The Best and Worst Episode Titles

You can't properly appreciate Hamlet if you haven't read it in the original Klingon.

"Is there in truth no beauty?" is a somewhat roundabout but perfectly correct interrogative sentence. It don't need no stinking commas!

 

Yeah, I wonder if maybe the nursery rhyme is not as familiar to modern fans as it was back in 1966. Never bothered me because I recognized the quotation.

As for "Is There in Truth No Beauty?" . . . I love that title, but I'll admit that I see it mangled a lot, so it's obviously hard for people to get straight.

 

The latter, you can think of as "Is there, in truth, no beauty?" or "is there no beauty in truth?".

 

Both are six words long but the second seems so much easier to say!
JB

 

Actually, I'm not a modern fan at all - I'm 46 years old! I guess the "little girls" thing is just one of my personal triggers; but since no one else objects to the name, I'll defer to popular opinion.

 

Object if you like. It's not a literal title, it's meant to invoke imagery as other's have said. I never liked that rhyme anyway, I don't see any reason to try to make you like it but it does the job for the episode of trying to ask what makes a person. I personally think Kirk should have been a bit more conciliatory to Korby at the end, maybe he didn't get the chance because of Andrea but still, in a universe with mind transfers happening why couldn't that still have been considered Dr. Korby?

Also, I would think that Starfleet would be very interested in those machines, I could see a corp of security forces that were android copies of officers that they could beam to an enemy ship to cause a whole lot of damage before being destroyed, I'd think almost all security should be androids to prevent so much loss of life. Just think if all of those red shirts were just copies? They could have brought a brigade of them to Organia to fight the Klingons on the ground, they could use them in any hazardous situation. Why risk people to poison flowers and exploding rocks?

The Doomsday Machine is a literal title, it's very specific.

 

Another thing about the title of "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" The author, Robert Bloch, besides an author of science fiction and fantasy, is well-known for his horror stories and scripts. I think the nursery rhyme, which is incidentally "What Are Little Boys Made Of?", itself is creepy, as are many nursery rhymes if you take them literally, and using it as the basis for the title appropriately sets a creepy mood for the episode.

 

I love, love, love Bloch and what he contributed to Star Trek, but that title just does nothing for me. At least it's not "Mission: Korby!" or something.

 

Have you seen any of his Amicus horrors too, Phase?
JB

 

I don't know, JB. When I watch this scene I seem to get really distracted by something other than the cheesy dialogue.

 

Nope! What are those, JB?

Yeah, Kirk's shirt looks good there. And the dialogue in BAON is solid.
But yes. Kelinda and Drea are, shall we say, unreal. By any other name and all that.

 

The House That Dripped Blood (1970) Asylum (1972) Torture Garden (1968) Which has nothing to do with any torture or that sort of thing strangely enough, Phase!
And sadly Barbara Bouchet has never got my attention, certainly not as Kelinda in that episode my Lord Beard!
JB

 

They could have named "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky" "McCoy's Blood" instead.

 

The Best and Worst Episode Titles

 

I prefer to change the title to "Henoch's Powerplay" or "Henoch Was Here"

(sorry about the previous "no post")

 

Leonard Nimoy really impressed me as Henoch. He got to display some real acting skills, rather than just having to say "Sensors show no life forms aboard, captain."

 

To elaborate, Amicus was a British horror film company that, back in the seventies, put out a lot of horror-anthologies movies. The ones above were scripted by Bloch, often adapting his own short stories. Amicus also put out a non-anthology film, THE SKULL, expanded from a Bloch story as well.

Amicus was one of Hammer Film's competitors back in the day, often employing the same talent, so that today people people tend to blur them together sometimes.

And, you know, "The House That Dripped Blood" does kinda sound like a vintage ST title, although maybe a little more gruesome.

 

Worst: Elaan of Troyius
Best: The Squire of Gothos.

I like it because it combines something familiar, a squire, with something unfamiliar and alien, Gothos.
Elaan of Troyius sounds like Helen of Troy, but has nothing in common with that story. The title is a tease.

 

The Savage Curtain always puts me in mind of the shower curtain in “Psycho”. I half exepect to see Norman Bates materialise. It’s very distracting.

 

Believe it or not, I didn't put the Elaan of Troyius/Helen of Troy connection together for a very long time. But then I always thought it was Who Mourns for Adonis, too.