Things I Have Noticed on a TOS Rewatch

[Timo]

There may be some "hidden character" to Kirk, yes, but the episodic nature hides it way too well for it to count. On screen, Kirk is a cardboard hero, until Paramount resources emerge to give him meatier character development.

The cartoon treatment we get from TOS allows us to believe in all sorts of Kirks. None of those is a misunderstanding as such, just a choice - be it personal, political, zeitgeist or whatever. Objectively looking, Kirk isn't really even given the dignity of recovering between episodes, as he often has to recover in time for the final scene and its mandatory levity. And the fact also remains that he doesn't return to dwell on his past losses except in that one case.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Warped9]

The fact that Kirk's remorse and sense of guilt over the deaths of Captain Garrovick and half the Farragut's crew (as well as those killed by Kodos) resurface decades later argues that those deaths did affect him.

And not everyone wallows in obvious grief like some others might. Kirk doesn't have to wear his personal grief on his sleeve for all to see. Indeed as a commander he has to submerge or at least veil many of his own feelings. But they are still there nonetheless.

Many people, and not necessarily just those in military service, experience intense grief and despondency over the death of people close to them yet still manage to continue without obvious signs of what they experienced. No one else might ever know until or unless the individual chooses to speak of it. Many people face death in many unpleasant forms (doctors, nurses, police, paramedics, fire fighters, military personnel, etc) and yet can appear completely unmoved on the outside at least to many unfamiliar with them as individuals.

 

[Commishsleer]

There may be some "hidden character" to Kirk, yes, but the episodic nature hides it way too well for it to count. On screen, Kirk is a cardboard hero, until Paramount resources emerge to give him meatier character development.

The cartoon treatment we get from TOS allows us to believe in all sorts of Kirks. None of those is a misunderstanding as such, just a choice - be it personal, political, zeitgeist or whatever. Objectively looking, Kirk isn't really even given the dignity of recovering between episodes, as he often has to recover in time for the final scene and its mandatory levity. And the fact also remains that he doesn't return to dwell on his past losses except in that one case.

Timo Saloniemi

Sometimes Kirk isn't given the dignity of recovering between episodes but sometimes he is. Critical episodes where Edith, Rayna and Miramanee died Kirk mourned at the end of each episode. He was so distraught at the end of "Requiem for Methuselah" that Spock needed to intervene.

Yes and in the next episode Kirk was probably picking up, because that is the nature of episodic TV.

 

[InklingStar]

* Michael Ansara is still awesome as ever as Kang. That is all. "Only a fool fights in a burning house."

 

[Noname Given]

Of course Kirk faced death. But he always found a way to escape it. Only in TWoK did that escape require the life of his best friend, which made it different. Up until that point in the movie, he had been escaping no-win scenarios the same way he did in the original series. The prefix codes and the hours/days trick were just two more "cheats" that saved the day, not unlike the corbomite maneuver or talking the M5 to death and leaving the shields down for Commodore Wesley. In the situation at the end of TWoK, however, he has run out of tricks, he has run out of ideas. All he can do is wait for Scotty to perform another unexpected engineering miracle or for Spock to suggest a scientific solution.

I have to agree with Warped9 in that Kirk faced death (and plenty of 'no win' scenarios where he lost someone dear to him/that he looked up to (in Operation: Annihilate and the record of his service aboard the U.S.S. Farragut in Obsession) along with ALL the other instances sited by Warped9. Kirk lost crew (redshirts) many times too due to his command decisions and like a good commander, learned from those instances and had to learn to live with it.

By your logic; any Star Fleet Captain still alive would have never faced death yet. Kirk faced death MANY times, and survived, sometimes by his wits and sometimes by sheer luck (see Errand of Mercy where Kirk admits such) - but he faced death; and suffered loss of those close to him PRIOR to the situation in TWoK.

 

[Timo]

We can speculate that he did. Yet we never saw that he would have suffered.

Let's assume Kirk actually felt bad about losing all those redshirts. Wouldn't that show in his personal or professional demeanor somehow? Yet he doesn't grow more considerate or more callous in sending his personnel to die, or show increased or decreased interest in his surviving relatives (say, the other two nephews or his potentially surviving parents). He's just a cold fish, the occasional two-minute breakdown nothwithstanding.

Which is a welcome trait in a young officer sent to the distant frontier to fight impossible odds for five years straight, full marks for that! But Kirk can grow out of it, and apparently eventually does. In TOS, he's immortal. In TFS, he's mortal, at least for a brief while. Plausible, convincing, touching, and well written; it would be a grievous error to write Kirk in his fifties as the exact same character as Kirk in his thirties.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Warped9]

We can speculate that he did. Yet we never saw that he would have suffered.

Let's assume Kirk actually felt bad about losing all those redshirts. Wouldn't that show in his personal or professional demeanor somehow? Yet he doesn't grow more considerate or more callous in sending his personnel to die, or show increased or decreased interest in his surviving relatives (say, the other two nephews or his potentially surviving parents). He's just a cold fish, the occasional two-minute breakdown nothwithstanding.

Which is a welcome trait in a young officer sent to the distant frontier to fight impossible odds for five years straight, full marks for that! But Kirk can grow out of it, and apparently eventually does. In TOS, he's immortal. In TFS, he's mortal, at least for a brief while. Plausible, convincing, touching, and well written; it would be a grievous error to write Kirk in his fifties as the exact same character as Kirk in his thirties.

Timo Saloniemi

I've already anserwed this so I'm not going to bother answering it again.

 

[Timo]

Well, I'm repeating myself here, too, with these "by your logic" things.

The bottom line is that Kirk ought to be the best expert to how he feels about things. We have no business contradicting him. If he says one thing one day and another a different day, that's not a contradiction. If he says one thing and evidence says another, that's not a contradiction, either. That's how people work. Seeing Kirk be people for once is refreshing.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[InklingStar]

Back on topic:

* I noticed that in several season 1 episodes, Scotty worried when the Enterprise got up past warp 5 or 6. The ship shook, and he reported that she cannot take much more of this. "Arena" is a good example. Late in season 2, the Kelvins modified the ship's engines to go faster and cross the galactic barrier. Since then, Kirk has taken the ship up to warp 8 or warp 9 before Scotty starts to worry. Is this some unintentional continuity? In the same manner, crossing the barrier in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" resulted in damage, death, and godlike powers. After the Kelvin's modifications, the Enterprise crossed the barrier four more times - twice in "By Any Other Name" and twice in "Is There In Truth No Beauty?" In neither of those episodes did the Enterprise sustain damage or any ill effects to the crew. More continuity?

 

[BillJ]

In the same manner, crossing the barrier in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" resulted in damage, death, and godlike powers. After the Kelvin's modifications, the Enterprise crossed the barrier four more times - twice in "By Any Other Name" and twice in "Is There In Truth No Beauty?" In neither of those episodes did the Enterprise sustain damage or any ill effects to the crew. More continuity?

Or less? The writers may have forgotten about poor Mitchell by that point.

 

[2takesfrakes]

Back on topic ...

I noticed that, too! I guess when Warp doesn't really "mean" anything, saying low Warp numbers doesn't sound fast enough, for some people. And I suspect I'm one of them! As to whether or not this was deliberate continuity on the show's part, DC Fonatana has said more than once that STAR TREK did use an outside agency to keep track of continuity for them.

This whole issue of continuity has always kind of bothered me, because I like episodic STAR TREK. This is Gene Roddenberry's vision of the future, not mine. So, I'm not so vested in things carrying over, or whatever. That's not to say that the bridge should've been switched around ad nausium, or that they should've kept screwing around with the Spock make-up to the very end ... but if something contradicted, I understand that it's well-meant by the writers. They're just trying to put these characters into novel situations and if they're successful in that, then they've got me. I don't need STAR TREK to be treated as a psuedo-documentary. But I seem to hold a minority view on that standpoint ...

 

[plynch]

Pretty much me neither.

It'd be nice. But then it would rob people of all their in-universe explaining.

 

[Poltargyst]

I was reminded in a recent rewatch of WNMHGB that in Star Trek some humans naturally have ESP abilities including, according to Spock, the ability to see through solid objects and start fires with their minds. I find that amazing.

 

[The Lensman]

We can speculate that he did. Yet we never saw that he would have suffered.

Let's assume Kirk actually felt bad about losing all those redshirts. Wouldn't that show in his personal or professional demeanor somehow?

In real life, yes. In the current mode of television story telling where events from one episode bleed into another, yes. By 60's story telling conventions where events from one episode rarely bled into another so that episodes could be played in syndication without having to worry about being aired in order, no.

What you saw or didn't see is dictated by the real world conventions of the time. This idea that because we weren't shown him weeping in his quarters or acting differently in future episodes that he had never faced death is ridiculous. We also never saw Kirk taking a pee, nor did we ever hear him say he had to go or even mention the act in passing, so I guess that means the humans in this universe don't urinate. Or we can assume that that happens off screen. Just like Kirk dealing with all of the deaths listed by others.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I was reminded in a recent rewatch of WNMHGB that in Star Trek some humans naturally have ESP abilities including, according to Spock, the ability to see through solid objects and start fires with their minds. I find that amazing.

Yep. Also, Miranda from season 3's "Is There in Truth No Beauty" was blind, human and telepathic.

It's a shame TNG and the rest pretended those things never happened.

 

[BillJ]

I was reminded in a recent rewatch of WNMHGB that in Star Trek some humans naturally have ESP abilities including, according to Spock, the ability to see through solid objects and start fires with their minds. I find that amazing.

Yep. Also, Miranda from season 3's "Is There in Truth No Beauty" was blind, human and telepathic.

It's a shame TNG and the rest pretended those things never happened.

The spinoffs really did suck a lot of the fun out of the Star Trek universe.

 

[FormerLurker]

In the same manner, crossing the barrier in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" resulted in damage, death, and godlike powers. After the Kelvin's modifications, the Enterprise crossed the barrier four more times - twice in "By Any Other Name" and twice in "Is There In Truth No Beauty?" In neither of those episodes did the Enterprise sustain damage or any ill effects to the crew. More continuity?

Did they actually cross the barrier in "Is There In Truth No Beauty?" I was under the impression they were caught in it, wallowing in an eddy from which they couldn't navigate safely.

 

[Ssosmcin]

After the Kelvin's modifications, the Enterprise crossed the barrier four more times - twice in "By Any Other Name" and twice in "Is There In Truth No Beauty?" In neither of those episodes did the Enterprise sustain damage or any ill effects to the crew. More continuity?

Well, to be fair, they didn't cross the barrier in Is There In Truth No Beauty? They used a few stock shots, but it was pretty clear in the dialog and new effects that they crossed into some other dimension or realm.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

As I've posited before: after WNM, Spock reviewed the sensor logs to see what the barrier was dishing out, and then he came up with a shield modification to block out the trouble.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

The spinoffs really did suck a lot of the fun out of the Star Trek universe.

Seriously. Would it have killed them to have Picard encounter some telekinetic aliens in togas or get into a fist fight in the engine room?