat such a stellar effort as the first season. But for me the real distinction is a slight change in overall tone. Mind you this change in tone was not evident in everything, but it made its presence known in enough episodes. That change was a somewhat lighter sensibility at times (and sometimes inappropriate) that could take the edge off some of the drama and make it challenging to appreciate the potential drama of a given story. It was if the show were trying to take itself less seriously at times. The characters themselves could also be looser and more casual than they were in Season 1 which added to the overall lighter sensibility. It must also be said that even when Star Trek was less-than-impressive it was certainly not boring.
On the plus side we were introduced to new and now iconic pieces of music as well as new and now iconic images of the Enterprise.
Overall Rating = 97 of a potential 130 = 74.6% = average rating of 3.73 of 5
***** Excellent (6 episodes = 23%)
“Amok Time”
“The Doomsday Machine”
“Mirror, Mirror”
“Journey To Babel”
“Return To Tomorrow”
“The Ultimate Computer”
**** Good (10 episodes = 38.4%)
“Metamorphosis”
“Who Mourns For Adonais?”
“The Changeling”
“The Deadly Years”
“The Trouble With Tribbles”
“Bread And Circuses”
“A Private Little War”
“Obsession”
“The Immunity Syndrome”
“The Omega Glory”
*** Fair (7 episodes = 26.9%)
“Catspaw”
“Friday’s Child”
“Wolf In The Fold”
“The Gamesters Of Triskelion”
“By Any Other Name”
“Patterns Of Force”
“Assignment: Earth”
** Poor (3 episodes = 11.5%)
“The Apple”
“I, Mudd”
“A Piece Of The Action”
* Bad (0 episodes = 0%)
Comparison
Good to Excellent:
Season 1 = 82.7%
Season 2 = 61.5%
Season 1 had more excellent than good episodes while Season 2 reverses that result. Even so after a stellar premiere season Star Trek slips a bit, but still manages more than 60% of the second season being noteworthy work.
Fair:
Season 1 = 17.2%
Season 2 = 26.9%
Season 2 gives up some good episodes to having about 50% more Fair episodes. But like Season 1 these average episodes can still have much to recommend them and still are enjoyable to watch.
Poor to Bad:
Season 1 = 0%
Season 2 = 11.5%
Star Trek finally stubs it toe. The poor episodes here are not complete write-offs by any means, but they definately flawed conceptually.
Season 2 is still a reasonably solid season with a fair mixture in quality of work. And candidly it would have been hard to repeat such a stellar effort as the first season. But for me the real distinction is a slight change in overall tone. Mind you this change in tone was not evident in everything, but it made its presence known in enough episodes. That change was a somewhat lighter sensibility at times (and sometimes inappropriate) that could take the edge off some of the drama and make it challenging to appreciate the potential drama of a given story. It was if the show were trying to take itself less seriously at times. The characters themselves could also be looser and more casual than they were in Season 1 which added to the overall lighter sensibility. It must also be said that even when Star Trek was less-than-impressive it was certainly not boring.
On the plus side we were introduced to new and now iconic pieces of music as well as new and now iconic images of the Enterprise.
That shot actually illustrates my big issue with the Nebula class: from a lot of angles all that reads is the saucer.
I don't have a problem with that..assuming that the Galaxy is hugely modular why NOT build other starships out of the basic primary hull? Its an immensely useful design. I still think it looks graceful from most views...
http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:USS_Prometheus_at_warp,_Second_Sight.jpg
“Assignment: Earth” ***
The Enterprise intercepts an enigmatic man beaming to Earth in 1968.
There is a lot of fun in this episode, but candidly it's the ending that ruins it a little for me. It's at the end that it is really nailed home that this something of a backdoor pilot for another series. Honestly I think a Gary Seven series idea might have been served better with its own standalone pilot episode.
That said what we do see here is rather intriguing and makes you wonder what could have been made of it with more fleshing out. there is a decent mix of drama and humour to it, but the cast of characters at this point seems rather slim: Gary Seven, Roberta Lincoln and Isis the cat(?).
I rather like the juxtaposition of seeing the Saturn V rocket on its launch pad and then lifting off with the idea of the starship Enterprise simultaneously orbiting overhead.
If nothing else I would also say that this episode helps nail home the idea that Star Trek's history and reality is entirely fictional and definately not our own.
An amiable episode with some nice inclusion of the modern events of Apollo. Happily the world decided such orbital nuclear weapons were a bad idea, making the episode more satisfying.
****
I would have rated several season 2 episodes higher, but I'm really enjoying the reviews so far
^^ Rating these can be a tough call as I find myself weighing how a story is put together and executed with my degree of enjoyment. It's why I said in my summation that I could deduct points for concept and/or execution and yet still get some enjoyment out of an episode.
Two of the episodes I rated poorly, "I, Mudd" and "A Piece Of The Action," I did so because I found them highly conceptually flawed and admittedly embarrassing on some level even though I found myself laughing in the appropriate places.
In many of the fair rated episodes (and even some four rated) I found myself wondering whether different choices could have made the story even better.
It can be highly subjective and yet in the end I think it all balances out to give a reasonably fair assessment of the season. Essentially, Season 1 is largely awesome and Season 2 isn't that far behind with only the occasional flub.
Granted I prefer TOS over any other Trek series, but I genuinely enjoyed my revisit of TNG and thought some of it's episodes to be on par with some of TOS' best. That said I didn't find any TNG season, particularly Seasons 3 and 4, to be anywhere near the same level overall as TOS' first and second seasons. After all is said and done it will be interesting to compare not only the ratings percentages but also the number of episodes of a given rating even while considering TOS' three seasons to TNG's seven.
Two of the episodes I rated poorly, "I, Mudd" and "A Piece Of The Action," I did so because I found them highly conceptually flawed and admittedly embarrassing on some level even though I found myself laughing in the appropriate places.
In many of the fair rated episodes (and even some four rated) I found myself wondering whether different choices could have made the story even better.
It can be highly subjective and yet in the end I think it all balances out to give a reasonably fair assessment of the season. Essentially, Season 1 is largely awesome and Season 2 isn't that far behind with only the occasional flub.
Granted I prefer TOS over any other Trek series, but I genuinely enjoyed my revisit of TNG and thought some of it's episodes to be on par with some of TOS' best. That said I didn't find any TNG season, particularly Seasons 3 and 4, to be anywhere near the same level overall as TOS' first and second seasons. After all is said and done it will be interesting to compare not only the ratings percentages but also the number of episodes of a given rating even while considering TOS' three seasons to TNG's seven.
Tracey is unusual in that he is actually the BAD GUY. I can't imagine a character like this appearing in TNG while Roddenberry was alive. He's not misguided. He's not acting the wrong way for the right reasons. He's grabbing all he can get and he's throwing Our Heroes to the wolves to save his skin.
I make sure I watch this episode every July 4th. This is how I learned the preamble to the Constitution.
I LOVE this episode.
In all honesty I'd have rated this episode a ***** if they had done something a little more imaginative with the flag.
This is a '*****' for me regardless of the flag and constitution being involved. Probably one of the most 're-watchable' episodes in all of the Star Trek franchise.
“Assignment: Earth” ***
The Enterprise intercepts an enigmatic man beaming to Earth in 1968.
There is a lot of fun in this episode, but candidly it's the ending that ruins it a little for me. It's at the end that it is really nailed home that this something of a backdoor pilot for another series. Honestly I think a Gary Seven series idea might have been served better with its own standalone pilot episode.
That said what we do see here is rather intriguing and makes you wonder what could have been made of it with more fleshing out. there is a decent mix of drama and humour to it, but the cast of characters at this point seems rather slim: Gary Seven, Roberta Lincoln and Isis the cat(?).
I rather like the juxtaposition of seeing the Saturn V rocket on its launch pad and then lifting off with the idea of the starship Enterprise simultaneously orbiting overhead.
If nothing else I would also say that this episode helps nail home the idea that Star Trek's history and reality is entirely fictional and definately not our own.
I prefer to think of this as the great Star Trek/Doctor Who crossover. It's a fun episode, but my big problem with it is how matter of factly time travel was depicted. Given how much of a problem time travel presents in earlier and later episodes, this one stands out as a bit of an anomaly.
I, too, had a problem with that. It made me think that if time travel could become so commonplace then if the wrong people ever learned of how to do it you could end up with seriously major temporal headaches.
Then again, if you change the past...how would you know?
Re: "Patterns Of Force"
There was one idea in this episode I really liked and was sorry to see they never used again---not in TOS or TNG anyway and to the best of my knowledge not in any of the other series. The idea of subcutaneous transponders. I think this is a very smart idea particularly if you're going planetside and undercover. If you get separated from your communicator at least you still have some sort of contact with the ship.
I also liked that in this instance Kirk and Spock dressed more appropriately when they beamed down than when they did the same thing in "Bread And Circuses" or "A Private Little War" (in the beginning of the episode).
There was one idea in this episode I really liked and was sorry to see they never used again---not in TOS or TNG anyway and to the best of my knowledge not in any of the other series. The idea of subcutaneous transponders. I think this is a very smart idea particularly if you're going planetside and undercover. If you get separated from your communicator at least you still have some sort of contact with the ship.
I also liked that in this instance Kirk and Spock dressed more appropriately when they beamed down than when they did the same thing in "Bread And Circuses" or "A Private Little War" (in the beginning of the episode).
Oh yeah, Assignment: Earth:
Boy is Terri Garr terrible in this episode. Like directed by George Lucas terrible. And I think she's terrific in lots of other things.
Again: Roddenberry isn't so much optimistic that we'll figure it out. He's optimistic that the aliens will save us.
Boy is Terri Garr terrible in this episode. Like directed by George Lucas terrible. And I think she's terrific in lots of other things.
Again: Roddenberry isn't so much optimistic that we'll figure it out. He's optimistic that the aliens will save us.
Well GR was interested in getting another property going because he may have suspected that TOS might go only one more season if lucky and then he'd be out of a job. And so I wouldn't expect a new series to carry quite the same thinking as Star Trek. Also a Gary Seven series on the face of it might have seemed more accessible to a general audience more than a highly imaginative far-future space adventure/drama.
From a network's point of view it might also just seem to be another spy drama (quite popular in the 1960's). Gary Seven's gadgets might have had a little more punch than James Bond's, or Napoleon Solo's, or even Maxwell Smart's, but would they be enough to carry a series?
I think that might have depended on what sort of format that ended up pursuing. If they went with just a 60's setting, then yes, it really wound't have been different from Bond, or the Man from U.N.C.L.E., or Mission: Impossible. However if they were hoping around to different time frames or even planets (like an Americanized Doctor Who), then that would have stood out from the pack. Plus Gary Seven was such an intriguing character that if they decided to dole out bits of his background during a hypothetical series, it might have lent a bit of a serialized nature to the show, uncommon in those days.
Teacher: "Mr. Tallguy, please quit saying 'E Pleb Neesta' every single time we talk about the Constitution..."
A truer event than you know.
And on to Season 3...
Season 3 starts off with some noticeable changes. We immediately start to see some new visual shots of the Enterprise and they're nice. The accompanying music sounds different and fresh. In the openings theme the accompanying vocals so evident in Season 2's opening credits seem to have been toned down---a welcome change.
Another noticeable change is in the crew's uniforms. It's the same design and colour scheme, but they're obviously made of a different fabric that is more form fitting than those of the previous two seasons.
And even this early on I sense yet another welcome change: a change in overall tone, not as light as Season 2 and seemingly more serious minded alike Season 1. This is a difference I welcome in principle.
“Spectre Of The Gun” ****
An alien race sentence Kirk and his crew to die...in 1880s Tombstone, Arizona.
When I was younger I was not a fan of this episode. I thought it was just okay and admittedly part of what bothered me was the incomplete sets of the supposed western town that the landing party is dispatched to. But over the years I've learned to appreciate this episode more because I grew to understand the symbolism and surreality involved. And I like the music with the harmonica which really helped set the atmosphere.
Everyone in the story except Kirk and company see everything around them as complete and real. And yet, as McCoy states, the town and buildings look incomplete to the Enterprise landing party. The symbolism is that Kirk and company are in something of a twilight state of mind, much like dreaming, where often the environments in our dreams make little sense to us when remembered while awake, and yet we behave as if those surroundings are real when we're there in our dreams when asleep. And it's that surreality that's the clue to what's really going on long before Spock figures out why their antiquated gas grenade fails to work as expected.
The ending of the episode nails it: the Enterprise never actually passed the Melkot buoy to establish orbit for Kirk and company to beam down planetside. The entire sequence of events was a powerful telepathic fiction of the Melkots. And it all starts with each member of the bridge crew first hearing the Melkotian buoy's message in each of their own language.
"Spectre Of The Gun" is a variation of "The Corbomite Maneuver" in that the Melkot are testing the Enterprise crew in their own way much as Balok tested them by threatening them with certain destruction.
My opinion of this episode and story rose as I learned to better understand how it was all supposed to work. It also speaks of using a budgetary limitation and turning it into an asset...at least as far as this story is concerned. It also delivers what I think is a powerful message: mankind ready to kill...and choosing not to.
It's a cool sounding title too.
Season 3 starts off with some noticeable changes. We immediately start to see some new visual shots of the Enterprise and they're nice. The accompanying music sounds different and fresh. In the openings theme the accompanying vocals so evident in Season 2's opening credits seem to have been toned down---a welcome change.
Another noticeable change is in the crew's uniforms. It's the same design and colour scheme, but they're obviously made of a different fabric that is more form fitting than those of the previous two seasons.
And even this early on I sense yet another welcome change: a change in overall tone, not as light as Season 2 and seemingly more serious minded alike Season 1. This is a difference I welcome in principle.
“Spectre Of The Gun” ****
An alien race sentence Kirk and his crew to die...in 1880s Tombstone, Arizona.
When I was younger I was not a fan of this episode. I thought it was just okay and admittedly part of what bothered me was the incomplete sets of the supposed western town that the landing party is dispatched to. But over the years I've learned to appreciate this episode more because I grew to understand the symbolism and surreality involved. And I like the music with the harmonica which really helped set the atmosphere.
Everyone in the story except Kirk and company see everything around them as complete and real. And yet, as McCoy states, the town and buildings look incomplete to the Enterprise landing party. The symbolism is that Kirk and company are in something of a twilight state of mind, much like dreaming, where often the environments in our dreams make little sense to us when remembered while awake, and yet we behave as if those surroundings are real when we're there in our dreams when asleep. And it's that surreality that's the clue to what's really going on long before Spock figures out why their antiquated gas grenade fails to work as expected.
The ending of the episode nails it: the Enterprise never actually passed the Melkot buoy to establish orbit for Kirk and company to beam down planetside. The entire sequence of events was a powerful telepathic fiction of the Melkots. And it all starts with each member of the bridge crew first hearing the Melkotian buoy's message in each of their own language.
"Spectre Of The Gun" is a variation of "The Corbomite Maneuver" in that the Melkot are testing the Enterprise crew in their own way much as Balok tested them by threatening them with certain destruction.
My opinion of this episode and story rose as I learned to better understand how it was all supposed to work. It also speaks of using a budgetary limitation and turning it into an asset...at least as far as this story is concerned. It also delivers what I think is a powerful message: mankind ready to kill...and choosing not to.
It's a cool sounding title too.
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