Star Trek-RM: Is There In Truth No Beauty?… Grading/Discussion

[AstroSmurf]

This is the grading & discussion thread for Star Trek Remastered airing the weekend of 03/22/08.

Is There In Truth No Beauty?

The U.S.S. Enterprise is asked to host Medusan ambassador Kollos, instrument specialist Laurence Marvick and telepath Dr. Miranda Jones. There visit is an attempt at a technological exchange between the Federation and supremely alien Medusans, whose appearance can make a human insane. But when an accidental viewing of the ambassador drives Marvick mad, the crew find themselves stranded in unknown space by the now psychotic specialist. And left with only one option, Kirk and Spock must make a desperate attempt to navigate back home.

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[cooleddie74]

A decent episode with a nice turn by Diana Muldaur and the actor playing Marvick. The new CGI of the Galactic Barrier and the oddball space-time void where the ship ends up were good(if recycled a bit in spots from slightly older "WNMHGB" and "Name" effects)were very nice, and the highlight of the episode for me was at the very end when there's an all-new Medusan ship rendezvousing with the Enterprise to pick up Dr. Jones and Ambassador Kollos. The design is kind of neat with blue lights/striping near a spherical command hull and some sort of nacelles. Then the Enterprise does this "back-up/reverse and turn" maneuver to leave once the two have beamed aboard the Medusan ship. Neat!

 

[jep316]

Then the Enterprise does this "back-up/reverse and turn" maneuver to leave once the two have beamed aboard the Medusan ship. Neat!

The Enterprise-D did that in some TNG episodes..which I never under stood why you had to "back-up" in space..but it was still a cool look anyway.

 

[MANT!]

The episode is again of high concept, but of average execution..Diana Muldaur does a nice job of playing Miranda, but the odd camera angles to "help" with the excitement and extreme color effects on the walls of the big E make this episode rather hard for me to focus on the story..the remastering was above average with the void particularly well done and the unexpected "Federation" look of the Medusan ship...

 

[AstroSmurf]

I have to admit... I love this episode. Despite the annoying use of the fish eye camera lens (which drives me crazy), the characters and use of the guest stars was excellent. Plus Diana Muldaur was fantastic and beautiful. She truly made me believe there was something in the gold box... other than a very bright light. And to a very curious eight year-old, this episode marked the first time I actually understood what a telepath was. I also loved the costumes. I gave it a nostalgic A-. It would have gotten something higher but the camera work was very distracting.

As for the remastering, I gave it an Above Average. I liked the void and was impressed with the transport.

 

[Michael]

[...] the unexpected "Federation" look of the Medusan ship...

Interesting. In what way did it look "Federation"? TrekMovie hasn't posted a review yet. That's why I have to ask.

Despite the annoying use of the fish eye camera lens (which drives me crazy)

Maybe that was kind of the point.

 

[AstroSmurf]

^ Maybe. But there is a big difference between artistic crazy and turn the channel crazy. This is very much the latter.

 

[Stag]

[...] the unexpected "Federation" look of the Medusan ship...

Interesting. In what way did it look "Federation"? TrekMovie hasn't posted a review yet. That's why I have to ask.

The ship looked federation in that there were smaller, TOS-era/style warp nacelles, with red Fed style pennants down the side and the back end of the secondary hull (my term) had what appeared to be a clamshell style shuttle bay door and underneath similar to the Enterprise a cut away slope leading forward. That and the round primary hull similar to a Daedalus style vehicle.

Did anyone notice early on in the episode, perhaps the first shot where the Enterprise flies overhead, in the front of the lower sensor dome there is a mechanical devise which I took to be either a photon torpedo launcer or phaser emitter. Your thoughts?

 

[Kryton]

So if Miranda is blind, why was she wearing the visor when she beamed in?

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

It's totally a coincidence, honest!

But I just posted my review of Is There In Truth No Beauty?

It's the original version that I watched here in Blighty obviously,
but you can't have everything...

I'm Watching The Original Series Again

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

So if Miranda is blind, why was she wearing the visor when she beamed in?

Nobody was supposed to know she was blind. She was hiding it.

[...] the unexpected "Federation" look of the Medusan ship...

Interesting. In what way did it look "Federation"? TrekMovie hasn't posted a review yet. That's why I have to ask.

It *was* a Federation ship. (If nothing else, you can tell by the fact that it has windows, and Starfleet markings on the hull.)

There's nothing that indicates the ship was supposed to be Medusan. Nobody ever said it was, at any rate. It was simply a class of Starfleet vessel we've never seen before.

(Although: Aren't Medusans supposed to be Federation members? So maybe it might not be out of the ordinary for them to have a Starfleet vessel all to themselves, since it would be almost impossible for Medusan Starfleet crews to mix with non-Medusans onboard)

 

[jep316]

It dose look like it has TOS style Starfleet nacelles...so it's probably some sort of small Starfleet transport vessel.

 

[Trevacious]

"LIAR! LIIIARR!! LLLIAARRRH!!!"

I am certain it will live on and on...

 

[Professor Moriarty]

extreme color effects on the walls of the big E make this episode rather hard for me to focus on the story

I was more distracted by Nimoy's unusually nasal voice throughout this episode. Who knew that Vulcans were susceptible to seasonal allergies?

 

[Plecostomus]

On SCN I posted that I was wondering if this is a standard Starfleet ship customized for a specific application or a custom built special ship for this specific task/use. I'm leaning twords the first myself, I'd like to see some other views of the ship.

Thinking about it, this could be a "light cruiser" and a candidate to replace that sorry kitbash nightmare in the Space Hippy Episode with the acid-plants.

 

[shipfisher]

I agree with Plecostomus. The Medusan ship is most likely going to show up again as the "SS Aurora" In the TOS-R version of "The Way To Eden".

The CBS digital crew seem to like using their meshes for double duties: Antares/Woden and Mudd's J-class/Denevan shuttle. The Medusan ship is unlikely to be a one-off use of the design.

P.S. Is there only one style of (starfleet) nacelle, just scaled up and down, in the TOS era?

 

[Basill]

One of my all time favorites. Still is, so I must give it an A+. Remastering was pretty darn spiffy too. Not sure I like the "void" so much yet, but then it's just a void and doesn't have to be pretty or anything. I really like the original void, but that was already a reuse so at least it is different. The planet, space, and ship rendezvous were great so I gave it an excellent. I love the speeding away at warp from the planet and that little courier vessel was cute (though the scale does seem a bit off with what looked like 3 decks of windows on the primary hull.)

Syndication edits once again mar this one to the bone. It was quite jarring to watch. Being one of my all time favorites I know all the great dialog by heart. They cut a huge chunk out of the beginning where they evacuate the corridors and "escourt" Kollos to his quarters, some nice stuff from the dinner scene, and the Spock/Kollos mindlink was missing a few quaint moments. Even some nice music for musics' sake was chopped, but rather unavoidable in our commercial society. Actually the WORST cut was Larry Marvick's death scene. He was screaming "Don't love her! Don't love her!" and boom he was DEAD. They cut the little desperate "I love you Miranda..." before he collapses, which was such a wonderful juxtaposition to show his madness. I was fuming, but at least I know (hope) it'll be on the full cut someday.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The CBS digital crew seem to like using their meshes for double duties: Antares/Woden and Mudd's J-class/Denevan shuttle.

I haven't seen "Mudd's Women" remastered, but didn't they use the J-class freighter as shown in Enterprise? (Mayweather's family owns a J-class ship)

 

[Trevacious]

The camera work was a lot of fun in this one, too. Lots of unusual angles and lenses and movement.

 

[Stag]

The remastered scene at the end with the transport had a slightly TNG feel to it. Up to this point in TOS-R when encountering other ships, the ENT tended to be along side. If you recall in TNG (and TWOK for that matter), with few exceptions, the ships tended to face each other when meeting, similar to the scene shown in the above post. As this was a season 3 episode, could there be an implied change of starfleet protocol designed to synch everything up Or have I had just a bit toooo much coffee this morning?