TNG Episodes that Recycled TOS Material

[albion432]

I've posted this video over in the TOS forum, but I figured it should be posted here as well, since it pertains to both TOS and TNG. Every time I revisit the first season of TNG, I can't help but notice all the concepts from TOS that were reused, but I never realized just how much until I watched this video:

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Can you think of anything more that the video creator left out?

 

[Qonundrum]

"The Inner Light" takes a lot from "The Paradise Syndrome" too.

• Alien object thing mind-zaps captain
• Captain believes they're another person
• Captain is said to have gotten jiggy with the female character of the week
• etc

Maybe not as literal as the examples shown, which I'll admit that the lines verbatim nicked were more than amusing.

Also, "The Last Outpost" takes a piece from "Who Mourns for Adonis" as well, involving the forcefield emanating from the planet. WMfA also has Apollo offering amnesty if the crew all blow a tune on his pipes.

 

[albion432]

"The Inner Light" takes a lot from "The Paradise Syndrome" too.

• Alien object thing mind-zaps captain
• Captain believes they're another person
• Captain is said to have gotten jiggy with the female character of the week
• etc

Also, "The Last Outpost" takes a piece from "Who Mourns for Adonis" as well, involving the forcefield emanating from the planet. WMfA also has Apollo offering amnesty if the crew all blow a tune on his pipes.

That's a great comparison between "The Inner Light" and "The Paradise Syndrome"! I never would have noticed the similarities, but they are there. And "The Inner Light" is one of my favorite TNG episodes to boot! I like "The Paradise Syndrome" a lot too, especially the Obelisk they made for it.

Good point about "The Last Outpost" and "Who Mourns for Adonis" too.

 

[Vger23]

I have to be honest....I don't know that TNG consciously "recycled" TOS material (except in obvious and intentional cases, like "The Naked Now") to create stories. I think there are only so many sci-fi story frameworks to operate in...and it's more than likely that you're going to find similarities in certain episodes across the franchise if you look hard enough.

 

[Ragitsu]

Season 1 is TOS-lite.

 

[Oddish]

Season 1 is TOS-lite.

In many ways, yes. But that's to be expected, given that it took time for TNG to forge it's own identity.

 

[Ragitsu]

In many ways, yes. But that's to be expected, given that it took time for TNG to forge it's own identity.

That wasn't a criticism, mind you; some people in fact like the taste of Season 1.

 

[Farscape One]

Sort of cousins... the void surrounding the giant space amoeba and Nagilum's hole in space. ("THE IMMUNITY SYNDROME" and "Where No Silence Lease")

I will very rarely speak ill of Data... but he should have at least called it 'somewhere' in the realm of what they encountered before Nagilum gobbled them.


The Enterprise has to get a one of a kind medicine, and a member of the crew basically has to fight to get it. Am I talking about "THE CLOUD MINDERS" or "Code of Honor"? The answer is both.

A prearranged marriage where the groom/bride is on another world, but they leave the one on the Enterprise for someone else. I'm talking about "AMOK TIME" and "Haven".

"THE DEADLY YEARS" and "Unnatural Selection" both find the Enterprise discovering dead people who died of extreme old age before their time, and a member or members of their crew are infected. (Though this plot has been used in many shows.)

That's the first two seasons I can think of... at least, where it's more than just surface similarity. (Pike's chair and Jameson's chair, two Kirks and Data/Lore, etc.)

There might be more, but I'll have to think on it further.

 

[albion432]

Sort of cousins... the void surrounding the giant space amoeba and Nagilum's hole in space. ("THE IMMUNITY SYNDROME" and "Where No Silence Lease")

The Enterprise has to get a one of a kind medicine, and a member of the crew basically has to fight to get it. Am I talking about "THE CLOUD MINDERS" or "Code of Honor"? The answer is both.

A prearranged marriage where the groom/bride is on another world, but they leave the one on the Enterprise for someone else. I'm talking about "AMOK TIME" and "Haven".

"THE DEADLY YEARS" and "Unnatural Selection" both find the Enterprise discovering dead people who died of extreme old age before their time, and a member or members of their crew are infected. (Though this plot has been used in many shows.)

That's the first two seasons I can think of... at least, where it's more than just surface similarity. (Pike's chair and Jameson's chair, two Kirks and Data/Lore, etc.)

There might be more, but I'll have to think on it further.

You make some great connections here. I don't know if you watched the video, but at the beginning they do a quick run through of several episodes, and "Pike's chair and Jameson's chair, two Kirks and Data/Lore" are both shown there, just fyi.

 

[Farscape One]

I did see the video, but I didn't really count those because it was more a visual connection. I was concentrating more on the story or plot. But those are connections.

 

[Orphalesion]

The version of Justice that ended up being filmed was pretty much a poorly done parody of TOS' the Apple (and the Apple is already a pretty bad episode)

 

[Qonundrum]

That wasn't a criticism, mind you; some people in fact like the taste of Season 1.

It's rather like a nice cut of sirloin, topped with a generous helping of tartar sauce and mango flavored frosting... followed by a skunk spraying randomly across it to be sure. Take a bite out of it somewhere and it could be really great at times, eclectic at others, bizarre at others, and at just the right spot it's rather quite distasteful.

And yet you still tipped the wait staff and wrote down your home phone number in hopes they'd call back to set up a date.

 

[Qonundrum]

Sort of cousins... the void surrounding the giant space amoeba and Nagilum's hole in space. ("THE IMMUNITY SYNDROME" and "Where No Silence Lease")

I will very rarely speak ill of Data... but he should have at least called it 'somewhere' in the realm of what they encountered before Nagilum gobbled them.


The Enterprise has to get a one of a kind medicine, and a member of the crew basically has to fight to get it. Am I talking about "THE CLOUD MINDERS" or "Code of Honor"? The answer is both.

A prearranged marriage where the groom/bride is on another world, but they leave the one on the Enterprise for someone else. I'm talking about "AMOK TIME" and "Haven".

"THE DEADLY YEARS" and "Unnatural Selection" both find the Enterprise discovering dead people who died of extreme old age before their time, and a member or members of their crew are infected. (Though this plot has been used in many shows.)

That's the first two seasons I can think of... at least, where it's more than just surface similarity. (Pike's chair and Jameson's chair, two Kirks and Data/Lore, etc.)

There might be more, but I'll have to think on it further.

"Silence" definitely had Data written to go out of his way to say nothing remotely like that space void thing had existed, as if to make up for the volume of times season 1 openly milked the cash cow of TOS episodes (and with a couple from season 2 that were yet to air...) But fans of TOS would quickly figure it out and start screeching very loudly at the TV set "DON'T YOU REMEMBER 'THE IMMUNITY SYNDROME'???!!!!!". Just like how I had at the time, but the rest of the episode thankfully makes up for it...

"Amok Time" and "Code of Honor" also share an arranged marriage where one of those locked in has the hotsies for someone else and a battle to the death ensues. Isn't it neat how "Code of Honor" took so much from so many great TOS stories, added in a new and genuinely refreshing idea (show the Captain not obeying his Prime Directive code so he could intimidate to get what he wanted, yet the Leader of this week's society obeying his fully) and somehow managed to botch it all up so bad? (And without Jessie Lawrence Ferguson, whose stage presence helps the episode a lot, CoH would be completely unwatchable...)

 

[MarkusTay]

Well, there's 'borrowing', and then there is out-right revisiting a TOS episode like DS9 did (Tribbles). Man, did they cash-in their year's supply of member-berries that day! (and yeah, I liked it, because I am a fanboi).

EDIT: As for the topic: The only thing I can think of off-hand that others haven't already mentioned is that multiple times TNG (and later VOY) did was borrow from Devil in the Dark.

"The Ohmergerd! This is a lifeform and we've been hurting it!" Trope was beaten to death by both later shows.

 

[WAMTNG]

Well, there's 'borrowing', and then there is out-right revisiting a As for the topic: The only thing I can think of off-hand that others haven't already mentioned is that multiple times TNG (and later VOY) did was borrow from Devil in the Dark.

Aye, starting with Home Soil and recurring from then on in. But none of them have anything so awesome as a man under a blanket pretending to be a silicon based life form!

 

[Farscape One]

"NO REPEAT I!"
- Mother Horta, pleading to writers to find another subject



Joking aside, it is a great plot to use. "Home Soil" is one of the best of season 1, and most episodes that use this particular plot are really good.

At this point, pretty much EVERYTHING is recycled in one form or another, and I'm including outside STAR TREK. It's the execution that matters.

 

[WAMTNG]

"NO REPEAT I!"
At this point, pretty much EVERYTHING is recycled in one form or another, and I'm including outside STAR TREK. It's the execution that matters.

Well said!

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

In many ways, yes. But that's to be expected, given that it took time for TNG to forge it's own identity.

And given that they were, in many cases, phase II recycles, if I remember right.