Why would they have to?
I understand you don't like the character as written/portrayed, but that doesn't make it bad, necessarily. Do all characters have to be competent and have complicated motivations?
Turnabout Intruder
- Thread starter ConRefit79
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Why would they have to?
I understand you don't like the character as written/portrayed, but that doesn't make it bad, necessarily. Do all characters have to be competent and have complicated motivations?
I guess the point of the episode was that Lester was just incompetent despite her ambitions and her theoretical knowledge. There is more to being a good leader than cold facts. Charisma and confidence is what Lester lacks.
If you want your villain to be threatening (and who wants an unthreatening villain?) then they must be at least somewhat competent. As I posted earlier, Lester is a shrill cartoon who comes off like an eyeroll at 60s second wave feminism, and many critics and fans (including myself) think the episode is tone-deaf. So, yes, her portrayal as incompetent and irrational and hating men irks me. I'm a straight man and it made me cringe.
I see.
I don't think she was too incompetent, though. Her plan was 90% successful, I don't think she counted on Spock.
Should all women love and adore men?
Also, would there ever have been an episode where she succeeded?
Last episode or not, I can't imagine anyone killing off Kirk. Don't mention a movie to me made long after the series please.
I don't think she was too incompetent, though. Her plan was 90% successful, I don't think she counted on Spock.
Should all women love and adore men?
Also, would there ever have been an episode where she succeeded?
Last episode or not, I can't imagine anyone killing off Kirk. Don't mention a movie to me made long after the series please.
I would have liked to have seen her able to command the ship for all of five minutes before the jig was up. Certainly she can't succeed for long, but she should succeed enough to worry the viewer for a bit.I see.
I don't think she was too incompetent, though. Her plan was 90% successful, I don't think she counted on Spock.
Should all women love and adore men?
Also, would there ever have been an episode where she succeeded?
Last episode or not, I can't imagine anyone killing off Kirk. Don't mention a movie to me made long after the series please.
LOL, no, not all women should love men. I don't think I made my point clearly. The issue is that she's portrayed as a man-hating feminist stereotype. I am not sure that was the intent. Could've been, but maybe not. In any case, it came off that way, and that's what rankled me.
The only case that the writers could have made her succeed was if it were a Best of Both Worlds scenario, with a season-ending cliffhanger leading into the next season. Which obviously didn't exist. So in this case, nope. I wish they'd just ended S3 with All Our Yesterdays. That's a great episode, and the title is apropos for a finale.
EDIT: I also wish they'd ended S1 with City on the Edge of Forever. And that they'd ended S2 with Bread and Circuses, because I really hate Assignment: Earth. Not sure why every season ended with a bad episode and the penultimate episodes were always great or pretty good. Weird.
And that final moment was a perfect finale. (NOT remastered.)
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Was Lester even in Star Fleet at all, in the first place?
^ IIRC, Lester and Kirk were at the Academy together but she washed out and quit (or, more likely, was kicked out) after a year.
It was written in an era when the idea of a female captain was nonexistent in real life so the episode reflects the reality of the writers' limited cultural perceptions. It would have been better if Janice as Kirk takes over the ship and is so good that no one knows the difference except Spock via a mind meld. The final line by the doctor who was in love with her was sexist something about 'her life could have been as rich as any woman's' what is that supposed to mean?.
^ "If only..."
Meaning, if only Janice wasn't a complete NUTBAR. Had nothing to do with the fact that she's a woman. Her delusions just made her think so.
Meaning, if only Janice wasn't a complete NUTBAR. Had nothing to do with the fact that she's a woman. Her delusions just made her think so.
Thank you, I wasn't trying to pin you down, she was a bit too much, but I thought the actress was very good as Captain Kirk. I blame the director, actually.
Some people can't see their own faults and need to blame something else. Then add insanity to the mix and there you are.
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If there's one redeeming quality about the episode, it's seeing Sandra Smith do a Shatner impression. That was good.
I wou
l would have like to seen 'Janice' do the patented Kirk flying drop kick on 'Kirk'.
God, I would probably have forgiven Turnabout for all its problems if there'd been a fight scene with Kirk-as-Lester doing karate chops or two-fist-punches.I wou
l would have like to seen 'Janice' do the patented Kirk flying drop kick on 'Kirk'.
Had Lester had all her marbles together she could have been as good an officer as Pike's first officer?
There is no good reason to show Lester being good in the captain's chair. For the audience it was clear that she's cuckoo, like Commodore Decker when he took over the ship. Both characters are capable intelligent people. Both have lost their marbles off-screen. For the audience the interesting aspect was how the crew dealt with those situations.
Or Lester-as-Kirk fighting be scratching with long fingernails, I suppose?
Most western societies today ( I'm tempted to say 'all the civilized ones anyway', just to be ultra controversial
) have come to the realization that state-sponsored murder is barbaric, backward, medieval, something to be ashamed . The death penalty, struck from the books, no exceptions. If 23rd century humanity is even half as enlightened as they proclaim to be, then the very existence of General Order 4 is a contradiction of terms.
Any type of action would have been cool in this episode : Kirk fights Janice, Spock fights Kirk, McCoy fights Coleman, Freiberger fights Justman, Laverne fights Shirley....anything to add some action to this talk-a-thon episode!
Assuming the General order involving the death penalty in TI is meant to be the one from The Menagerie, my feeling is since The Menagerie (or envelope as I think it was nicknamed) was written at fairly short notice with a very long court scene to frame the footage from The Cage so in making a TV show in order to put some drama in the long legal debates they made this the only such penalty in all 23rd Century humanity. This does sit a bit strangely, but The fact that this is the only such penalty in ST for any crime does indicate ST's 'enlightenment 'Most western societies today ( I'm tempted to say 'all the civilized ones anyway', just to be ultra controversial
While I know what your saying, and agree they may have been intended to be the same thing, as I said earlier in the thread in context the two are very different things. General Order Seven might specifically seem to apply to Talos IV alone, or at least that's how it's presented to us: a very specific scenario involved in (wilfully) breaking the most highest of curfews placed in order to protect outsiders from the dangers posed by the powerful (and antagonistic) Talosians. General Order 4 is presented as being some kind of on-board-ship law, something that could be pulled out and used in some mutinous circumstance or other. It's not necessarily used often, it might not be used at all. But that it exists is troubling, and says that in Kirk's time at least there's still a certain brutality to the human condition.
There is a contradiction between "The Menagerie", which says blatantly that GO7 was the only death penalty still left on the books, and "Turnabout Intruder", which implies that GO4 is also a death penalty. But we must assume that in-universe each are separate and both carry the same sentence.
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