Where TOS stumbled....
- Thread starter Warped9
- Start date
Which adds to the novelty value, IMHO. It's definitely not your average Trek episode, but I always though it made a nice change of pace.
And, obviously, I was always disappointed that we never got to see more Gary Seven and Roberta.
Well there are certainly some clunker episodes. The continutity problems are understandable as no one thought it would be around forever.
But i always thought they should have used the preserver concept to explain all the human cultured civilizations instead of the parallel development idea.
Could have partially saved Omega Glory to have a line about preservers although they would need to explain how they could have had a war on the planet 5000 years ago.... time/spatial anomoly works
But i always thought they should have used the preserver concept to explain all the human cultured civilizations instead of the parallel development idea.
Could have partially saved Omega Glory to have a line about preservers although they would need to explain how they could have had a war on the planet 5000 years ago.... time/spatial anomoly works
Who was recently arrested for attempting to murder her boyfriend . . . for real!
Who was recently arrested for attempting to murder her boyfriend . . . for real!
Guess that kitty has claws!
Rarely does TOS really jar me. The reference to WW III taking place in the 1990's ("Bread and Circuses") is one instance, and just before Spock mentions it he talks about the "11 million people" who died in the second WW. I'm no expert but today's estimates of WW II was deaths greatly exceed 11 million, but possibly in the 1960's no one really knew.
Same with Khan controlling most of the planet Earth. Haven't seen Space Seed in a while so I can't remember the specifics.
Same with Khan controlling most of the planet Earth. Haven't seen Space Seed in a while so I can't remember the specifics.
One key part of this dialogue is that Earth actually had more than three world wars. It wouldn't take much to differentiate the Eugenics Wars from World War III.
As to the casualty figures, according to wikipedia, 9 million combatants died in WWI (not off by much, I suppose); I didn't find a figure for civilian casualties, so the writer might have left some things out of his estimates.
For WWII, Spock is off my a couple of parsecs. The estimates on the total death count is between 60 and 70 million, with about 20 million of those being combatants. Maybe the writer had the figure for Allied casualties stuck in his head (probably just Allied combatants, minus Soviet combatants, since they had 11 million all on their own...or maybe he was flipping through a history book, saw the figure and ran with it, without reading the surrounding text completely).
This sort of thing has been known to happen to writers on occasion; Ron Moore had Khan's "On Earth...two hundred years ago" line from TWOK in his head while writing "Dr. Bashir, I Presume" and forgot to add in the extra hundred years to account for DS9's setting.
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^ While there is a reference in "Bread and Circuses" to 37 million people dying in Earth's third world war, there is no date for the conflict mentioned in that ep.
There are awkward references to the Eugenics Wars taking place in the 1990's in "Space Seed", however.
There are awkward references to the Eugenics Wars taking place in the 1990's in "Space Seed", however.
Follow-up:
I just watched a rerun of the British documentary series THE WORLD AT WAR, which I would estimate at being made around 1970-73 time frame. At that time, the estimated total casualties from WW II were estimated at 55 million. That is a far cry from Spock's "Bread and Circuses" reference, I agree.
The reference to "Space Seed" that roger1999 made is not correct. Spock said that the Eugenic superman seized power in over 40 nations, spanning about one-quarter of the Earth.
I just watched a rerun of the British documentary series THE WORLD AT WAR, which I would estimate at being made around 1970-73 time frame. At that time, the estimated total casualties from WW II were estimated at 55 million. That is a far cry from Spock's "Bread and Circuses" reference, I agree.
The reference to "Space Seed" that roger1999 made is not correct. Spock said that the Eugenic superman seized power in over 40 nations, spanning about one-quarter of the Earth.
In TWOK, Khan specifies 1996 as the year they left Earth.
Dusty Ayres
Commodore
Jeffery Hunter was told by his wife not to be in it, and NBC rejected the pilot that he was in. How could he have been on the show then?
It wasn't quite as simple as that. The network had their doubts as to whether or not Desilu, and Roddenberry, could pull off something as ambitious as Star Trek, so they chose "The Cage" as the pilot because they figured it was the toughest script to film; if they could pull that one off, then doing a series looked a lot more possible. And while there was a mixed reaction to the finished product, most of it had to do with casting choices (particularly Roddenberry casting his girlfriend as the female lead), and how it wasn't as action/adventure oriented as was originally promised.
Jeffery Hunter was one aspect that the network had no problem with, and all the parties involved were very interested in signing him for the second pilot. If it weren't for his wife, it might very well have been Pike fighting Mitchell on Delta Vega.
Jeffery Hunter was one aspect that the network had no problem with, and all the parties involved were very interested in signing him for the second pilot. If it weren't for his wife, it might very well have been Pike fighting Mitchell on Delta Vega.
Dusty Ayres
Commodore
Said impressions won't go away until Muslims in North America and Europe start protesting what AQ and sister organizations do to other people in the name of God. The blame can't be put on the entertainment media alone (as Irshad Manji has shown in her book The Trouble With Islam), and has to be acknowledged by Muslims.
I concur, and also add this as well; If Gary Seven's mission was to ensure that Earth grow into a peaceful society, then why didn't he, Roberta Lincoln, and the Aegis prevent both the Eugenics War and WWIII from happening? That fact that both happened means that the Aegis are as Captain Kirk felt they were in one of the Star Trek novels; interlopers interfering with Earth's development and just blundering with no real smart idea as to how to really help the societies that they were getting themselves involved in.
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I've always been of the opinion that certain disasters have to happen for there to be real growth. The Titanic had to sink for engineers to take ship safety seriously. Apollo 1 had to catch fire in order for Apollo 11 to safely make it to the moon and return.
The Aegis probably has the same view. Earth has to go through certain crises or they won't learn and advance. Gary Seven is there to make sure mankind survives those crises (because you can't learn if you're dead), but those crises have to still happen.
The Aegis probably has the same view. Earth has to go through certain crises or they won't learn and advance. Gary Seven is there to make sure mankind survives those crises (because you can't learn if you're dead), but those crises have to still happen.
TOS stumbled by having no continuity between episodes.
TOS also stumbled by having discontinuity between episodes, such as Spock saying he doesn't drink in one episode and then drinking in another episode.
TOS also stumbled by with it's "love interest of the week" episodes (to be convincing and impactful they would have to develop romances over many episodes in a serialized way).
TOS can't be faulted too much for these shortcomings since they were conventions of the time. But if TOS was not hamstrung by the aforementioned things it might easily have become the best show ever made.
TOS also stumbled by having discontinuity between episodes, such as Spock saying he doesn't drink in one episode and then drinking in another episode.
TOS also stumbled by with it's "love interest of the week" episodes (to be convincing and impactful they would have to develop romances over many episodes in a serialized way).
TOS can't be faulted too much for these shortcomings since they were conventions of the time. But if TOS was not hamstrung by the aforementioned things it might easily have become the best show ever made.
As has been previously pointed out in several threads, episode-to-episode story continuity was the stuff of daytime soap operas when Trek TOS was made. Primetime series tended to be quasi-anthologies, with each episode standing alone as a self-contained story. It makes no sense to say Star Trek “stumbled” by being a product of its time. It’s like accusing a cow of being a cow.
It can't be faulted at all for that aspect. Hell, the fact that they made any references to previous episodes puts it a notch above most shows of the period.
Adding William Shatner to the series gave it an energy that was lacking in "The Cage" and in Hunter's performance. Even in the first season when Kirk was the most Pike-like, Shatner was far more interesting to watch than Hunter in "The Cage."
Shatner had a more theatrical approach to acting that made him far more adaptable to the progression of the series from a serious science-fiction adult drama to a somewhat lighthearted space adventure.
Shatner as Kirk also provided a much needed balance to Nimoy's cool, logical Spock performance.
