STC Ep. 9 - "What Ships Are For"

[psCargile]

I like jokes at the end of a TOS episode because they are relevant to the events in the episode. The joking around at the beginning paused the flow of the story.

"Do you want to come in? Yeah, but you look busy, so maybe I don't know" could have been done once. By the third time, I was wondering if this was going to carry on through five minutes. The head of the nail is flush, you can stop hitting it.

The message? Well, don't ask Kirk about Klingons.

 

[O_Kav]

I like jokes at the end of a TOS episode because they are relevant to the events in the episode. The joking around at the beginning paused the flow of the story.

I feel conflicted about that. Even though I liked the silly jokes at the beginning, yup, there's something weird about it. Especially the self-referential joke about Bones and his spot. Somehow this feels something you would get on post-TOS Star Trek. You're right about the jokes at the end being relevant to the main plot. So maybe it's the Episodic nature of TOS that makes it weird ? I don't know.

When TNG, DS9 or VOY did this sort of thing it felt more natural because they were quite serialized. So it wasn't weird having Data at the beginning of episodes torturing the crew with his quest on becoming more Human, for example.

The thing is, I wouldn't doubt this is something we would get if Star Trek continued after Season 3.

 

[Romulan_spy]

I continue to be impressed with Star Trek Continues. It has a very professional quality to it from the sets to the writing and it is incredibly faithful to the classic series. I really feel like I am watching a lost TOS episode. This episode was excellent. The story felt like it could have been a TOS or TNG story. The use of black and white was ingenious. And while the message was very obvious, it was an excellent morality play. It used everything in the episode to tell the message well.

 

[YJAGG]

I watched it again last night, and I swear Sulu was channeling Paul Rubens ...

 

[Trekker4747]

This episode for some reason was on my YouTube recommendations, so I gave it a shot. It's the only episode of any fan production I've seen. I was really quite impressed with it the look and feel of it is very much consistent with TOS. The story I thought was very good with the usual "present day Earth issue re-written to be a sci-fi dilema."

I thought all of the actors were good but.... Again I've never seen any fan production before.

I thought the guy who played Kirk didn't have quite the "voice" of Kirk, it was a little too... high pitched?

I also wasn't too much a fan of the wink-wink/nudge-nudge sit-comesque "humor" in it. The joking in the opening bit with Spock and the nudging the counselor woman gave Spock, McCoy's "he's standing in my spot," later the counselor turning to the camera and saying,"Damn, I'm good!" after Kirk leaves with a strike of inspiration. And I dunno, Kirk seemed to move in on the alien woman a bit too quickly and "aggressively" considering her child-like naivete. Chekov's silly accent, Sulu's... "being Sulu." Much of it seemed too much like a parody of TOS more than an adaptation/continuation of it. It's not a vibe I ever got while watching TOS, yeah some of that silly stuff was there but it didn't seem so obvious.

But the overall story and feel/look of the show was good. Just those "odd bits" stood out to me. Good work by John de Lancie.

I can't say whether this will get me to watch any of the other episodes, but I mostly liked what I saw here.

 

[langweiler]

Great Work, i liked it. There were a few minor issues already mentioned in this thread.
The "Solution" in the end of the episode reminded me of the TNG episode "Symbiosis". Does anyone else thought of that episode while watching?

 

[Trekker4747]

Great Work, i liked it. There were a few minor issues already mentioned in this thread.
The "Solution" in the end of the episode reminded me of the TNG episode "Symbiosis". Does anyone else thought of that episode while watching?

Yeah, aspects reminded me of that episode particularly, as noted, the "solution." It also in part reminded me of "The Hunted" where Picard pretty much left two warring sides of a planet in a sort of "you have to help us to help you stalemate" type of situation and he pretty much said, "Not our problem, good luck, though!" and beamed out of there.

I watched it again last night with my buddy and he was really impressed too, and he's not big into TOS, but he thought the quality of it was really good compared to most other fan productions with good story and acting. It's too bad Alex Peters had to be something of a huge jackass.

 

[cultcross]

Really enjoyed this one. A storyline that was 'plucked from the headlines' and delivered with the subtlty of a wrecking ball is classic Star Trek, and it worked well here. I also loved the way that De Lancie's character called out the moral issues with the Prime Directive in response, that scene was really well done. Speaking of subtlety, the leader with the racist platform is orange?
Wasn't so keen on the romance, I got that they were trying to set up a personal stake for Kirk, but the 'do you want to come in' bit was bizarre and stalled the story somewhat.

Yet he doesn't make any difficult choice or decision. Nothing weighs on him an an interesting fashion.

Not sure I agree, the final third of the episode seemed to be driven by Kirk's wanting to force them to accept the refugees while still saving them from the radiation. The final solution seemed quite Kirk to me, manufacturing a situation where both sides have to help each other. I'd definitely have preferred him to talk it through with Spock and McCoy though, the counselor seems a superfluous character. McCoy even lampshades this, 'she's in my spot'.

And I also get that some feel Kirk's speech at teh end was more 'Puicard-like'; but even in TOS Kirk did occasionally 'speechify'

Occasionally?! He's the trope namer of the Kirk Speech, his ability to change the tide of a war or cause a computer to explode or alter the philosophy of a mirror universe with a well placed motivational speech is a big part of his hero role in TOS.

The message? Well, don't ask Kirk about Klingons.

That was movie Kirk, series Kirk is not only a pretty different character, he also has little personal reason to dislike Klingons at this stage that we know of.

 

[Dar70]

Just started watching this series. My God it's done so well. It gets better with each ep. I always had hoped we would get a new official series from Paramount set during TOS (not an alternate universe) and I never expected it to be super accurate in set design/lightning/costumes etc. Maybe somewhere along the lines of ST:Ent recreations. But damn they did a fantastic job. Sad that it is ending. But it was done so well I am a happy viewer.

 

[MikeH92467]

I was very impressed. It's going to sound like "damning with faint praise" but I certainly don't mean it that way when I say that Vic as a director and editor manages to avoid the amateurish mistakes that immediately cry out "fan film". I hope that is taken as a compliment. If it's not, I apologize in advance. I will also say that I liked the story and found the use of B&W a great gimmick that didn't require a huge amount of techno-babble. I do think that the story required Kirk to sweat a bit and if the message was a bit obvious, well, so what? Like others, I found Kirk immediately falling for the alien girl was a bit awkward. John de Lancie and Anne Lockhart might have dialed it back a bit, but that's a matter of taste. While they might have overplayed their roles a bit, the plot gave them an excuse for being a bit overwrought and not everyone faces existential crises with a stiff upper lip. Overall, very well done, with the final results showing a payoff for the hard work and lessons learned by everyone involved.

 

[BoredShipCapt'n]

I'm thinking if the Peacock had done this kind of episode in 1970, there would have been some radio-drama-style dialogue thrown in here and there to clue in all those with black-and-white sets. They'd have probably used Chekov, who was good at stating the obvious.

Chekov: "Captain!"
Kirk: "Yes, I see it."
Chekov: "There's no color, anywhere! All the color is gone! What happened to it?"
Kirk: "Spock?"
Spock: "Scanning."

 

[Not Herbert]

AFAIK, there was no original score composed for this episode. Vic was using the library cues from TOS, and maybe something previously scored by @Not Herbert. Andy will be back for episodes 10 and 11, however.

Hard at work on ep11 now. Will take a week off for family holiday on Risa and then back to the piano.

 

[Trekker4747]

I'm thinking if the Peacock had done this kind of episode in 1970, there would have been some radio-drama-style dialogue thrown in here and there to clue in all those with black-and-white sets. They'd have probably used Chekov, who was good at stating the obvious.

Chekov: "Captain!"
Kirk: "Yes, I see it."
Chekov: "There's no color, anywhere! All the color is gone! What happened to it?"
Kirk: "Spock?"
Spock: "Scanning."

I could see it, Chekov was good for back-door exposition.

 

[Noname Given]

I'm thinking if the Peacock had done this kind of episode in 1970, there would have been some radio-drama-style dialogue thrown in here and there to clue in all those with black-and-white sets. They'd have probably used Chekov, who was good at stating the obvious.

Chekov: "Captain!"
Kirk: "Yes, I see it."
Chekov: "There's no color, anywhere! All the color is gone! What happened to it?"
Kirk: "Spock?"
Spock: "Scanning."

Nah - if this were 1970:

NBC: Tonight a special STAR TREK...in drab greyscale...

 

[Commishsleer]

This is something I agree with the most. While I like McKennah, and Specht's performance, it seems to be coming at the expense of giving Spock and Bones anything to do with Kirk. I can only hope this is fixed during the series finale, which is necessary, since we're going to see how the trinity went their separate ways at the end of the five-year mission.

I still have a feeling that McKennah is going to meet an untimely end during the final mission, and that will play a part into why Bones and Spock leave the service, and why Kirk takes a desk job.

This too is my my criticism of the series.
Not that I object to women having more prominent roles but it seems sometimes that shes taken Spock and McCoys Science and Medical expertise as well as their advisor roles. I keep waiting for the episode where its back to 'normal' but I'm running out of time.
Otherwise an excellent series and its such a shame it has to end too soon.

 

[Harvey]

That's why the Gooseneck Viewers were removed from the Bridge after The Cage,

Kirk's chair still has one of these viewers in "Where No Man Has Gone Before." In crew comments collected after the first pilot was completed, a number of changes to the bridge were suggested (including painting the bridge a neutral gray color to make it easier to light and adding extra steps down to the lower platform to make it easier to move actors around the set), but removing these viewers (called "television communicators" in the comments) was not suggested. In fact, these comments state that, "the units should be lit only when actually in use for communications," suggesting that, at least at that time (April 1965) the intent was to keep them.

 

[O_Kav]

Kirk's chair still has one of these viewers in "Where No Man Has Gone Before." In crew comments collected after the first pilot was completed, a number of changes to the bridge were suggested (including painting the bridge a neutral gray color to make it easier to light and adding extra steps down to the lower platform to make it easier to move actors around the set), but removing these viewers (called "television communicators" in the comments) was not suggested. In fact, these comments state that, "the units should be lit only when actually in use for communications," suggesting that, at least at that time (April 1965) the intent was to keep them.

Oh, yeah, I forgot about the viewer on Kirk's chair from the Second Pilot. Beyond 1965 the prop appears in Dagger of The Mind and the additional shots for The Menagerie. The oval visor shows up separated from the arm a few times too. Yup, early on they wanted to use it. After they produced The Corbomite Maneuver, it just cost too much to use them as comms like @Noname Given mentioned and they went for those little blue boxes that resemble Ship/Submarine intercoms.

 

[Firebird]

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[Zaminhon]

Mr. Scott does tipsy well and I'd definitely like some extra hot pizza.

 

[Shatinator]

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THANK YOU !!!

That was sooo needed!