"The Trouble With Tribbles" is the most overrated episode of TOS...

[BillJ]

Re: "The Trouble With Tribbles" is the most overrated episode of TOS..

Anyway, even if all 4 were good, that wouldn't be inconsistent with there being more bad episodes than good after Tribbles.

Like I said before, I find quite a bit of good material after "Trouble..."

 

[JimZipCode]

Re: "The Trouble With Tribbles" is the most overrated episode of TOS..

Like I said before, I find quite a bit of good material after "Trouble..."

Some, sure. Hell, I'm the guy who likes Turnabout Intruder – I probably have that in my top ten.

But what would you say about the ratio? Good material to bad? Was it different after Tribbles than before?

 

[BillJ]

Re: "The Trouble With Tribbles" is the most overrated episode of TOS..

But what would you say about the ratio? Good material to bad? Was it different after Tribbles than before?

Against what? Season three is its own beast as it was headed by different people behind-the-scenes. Personally, if I use "Trouble..." as a dividing line for season two (season two had a different feel than season one), I think the ratio is just about the same.

 

[mos6507]

Re: "The Trouble With Tribbles" is the most overrated episode of TOS..

I hate its prominence.

If that's the basis, what do you think of City on the Edge of Forever?

This is kind of the "Stairway to Heaven" syndrome where once something is lionized beyond a certain extent it always triggers an unfair backlash.

 

[JimZipCode]

Re: "The Trouble With Tribbles" is the most overrated episode of TOS..

if I use "Trouble..." as a dividing line for season two (season two had a different feel than season one), I think the ratio is just about the same.

Ok.

I never read enough behind-the-scenes stuff (I only picked up the Solow-Justman book yesterday) to draw those distinctions between seasons. Viewing the series as a whole, it seems obvious that there's a tipping point somewhere around the middle of season 2; one's exact placement could differ by a couple episodes forward or back.

By the way, I only find production order important for season 1. That's where you see the obvious development of the show unfolding. For season 2 I switch back to the aired order. Catspaw was always planned as the Halloween episode; I assume they produced it first to leave extra time for the optical effects. No reason to deviate from the order they presented them in.

...Wait, seriously? Ratio about the same? Amok Time, Doomsday Machine and Mirror Mirror are all before Tribbles in s2; Patterns of Force and Omega Glory are after. You don't see a difference in "quality ratio" there??

 

[BillJ]

Re: "The Trouble With Tribbles" is the most overrated episode of TOS..

...Wait, seriously? Ratio about the same? Amok Time, Doomsday Machine and Mirror Mirror are all before Tribbles in s2; Patterns of Force and Omega Glory are after. You don't see a difference in "quality ratio" there??

I actually have "The Omega Glory" in my personal top 10.

 

[BillJ]

Re: "The Trouble With Tribbles" is the most overrated episode of TOS..

This is kind of the "Stairway to Heaven" syndrome where once something is lionized beyond a certain extent it always triggers an unfair backlash.

The backlash isn't unfair if the material wasn't that great to begin with. There are quite a few Led Zeppelin songs I'd rather listen to than "Stairway...". Just like there are quite a few TOS episodes I rank higher than "The Trouble with Tribbles". It represents a nice change-of-pace episode, but is wildly overrated. Much like TNG's "The Inner Light" and DS9's "The Visitor".

 

[JimZipCode]

Re: "The Trouble With Tribbles" is the most overrated episode of TOS..

If that's the basis, what do you think of City on the Edge of Forever?
This is kind of the "Stairway to Heaven" syndrome where once something is lionized beyond a certain extent it always triggers an unfair backlash.

Sure; like loving U2 in 1980-83, until everyone else starts loving them; and then you decide you hate them. Or refusing to see Titanic because too many people revere it.

No, Tribbles was never a great exemplar of Star Trek. It's a fun-but-offbeat little episode, a departure from the normal tone of the series. A change of pace. It's nice to have an occasional change of pace, but that can't be the basis of the show. I don't think what we're doing in this thread is "backlash," I think it's more a tempering of placement. Tribbles is not part of the hot mess that is season 3; it's nowhere near the worst episode of Star Trek. But it's nowhere near the best either.

City is everything it's cracked up to be. It's an awesome hour of television. If it isn't the very best episode of Trek, and I'm not saying it isn't, then it's only because some other episode might showcase the premise a bit better. For example, Doomsday Machine has the ship and space opera elements much more prominent in it; Amok Time has an alien culture much more prominent in it. That might push one of those other episodes ahead. Or it might not.

(Those 3, in some order, are my "best episode" trinity.)

 

[JimZipCode]

Re: "The Trouble With Tribbles" is the most overrated episode of TOS..

I actually have "The Omega Glory" in my personal top 10.

Ha. Awesome. Rock on!

...is wildly overrated. Much like TNG's "The Inner Light" and DS9's "The Visitor".

OMG, I was so disappointed when I finally saw Inner Light. I'd been hearing a build-up for years, and I had finally started to acknowledge some decent qualities in TNG, had seen a couple eps that I thought were not bad. I was ready to give TNG's "best episode" a fair chance. And – nothing! That episode actually made me mad.

 

[Silvercrest]

Re: "The Trouble With Tribbles" is the most overrated episode of TOS..

And yet it was okay to keep running into parallel Earths.

But there was an actual reason for that: to make the series more affordable. I'm not sure Star Trek would've ever made it to air without them.

I'm fine with that. I'm also fine with Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planetary Development; i.e. something in-universe that explains it. But I recall that Gene, IRL, tried explaining it away by citing the vast infinity of the cosmos and the odds that things would be duplicated. (Apparently within a few light-years of Earth! )

So— to also complain about the odds of running into the same guy more than once is ... odd.

 

[BillJ]

Re: "The Trouble With Tribbles" is the most overrated episode of TOS..

OMG, I was so disappointed when I finally saw Inner Light. I'd been hearing a build-up for years, and I had finally started to acknowledge some decent qualities in TNG, had seen a couple eps that I thought were not bad. I was ready to give TNG's "best episode" a fair chance. And – nothing! That episode actually made me mad.

I felt the same way about Voyager's "Living Witness". I had missed it first run and didn't get to see it until several years later and it had built up quite the reputation as a great episode by then.

 

[Mudd]

Re: "The Trouble With Tribbles" is the most overrated episode of TOS..

Agree with the OP.