That’s because threads like this are fun and entertaining, PLUS the more serious TrekBBS members tend to avoid this type.
The least disliked episode 2021 - TOS Season Three
- Thread starter BlueStuff
- Start date
That’s because threads like this are fun and entertaining, PLUS the more serious TrekBBS members tend to avoid this type.
Damn. The entire season done in less than 10 hours. I missed this one as I was sleeping after coming from work.
"THE THOLIAN WEB" is a great choice. Definitely in the top 3 or 5.
"THE THOLIAN WEB" is a great choice. Definitely in the top 3 or 5.
I'm a little disappointed "And the Children Shall Lead" was chopped first, because I genuinely think it's one of the creepiest episodes in Star Trek, far more than it is lame. When I get the chance I see that back to back with Catspaw on Halloween because of how out there it is.
I mean, these kids not only danced over the graves of their parents, but mind-bent a transporter officer to willingly beam two dudes into interstellar space, never to be seen again. I don't like ruminating on the fate of those men.
Much grumbling is made about Melvin Belli's flat delivery as the Gorgan but I think it always felt more unsettling to me how matter-of-factly he misdirected the kids to do evil. Also, how isn't his phase-out with a disfigured face more nightmare inducing?
I can't tell whose worse, these kids doing evil or Charlie, who at least had the decency to kinda sorta know what he was doing was wrong.
Anyway, Tholian Web is great. One of the handful of episodes to feature an Enterprise Sister Ship, a nifty alien race TNG will promptly forget about, and some scenes where Spock and McCoy have to figure out how to carry on missing one of the trinity. Also, Uhura doing more than just saying Hailing Frequencies. Lot to love!
I mean, these kids not only danced over the graves of their parents, but mind-bent a transporter officer to willingly beam two dudes into interstellar space, never to be seen again. I don't like ruminating on the fate of those men.
Much grumbling is made about Melvin Belli's flat delivery as the Gorgan but I think it always felt more unsettling to me how matter-of-factly he misdirected the kids to do evil. Also, how isn't his phase-out with a disfigured face more nightmare inducing?
I can't tell whose worse, these kids doing evil or Charlie, who at least had the decency to kinda sorta know what he was doing was wrong.
Anyway, Tholian Web is great. One of the handful of episodes to feature an Enterprise Sister Ship, a nifty alien race TNG will promptly forget about, and some scenes where Spock and McCoy have to figure out how to carry on missing one of the trinity. Also, Uhura doing more than just saying Hailing Frequencies. Lot to love!
Anyone? Well, yeah, pretty much every thread on Wink of an Eye contains that observation.
One of the most interesting explanations or theories IMO is that the hyperacceleration was more of a dimensional shift that appeared to have some of the same qualities as literally being able to move like The Flash, but wasn't quite the same. There are some references in the final script that support this idea.The lameness of "And the Children Shall Lead" greatly outweighs its creepiness. Perhaps this is, for me, related to the fact that it was given one of the prime, initial slots in the season, therefore a mostly-original musical score - in this case by George Duning. Despite the presumably unavoidable, repeated inclusion of "ring around the rosie," it has its moments - I especially like his use of the four-note motif, C-B-D-B flat (down minor 2nd, up minor 3rd, down major 3rd) in the fadeout/producer credits - but he should never have been wasted on this piece of tripe.
September 6, 1968 was the recording date for ol' George to conduct and record both "Is There in Truth No Beauty?" and "The Empath." Wish I could have been there instead of in an 8th-grade classroom.
September 6, 1968 was the recording date for ol' George to conduct and record both "Is There in Truth No Beauty?" and "The Empath." Wish I could have been there instead of in an 8th-grade classroom.
Yeah, but there's an understated point about how easy it can be to trick children, not to mention seeing a bunch of kids happily dance around their recently-deceased and unburied corpses of their parents - like a warped version of "Lord of the Flies" only not as developed and plot problems start to spiral from there... Add in other novel set pieces involving "transporters gone wild" (talk about grizzly, especially given how TOS often was prior to season 3 where everything always ends shiny and happy), I think the story had some potential just waiting in the wings, but a lot of season 3 just didn't seem to care in the writing department beyond just chugging out the basics.
But all in ten hours... these types of threads are the best as people talk and interact on stories that don't often get brought up. Maybe we can have a "best two out of three" for each season?
Well, I suppose it's up to me to defend probably one of the most hated episodes in all Star Trek.
Possibly because I'm convinced that "Spock's Brain" was meant to be a Comedy Episode.
I recall hearing that when Fred Freiberger took over the show, he laid down a dictum that
"Science Fiction should not be funny."
And then someone came along and handed him a comedy script.
So, following the new producer's dictates, they did a comedy episode, written for laughs, STRAIGHT.
Lines like "Brain and brain! What is brain!" is a gag, but you'd never know it the way it was shot.
The exchange where Kirk, McCoy and Scotty are saying
"This gentleman is keeping us from our property!"
"I think science should provide an answer!"
"It does, Captain."
"Agreed, Doctor." (And then the goofy fist fight starts)
reads like it was pulled straight out of a Bing Crosby & Bob Hope Road Picture!
Really. I'd bet if someone were to pull out the existing soundtrack and plug in music cues from "The Trouble With Tribbles" the entire episode would completely change.
"I never should have reconnected his mouth!" - Dr. Leonard McCoy
Possibly because I'm convinced that "Spock's Brain" was meant to be a Comedy Episode.
I recall hearing that when Fred Freiberger took over the show, he laid down a dictum that
"Science Fiction should not be funny."
And then someone came along and handed him a comedy script.
So, following the new producer's dictates, they did a comedy episode, written for laughs, STRAIGHT.
Lines like "Brain and brain! What is brain!" is a gag, but you'd never know it the way it was shot.
The exchange where Kirk, McCoy and Scotty are saying
"This gentleman is keeping us from our property!"
"I think science should provide an answer!"
"It does, Captain."
"Agreed, Doctor." (And then the goofy fist fight starts)
reads like it was pulled straight out of a Bing Crosby & Bob Hope Road Picture!
Really. I'd bet if someone were to pull out the existing soundtrack and plug in music cues from "The Trouble With Tribbles" the entire episode would completely change.
"I never should have reconnected his mouth!" - Dr. Leonard McCoy
Illogical, only because season 3 was cutting corners everywhere while playing "storytelling by numbers". I like the base idea, but the execution - despite the raised dais for the earthquake scene and the peril on the ship - was too lacking to uphold it all. Even better: Add in another guest star or two as other Kolllandant images and-- oh dear, that would have made for an even more depressing episode ending, never mind a series finale even more bleak than Blake's 7 ever was.
As a kid, the clothing aspect flew over me at warp two. Even accepting that at face value and that's difficult to do unless Garth is actually naked and can form clothing to his wishes and all while not feeling self-conscious to even the smallest degree, the episode doesn't do much with the third time in TOS with a goodie goes bad (first the evil Doctor in "Dagger of the Mind", then Captain "Crunch" Tracy in "The Omega Glory", now Garth o' Axanar and his tinpot mustache-twirling scheme that's the thinnest of them all.)
I'd love to pretend the alien fritter of the week was going to let them all die, since it could keep reanimating the same non-trapped 40 crew along with the 40 Klingons and for more than 40 days and 40 nights.
The base concept is very season 3 - often different if not outright original, but with poor execution. Rocky there was still doing evil things and not realizing that in his quest to understand what evil was. "Show us good versus evil or I'll kill you and destroy your ship too" is what Rocky is pretty much saying and the irony of the piece eludes him. Maybe he doesn't understand because he's stoned out of his mind... then again, had Kirk told him to say what he did to a mirror and there'd be no episode, I guess...
Sci-fi can be funny, as Quark, Red Dwarf, Orville, Lower Decks, Mork & Mindy, and others have proven. Given a lot of season 2 TOS episodes trying to be funny and not really succeeding, Freiberger had a point. Of course, swapping a comedy act with a soap opera scene didn't do too much good either. Or he was ahead of his time by x number of decades... his take on Space1999 was a bizarre mixed bag as well, with some great ideas along with some incredibly bad ones... I don't think he ever meant to be labeled as "show killer", but that's what he's associated with for both shows. He wrote a decent episode of "All in the Family", for one... he had worked on numerous westerns, noting TOS was sold as "wagon train in space" so on a superficial level it's easy to see why he'd replace Roddenberry... heck, despite a couple issues, Space1999's "Beta Cloud" episode he penned had quite a bit of potential and is one of the better examples of that season...
I recall reading Spock's Brain was made on a dare because everyone played everything straight. Granted, playing it up as camp can be even more touchy, and the Batman episodes that went that route have clearly aged the worst of the bunch.
Even Spock's Brain had some novel ideas, if not shortsighted. Replacing a computer with a biological brain, one that can't last 10k years, to control a glorified HVAC system, still needed some refining to justify what makes the conscious brain preferable to a machine responding to preprogrammed conditions. Or who built their entire magical system, Teacher and all, to begin with, and why. There's a prequel nobody wants to see made, I'm sure.
I'd like to associate myself with every word of this post. Spock's Brain is pure entertainment, and enjoyable too. Apart from the intriguing science fiction concepts of a humanoid brain running a society, the male/female schism, and the Teacher, it's an episode meant to be enjoyed. Scott K. is right - if the music was tee-hee-hee like so many times in S2, this episode would be treated more like I, Mudd and less like a transgression against nature. And in fact, it's more entertaining than I, Mudd. Much more so, arguably.
I always feel the need to mention the great bridge conference where Kirk solicits ideas from Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov. Great stuff. Also, the recently passed Marj Dusay really does an excellent acting job as Kara.
People who dislike Spock's Brain - - is it possible you may need to relax and reevaluate? Just a tad?
Whenever we start discussing "Spock's Brain" I always like to share this article, which I agree with.
https://www.metv.com/stories/in-defense-of-spocks-brain
https://www.metv.com/stories/in-defense-of-spocks-brain
Spock's Brain was silly, but Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (my rated worst) tries my patience. Maybe because the directing is so different from the rest of Star Trek. The yo-yo zoom on the red alert siren is cute because Frank Gorshin is in the episode, but it's too jarring for me to accept.
Also it feels like they spend 20 minutes jogging around the Enterprise.
Herbert!
Von Karajan?
Does anyone know where "Herbert!" comes from?
The way to Eden is just weird.
The way to Eden is just weird.
I think it's explained in the episode, although I don't remember the explanation. Something some bureaucrat named Herbert that was inflexible and a rule sticker.... something like that. Doesn't really matter... these assholes were only protected because one of them was the son of someone high on the food chain... Otherwise they likely all have been safely put in jail without a second thought and not given a chance to burn their feet...
All the hippies I have met were rather odd some of them really odd, but one thing they never were is aggressive. This episode is just crap!!!
There was some vague explanation or other in the story. I just wondered if there was a reason the writers chose that.
I think the 3rd season in general and this episode in particular are just way too influenced by the campy 1960s Batman.
Both Star Trek and Lost in Space suffered from the same affliction that way.
Forget making sense and just do something wacky.
I would not have named him in a million years.
Similar threads
