Things that annoy you off about TOS

[EnriqueH]

Ok, ok, ok, I friggin LOOOVE this show.

Until the day I die, TOS will be my favorite TV show ever.

But there's gotta be some stuff that makes you nuts.

For me, it's that they never gave "Number One" an actual name.

Roddenberry, bless your heart, but what were you thinking here???

ARGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

What's her name damnit!!!!!

I'm dying to read the Pike novels, but I already know that not knowing Number One's name is going to infuriate and distract me.

 

[BillJ]

Re: Things that piss you off about TOS

I'm dying to read the Pike novels, but I already know that not knowing Number One's name is going to infuriate and distract me.

Peter David gave Number One a name in the New Frontier novels.

A thing that drives me crazy: the lack of security on the Enterprise. You can tell Kirk you're going to steal his dilithium crystals and there still isn't any security around them.

 

[BoredShipCapt'n]

Re: Things that piss you off about TOS

Scotty's new hairstyle in season 3. OK, so maybe that was James Doohan's natural look, but it just wasn't Scotty.

 

[CaptainMurdock]

Re: Things that piss you off about TOS

The 60's sexism oozing it's way into the show.

Assignment Earth.

 

[Unicron]

Re: Things that piss you off about TOS

A thing that drives me crazy: the lack of security on the Enterprise. You can tell Kirk you're going to steal his dilithium crystals and there still isn't any security around them.

Well, they'd just get killed anyway...

 

[WisTrekFan]

Re: Things that piss you off about TOS

Scotty's new hairstyle in season 3. OK, so maybe that was James Doohan's natural look, but it just wasn't Scotty.

I agree with that one. I was glad he changed his hair style mid-season. Not sure about the long sideburns though, but it was the late '60's I guess.

 

[BillJ]

Re: Things that piss you off about TOS

A thing that drives me crazy: the lack of security on the Enterprise. You can tell Kirk you're going to steal his dilithium crystals and there still isn't any security around them.

Well, they'd just get killed anyway...

This is very true.

 

[erastus25]

Re: Things that piss you off about TOS

The sexism bugs me. Some of the comedy is annoying too - especially the '60's insistence on ending episodes with inappropriate laughter.

 

[scotpens]

Re: Things that piss you off about TOS

The overuse of the "Earthlike planet of the week" which ran rampant in Season 2 -- we got the Gangster Planet, the Nazi Planet, the American Flag and Constitution Planet and the Roman Empire Planet.

The 60's sexism oozing it's way into the show.

Never noticed it at the time -- but when I first saw the show, it was the '60s.

 

[Melakon]

Re: Things that piss you off about TOS

Scotty's new hairstyle in season 3. OK, so maybe that was James Doohan's natural look, but it just wasn't Scotty.

Doohan in an interview (was it in Gerrold's World of Star Trek?) said that he wasn't happy with the combed Brylcreem look and thought "it looked like hell", so maybe someone dictated it. He was glad it went away. Even I was wearing my hair like that in the 60s as a teenager, it was a common style for men. But it looked too contemporary to me for Trek. Doohan had done a Man from UNCLE (The Bridge of Lions Affair, watch closely during the first act or so for Mr. Bainbridge), and he had that same combed look.

the Nazi Planet

As Deputy Fuehrer, I must disagree with this criticism.

 

[eyeresist]

Re: Things that piss you off about TOS

The 60's sexism oozing it's way into the show.

I call it "sexy sexism". It's okay because it takes place in an alternate universe.



Space hippies.

 

[2takesfrakes]

Re: Things that piss you off about TOS

The glitter. It's ingrained, imbedded and imparted into every (Humanoid) alien outfit, just about. From Elaan to Apollo ... enough with the glitter. Put the cap back on and let's save it for Arts & Crafts projects, at home. It always leaps me out of the show, because it's such an obvious attempt at being "futuristic." Some of the headgear, like in "Friday's Child" which does not involve glitter, but involves these sort of goofy hats also leaps me out of the show. The reason why is because this stuff isn't on a Gorn suit, or something like that, it's on a Human, the form of a Human being. STAR TREK goes around putting glittery togas and pointed hats on people and calls that "The Future," when it won't be, because people don't like to be made to look silly, apart from anything else.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Re: Things that piss you off about TOS

The lack of aliens on the Enterprise. I know, 60s TV budget, but even a cheap makeup job for an Andorian or Tellarite in the background (someone out of focus, so you wouldn't have a chance to see any real detail on) would've been nice.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Re: Things that piss you off about TOS

Not much, really. Security sucked on the ship, though.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Re: Things that piss you off about TOS

Kirk/Shatner's treatment of Reyna/Louise Sorel in "Requiem for Methuselah", grabbing her so tightly he left painful looking finger marks on her shoulders. I can't watch it without thinking Kirk's being a grabby dickhole.

Other than that, and the general sexism which I tend to filter out, nothing pisses me off about TOS (but if we include the movies, add the Spock/Valaris "mind rape" scene from STVI). There are plenty of dumb or silly things in Star Trek, but they don't piss me off. Sci-fi and silliness are pretty much joined at the hip.

 

[Melakon]

Re: Things that piss you off about TOS

The show originally aired when I was 15 to 18, and there were things even then in the 60s that I thought were horrible, but have since grown more tolerant. The Enterprise itself looked strange, like some off balance Tinkertoy construction. But what really upset me was how Star Trek presented aliens.

The Outer Limits, which had aired only 2 years earlier, had shown me fantastic creatures looking like this:

The guy lower left is John Hoyt, later to be Dr. Boyce in "The Cage". The fellow to his right is William O'Connell, the Orion spy disguised as an Andorian in "Journey to Babel". And to his right, is John Anderson, who 25 years later would be Kevin Uxbridge in TNG: The Survivors.

But Star Trek's most important alien was this bland looking guy.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Re: Things that piss you off about TOS

I agree about the sexism and bad security. Of the two, the sexism is the one I get more miffed about, because I see the sexism more as a reflection of prejudices about people generally than as a lazy storytelling trope.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Re: Things that piss you off about TOS

The show originally aired when I while I was 15 to 18, and there were things even then in the 60s that I thought were horrible, but have since grown more tolerant. The Enterprise itself looked strange, like some off balance Tinkertoy construction. But what really upset me was how Star Trek presented aliens.

The Outer Limits, which had aired only 2 years earlier, had shown me fantastic creatures looking like this:

But Star Trek's most important alien was this bland looking guy.

Outer Limits had some great aliens. 'Behold, Ek!' the 2 dimensional alien explorer trapped in a 3d universe. Good stuff.

 

[Melakon]

Re: Things that piss you off about TOS

Outer Limits spoiled me for alien makeups. When I doodle aliens, they always wind up looking like they could be a mask or makeup job. That one above with John Hoyt at lower left has always been one of my favorites since first seeing it in '64, and influences my designs.

 

[allstar77]

Re: Things that piss you off about TOS

Those space hippies.

Nurse Chapel.

Any episode with kids.