The Good In Every STAR TREK Episode...

I don't know. Number One seems a bit hurt by that statement. I bet if the show had continued with Pike and Number One, they would have explored that.

 

Heck, they didn't even make it out of "The Cage" without literally exploring the possibility of Pike and Number One getting together in the context of Adam and Eve, explicitly establishing that Number One has sexual fantasizes about Pike, as revealed by the Keeper, and establishing that Colt finds Pike attractive as well, thus staking out a potential love triangle.

 

Good point. They definitely did set up a love triangle there.

Oh, we missed out on so much.

 

Having trouble finding the straightforward "good" in Triskelion, as opposed to its having stuff you enjoy laughing at, that weren't meant to be funny.

Well the guy in charge had a great look and presence to him.

 

One good thing in "That Which Survives":

UHURA: What happened?
SPOCK: The occipital area of my head seems to have impacted with the arm of the chair.

 

Also having a female helmsperson for once.
And Lee Meriwether was good and garnered sympathy as the "enemy" seeming to regret the murders.

 

The basic story I can see made as a Next Gen episode, minus all the talk about "oh she's so beautiful and yet so evil" That basic story, sized up briefly at the very end, mostly as guesswork from McCoy?... is interesting, and gets overwhelmed by the tacky attempts to amaze us with Lee Meriwether's ethereal deadly beauty.
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I hated that costume, till as an adult it started to make me think of early Earth civilizations, which must have been the point. Still, sometimes original Trek really managed to undermine beauty while wanting us to be amazed with it. Sometimes it was a fairly ugly costume like this, sometimes it was hair pulled back so tightly in a bun that the actress's face looked skull like...
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The crisis with Spock and Scotty working to stop the ship from exploding, classic Trek scene. Isolate that part, and you'd never know it was supposed to be from a "bad" episode.
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I always loved the weird turning-on-edge disappearing effect, plus that music.
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I'd have kept that, given Lee M something less tacky, more dignified to wear (revealing or not revealing), and given her recorded self more exposition at the end. A hologram of her in her surroundings, maybe showing life before things went wrong, all that would have been perfect.
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So many rough edges... like the crew moving and watching Lee while in the transporter beam... Ivan Dixon's replacement on Hogan's Heroes giving perhaps the worst reading of one of the worst lines ever on Trek...
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I actually envy Gene Roddenberry's (I assume that's where the attitude comes from) ability to be SO in awe of the ethereal wonder of feminine beauty that he can show the crew brought to their knees in wonder at it. Thing is, they'll moon over the beauty of a guest star... then return to working side by side on the ship with women professionals who are every bit as beautiful, without being bowled over by them. And the womens' uniforms beat the guest stars' costumes by a parsec.

 

The Spock/Scotty crisis scene was what I hate about "That Which Survives" the most. The excitement of the scene was good. However for one thing Spock was being a jerk the entire scene. And if I were Scotty I would have been tempted to punch him in the face, Spock was being uber pedantic, uber disdainful, superior, criticising Scotty for making useless comments that he himself was making. If Spock was like this for every episode I would have never been a fan of Star Trek. Also the scene didn't make sense, Scotty was telling Spock to eject him if the flow thingamy went higher than something or other but the ship was going to blow in 30 seconds anyway. What was Spock going to do in those extra 30 seconds of life? Ridiculous.

I like Lee Meriwether in it. Perhaps it was her skill as an actress that made me ignore any bad outfits

I agree its ridiculous how Kirk and his crew go gah gah over guest stars when indeed they do have beautiful women they work with every day. Like Pike had never seen a woman on the bridge before. Maybe in the "Man Trap" and "Shore Leave" and ":Wolf in the Fold" where sailors on leave want to date "dancers" and to have a "good time" and not see the girl the next day. And maybe Kirk wasn't allowed to date his crew so he only saw beauty outside it as being obtainable.

 

C Leer: Oh I'm not claiming Spock was particularly "likeable" in that part of TWS. Vulcans are not warm and fuzzy. From his point of view, he's just being practical, though. We know Spock means well and has some blind spots where human emotions etc are concerned, so we forgive him. So there's friction, and an interesting character results.

There isn't any character who is pleasant in all circumstances, because no people are like that. But in TWS, we're getting classic Spock, which is more interesting than some plain old amiable nice guy, any day...

 

I'm going to allow this except that I will definitely overrule the objection as to Deela and Droxine. Also, Odona's garb is really quite charming.

I really like the Spock/Scotty interaction in TWS. They did go a bit overboard with Spock being a tool, but by the time they get down to solving the crisis, the dialogue is pretty good. I particularly like (not going to check for accuracy): "Please begin. I'll explain" and Scotty just sort of sitting back and laughing after the crisis passes while Spock goes on over the intercom about sentimentality. However, I don't get the "jettison me!!" dialogue either.

I thought Lee Meriwether was excellent in it as well. I did not particularly like her outfit; I just thought the design was unflattering, even to Lee Meriwether, which is really saying something.

 

I just hate hate Spock in this episode

Spock was so obnoxious, disrespectful to Scott and correcting the helmswoman to three decimal places whatever.

He never did that in any other episode to that extent at least unless it was McCoy. He hassled Bailey but Bailey deserved it and well McCoy deserves it too.

I can only think Spock was on his period or was taking advantage of Kirk being away to whip the humans into shape

 

It was an exploitive B-movie sort of episode, therefore eye-candy for the Y chromosome crowd was its only good.

 

Spock's Brain,

... a literal demonstration of the fact that a beautiful woman can make a man lose his mind and that only his friends can help him get it back.

 

No, that's not the ONLY good thing...!!

SPOCK: Your statement is not only illogical, but also unworthy of refutation.

And..

SCOTT: I'll sit on the warp engines and nurse them myself!
SPOCK: That position, Mr. Scott, would not only be unavailing...but also...undignified.

 

"That Which Survives": 1) The landing party moving in the transporter beam and witnessing the death of the transporter operator while partially energized for an extended period. 2) Seeing a new area inside engineering with fancy VFX.

 

I agree that Spock was out of character for Spock, although a lot of that Vulcan in Enterprise's personality seems based on this one episode, I've always assumed that blow to the head affected him. It's not that he didn't do anything like Spock but he seemed to have lost over a decade's worth of working with humans and couldn't cope with any type of emotions. I really like That Which Survives, that strange behavior by Spock is it's biggest negative.

The effect that the Losira simulacrum uses for teleport in and out was one of the best and creepiest things I've seen.

 

It was very cool. The singing used during it added to the eeriness, IMO.

 

Spock gets testy about humans and their emotions, and is somewhat clueless about them sometimes too. Spock in That Which Survives is pure Spock, being as Spocklike as he could possibly be.

Maybe some fans only expect Spock to get difficult like this with Dr McCoy. But he has this sort of relationship with the human race. He believes we should manage or do away with our emotions. He thinks jokes, colloquialisms, and superstitions are wastes of time. He is going to express all this a bit more freely when in charge, without Kirk to tick off...

Spock in TWS isn't mean, nasty, or anything especially negative. He's always thinking this stuff about humans and holds his tongue. Here we see a day when he speaks a little more freely. Star Fleet officers can take it!

 

TOS"The Galileo Seven", the introduction of the Shuttlecraft featured extensively in this episode.

 

Strangely enough the BBC showed Galileo 7 after Metamorphosis back in the seventies!!!
JB