Same something nice about traditionally poorly held TOS eps

[Nightdiamond]

Say whaaaaaaat?

The plot and Kirk-as-a-crazy-woman, was over the top ham, and it was funny. The more serious you take it, the funnier it gets. The crew bewildered by Kirk's behavior and the discussion about it only adds to it.

Even the outdated sexism it displayed was funny simply because they're were so oblivious to it, and the viewer can see it plainly.

I never really saw it as a bad episode, just crazy sci-fi.

When they were considering ideas for Kelvin Trek movies, I would have loved it if it had a Kelvin version of Janice Lester in it.

 

[Henoch]

I do think it's one of the worst (the other being "The Mark of Gideon"). If the Zetarians could simply invade the hull of the ship, chasing everyone down the corridor as they do, why can't they leave the pressure chamber the same way? Clearly they can move in and out of Mira's head at will; they do so for the entire episode up until that point. And it made no sense that Kirk would know that high pressure would both extract them from her head and kill them (why didn't they simply escape back into space?) while causing no harm to Mira.

Kirk hypothesizes that high pressure is the Zetarians' weakness; and he gambles that it is the only hope to save Mira. The pressure reached a point were the Zetarians were in so much pain, even debilitating pain, they couldn't stay focused on staying in Mira's body, nor mustering the strength to phase through the chamber wall. They simply oozed out of her and died. Kirk wins again.

As for killing Mira with high pressure, as a former scuba diver who dived to 110 feet at about 4.2 atmospheres of pressure (1 atm. of air plus 3.2 atm. of water) and felt fine at that pressure, the human body can sustain multiple atmospheres of pressure. Since she was breathing compressed air, this is akin to scuba diving and not free diving (no scuba). Wiki indicates that people start to die around the 300 foot depth level on compressed air. That's about 10 atmospheres or about 150 psi. With 23rd century technology, maybe this could be higher. As @TLOZ Lover points out in his blog, "the bourdon gauge on the test chamber wall ranges from 0 to a maximum of 5.0 (atmospheres), and it stops about 3.30 at the point when the Zetarians are finally driven out...". If 3.3, then no big deal for Mira. Even if maxed out at 5.0 atmospheres, still no big deal for Mira.

 

[MAGolding]

....
Then, of course, there are all the references to her as "the girl"; I can perhaps understand the Zetarians saying "We only want the girl" but that's only after hearing Kirk and McCoy using the term. (If they learned English from their contact with Mira, did she think of herself as "the girl"?)...
.

I remember that my grandmother used to refer to her female friends as "the girls" despite them being rather old.

And maybe Mira did think of herself as a girl. In Shore Leave" Yeoman Tonio Barrows, who seems to be well into her 20s, callers herself a girl.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Girl has never carried the pejorative sense that calling someone boy does. It was mainly the feminist movement that tried to make girl an insult, perhaps to give themselves something more to rebel against. But to this day, women address each other as girl when they want to sound hip, so apparently the effort to turn girl in to a pejorative has failed.

 

[Lance]

The more serious you take it, the funnier it gets. The crew bewildered by Kirk's behavior and the discussion about it only adds to it.

Yeah, one of the things I find most amusing is that he's so out of character, yet the crew are really struggling to figure out exactly what's so different about him that they can't quite put their finger on it even after he starts talking about executions.

It's not a good episode by any measure. But it's certainly entertaining in how stupidly wrong it all is

 

[gottacook]

According to the online Star Trek Transcripts, Lieutenant Romaine is referred to as "the girl" a total of eight different times - by Kirk, McCoy, the Zetarians, and even (at the end) by Spock. (All also call her "the lieutenant" or "Lieutenant Romaine" at various times, except for Scott, who only calls her "Mira".) Irrespective of whether anyone then or now would think of the term as pejorative, I don't recall any other officer during the original series who was ever called "the girl" (or "the boy").

I presume the "Zetar" script (as filmed) is simply an example of the "who cares any longer?" attitude that must have prevailed during the production of the last group of episodes after Robert Justman had quit and everyone remaining was looking for their next job.

 

[johnnybear]

I can't say I hate or really dislike Turnabout Intruder myself! It seems to rattle a lot of people because it has the ignominy of being the final episode of the series! But it's quite a good episode if you can ignore certain things. One being the resurrection of David L.Ross as Lt.Galloway! In Day of The Dove at least they darkened his hair and gave him a new name!
JB

 

[ZapBrannigan]

According to the online Star Trek Transcripts, Lieutenant Romaine is referred to as "the girl" a total of eight different times - by Kirk, McCoy, the Zetarians, and even (at the end) by Spock. (All also call her "the lieutenant" or "Lieutenant Romaine" at various times, except for Scott, who only calls her "Mira".) Irrespective of whether anyone then or now would think of the term as pejorative, I don't recall any other officer during the original series who was ever called "the girl" (or "the boy").

I presume the "Zetar" script (as filmed) is simply an example of the "who cares any longer?" attitude that must have prevailed during the production of the last group of episodes after Robert Justman had quit and everyone remaining was looking for their next job.

Calling an officer a boy came up from time to time. The first one even went to Kirk:

"The Corbomite Maneuver"
McCOY: That's a boy. Keep it up. Work up a little sweat, it'll do you good.

"Balance of Terror"
McCOY: Only one. Tomlinson. The boy who was getting married this morning. His fiancée is at the chapel.

"The Conscience of the King"
MATSON [OC]: You've been a bad boy.
RILEY: Maybe so. Whatever I've done, they're sure keeping it a secret from me.

"Who Mourns for Adonais?"
CHEKOV: The captain requires complete information.
McCOY: Spock's contaminating this boy, Jim.

CAROLYN: Frightened? No, I don't think so. Of course, a girl doesn't go walking with a --
APOLLO: A god?
CAROLYN: All right, a god every day.

Boy and girl as slang for adults was just part of the language in those days. There was even a cliché for "I quit" that went "Find yourself another boy!" Darrin shouted it to Larry once on Bewitched.

"Zetar" does have too many repeats of girl, but it was bad script editing. Too many repeats of any word or phrase is a writing problem, unless it's done deliberately by a master (e.g., Poe, "The Raven"). As soon as you start referring to someone as boy or girl repeatedly, it does become oppressive sounding. But I think it was accidental.

 

[TLOZ Lover]

The plot and Kirk-as-a-crazy-woman, was over the top ham, and it was funny. The more serious you take it, the funnier it gets. The crew bewildered by Kirk's behavior and the discussion about it only adds to it.

Even the outdated sexism it displayed was funny simply because they're were so oblivious to it, and the viewer can see it plainly.

I never really saw it as a bad episode, just crazy sci-fi.

When they were considering ideas for Kelvin Trek movies, I would have loved it if it had a Kelvin version of Janice Lester in it.

Well, I'm glad to know the episode has a fan in you! I read that Shatner had the flu while the episode was being filmed and had to lie down on a cot between takes. A Kelvin Janice Lester? Now I'm trying to envision that....

 

[Grant]

Plato's stepchildren -- Michael Dunn
The lights of zetar-- the creepy zetar voice and the creepy scene on Memory Alpha especially the poor dying lady
The alternative Factor -- um... lots of nice location photography and the shot from the back of the Enterprise shooting down at the planet.
Whom Gods destroy -- Keye Luke and the idea of Captain Garth but not necessarily the execution of the script.
Turnabout intruder -- Sandra Smith was better as Kirk than Shatner was in a lot of third season episodes

 

[TLOZ Lover]

Kirk hypothesizes that high pressure is the Zetarians' weakness; and he gambles that it is the only hope to save Mira. The pressure reached a point were the Zetarians were in so much pain, even debilitating pain, they couldn't stay focused on staying in Mira's body, nor mustering the strength to phase through the chamber wall. They simply oozed out of her and died. Kirk wins again.

As for killing Mira with high pressure, as a former scuba diver who dived to 110 feet at about 4.2 atmospheres of pressure (1 atm. of air plus 3.2 atm. of water) and felt fine at that pressure, the human body can sustain multiple atmospheres of pressure. Since she was breathing compressed air, this is akin to scuba diving and not free diving (no scuba). Wiki indicates that people start to die around the 300 foot depth level on compressed air. That's about 10 atmospheres or about 150 psi. With 23rd century technology, maybe this could be higher. As @TLOZ Lover points out in his blog, "the bourdon gauge on the test chamber wall ranges from 0 to a maximum of 5.0 (atmospheres), and it stops about 3.30 at the point when the Zetarians are finally driven out...". If 3.3, then no big deal for Mira. Even if maxed out at 5.0 atmospheres, still no big deal for Mira.

'Her' blog actually! I know ziltch about diving, but I have to ask--do we know for a fact that whatever was used to pressurize the decompression chamber could not have re-created the equivalence of free diving? As you mentioned, we are talking about 23rd century technology. If the pressure used was the equivalent of free diving and not scuba diving, then the rate of pressure increase that Kirk ordered would indeed have killed Mira at some point. The script copy of TLOZ (as well as filmed version) says "bring it up to two atmospheres, then increase one atmosphere per second." The story in the James Blish novel (Star Trek 6) reads "Bring it up to two atmospheres....increase at the rate of one atmosphere per minute." Per second vs. per minute--a bit of a difference there. In the Blish version Bones objects at this point saying, "Wait a minute, Jim. Not even a deep-sea diver experiences pressure increases at that rate. They take it slowly, a few atmospheres at a time." Kirk responds, "That's just what I'm counting on, Bones. If it's something Mira can adapt to, there'll be no adverse effect on her, and hence none on them. Run it up as ordered, Mr. Spock."

At any rate, yes there are numerous technical flaws in the writing of this story, including why the Zetars can easily penetrate the ship and yet die in the decompression chamber. As much as we all love Star Trek, we can usually find technical problems with most of the stories if we look closely enough, and as for the accusations of sexism, please----it was the 1960s. Par for the course at that time. If one looks at the story of TLOZ through the eyes of love and not strictly science fiction, then something beautiful emerges!

 

[TLOZ Lover]

Try to say something nice about a traditionally poorly-held TOS episode? Where to begin? Don't get me wrong--I am a diehard TOS fan through and through, but there are a number of episodes I don't care for and trying to select one among them is tough. Well, here goes. The ice cream in "And the Children Shall Lead" looked delicious. There...I found something nice to say!

 

[Grant]

No seriously and the children shall lead it's completely creepy until they beam back up on the ship. The whole scenario the dead parents to kids happily playing the cave that put some kind of strange dread and fear in Kirk. That's a creepy beginning to an episode that I'd like to see. Just not the one they actually made.

 

[Vger23]

There is virtually no TOS episode that is irredeemably bad.

None of the other series can say that, except for maybe the CBS AA series.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

There is virtually no TOS episode that is irredeemably bad.

None of the other series can say that, except for maybe the CBS AA series.

Quick question, what is the AA series?

 

[Henoch]

Try to say something nice about a traditionally poorly-held TOS episode? Where to begin? Don't get me wrong--I am a diehard TOS fan through and through, but there are a number of episodes I don't care for and trying to select one among them is tough. Well, here goes. The ice cream in "And the Children Shall Lead" looked delicious. There...I found something nice to say!

The Herbarium Rec. Room is a great new 3rd season set. It's a shame that they put those annoying kids in it.

 

[Grant]

And as far as "the way to Eden goes....

That Never Was or ever will be a bad episode.
It has two flaws that bring it down.
1. It has a lot of plot holes. I'm not sure you can name too many Star Trek episodes that don't. But when an episode is considered bad people tend to hammer home those plot holes a lot harder then they normally would on a well-received episode
2. This stereotypical hippie iconography. The flowers the body paint the clothing.

If you cut out those hippie stereotypes --change Severin and his followers into a simple cult who wear robes or some other slightly creepy attire and the episode works perfectly. Spoiled intelligent well-educated youngsters of privilege who reject society and parents to follow an insane but charismatic leader. And he leads them to commit murder and to their own destruction.
The way to Eden aired February 21st 1969 and on August 9th 1969 the Manson cult began there crime and murder spree. If you look at the reruns in summer and early fall of 1969 the way to Eden was conveniently skipped over as far as the rerun schedule. Imagine if the episode had been just a little bit darker and had cut out the worst Parts such as the singing and the jam session. Instead of being mocked 50 years later it would be considered ahead of its time in depicting young adults being lead into madness by an insane ruthless leader.

 

[Nightdiamond]

Yeah, one of the things I find most amusing is that he's so out of character, yet the crew are really struggling to figure out exactly what's so different about him that they can't quite put their finger on it even after he starts talking about executions.

It's not a good episode by any measure. But it's certainly entertaining in how stupidly wrong it all is

Exactly-- the funniest thing is the crew thinking he's acting nuts, before they confirm something unusual actually happened to him.

Kirk's final breakdown is worth watching the entire episode for.

And geez, Kirk's statement at the end and delivered with a straight face. The ironic thing is that it's a pretty goofy episode, but its the one everyone remembers somehow.

It deserve a retro Emmy or something.

A Kelvin Janice Lester? Now I'm trying to envision that....

As much as I criticize the Kelvin movies ........If they had a Kelvin movie, with Janice Lester, exactly like the way she was in TOS, uncut and uncensored, I would SO watch it, .

 

[MANT!]

The Alternative Factor, the thought of spending eternity with a madman at your throat.. Damn, that actually was VERY creepy and scary to me when I was young,it still is now..
Too bad, that episode had such a high concept , with frankly, piss poor execution...

 

[Henoch]

The Alternative Factor, the thought of spending eternity with a madman at your throat.. Damn, that actually was VERY creepy and scary to me when I was young,it still is now..
Too bad, that episode had such a high concept , with frankly, piss poor execution...

Keeping track of the two Lazaruses/Lazarusi? is a harder challenge than following which decahedral is Yeoman Thompson.