Rewatching TOS with my wife

[alpha_leonis]

It's a New Year's Resolution of sorts: my wife has an interest all of a sudden in watching TOS all the way through. She's been a Trekkie in the past, but mostly she's a fan of TNG (plus she's seen all six TOS movies.) It's interesting to see her reactions as we go through.

So far we've watched four episodes: The Cage, WNMHGB, The Man Trap, and Charlie X. Her comments:

She's definitely noticed the blatant sexism. She laughed out loud at Pike's line in The Cage about women on the bridge. She also had some sarcastic comments about gratuitously shirtless Kirk in Charlie X.

Otherwise, she's noticed a common theme: so far they always seem to encounter somebody more powerful than humans whom they have to be afraid of. She compares this negatively to TNG, where Troi and Guinan both had telepathic or other "superhuman" powers or awareness, and nobody treated them as anybody to be afraid of.

All four episodes so far deal with exactly that theme. She's looking forward to more variety in plot going forward.

 

[Albertese]

Interesting. I'm not sure I agree about "The Man Trap" being about the meeting of a superior alien. Sure, the Salt Vampire had a special set of powers, but was hardly god-like in the way Gary Mitchell or Charlie Evens were.

Anyhow, good thing there are plenty of different shows coming up. I'm curious what she thinks of "Balance of Terror" and "Conscience of the King."

--Alex

 

[alpha_leonis]

Interesting. I'm not sure I agree about "The Man Trap" being about the meeting of a superior alien. Sure, the Salt Vampire had a special set of powers, but was hardly god-like in the way Gary Mitchell or Charlie Evens were.

She saw the Salt Vampire as a kind of "Talosian-lite". It had the power of illusion, but that power was limited to its own appearance, not to the surrounding environment.

 

[Nugra]

When I first married my wife she was a Star wars fan and did not know much about Star Trek. It has been very fun getting her to watch all the different series.

We definitely started with TOS, cause it's one of the best!

 

[Ensign Benson]

In my experience a lot of women really like The Trouble With Tribbles, A Piece Of The Action, and Shore Leave. Those should be fun to watch with her!

 

[Astra]

In my experience a lot of women really like The Trouble With Tribbles, A Piece Of The Action, and Shore Leave. Those should be fun to watch with her!

I also enjoyed "The Devil in the Dark" and "Journey to Babel" very much - among many others of course. But I think those are two episodes that appeal more to women than to men?

I'm 42 years old and only started to watch TOS half a year ago. I had caught an episode here and there on TV (I clearly remember the fight to the death between Kirk and Spock, that's something you don't forget) but in general thought it was something one has to grow up with and that it was way too late now. Obviously, I was wrong. Someone should have told me sooner. I probably wouldn't have listened though.

One of the reasons why I kept putting it off: I never liked much the scenes where they had to stumble around, fighting against an invisible force, with a weird / stony look on their faces. For the same reason I did not like the early Stargate episode "Hathor" where all the men were under the spell of her. Like Zombies. I always feel pity with the actors having to do this.

I've come to accept these scenes now, at least William Shatner seems to have fun or is determined to make the best of it and throws himself into it with force.

Will you let us know further how it goes, alpha leonis? I also do wonder how she appreciated the TOS movies without knowing (much?) the younger versions of the characters. They once had a movie marathon in TV and I tried (read: zapped into the middle of a movie, had no idea what was going on and why they all looked so different and why should I care and zapped out again) But having experienced adventures for three seasons and having affection now for all of them, and being happy to see them reunited and seeing them getting older together, I was truly able to appreciate them.

 

[Anji]

Women love Star Trek. This chick's been enjoying it for 50 years now. The two of you have a lot of fun!

 

[Tracy Trek]

Perhaps she would be interested in Space Seed since she's watched TOS movies.

 

[A beaker full of death]

She's definitely noticed the blatant sexism. ... She compares this negatively to TNG...All four episodes so far deal with exactly that theme.... She's looking forward to more variety in plot going forward.

You may be wasting both your time.

 

[Noname Given]

It's a New Year's Resolution of sorts: my wife has an interest all of a sudden in watching TOS all the way through. She's been a Trekkie in the past, but mostly she's a fan of TNG (plus she's seen all six TOS movies.) It's interesting to see her reactions as we go through.

So far we've watched four episodes: The Cage, WNMHGB, The Man Trap, and Charlie X. Her comments:

She's definitely noticed the blatant sexism. She laughed out loud at Pike's line in The Cage about women on the bridge. She also had some sarcastic comments about gratuitously shirtless Kirk in Charlie X.

Otherwise, she's noticed a common theme: so far they always seem to encounter somebody more powerful than humans whom they have to be afraid of. She compares this negatively to TNG, where Troi and Guinan both had telepathic or other "superhuman" powers or awareness, and nobody treated them as anybody to be afraid of.

All four episodes so far deal with exactly that theme. She's looking forward to more variety in plot going forward.

Funny how she compares for episodes of TOS to her entire collective memory of TNG's run (Guinan wasn't a character on TNG until Season 2(as the first 2 hours of TNG they encountered a god-like being that they were most definitely afraid of (I'd be interested to her reaction to "The Squire of Gothos" episode too.)

 

[Ensign Benson]

In my experience a lot of women really like The Trouble With Tribbles, A Piece Of The Action, and Shore Leave. Those should be fun to watch with her!

I also enjoyed "The Devil in the Dark" and "Journey to Babel" very much - among many others of course. But I think those are two episodes that appeal more to women than to men?

I can't believe I forgot those! My mother and sisters loved those episodes, and The Naked Time and This Side of Paradise. Really, anything that showed Spock's emotional side or sense of humor, really. Hmmmm.

 

[Commishsleer]

Women love Star Trek. This chick's been enjoying it for 50 years now. The two of you have a lot of fun!

Agreed

She's definitely noticed the blatant sexism. ... She compares this negatively to TNG...All four episodes so far deal with exactly that theme.... She's looking forward to more variety in plot going forward.

You may be wasting both your time.

Agreed.
I probably compare TNG unfavourably to TOS because basically I watched TOS first and love all the characters and can look past the sexism.
I think people are mistaken though if they see no sexism in TNG. Just been rewatching it and have been amazed of the number of episodes where the camera just zooms in on Trois boobs. And once Yar went there were no episodes where the women really took charge aside from assorted guest stars. Troi and Crusher were always deferring to Riker and Picard to "save" them. TNG wasn't like DS9 or VOY or even the occasional ENT episode where women actually were in charge and took responsibility.

 

[A beaker full of death]

^ When I edited alpha_leonis' quotes for brevity, I inadvertently suggested that it all referred to sexism. They were separate snips. The sexism thing stands by itself; the other parts of the quote were not referring to sexism, but to other issues. Sorry about that.

 

[Commishsleer]

^ When I edited alpha_leonis' quotes for brevity, I inadvertently suggested that it all referred to sexism. They were separate snips. The sexism thing stands by itself; the other parts of the quote were not referring to sexism, but to other issues. Sorry about that.

No I got ya. I just wanted to make my rant about TNG fans calling out TOS on its sexism.
I don't think alpha_leonis's wife is ever going to like TOS. Nice of her to watch it with him though.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

There are two sides to this. On the one hand, women loved TOS throughout the 1970s and formed the backbone of its fandom. Post-TOS authors included Bjo Trimble, Sondra Marshak, Myrna Culbreath, Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Joan Winston, Ruth Berman, and Kathleen Sky. And all but one of the 18 collected works in Star Trek: The New Voyages were written by women.

The other side is women viewing TOS through today's eyes. "Wolf in the Fold" is easily the most offensive episode, but even a show like "The Lights of Zetar," with a good female character, can have rough edges: Kirk constantly refers to a professional woman as "the girl."

Today's women will like TOS if they make an allowance for the times.

 

[Albertese]

...
Kirk constantly refers to a professional woman as "the girl."

...

To be fair, I almost never use the word "woman" in my day to day vocabulary except to refer to the whole gender collectively. Any female in her mid-40's or below I refer to as a "girl" and any over that I refer to as a "lady" and I've never heard anyone complain that I was being sexist or otherwise disrespectful. In fact, my co-workers are more than 50 % women and employ the same usage as I do. And I do pay close attention to the word use of the people around me, it's kind of a hobby of mine.

--Alex

 

[Astra]

Today's women will like TOS if they make an allowance for the times.

Yes, I noticed (worst offender: when it was declared that Uhura's brain was too messy to repair or something like that), but it didn't take me out of the story. The reason I fell in love so quickly were the actors. I don't need action or space battles, but I want characters I can relate to and characters who care for each other. And actors who actually can act. If you have plenty of that, you don't mind the wobbly sets.

I loved the slow pace and the close-ups. Before fade-out for commercial, the camera would linger on a face, the actor would not say anything, just LOOK. Where do you still get that nowadays? I am getting sea-sick from all the fast paced cutting and shaking hand camera movements. Even shows from the Eighties are very different, much slower paced than what we get nowadays. Times have changed hugely.

As for the whole gender issue, here is an interesting link. A re-watch and fair and complex analysis of each episode, pointing out several things. A long read but well worth it. Lots of very good points made: http://archiveofourown.org/works/856342/chapters/1639186

 

[A beaker full of death]

As for the whole gender issue, here is an interesting link. A re-watch and fair and complex analysis of each episode, pointing out several things. A long read but well worth it. Lots of very good points made: http://archiveofourown.org/works/856342/chapters/1639186

"I realized why I was so attached to the old cheesiness. For whatever episode it was--"Arena," I think--they showed the original background and said, "Clearly, this is just a picture of a dented and beat-up piece of metal." Because ST:TOS was made before digital effects--WAY before digital effects--they had to use ordinary physical objects and just do optical tricks to make them look otherworldly."
Emphasis added.
Yeah, I'm done. I'll stick to watching the series through my own ancient obsolete eyes.

 

[alpha_leonis]

Update from the OP: We watched "The Naked Time" last night (I should warn those of you watching from home that it's going to be slow going through the year. Due to hectic work schedules and childcare responsibilities, we may not have much chance to binge-watch.)

Dear Wife was looking forward to this one in particular. As a gift she had previously given me a copy of George Takei's documentary on LGBT-rights-cum-Japanese-Internment activism. This episode was one he called out as one of his favorites since it featured Sulu pretty prominently, and I'd already shared with her Uhura's legendary "Sorry, Neither" line.

Dear Wife was disappointed. It was much less humorous than she'd been led to believe. On the plus side, she said, TOS does "unexpected alien weirdness" a lot better than TNG.

 

[alpha_leonis]

We watched "The Enemy Within" tonight. Her comments:

1. The crew trapped on the planet were stupid not to huddle together under the same blanket and share each other's heat that way.
2. Shatner gets a bad rap for his acting ability, but he was actually quite good in both roles this time around.
3. But most especially: why not send down shuttlecraft if the transporters were inoperable? (Real-world explanation was that the shuttle wasn't "invented" by the writers yet -- and sets weren't built -- not until Galileo 7 later in the season.)