Star Trek-RM: The Empath… Grading/Discussion

[AstroSmurf]

This is the grading & discussion thread for Star Trek Remastered airing the weekend of 07/26/08.

The Empath

While stranded on the planet Minara by a dangerous radiation storm, Kirk, Spock and McCoy are kidnapped by the secretive Vians. The aliens transport the officers to a vast underground lab and force them to cooperate with a beautiful mute humaniod woman being held there. Unable to contact the ship or discern the aliens' intentions, the captain, his crew and the alien female are left to find a way to escape while enduring the Vian experiments.


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Next Week’s Episode: Turnabout Intruder
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[cooleddie74]

C for the episode...close to a C-.

Average remastering. Aside from the new shots of the Enterprise and the planet, nothing was changed. Not even the snowy interference and rolling static when McCoy tries to scan Gem with his tricorder and he says she's a mute without vocal cords. I'd have inserted a CGI graph or readout of some kind on his screen the way the Remastering team did in "Plato's Stepchildren."

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

C for the episode...close to a C-.

Average remastering. Aside from the new shots of the Enterprise and the planet, nothing was changed. Not even the snowy interference and rolling static when McCoy tries to scan Gem with his tricorder and he says she's a mute without vocal cords. I'd have inserted a CGI graph or readout of some kind on his screen the way the Remastering team did in "Plato's Stepchildren."

What about the image of the star (about to supernova) that Scotty and Sulu are watching on the ship's viewscreen? That sure looked new to me.

 

[pookha]

looking forward to seeing this tomorrow night.
one of my third season favs

 

[windwood]

"What about the image of the star (about to supernova) that Scotty and Sulu are watching on the ship's viewscreen?"

Is this new? It's been a long time since I saw the episode. I was hoping to see the Minara sun go nova the way they did in "All Our Yesterdays". They cut out some important dialog. This is still one of my favorite episodes from S3, but it does seem a bit overdone, especially with all the microscopic closeups of Gem with tears welling.

 

[Kelso]

Episode: B+

Remastering: Average

 

[Shatmandu]

I have some sort of genetic aversion to mimes, so this episode makes me want to punch.

Everything.

Joe, gentle

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

"What about the image of the star (about to supernova) that Scotty and Sulu are watching on the ship's viewscreen?"

Is this new?

It looked like too 'advanced' an effect for TOS to have been able to do in its original run, let's put it that way.

 

[MANT!]

C- for the episode
Average for the remaster..


This episode always made me wince, there's only so much melodrama I can stand, and this just is over the edge to me.... with Kathryn Hay's emoting exceeding even the Shat's at full strength...

I usually reach critical mass and turn the channel... but the remastering engaged me enough to see this episode through to the final inevitable end.

Yuck...

 

[Kryton]

Same here...this one always made me cringe. In some ways, it's basically "The Cage 2", what with "superior, supposedly-beneficial aliens with weird abilities" having at manipulating another race.

F/X (such as there were) looked generally OK. Otherwise, I don't need to see this one again for another 20 years.

 

[Hambone]

I hadn't watched this episode in a few years. It was less annoying than I remembered.

I was hoping for a remastered "wide shot" of the planet surface. Didn't get it.

The remastering seemed really crisp in this episode. The Vians' silvery cloaks really had a lot of detail. The force field effects looked awful...and it looks like they weren't touched by the remastering team. If you freeze a frame you can see cut marks and what looks like water stains on the original film.

I was also disappointed that nothing was inserted into McCoy's tricorder viewscreen.

 

[cooleddie74]

"What about the image of the star (about to supernova) that Scotty and Sulu are watching on the ship's viewscreen?"

Is this new?

It looked like too 'advanced' an effect for TOS to have been able to do in its original run, let's put it that way.

If it was a new CGI shot, I missed it. I'll have to catch the rerun on my local CW channel next Sunday morning.

 

[MeanJoePhaser]

D+ episode. While not quite as bad as I recall, I just never liked it. The music is pretty grating, too.

The Vians never said anything about the other inhabitants of the other worlds. Did they fail some tests?

Kirk gets through to them. Somehow the deaths of two scientists didn't phase them, but Kirk talking shit did.

Whatever.

 

[cooleddie74]

They really missed an opportunity to change the readout display on McCoy's tricorder screen. If he's supposed to be seeing evidence that Gem's a mute with no vocal cords, how do a bunch of grey scrolling lines and electronic interference tell him? I can't look at an old B&W television with snow and rolling interference on it and tell what's on the channel.

 

[Joanna McCoy-Kirk]

Same here...this one always made me cringe. In some ways, it's basically "The Cage 2", what with "superior, supposedly-beneficial aliens with weird abilities" having at manipulating another race.

I have always thought of the Vians as the poor man's Talosians.

JL

 

[cooleddie74]

Same here...this one always made me cringe. In some ways, it's basically "The Cage 2", what with "superior, supposedly-beneficial aliens with weird abilities" having at manipulating another race.

I have always thought of the Vians as the poor man's Talosians.

JL

Still, for 1968 TV on a reduced budget from the previous season the Vian makeup was kinda impressive and looked like real heads with odd shaped skullbones and ridges.

 

[Cyrus]

Spock's comment that Gem was humanoid but not Homo Sapien was a little odd. Are Vulcans considered Homo Sapiens? It may have been better to say she was not one of the known humanoid species.

 

[Rush Limborg]

A+ for "The Empath".

I don't care what anybody says. This was the only Star Trek episode EVER that actually drove me to tears. (It was when McCoy, oviously in intense pain, started coughing. Spock reaching for his shouldier right then was just GOLD!)

"Paradise Syndrome" (TOS) and "The Visitor" (DS9) came pretty darn close, and I was barely able to keep it together. But this one really made me lose it.

(And I'm usually an in-control Captain-Picard kinda guy....)

As for the remastering... no complaints. They did some enhancements of the scenes where Gem takes on the trio's injuries. Instead of the old "fade in" effect, there is a subtly different, more fluid rendition of the scars' appearence on her face. Pretty good. More natural.

The new and improved sun on the viewscreen was pretty good, too.

 

[cooleddie74]

My mom always liked Kathryn Hays. Followed her career off and on for years on some of the prime time dramas and daytime soaps on which she appeared.

 

[PlainPatrick]

I do not know what was "remastered" I will give you my take. this was a measure of sacrifice. Was there any connection in your mind from the fake crewman on the chains? Did you attach anything in significance to the look on Gem's face? What was she feeling? Would she look that way if it was fake. The show was fake, but these are world class actors. DeForrest Kelley especially. So take note.