The Best and Worst Episode Titles

[Henoch]

Of course, knowing the definitions of the word Archon might give one some insight into why that name was chosen. Writers often pick names which are metaphors for some element in the story.

Good observation, M. I believe many Trek titles have a spin on the words to foreshadow the plot. I looked up the origin of "Archon" the last time I saw the episode, and was pleasantly surprised on how it related to the show.

Requiem for Methuselah is a good title for the episode! Methuselah being the longest lived of the Hebrew scribes could easily have been one of Flint's aliases and his oncoming death for being away from the earth would be very soon at that point!
JB

I dislike the title, JB, along with "A Taste of Armageddon" for another reason most people don't even think about. "Requiem", "Methuselah" and "Armageddon" are tongue-twisters. Thank God for my first grade nun teacher; she recognized I was blind as a bat and had dyslexia. The woman scared the shit out of me, but she knew her stuff.

 

[Commishsleer]

Of course, knowing the definitions of the word Archon might give one some insight into why that name was chosen. Writers often pick names which are metaphors for some element in the story.

Apparently Archons was the name of a club GR belonged to at Uni.
Nothing to do with the episode unless the members of the club dressed in old west outfits and attacked young ladies at the red hour.
Or they got stranded somewhere and disappeared and no-one knew what happened to them for a hundred years/minutes.

 

[Anthony Dawson]

That's great! I love that! Or "Ye Mighty and Despair," or maybe "Might(y) and Despair" or "Look Ye Mighty." Perhaps "Ye" was too archaic for a TOS title. But some variant like you suggested would have put Space Seed (oof; the title gets worse every time I type it thanks to the thoughts prompted by this thread) up there with "Who Mourns" in quoting Shelley. Such an improvement. Nice call.[/QUOTE]
Thanks

I also tried to come up with an alternative title for "Spock's Brain". I'm not entirely happy with it but here it is.

Transplanting brains reminded me of Frankenstein and since the brain is trapped in one place for most of the episode I thought "Prometheus Rebound"
There is a sort of pun in there. The brain ends up back where it started so it does 'rebound'.

Then I got quite excited when I realised the Eymorgs' brain case looks a little like a man tethered by his wrists and ankles in a semi Promethean pose.

In the end I think it's a bit too grandiose for what is probably the most disliked TOS episode.

 

[johnnybear]

You're not 'thee' Anthony Dawson are you?
JB

 

[Anthony Dawson]

You're not 'thee' Anthony Dawson are you?
JB

To misquote Arthur Dent, I'm an Anthony Dawson but whether I'm the Anthony Dawson depends what you mean

 

[Greg Cox]

Requiem for Methuselah is a good title for the episode! Methuselah being the longest lived of the Hebrew scribes could easily have been one of Flint's aliases and his oncoming death for being away from the earth would be very soon at that point!
JB

Yeah, I always liked that title, too. Very poetic and appropriate.

 

[Phaser Two]

While thinking more about Shakespearean titles in TOS I realized I didn't mention (maybe someone else did) "The Undiscovered Country," which is a little bit buried in Hamlet's "to be or not to be" soliloquy. (Well, to the extent anything can be buried in that speech.) So that was a nice piece of harking back to the "original 79" by the Star Trek VI writers.

 

[Anthony Dawson]

Apparently Archons was the name of a club GR belonged to at Uni.
Nothing to do with the episode unless the members of the club dressed in old west outfits and attacked young ladies at the red hour.
Or they got stranded somewhere and disappeared and no-one knew what happened to them for a hundred years/minutes.

That's really interesting, I never knew that.
Wikipedia says an Archon is a sort of Greek magistrate. Since GR came from a police family and studied criminology I'd guess his group was some sort of law society.

 

[johnnybear]

To misquote Arthur Dent, I'm an Anthony Dawson but whether I'm the Anthony Dawson depends what you mean

I was just having a bit of a laugh my friend! There was an actor called Anthony Dawson who was one of the stars of the first James Bond film, Dr.No (1962) and also Hammer Horror film Curse of The Werewolf (1961)
JB

 

[Phaser Two]

That's really interesting, I never knew that.
Wikipedia says an Archon is a sort of Greek magistrate. Since GR came from a police family and studied criminology I'd guess his group was some sort of law society.

Maybe, or it just borrowed from Greek connotations and trappings like fraternities and sororities. In any event I'm pretty sure the name for the lost ship was chosen because it sounded cool. And it does.

 

[Anthony Dawson]

I was just having a bit of a laugh my friend! There was an actor called Anthony Dawson who was one of the stars of the first James Bond film, Dr.No (1962) and also Hammer Horror film Curse of The Werewolf (1961)
JB

Having grown up a James Bond & Hammer fan in the 60s I know exactly who you mean. My friends would sometimes tease me but secretly I was pleased to see "my" name in the credits.

Around the same there was also an italian film director Antonio Margheriti who made several schlocky horror/sci fi films under the pseudonym Anthony M Dawson

 

[Maurice]

Apparently Archons was the name of a club GR belonged to at Uni.
Nothing to do with the episode unless the members of the club dressed in old west outfits and attacked young ladies at the red hour.
Or they got stranded somewhere and disappeared and no-one knew what happened to them for a hundred years/minutes.

And you think Roddenberry was ignorant of what the word meant?

 

[Anthony Dawson]

Maybe, or it just borrowed from Greek connotations and trappings like fraternities and sororities. In any event I'm pretty sure the name for the lost ship was chosen because it sounded cool. And it does.

I'm intrigued by the workings of fraternities/sororities because we don't have anything like that here. A lot of what I think I know comes from the likes of 'Animal House', so is probably laughably inaccurate.

And yes, Archon is a very cool name. GR and the writers seemed to have a knack for coming up with names that didn't just sound good but also plausible as something a ship of the line would be called (Reliant, Intrepid, Valiant et al)

 

[Phaser Two]

I'm intrigued by the workings of fraternities/sororities because we don't have anything like that here. A lot of what I think I know comes from the likes of 'Animal House', so is probably laughably inaccurate.

And yes, Archon is a very cool name. GR and the writers seemed to have a knack for coming up with names that didn't just sound good but also plausible as something a ship of the line would be called (Reliant, Intrepid, Valiant et al)

Depends where you are as far as the frats. For some places AH probably looked like a documentary.

Good call on the ship names, but GR et al. can't take full credit. Intrepid and Valiant both have pretty good histories as names for British/American ships. The most recent (I believe) Intrepid was a distinguished USN aircraft carrier laid down mid-WWII and which is now a museum ship in New York City on the Hudson. During TOS she would have still been in service. Valiant is a recuring British Navy name including one that fought in WWII and would have been quite recent in memory at the time of TOS. Reliant, though, was a more original choice that fit in perfectly with, as you said, what USN/RN ship names are supposed to sound like.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I'm intrigued by the workings of fraternities/sororities because we don't have anything like that here. A lot of what I think I know comes from the likes of 'Animal House', so is probably laughably inaccurate.

Depends where you are as far as the frats. For some places AH probably looked like a documentary.

It kind of was. The screenplay was written by Doug Kenney, Harold Ramis, and Chris Miller, all reminiscing about their real life fraternity experiences and then exaggerating them for comedic effect. Chris Miller even wrote a book entitled The Real Animal House about his fraternity times at Dartmouth in the early 60s. He'd previously written about them as short stories in The National Lampoon before the movie.

Be warned: There's a LOT of puking. Or "booting," as the Dartmouth boys called it.

 

[johnnybear]

Having grown up a James Bond & Hammer fan in the 60s I know exactly who you mean. My friends would sometimes tease me but secretly I was pleased to see "my" name in the credits.

Around the same there was also an italian film director Antonio Margheriti who made several schlocky horror/sci fi films under the pseudonym Anthony M Dawson

Yes, I have heard of that director and I used to think it was the same guy! He was also the very first Blofeld, unseen of course except for his hands stroking the cat!
The name Archon has also turned up twice in Space 1999! Firstly as an alien leader of a race following Voyager One back to earth so that they could destroy the world because of the destruction the probe did to their planets! The second was a leader of a powerful race called Dorcons and played by Second Doctor Who, Patrick Troughton, who wanted to achieve immortality at the expense of Maya, the show's resident alien!
JB

 

[Phaser Two]

You know, sometimes we all feel like a little bit of a Dorcon.

Right? Er, anyone?

 

[Anthony Dawson]

It kind of was. The screenplay was written by Doug Kenney, Harold Ramis, and Chris Miller, all reminiscing about their real life fraternity experiences and then exaggerating them for comedic effect. Chris Miller even wrote a book entitled The Real Animal House about his fraternity times at Dartmouth in the early 60s. He'd previous written about them as short stories in The National Lampoon before the movie.

Be warned: There's a LOT of puking. Or "booting," as the Dartmouth boys called it.

Now I'm really intrigued. And perhaps a bit nauseous

 

[Anthony Dawson]

Yes, I have heard of that director and I used to think it was the same guy! He was also the very first Blofeld, unseen of course except for his hands stroking the cat!
The name Archon has also turned up twice in Space 1999! Firstly as an alien leader of a race following Voyager One back to earth so that they could destroy the world because of the destruction the probe did to their planets! The second was a leader of a powerful race called Dorcons and played by Second Doctor Who, Patrick Troughton, who wanted to achieve immortality at the expense of Maya, the show's resident alien!
JB

Space 1999 had some weird names.
Linking back to Trek, I read when Fred Freiberger first arrived in the UK he saw a sign for "Luton" and thinking it a really obscure strange looking word insisted it be used in an episode ("The Rules Of Luton").
The S1999 production team tried to talk him out of it because Luton is a largish town on the outskirts of London, so most Brits would know it.

 

[johnnybear]

More like Bedfordshire, Anthony, but it's close enough!
JB