That Which Survives

[Captain Worf]

I enjoyed this episode as a child, but I re-watched it on DVD last night for the first time in over ten years and it was pretty horrible. The dialogue is weak, none of the characters act like they are really in danger, and, as others have said, Spock is written as an asshole. After watching this, it's easy to see why Nimoy complained about the dialogue in season 3. Yet I still find the episode watchable if only for the childhood memories attached to it.

 

[erastus25]

Yeah, I never understood why they made Spock so ridiculous. He almost becomes a caricature of himself, which really sucks. I'm surprised Nimoy agreed to play Spock this way when they were originally making the episode. It seems like the actor could have done a lot to tone it down.

 

[Captain Worf]

Yeah, I've wondered the same thing. Maybe he didn't care at the time since he figured the show was pretty much done, and noone expected Trek to resurface.

 

[KeepOnTrekking]

I always saw Spock's first command in "Galileo Seven" as his decision that command was not his best destiny as he often reiterated in "Enterprise Incident" and "Wrath of Khan." This ill fitting is see time and again in "Paradise Syndrome" and "That Which Survives." I always saw "That Which Survives" as coming after "Tholian Web" in the Trekverse. Kirk admonishes Spock to seek out McCoy and temper his logic with McCoy's intuitive insight. In "That Which Survives" both Kirk and McCoy are stranded on the planet. Spock has lost his sources of balance thus he's coming across as a caricature again. I do see Spock trying to become more "familiar" with Scotty as a substitute Bones here as he tries to understand Scotty's "feeling" about the ship and his feeble attempts of joking with Scotty (nusring the engines, etc.).

 

[Trekwatcher]

While I do not think this is a horrible episode, much of the shipboard scenes are very stilted, even the big scene of Scotty in the Jeffries tube at the end-you really do not feel much of a sense of danger, and the tool he uses looks pretty lame.

I think the planet bound scenes hold up better, IMHO.

Of note, I just saw a recent commercial with Lee Meriwether, and her voice has not changed one bit in 40 years-I closed my eyes and it was like Losira all over again!