Fully agree although the Concordance by Trimble is also excellent.
TOS Rewatch
- Thread starter Grendelsbayne
- Start date
Fully agree although the Concordance by Trimble is also excellent.
Yes, I always loved the Concordance. But if you'd seen the show in endless reruns, watched closely, taken notes and made sketches (as we did before the VCR era, and of course there was no Internet), the Concordance was telling you things you already knew. The pleasure was to compare the book with your own detailed knowledge of the episodes. And I loved that.
But The Making of Star Trek was full of things you could never know just from watching the show on TV. Whole different thing.
IIRC there were some things in there that you'd only know if you'd bought some Lincoln Enterprises scripts, though.
With those abilities, he could create food, though one might also assume the abilities are just redirecting energy of a sort, and he might be able to bypass the very need for food that way, since food is just a source of energy and he was given another more supernatural source of energy.
Charlie X
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As I watched this, I was, for the first time, confronted with the similarities between Charlie X and the next episode, Where No Man Has Gone Before. I usually don't see them played back-to-back like this, but they are here, and in both instances we have a human who gains powers and abuses them, forcing the crew to consider killing the newly powerful character. The consideration of killing him wasn't put forth so quickly in the case of Charlie, a youthful transgressor, but it did eventually make the list.
I'd prefer these two episodes were much further apart when viewing them. But there are substantial differences. I've yet to watch it now, but I recall Where No Man Has Gone Before was vastly superior to Charlie X. It was far more ominous, and with a consideration of what it takes to be a god, how our human frailties are not so easily put aside, and it was more about loyalties, and sacrifice, but more on that later after I review it again.
I recall as a kid when I first watched these originally air, I was moderately freaked out when Charlie made that girl's face disappear. I wonder if my nephew would like to watch these.
And I could have sworn the gym tights Kirk and Charlie were wearing had been green, but they're a vibrant red now. Bad memory? Did somebody play with the color? Could it have been the older T.V. in the new color era? Or is that just my red/green colorblindness screwing me up again? I swear, I'm often told various things in Trek were weird colors, and I never actually noticed. But I'm not the only one. When they sent the original Orion Slave girl dance to the developers, they thought it came out wrong since she was green, so they color corrected her. They had to change it back later. Oh well.
Side-By-Side Comparison
I had given this episode a 5 out of 10 before. The new effects include the exterior shot of the Antares - and I LOVE cool ships. The remastered work "borrowed" from the animated series here, and made the Antares resemble one of the grain freighters from More Tribbles, More Troubles.
Anyway, I felt the rating could go up to 5.5 out of 10.
I'd prefer these two episodes were much further apart when viewing them. But there are substantial differences. I've yet to watch it now, but I recall Where No Man Has Gone Before was vastly superior to Charlie X. It was far more ominous, and with a consideration of what it takes to be a god, how our human frailties are not so easily put aside, and it was more about loyalties, and sacrifice, but more on that later after I review it again.
I recall as a kid when I first watched these originally air, I was moderately freaked out when Charlie made that girl's face disappear. I wonder if my nephew would like to watch these.
And I could have sworn the gym tights Kirk and Charlie were wearing had been green, but they're a vibrant red now. Bad memory? Did somebody play with the color? Could it have been the older T.V. in the new color era? Or is that just my red/green colorblindness screwing me up again? I swear, I'm often told various things in Trek were weird colors, and I never actually noticed. But I'm not the only one. When they sent the original Orion Slave girl dance to the developers, they thought it came out wrong since she was green, so they color corrected her. They had to change it back later. Oh well.
Side-By-Side Comparison
I had given this episode a 5 out of 10 before. The new effects include the exterior shot of the Antares - and I LOVE cool ships. The remastered work "borrowed" from the animated series here, and made the Antares resemble one of the grain freighters from More Tribbles, More Troubles.
Anyway, I felt the rating could go up to 5.5 out of 10.
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It seems I overgeneralized about the Concordance. Now I remember another unaired thing it had: the NCC numbers from "Jonathan Doe Starship." And of course the copious artwork. Just a great book. But she should have explained where those numbers came from, because to me it was a mystery for years.
My theory is that Roddenberry saw "It's a Good Life" on The Twilight Zone, and it bounced around in his subconscious because it's unforgettable. And it came back out as "Charlie X." I don't know if Samuel Peeples had the same starting point with WNMHGB.
My observation was based on taking Decker at his word that he (himself) beamed down his entire crew--something that 1) really doesn't make sense for one man to do alone and 2) would have taken a great deal of time for him to accomplish if he had. I don't believe the original series ever showed more than one transporter room; however, I have seen several schematics of the Enterprise that confirm multiple transporter rooms. One source indicates multiple TRs on Deck 6, while another, far more detailed blueprint shows four TRs on Deck 7, two emergency TRs, two Transporter Transceivers/Plasma Relay Bays and two Transporter Buffers all located on Deck 8.
Decker and his crew first discovered the DM in the process of destroying one the planets in that system. He attacks the DM which then turns its attention to the Constellation. By the time the Enterprise finds the Constellation it is already badly damaged and drifting in space. At what point did Decker make the decision to beam down his crew? He could have done it prior to attacking the DM, but then one man cannot pilot a starship AND launch a full-scale attack on some planet-killing object at the same time--got to have a crew for that. It also seems highly unlikely that once the Constellation was so badly damaged that it could have had the power left to transport so many crew members and get away with Decker before the DM destroyed the planet where the crew was stranded. It must have occurred some time in between, although we aren't given the details. Ah well, interesting thoughts to ponder in this great episode!
I wouldn't read too much into that beyond "he" gave the order to abandon ship.
They definitely kept changing aspects of it. Now in RL, yeah, that's just set tear down and rebuild and adding a new element when they needed it for the story. The engineering panel behind the control council, for example, was only needed so the tech could concentrate on it and not see Van Gelder sneaking up on him. The little viewer, to watch Nomad blow up. The view screen, so Chekov could see the Defiant vanish. The food replicators, so the cop could have some chicken soup, or Spock could punch his first through it, and that metal stand there, so he could threaten to clobber Kirk with it. Even the control council may be either a wireless unit on wheels (like the prop) that could be all the way over to the wall (so nobody could pass between it and the wall) or more toward the middle so Scotty or others could walk between the control and the wall. We've seen it both ways. It's possible that unit is wireless and can be moved, but I would think it more likely it would be hardwired in and not mobile, so each configuration seems more probable to be a different transporter room. And in actual practice, they did seem located on more than one deck, so it's more reasonable to assume they had more than one TR.
The Constellation went in after science officer Masada detected the 4th planet breaking up. Obvs. The DDM was slicing it up, and Decker (and this seems weird to me) thought he could beat it. I'm guessing he leapt before he looked. Anyway, badly damaged and with life support failing, he managed to crawl away to the third planet. His power plants were all dead - they only had battery backups and they weren't going to last, and they couldn't repair the ship in the time they had. Transporter technology does not bear too close a scrutiny since like many things Trek does, it's problematic on so many levels (but from a physics standpoint, mass M in, mass M out, so it might not take much energy, relatively speaking, to work it). Nevertheless, they have often beamed down even when engines were out. So Decker gave the order to abandon ship and the crew beamed itself down to the third planet.
The DDM obviously doesn't consume whole planets, but probably searches for and consumes selective compounds (we know not what – but let's assume one of those fictional compounds like dilithium or some such). It comes in, sees the Constellation using power and attacks her, knocking out most of her remaining reserves and disabling the transporter so now the 400 can't be beamed back up. With its power even more hopelessly crippled or depleted, the DDM may have lost interest in it and left it alone like most other less interesting, powerless rubble. The Constellation and a broken commodore drift there after the third planet was shot out from under him as he longs for death to join his fallen crew.
Maybe. And now you know, the rest of the story.
Kirk and company arrive and . . .
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I've always thought that maybe only the survivors of the attack aboard The Constellation beamed down, not the entire crew!
JB
JB
Decker did say: They called me. They begged me for help, four hundred of them. I couldn't. I couldn't. But not 430, so maybe 30 were dead and only the survivors did beam down. 400 out of 430 are still only the survivors, after all.
It even adds a touch of realism (not to take anything away from Scotty's greatness) if part of the dead 30 were Constellation's chief engineer and many of the damage control parties. With them gone, it makes it easier to believe why they couldn't repair the ship even though Scotty still got it moving a bit.
It even adds a touch of realism (not to take anything away from Scotty's greatness) if part of the dead 30 were Constellation's chief engineer and many of the damage control parties. With them gone, it makes it easier to believe why they couldn't repair the ship even though Scotty still got it moving a bit.
My observation was based on taking Decker at his word that he (himself) beamed down his entire crew--something that 1) really doesn't make sense for one man to do alone and 2) would have taken a great deal of time for him to accomplish if he had. I don't believe the original series ever showed more than one transporter room; however, I have seen several schematics of the Enterprise that confirm multiple transporter rooms. One source indicates multiple TRs on Deck 6, while another, far more detailed blueprint shows four TRs on Deck 7, two emergency TRs, two Transporter Transceivers/Plasma Relay Bays and two Transporter Buffers all located on Deck 8.
Decker and his crew first discovered the DM in the process of destroying one the planets in that system. He attacks the DM which then turns its attention to the Constellation. By the time the Enterprise finds the Constellation it is already badly damaged and drifting in space. At what point did Decker make the decision to beam down his crew? He could have done it prior to attacking the DM, but then one man cannot pilot a starship AND launch a full-scale attack on some planet-killing object at the same time--got to have a crew for that. It also seems highly unlikely that once the Constellation was so badly damaged that it could have had the power left to transport so many crew members and get away with Decker before the DM destroyed the planet where the crew was stranded. It must have occurred some time in between, although we aren't given the details. Ah well, interesting thoughts to ponder in this great episode!
It is a great episode and my overall favorite. I *love* the engineering aspects and the action is fantastic.
I may be omitting a line from my memory, but I think that all Decker says about the beaming out, in response to a query about his crew from Kirk, is "Oh, I had to beam them down." No reason to assume that he did all the beaming himself; I always took that to mean that he gave an abandon ship order, and other crew members did the actual beaming. Plus, as someone pointed out the transporter can be set to energize on delay so the operator can get on the pad ("Day of the Dove," "Mirror, Mirror").
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Wow, I had forgotten that! I never had a copy, I checked it out from the library. They had put one of those buckram hardcover bindings on it, a blue-green color with white lettering. I always hoped the library would discard it and I could buy it for a couple of bucks, because no bookstores had it. Never happened.
(OT: A couple of years ago, I ordered an out-of-print book that I used to enjoy checking out from the library when I was young. When I opened it, sure enough, it was the very copy from my old hometown library, even though it came from a bookseller on the other side of the country.)
I like how in the Corcordance we get the episodes listed in their original story order even if it doesn't make any real sense to me! 
JB
JB
Though it's not canon, I think others have written the barrier was Q or some aspect of Q, and what was happening to Gary was a Q manifestation. Also, other super beings, like the Gorgon, or that "God" at the center of the galaxy in movie V, and a couple others were creatures originally from outside the galaxy and that the Q were trying to keep out via the barrier, which they put there. But it's all speculation and non-official fan fiction or the like.
Where No Man Has Gone Before
NOTE: They are looking in a mirror, so the image is reversed. Note the department emblems - and I always loved the high collar look on the women's uniforms.
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This was the second pilot - though they didn't air it first, choosing to air The Man Trap first. Probably a mistake, but I don't know if a higher percentage of the general audience preferred The Man Trap or not. I know I prefer Where No Man Has Gone Before and would have been more thoroughly hooked with that, but I got hooked either way, so what evs.
I guess here, leaving the galaxy would be a quick jaunt out of the plane of the main disc of the Milky Way, or out of our local spiral arm, rather than actually leaving the outer rim - they just aren't that far out. But the "magical" barrier (which deflectors detect but sensors don't) thwarts their efforts and they quickly retreat with their warp drive damaged. Still, Delta Vega is within reach of impulse drive, so doubtlessly that's about as far out as Man has come in that direction with any regularity (once every 20 years). Some stories I've heard just say this is just another manifestation of the Q continuum. No matter. I only mention it since 200 years prior to this a non-warp driven ship had reached this far. It may not be particularly all that far since space is not linear or even two-dimensional, but three-dimensional here, for purposes of mapping our exploration to date. It may even be just "next door" since we're still barely getting started here on our exploration of the galaxy in TOS. Seems these Starships are frequently pushing the envelope of known space, as they should be, so that's good and interesting and nice to see.
While they could have modernized some shots (like printed medical records on view screens), they didn't, nor did they "fix" any mistakes, like the James "R." Kirk tombstone that Mitchell made. Obviously they hadn't decided on Kirk's middle name at that point, but it could be taken to suggest Mitchell, despite his new god-like powers, wasn't perfect, or just didn't know everything, including Kirk's middle name. Or maybe those two friends just shared an inside joke with one another about Kirk's middle name, like James "Righteous" Kirk - ha ha since maybe Kirk wouldn't give up his middle name to just anybody. In fact, I don't think they mentioned what the "T" stood for until one of the animated episodes. Regardless, they left it alone there, and that was the right call.
Side-By-Side Comparison
I noticed while re-watching this episode that the science and medical people are sporting the engineering symbol and the engineering people have the medical symbols on. Spock also doesn't have the science insignia, but a command emblem, and Gary Mitchell has a science one (though it would be an engineering one here since they're switched). Just another example of not having many series details locked down yet in these early episodes.
I was pleased to see the "Garden of Eden" scene, where Mitchell created a miracle to live there, including the Kaferian Apples (an Eden reference?), as they nearly always cut that "apple" scene out for extra commercials. So like Charlie X, food can be made with that kind of power.
Some often ask why is Kirk even going after Mitchell rather than going back to the ship and using his lethally radiating the planet idea, but of course they forget Kirk doesn't know Elizabeth has "turned" yet, and his crewman is gone and it's his fault for waiting too long, so he's going to try to rescue her, or stop/kill Gary, or take one more chance to talk him down, but I think it was mostly to rescue Elizabeth, the compassionate doctor, who was more a prototype for the real McCoy to come later. Kirk takes personal responsibility for the lives under his command and they often mean more to him than risking his own life, so as long as he didn't know she turned, he had to go after her. Maybe that's not the right call for a captain, but he'd be a pretty heartless and unlikable captain if he just quickly wrote off subordinates as less valuable than him, so tough break, eh.
BTW, Gary Lockwood (the surprisingly sexist Gary Mitchell) also played Dr. Frank Poole in 2001: A Space Odyssey, so if he looks familiar to you, maybe that's why, or maybe you saw him in other things, too, since he's still working today.
It's fun to see how un-evolved some elements of the 60's culture that remained seems today, like the attitude toward women professionals.
All in all, though, this is one of my favorite episodes of Trek. It's thought provoking, ominous, and well done, IMO. And it has a phaser rifle. You don't see that ever again in TOS, but it's in there.
This is one of my favorite episodes, and so not surprisingly, it gets one of the highest ratings of all the TOS episodes - a 9 out of 10.
I've only given six episodes a 9, and only one a full 10, so this is one the TOS jewels in the crown, IMO. A great episode.
I guess here, leaving the galaxy would be a quick jaunt out of the plane of the main disc of the Milky Way, or out of our local spiral arm, rather than actually leaving the outer rim - they just aren't that far out. But the "magical" barrier (which deflectors detect but sensors don't) thwarts their efforts and they quickly retreat with their warp drive damaged. Still, Delta Vega is within reach of impulse drive, so doubtlessly that's about as far out as Man has come in that direction with any regularity (once every 20 years). Some stories I've heard just say this is just another manifestation of the Q continuum. No matter. I only mention it since 200 years prior to this a non-warp driven ship had reached this far. It may not be particularly all that far since space is not linear or even two-dimensional, but three-dimensional here, for purposes of mapping our exploration to date. It may even be just "next door" since we're still barely getting started here on our exploration of the galaxy in TOS. Seems these Starships are frequently pushing the envelope of known space, as they should be, so that's good and interesting and nice to see.
While they could have modernized some shots (like printed medical records on view screens), they didn't, nor did they "fix" any mistakes, like the James "R." Kirk tombstone that Mitchell made. Obviously they hadn't decided on Kirk's middle name at that point, but it could be taken to suggest Mitchell, despite his new god-like powers, wasn't perfect, or just didn't know everything, including Kirk's middle name. Or maybe those two friends just shared an inside joke with one another about Kirk's middle name, like James "Righteous" Kirk - ha ha since maybe Kirk wouldn't give up his middle name to just anybody. In fact, I don't think they mentioned what the "T" stood for until one of the animated episodes. Regardless, they left it alone there, and that was the right call.
Side-By-Side Comparison
I noticed while re-watching this episode that the science and medical people are sporting the engineering symbol and the engineering people have the medical symbols on. Spock also doesn't have the science insignia, but a command emblem, and Gary Mitchell has a science one (though it would be an engineering one here since they're switched). Just another example of not having many series details locked down yet in these early episodes.
I was pleased to see the "Garden of Eden" scene, where Mitchell created a miracle to live there, including the Kaferian Apples (an Eden reference?), as they nearly always cut that "apple" scene out for extra commercials. So like Charlie X, food can be made with that kind of power.
Some often ask why is Kirk even going after Mitchell rather than going back to the ship and using his lethally radiating the planet idea, but of course they forget Kirk doesn't know Elizabeth has "turned" yet, and his crewman is gone and it's his fault for waiting too long, so he's going to try to rescue her, or stop/kill Gary, or take one more chance to talk him down, but I think it was mostly to rescue Elizabeth, the compassionate doctor, who was more a prototype for the real McCoy to come later. Kirk takes personal responsibility for the lives under his command and they often mean more to him than risking his own life, so as long as he didn't know she turned, he had to go after her. Maybe that's not the right call for a captain, but he'd be a pretty heartless and unlikable captain if he just quickly wrote off subordinates as less valuable than him, so tough break, eh.
BTW, Gary Lockwood (the surprisingly sexist Gary Mitchell) also played Dr. Frank Poole in 2001: A Space Odyssey, so if he looks familiar to you, maybe that's why, or maybe you saw him in other things, too, since he's still working today.
It's fun to see how un-evolved some elements of the 60's culture that remained seems today, like the attitude toward women professionals.
All in all, though, this is one of my favorite episodes of Trek. It's thought provoking, ominous, and well done, IMO. And it has a phaser rifle. You don't see that ever again in TOS, but it's in there.
This is one of my favorite episodes, and so not surprisingly, it gets one of the highest ratings of all the TOS episodes - a 9 out of 10.
I've only given six episodes a 9, and only one a full 10, so this is one the TOS jewels in the crown, IMO. A great episode.
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I was just watching the engineering board behind the transporter control in Dagger of the Mind. Wow, that was cheesy. It was just a cardboard panel with numerous holes cut in it, and behind it they were moving another colored board so it would look like the indicator lights were changing colors every few seconds. No electricity, no lights, no LEDs - just colored cardboard. Incredible. And yet, also, impressive it looked as good as it did. But no way would anyone but an amateur do that today.
Society in general wasn't as ready for every progressive thought Gene put forth. The tremendous backlash they got for putting a woman in the second in command position (#1, The Cage) came mostly from women (not men) as I understand. "Who the hell does she think she is?" And they still had some normal sexism for the day they couldn't completely bury, too. All I can say it was from these baby steps that larger things took root, and today society may be far more progressive than it would have otherwise been had it not been for Trek.
It's not "reason" so much as careless habit, which does happen, though one would think since they were in environmental suits, Spock would have said that earlier (and maybe he did) and they would have had better training to not do that, and with greater tech, maybe even alarm systems would warn if suit integrity had been compromised. But then where's the story?
I always thought the cards just suggested what item they wanted. Now it's done verbally - "Give me a hot chocolate, 110 degrees." Back then, all that information was all on a card and you had to pick the right card, which was probably labeled, and your choices were far more limited. While Trek often claims they don't use money anymore, I think they must mean physical money, so they still use "credits." I also suspect one's basic needs cost them nothing (or goes on the ship's account) but if they want more, or fancier stuff beyond basic rations, they have to pay credits for it, not with a tape deck or credit card they carry, but probably some biometric scan (fingerprint, retinal, or some such). They don't show these details, but the show wasn't about that.
Instruments read what they're designed to read. That was something new, so it read as something else that was harmless, or didn't get read at all with those particular instruments.
I heard once those uniforms were not cloth, but were supposed to be made out of recyclable paper - and they don't wash them but replicate new ones. Of course we don't know why he ripped the shirt in the first place since the hypo can shoot through it no problem, but maybe there is a reason (apart from dramatic effect). It might be he prefers skin contact to make sure, and it's not like the uniform isn't going to be recycled at the end of the day anyway, so why not rip it?
This used to be a two part story, IIRC, and the time travel took them back to Earth orbit, 1969 for the episode, Assignment Earth, where they had to deal with Gary 7. But they split that up into two episodes and made up a different reason why they went back in time (apart from Gene trying to make a spin off series with Gary 7).
EDIT: My bad. It wasn't Assignment Earth that was to be part 2, but Tomorrow Is Yesterday, a different time travel story going back to earth. And being somewhat damaged in Tomorrow Is Yesterday, that makes more sense, too.
The Naked Time
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This is a great episode where foundational character development is seen in the major, and even some minor characters, so we're on the ground and running with this series already, which is fantastic.
Some new scenes, like the exterior shot of the scientific outpost with one tiny, lit window of the room where they beam in, is a pretty cool addition. They find numerous ways to add to the show while holding back and preserving the integrity of the originals, like showing the Antares in Charlie X, which itself was designed after one of the cargo ships lifted from the animated series, so it's just too cool to see these extras that never really harm the original story but add to Trek. Naturally, it's not always as good or as modern as they could have done, but so remains truer that way to the originals.
Side-By-Side Comparison
I question the science of a planet losing mass but with increasing gravity, but obviously the whole reason to be there is to observe something weird and unknown that's destroying that planet, so doubtless unusual forces are in play beyond what we know today, possibly an extra dimensional phenomenon. Sure, I do often suspect some writers just don't understand physics too well, but with the premise of observing the unknown, it's not a hard sell, and as long as nobody claims it's specifically this or that, like some well-known phenomenon, but then gets it wrong, I'm fine with that.
A fun episode, too, with Sulu (amusingly called D'Artagnan by Spock, "Take D'Artagnan here to sickbay") running around with a rapier, and other characters acting goofy, often exaggerating their hidden desires or traits, so it's a revealing episode - Chapel's love for Spock, Reily's pride in being an Irishman, Spock's shame for his feelings (which he clearly has) for Kirk and his mother, and his regrets, Kirk's burdens of command over his personal desires, etc.
I loved closed captions in synch with the show, too. I notice new things - like Spock called Leslie "Rand" in this episode. Well, why not - he's more or less a permanent extra that wouldn't get an official name for quite some time, and reusing actors and sets and props is just something they had to do. But I notice other things, like in Where No Man Has Gone Before I thought Mitchell was asking Elizabeth about her feelings (for him) due to her picking a passionate love sonnet to test his memory, but she responds with a whisper, "I just fell. Nothing happened." Apparently he's talking like he knows she's been affected by the energy barrier like he was, but she just hasn't felt it yet. Wow. We knew she was hit, but didn't know she was affected until she looked in the mirror with him in Gary's cell on the planet. Maybe we should have known sooner. All that from CC, which I never had as a kid.
And lots more detail, besides - I never notice that old style disaster recorder actually had "USS Valiant" written on it before, so you'll discover countless new things with the additional clarity in these Blu-Rays and an HD T.V., if you want to look for it.
And the incidental music of Trek is second to none. For example, just the way it grips you as the engines implode and they go back in time. Exciting! I doubt I'm wrong in thinking the skillful use of music and sound effects in Star Trek are a huge part of the reason for its success as a cultural phenominon.
And the chronometers were changed in The Naked Time - more digital - less number dials, now with both stardate and shipboard times. It's worth noting these devices must lock onto exterior signals to read or calculate the time since otherwise they'd still be moving forward along with the crew that is also still moving forward in their local time bubble. So there's that.
I'll also mention that I'm disappointed they didn't keep yeoman Smith; She's prettier than yeoman Rand, IMO.
Or maybe I just hate those beehive hairdos.
A fun episode, and an exciting one and with many character development milestones - this episode warrants a 7 out of 10, easy.
And I have a comic that's on point for this episode, too.
Musical Reminder ~1:03
Some new scenes, like the exterior shot of the scientific outpost with one tiny, lit window of the room where they beam in, is a pretty cool addition. They find numerous ways to add to the show while holding back and preserving the integrity of the originals, like showing the Antares in Charlie X, which itself was designed after one of the cargo ships lifted from the animated series, so it's just too cool to see these extras that never really harm the original story but add to Trek. Naturally, it's not always as good or as modern as they could have done, but so remains truer that way to the originals.
Side-By-Side Comparison
I question the science of a planet losing mass but with increasing gravity, but obviously the whole reason to be there is to observe something weird and unknown that's destroying that planet, so doubtless unusual forces are in play beyond what we know today, possibly an extra dimensional phenomenon. Sure, I do often suspect some writers just don't understand physics too well, but with the premise of observing the unknown, it's not a hard sell, and as long as nobody claims it's specifically this or that, like some well-known phenomenon, but then gets it wrong, I'm fine with that.
A fun episode, too, with Sulu (amusingly called D'Artagnan by Spock, "Take D'Artagnan here to sickbay") running around with a rapier, and other characters acting goofy, often exaggerating their hidden desires or traits, so it's a revealing episode - Chapel's love for Spock, Reily's pride in being an Irishman, Spock's shame for his feelings (which he clearly has) for Kirk and his mother, and his regrets, Kirk's burdens of command over his personal desires, etc.
I loved closed captions in synch with the show, too. I notice new things - like Spock called Leslie "Rand" in this episode. Well, why not - he's more or less a permanent extra that wouldn't get an official name for quite some time, and reusing actors and sets and props is just something they had to do. But I notice other things, like in Where No Man Has Gone Before I thought Mitchell was asking Elizabeth about her feelings (for him) due to her picking a passionate love sonnet to test his memory, but she responds with a whisper, "I just fell. Nothing happened." Apparently he's talking like he knows she's been affected by the energy barrier like he was, but she just hasn't felt it yet. Wow. We knew she was hit, but didn't know she was affected until she looked in the mirror with him in Gary's cell on the planet. Maybe we should have known sooner. All that from CC, which I never had as a kid.
And lots more detail, besides - I never notice that old style disaster recorder actually had "USS Valiant" written on it before, so you'll discover countless new things with the additional clarity in these Blu-Rays and an HD T.V., if you want to look for it.
And the incidental music of Trek is second to none. For example, just the way it grips you as the engines implode and they go back in time. Exciting! I doubt I'm wrong in thinking the skillful use of music and sound effects in Star Trek are a huge part of the reason for its success as a cultural phenominon.
And the chronometers were changed in The Naked Time - more digital - less number dials, now with both stardate and shipboard times. It's worth noting these devices must lock onto exterior signals to read or calculate the time since otherwise they'd still be moving forward along with the crew that is also still moving forward in their local time bubble. So there's that.
I'll also mention that I'm disappointed they didn't keep yeoman Smith; She's prettier than yeoman Rand, IMO.
Or maybe I just hate those beehive hairdos.
A fun episode, and an exciting one and with many character development milestones - this episode warrants a 7 out of 10, easy.
And I have a comic that's on point for this episode, too.
Musical Reminder ~1:03
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That story was The Gospel According to Roddenberry, and it's been pretty thoroughly debunked. What NBC's executives objected to wasn't the idea of a woman as First Officer -- it was Gene using his leverage as producer to cast his then-girlfriend, a relatively unknown and inexperienced actress, in what would have been a principal role in a weekly TV series. As for the reaction of test audiences -- back in February of 1965, was the original pilot even seen by anyone other than the suits at NBC and Desilu?
I always figured those shower-curtain suits were to provide heat and not necessarily to protect against environmental hazards. After all, the headpieces were completely open at the bottom!
At this point in the series, it hadn't yet been established that the hypospray could inject through clothing (which was probably done as a time-saving -- and wardrobe-saving -- measure).
No, the second part of "The Naked Time" became the time-travel episode "Tomorrow is Yesterday." "Assignment: Earth" began as a script for a new series pilot, but it wound up being awkwardly shoehorned into a Star Trek episode.
Yes, Andrea Dromm was gorgeous. Not exactly a great actress, but did anyone care?
Janice Rand's hair wasn't a beehive, it was a whole friggin' apiary!
I thought it looked like someone took a fruit basket, dumped out the fruit, and stuck it upside-down on her head.
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Ah. Just goes to show it's not always easy to know what really happened when various people put spin on their differing POVs. But I'm not too firmly attached to the "story" I heard, particularly when a competing story makes as much sense, maybe even more. Yet she remained - just not as second in command. I sure haven't investigated studio schedules and test audience feedback with times and dates, etc. to verify the veracity of these stories. But if Gene floated that story, it sadly erodes the confidence one can have in many other things he may have said about his ideas, when and where he got them or thought of them, or anything. Fortunately, it matters little to what I really care about it, and that's the show, as given.
I felt where they seemed lacking there was probably due to monetary constraints to make a better prop suit that looked more fully sealed. They made spacesuits later, but since the story required this contamination, and he freely took off his glove and reached into his mask, it may have been just for heat. But if so, then even keeping the glove on and not reaching inside his mask may have still resulted in contamination since the suits weren't designed to keep the outside environment out very well, like an environmental suit would. Yet without more explicitly showing it to the audience, it wouldn't make as much sense, so, well, noses itch.
Later, in Spock's Brain, Kirk gives an order that, IIRC, has the landing party adjust their uniform temperature up, demonstrating they have some thermal regulating capacity even designed into their normal clothing. "Suit temperatures to 72." CC is wonderful for catching things like that. And Chekov and two others reached behind their backs and made a small adjustment. I think that makes perfect sense today, but for the late 60's, that was a pretty advanced idea. But even if they did have that idea by 3rd season, that doesn't mean they thought of it in time for this episode so maybe they needed the heated suits for an icy planet. And later, in TAS, they have personal force fields to keep heat and air in - just because they can do more in a cartoon.
That's a good RL reason, but part of the fun is if you can still think of a good in universe reason. So, skin contact better, but through the shirt is acceptable, seems fine.
Ah yes, it was a different time travel episode. I shouldn't do these too much from memory or based on hearsay. I'll make an appropriate edit to my above post since I wouldn't want to confuse a later reader.
Was Whitney a great actress, in your opinion? Well, she didn't irritate me or anything, and I haven't seen Andrea in enough stuff to proclaim her too poor an actress for the part, either. Funny thing is, though I would have sworn Rand was in Trek for all three seasons, since she's that memorable, I think she was actually gone by half way through season 1. Yeah, The Conscience Of The King was her last episode. Again, hearsay is a.) they didn't need two blonde beauties (and Chapel was there) and b.) Kirk needed to "play the field" more and not be tied down to one possible romantic interest (not that the Rand/Kirk thing ever went too far, but then they didn't have a lot of time before she was gone). And c.) she had a drinking problem back then. Well, like most hearsay, I won't swear to any of it.
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The animated series could do more in the way of depicting weird-looking aliens and such, but Filmation's TV cartoons were done very cheaply, with stock cels being used over and over again. It was much cheaper and quicker to overlay forcefield-generating belts and glowing halos on already existing character animation, rather than draw new animation with spacesuits. So the "force fields" were actually a way of doing less in a cartoon.
I'd say she was a competent actress. As for her sex appeal -- sorry, but I just never saw it. I always had the impression we were supposed to think Yeoman Rand was beautiful because were were told she was beautiful.
The Enemy Within.
Read Full Review
An interesting story about the good and evil sides of all of us, and how both are necessary, and a possible retelling of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Meanwhile, the subplot of a stranded landing party freezing to death below puts a dramatic clock on matters. Though McCoy has pronounced a man dead in an earlier episode, this is the first episode he actually says, "He's dead, Jim," but it's not a guy - he's referring to the reunited doggie-beast that dies in the reintegration process. So a beast gets that honor first - not a man. Damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a veterinarian. Wait . . .
No shuttlecraft had been used up to this point in the series, so maybe they didn't think they'd have one (actually, they should have 4 shuttlecrafts aboard a Constitution Class Starship), or need a reason why they couldn't use one to rescue their men below. Fine. They probably could have invented a reason if shuttlecrafts had already made the scene, so I'll let it slide. They often invent some atmospheric reason why they can't use shuttles in other Trek series for various stories, so we must assume there was a reason, everyone knew it, but they just didn't mention it because it was already obvious to the characters (even if not the audience). But the RL reason was because they hadn't introduced them yet.
But I will say once they pulled the doggie together, even though he died, they could have tested the transporter to see if it was still splitting things. Prior attempts when it was still broken duplicated things, like portable heaters, both of which were useless, but after their fix, they could have tested it and found it working and brought those men up before reuniting the Kirks. Not as dramatic, of course, but it would have saved the men sooner (not sure how much sooner). And who cares if they duplicate a hot pot of coffee? The more, the merrier, even if you'd be reluctant to drink it since it may have gone off, it would still be hot. Anyway . . .
Of course, as often happens when transporter (or replicator or holodeck) tech is involved, one must scoff at the science. The amount of energy required to reproduce another adult male has to come from somewhere. It'd be enormous. I'm going to guess the transporter (and replicators) don't tap the engines for energy to create matter, but must tap the water tanks of the Enterprise to do this so it's not creating matter/energy out of nothing, but restructuring existing matter into more complex molecules to make up any deficits. We're ugly bags of mostly water, anyway. What evs. And the process likely involves quantum entanglement, so one can assuredly know what the original was like, and make a copy using the quantum information beamed to it (still at light speed and not FTL) to reconstruct one while the original is torn apart since there is a fundamental principle of physics involved that says you can't have both at the same time. But I digress. Any duplicate is just some weird copy in the pattern buffer stealing mass from the water tanks to make itself, and it's not identical, so it's allowed.
Transporter and Tech Rant
It has been noticed, to their shame, they "goofed" by putting evil Kirk's face scratches on the wrong side for the bridge scene. I doubt they didn't know better, but probably did it deliberately so, from where the cameras were already set up, they could see scratches on evil Kirk's face in that scene. "Who'll notice that, anyway?" somebody probably scoffed, as they applied the scratches. I didn't. Did you?
So, there was attempted rape - pretty bold move for the 60's, even a bit sickeningly realistic in the way Janice was almost apologizing for getting Kirk into trouble. And why does Bones keep brandy in Sickbay? Medicinal purposes? Or because Dr. Piper served alcohol to his captain, too. (EDIT: Oops, it was Dr. Boyce, not Dr. Piper. Piper was a pill pusher.
) I don't mind Kirk having concealing makeup in his room - that probably makes sense, really, seeing how he's supposed to project an image of near perfection all the time.
But is it really good vs. evil? I don't think so. I think one just lacked empathy, while the other was almost paralyzed by it, stopping to consider too long and too deeply the consequences of his decisions. A mirror brain image, or some neural chiral molecule the transporter put together in mirror fashion and that wasn't firing the synapses properly for one and too much for the other? Regardless, to relieve Kirk of command would be to show the whole crew he was too weak for command and not worthy, vulnerable guy that he apparently is, and once you lose that, it might be impossible to regain it, so first and foremost, do whatever you can to solve the problem without relieving Kirk of command.
Side-By-Side Comparison
All in all, this is not a favorite episode of mine, but another well done one with decent enough acting, IMO. Still, I only gave it a 4 out of 10, and the remastered effects didn't change my mind on that.
No shuttlecraft had been used up to this point in the series, so maybe they didn't think they'd have one (actually, they should have 4 shuttlecrafts aboard a Constitution Class Starship), or need a reason why they couldn't use one to rescue their men below. Fine. They probably could have invented a reason if shuttlecrafts had already made the scene, so I'll let it slide. They often invent some atmospheric reason why they can't use shuttles in other Trek series for various stories, so we must assume there was a reason, everyone knew it, but they just didn't mention it because it was already obvious to the characters (even if not the audience). But the RL reason was because they hadn't introduced them yet.
But I will say once they pulled the doggie together, even though he died, they could have tested the transporter to see if it was still splitting things. Prior attempts when it was still broken duplicated things, like portable heaters, both of which were useless, but after their fix, they could have tested it and found it working and brought those men up before reuniting the Kirks. Not as dramatic, of course, but it would have saved the men sooner (not sure how much sooner). And who cares if they duplicate a hot pot of coffee? The more, the merrier, even if you'd be reluctant to drink it since it may have gone off, it would still be hot. Anyway . . .
Of course, as often happens when transporter (or replicator or holodeck) tech is involved, one must scoff at the science. The amount of energy required to reproduce another adult male has to come from somewhere. It'd be enormous. I'm going to guess the transporter (and replicators) don't tap the engines for energy to create matter, but must tap the water tanks of the Enterprise to do this so it's not creating matter/energy out of nothing, but restructuring existing matter into more complex molecules to make up any deficits. We're ugly bags of mostly water, anyway. What evs. And the process likely involves quantum entanglement, so one can assuredly know what the original was like, and make a copy using the quantum information beamed to it (still at light speed and not FTL) to reconstruct one while the original is torn apart since there is a fundamental principle of physics involved that says you can't have both at the same time. But I digress. Any duplicate is just some weird copy in the pattern buffer stealing mass from the water tanks to make itself, and it's not identical, so it's allowed.
Transporter and Tech Rant
While there are apparently multiple transporter rooms (even if not explicitly mentioned in TOS dialogue), they apparently all use some of the same systems, and if those are compromised, then all of them are on the blink.
This is supposed to be an expensive operation. One may erroneously assume by the 23rd century that average people back home on earth regularly transport everywhere - grocery shopping, doctor visits, holiday travel, etc. but they'd be wrong since there's a pretty impressive price tag on this operation - even more than buying an airplane ticket today, I'd wager. The exact economics of the 23rd century are a bit of a mystery, of course, but it'd wrong to think everything is free and life has no problems.
Of course, one is essentially dying each time they do this, though a nigh perfect copy takes their place (given the way they most often explain this process), and that's disturbing to me. But in subsequent series, some stories suggest a person stays intact and aware in some sort of state during transport. But like I said, transporter, replicator, and holodeck technologies are problematic, at best. It would've been better if they used a sort of improbability warp. I'll add artificial gravity and inertial compensators to this list, too, since those gotta chew up some energy, yet during power outages, they're still held down by gravity, more often than not.
And don't get me started on their universal translator.
They also didn't want the transporter capable of transporting anti-matter, but they quickly blew that off. It DEFINITELY should NEVER be allowed to transport through shields, and it's lame beyond belief if you allow it to hit a moving target, through shields, at warp, at an unknown location, light years away. Damn you, Abrams.
While LOS transport would be too limiting, I do like that only a few meters of solid material will be more than enough to thwart any attempts to transport past or inside something. To do that, you'd need a receiving transporter and probably special conduits in place to pipe the signal in. If the ship isn't in a synchronous orbit above you, it may only be capable of beaming you up during certain windows of opportunity (like a 10 minute-widow every 90 minutes, for example) or the ship must expend prodigious amounts of energy to hang in a non orbit, fighting gravity the whole time. Still, this amount of energy would be relatively small compared to some other things they do.
This is supposed to be an expensive operation. One may erroneously assume by the 23rd century that average people back home on earth regularly transport everywhere - grocery shopping, doctor visits, holiday travel, etc. but they'd be wrong since there's a pretty impressive price tag on this operation - even more than buying an airplane ticket today, I'd wager. The exact economics of the 23rd century are a bit of a mystery, of course, but it'd wrong to think everything is free and life has no problems.
Of course, one is essentially dying each time they do this, though a nigh perfect copy takes their place (given the way they most often explain this process), and that's disturbing to me. But in subsequent series, some stories suggest a person stays intact and aware in some sort of state during transport. But like I said, transporter, replicator, and holodeck technologies are problematic, at best. It would've been better if they used a sort of improbability warp. I'll add artificial gravity and inertial compensators to this list, too, since those gotta chew up some energy, yet during power outages, they're still held down by gravity, more often than not.
And don't get me started on their universal translator. They also didn't want the transporter capable of transporting anti-matter, but they quickly blew that off. It DEFINITELY should NEVER be allowed to transport through shields, and it's lame beyond belief if you allow it to hit a moving target, through shields, at warp, at an unknown location, light years away. Damn you, Abrams.
While LOS transport would be too limiting, I do like that only a few meters of solid material will be more than enough to thwart any attempts to transport past or inside something. To do that, you'd need a receiving transporter and probably special conduits in place to pipe the signal in. If the ship isn't in a synchronous orbit above you, it may only be capable of beaming you up during certain windows of opportunity (like a 10 minute-widow every 90 minutes, for example) or the ship must expend prodigious amounts of energy to hang in a non orbit, fighting gravity the whole time. Still, this amount of energy would be relatively small compared to some other things they do.
It has been noticed, to their shame, they "goofed" by putting evil Kirk's face scratches on the wrong side for the bridge scene. I doubt they didn't know better, but probably did it deliberately so, from where the cameras were already set up, they could see scratches on evil Kirk's face in that scene. "Who'll notice that, anyway?" somebody probably scoffed, as they applied the scratches. I didn't. Did you?
So, there was attempted rape - pretty bold move for the 60's, even a bit sickeningly realistic in the way Janice was almost apologizing for getting Kirk into trouble. And why does Bones keep brandy in Sickbay? Medicinal purposes? Or because Dr. Piper served alcohol to his captain, too. (EDIT: Oops, it was Dr. Boyce, not Dr. Piper. Piper was a pill pusher.
) I don't mind Kirk having concealing makeup in his room - that probably makes sense, really, seeing how he's supposed to project an image of near perfection all the time.But is it really good vs. evil? I don't think so. I think one just lacked empathy, while the other was almost paralyzed by it, stopping to consider too long and too deeply the consequences of his decisions. A mirror brain image, or some neural chiral molecule the transporter put together in mirror fashion and that wasn't firing the synapses properly for one and too much for the other? Regardless, to relieve Kirk of command would be to show the whole crew he was too weak for command and not worthy, vulnerable guy that he apparently is, and once you lose that, it might be impossible to regain it, so first and foremost, do whatever you can to solve the problem without relieving Kirk of command.
Side-By-Side Comparison
All in all, this is not a favorite episode of mine, but another well done one with decent enough acting, IMO. Still, I only gave it a 4 out of 10, and the remastered effects didn't change my mind on that.
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The shuttlecraft and hangar deck were part of the concept right from the beginning, but the shuttlecraft mockup hadn't yet been delivered and the miniature shuttle and hangar deck hadn't been built when the episode was produced.
But it would be a duplicate pot of evil hot coffee. It might have the opposite effect of normal coffee, putting everyone into a deep sleep or even making them comatose!
It was Dr. Boyce (John Hoyt) who whipped up a martini for Captain Pike in "The Cage." Although Dr. Piper in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" may have had a stock of potent potables as well -- strictly for medicinal purposes, of course.
Cool. But then knowing the shuttlecrafts were part of the ship's capabilities, they ignored them without apology. That's a little sloppy - though at the time, no audience member could complain. So when did they decide the make the transporter since landing the ship was right out, and using a shuttle all the time would be harder? Right from the start, despite knowing the shuttles were a comin', they invented the transporter. After they took up the transporter, were they still expecting to use shuttles, or were they just on order that long and so eventually used them when they finally arrived?
I did say it might have gone off, but it would still be hot, so they could hold it to get warm.
Yeah, I knew that. Just another stupid mistake from cranking these out this quickly without checking stuff.
So what makes saurian brandy so great? I wonder why this lizard-like race makes such a decent drink that it achieved almost galactic fame.
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