A few us even started collecting Social Security....
We're OLD....
Sad, but true.
- W -
* Who's in his mid-40's *
Why is TOS still #1?
- Thread starter RobertScorpio
- Start date
A few us even started collecting Social Security....
We're OLD....
Sad, but true.
- W -
* Who's in his mid-40's *
RobertScorpio
Pariah
A few us even started collecting Social Security....
We're OLD....
Sad, but true.
- W -
* Who's in his mid-40's *
I'm 50...so I qualify!!!!....
I think KIRK and company are going strong because the show was just pure fun...and as others said, there isn't a heavey dose of technobabble..
Someone also mentioned the PC angle of the later show, which someone else thought wasn't true. Well, it is true. There is definately a 'feeling' out there that Picard was PC. You may not think he was, or the show was, but there is that belief out there that Kirk was a kick ass captain, and Picard was kiss ass captain. Maybe it isn't fair..but...it is what it is.
Rob
Scorpio
That is true about Connery, as well as TOS.
TOS is the best because it is the best, not because it was the first. They hit the jackpot with Shatner/Nimoy and the rest of the regular crew. All other ST shows have tried to emulate the rapport and relationships of the original crew, with varying degrees of success.
Regards
Regards
DevilintheDark
Lieutenant
lll go ahead and agree with some others.Its the best because its fun...and it has William Shatner.
I think it's as much a product of the times as anything else. Two things:
1. No cable, so little competition to draw viewers away. This gave it a wider audience than the others have had, and a better chance to insinuate itself into general consciousness.
2. Speaking of consciousness, as was mentioned above, the 60s and 70s were a time when a lot of people had very open minds and were thinking big. The world was changing extremely fast, and the kinds of ideas the show was pushing fit in well with those times. It was a real synergy. It's not the only piece of popular culture to do so. Think of music (Beatles and Rolling Stones) or art (Warhol), doing new and different things. Basically, if you made it big with the youth back then (the largest generational wave in recent history), you are still big even today, and will be for years to come, because the sheer number of baby boomers shaped modern civilization to their own specifications.
Crap. Too many words. Sorry.
1. No cable, so little competition to draw viewers away. This gave it a wider audience than the others have had, and a better chance to insinuate itself into general consciousness.
2. Speaking of consciousness, as was mentioned above, the 60s and 70s were a time when a lot of people had very open minds and were thinking big. The world was changing extremely fast, and the kinds of ideas the show was pushing fit in well with those times. It was a real synergy. It's not the only piece of popular culture to do so. Think of music (Beatles and Rolling Stones) or art (Warhol), doing new and different things. Basically, if you made it big with the youth back then (the largest generational wave in recent history), you are still big even today, and will be for years to come, because the sheer number of baby boomers shaped modern civilization to their own specifications.
Crap. Too many words. Sorry.
From what I've heard, TOS was very PC in its day, probably more so than the other series. The black woman on the bridge, the Russian, the Asian, the mixed race guy, women with some authority, the first inter-racial kiss - it pushed a liberal social agenda
harder than any other show at the time, and the controversy helped it gain viewers. The show's politics are mostly invisible to us because it was just so long ago. Now, star trek won't even have a gay character.
I think TOS is still so popular for the same reason that the Rolling Stones can still sell concert tickets - baby boomers. It does have a great campy appeal, though. Kirk was a slut and a brawler zooming through space on a ship that looked like it was made of painted card board. And they were so serious about it, which makes it hilarious. There'll never be another show like it.
harder than any other show at the time, and the controversy helped it gain viewers. The show's politics are mostly invisible to us because it was just so long ago. Now, star trek won't even have a gay character.
I think TOS is still so popular for the same reason that the Rolling Stones can still sell concert tickets - baby boomers. It does have a great campy appeal, though. Kirk was a slut and a brawler zooming through space on a ship that looked like it was made of painted card board. And they were so serious about it, which makes it hilarious. There'll never be another show like it.
TheLonelySquire
Vice Admiral
While I also think TOS is number 1, I don't feel that the PC stuff in the later series was crap, and I for one don't reach for the vomit bag. It's really not that overt, unless you feel personally slighted that they changed the intro to the gender-neutral "where no one has gone before." If anyone feels that way, they have issues!
What does make me want to reach for the barf bag is this extreme backlash against the so-called PC-ness of modern Trek. It's not really that overreaching, frankly.
Second, for the sake of accuracy, Kirk never chased Rand down the corridors. Yes, he felt an attraction to her, but he held himself back for professional reasons. It's one of the reasons I like Kirk. The only time something more overt happened was when his negative duplicate tried to rape her.
I know you're trying to be funny, friend. Just wanted to throw a wet blanket on you!
Red Ranger
Hey RR,
Thanks for your opinion. Regarding Kirk and Rand, yeah it was his duplicate but it was part of him. Kirk was a skirt chaser and while he left his crew alone he went after plenty of Federation officers. Helen Noel he bagged at a party I believe, and the prosecutor from the Court Martial, as examples.
We'll have to disagree on the PC aspect of TNG and beyond. I do think the "where no one has gone before" is ridiculous. If they felt that way they should have changed the opening, imo. Also, I wasn't all that thrilled with the politically engineered setup they gave Riker. But that's just me.
I prefer a world where men are men and women are women. I don't believe they are subservient, but I do believe they are different. Thanks for the banter.
TheLonelySquire
Vice Admiral
No, it didn't jam the PC down your throat or mine, but I think the original 60's TOS audience might feel differently. Didn't some stations take TOS off the air after the Uhura/Kirk smooch? If you were born today and watched the other series as retro tv, would you still see the PC message, or would it just blend into the background like the social messages of TOS do for me? I think some of the TNG episodes will end up sounding too preachy, but time will tell.
That said, I did like the way TOS dealt with certain issues. Instead of talking about the cold war, they just stuck a Russian on the bridge and let the audience draw their own conclusions.
You sure that's true? I'd be interested in seeing evidence.
I don't think anything in Star Trek is #1. What's #1 is what's in people's faces at any given time. To the world, Star Trek does not now exist.
Right now, nothing is #1. When Abrams' movie comes out, that will zoom to first place and if it's a hit, which I hope it will be, that will form the basis for Star Trek going forward and will far eclipse anything that came before.
And a recent reference on BSG. Those all come from the same source: the people making stuff now in Hollywood are the right age to have seen TOS as children, and it left a big impression. But as they start to retire, that phenomenon will fade.
Whatever Abrams is up to will be the standard for Star Trek. If he does things right, future generations will think of Pine and Quinto as Kirk and Spock. If he fraks it up, Trek remains in obscurity.
Well said!
And I think it was the cast's chemistry, notably Shatner/Nimoy, that made the characters and their interaction that credible.
TheLonelySquire
Vice Admiral
TheLonelySquire
Vice Admiral
I travel internationally frequently and see TOS all the time. It's on every night in prime time in Brazil and I hope to catch it in Amsterdam next week.
While I also think TOS is number 1, I don't feel that the PC stuff in the later series was crap, and I for one don't reach for the vomit bag. It's really not that overt, unless you feel personally slighted that they changed the intro to the gender-neutral "where no one has gone before." If anyone feels that way, they have issues!
What does make me want to reach for the barf bag is this extreme backlash against the so-called PC-ness of modern Trek. It's not really that overreaching, frankly.
Second, for the sake of accuracy, Kirk never chased Rand down the corridors. Yes, he felt an attraction to her, but he held himself back for professional reasons. It's one of the reasons I like Kirk. The only time something more overt happened was when his negative duplicate tried to rape her.
I know you're trying to be funny, friend. Just wanted to throw a wet blanket on you!
Red Ranger
Hey RR,
Thanks for your opinion. Regarding Kirk and Rand, yeah it was his duplicate but it was part of him. Kirk was a skirt chaser and while he left his crew alone he went after plenty of Federation officers. Helen Noel he bagged at a party I believe, and the prosecutor from the Court Martial, as examples.
We'll have to disagree on the PC aspect of TNG and beyond. I do think the "where no one has gone before" is ridiculous. If they felt that way they should have changed the opening, imo. Also, I wasn't all that thrilled with the politically engineered setup they gave Riker. But that's just me.
I prefer a world where men are men and women are women. I don't believe they are subservient, but I do believe they are different. Thanks for the banter.
Lonely,
I hear what you're saying. You're right -- we'll have to agree to disagree.
As for Helen Noel, if you watch that ep carefully, Kirk actually didn't bag her. They met at a party, had a few laughs. But maybe the reason you remember that is when she and Kirk are testing the device, she puts an impression in his head that their meeting ended differently with him sweeping her off her feet.
I think Kirk did have a relationship with Areel Shaw before Court Martial, though. He did get around! But if you watch the show carefully, he really didn't have sex that often. About the only time I remember it being overt was in Wink of an Eye, where you see him putting his boots back on after nailing Deela, the leader of the Scalosians.
As for "no one has gone before," perhaps it would help if you saw iti in a different context. While the phrase was changed to be gender-neutral, I see it as Picard being a 24th century person acknowleding all kinds of life forms, male, female, and other, non-human entities.
Red Ranger
That's the point. It was the savage, uncontrolled part. No one says she didn't give him a stiffie. What makes him Captain Kirk is that he didn't go after her.
No. He didn't. Not ever.
She wasn't under his command.
TOS is a great and iconic show. It entered the popular consciousness; and all this is part and parcel of the show's enduring appeal.
I have no evidence of any kind; but in my small corner of the world DS9 is probably the most popular of the shows; not that any are particularly popular. TNG and even VOY are more widely watched.
I have no evidence of any kind; but in my small corner of the world DS9 is probably the most popular of the shows; not that any are particularly popular. TNG and even VOY are more widely watched.
Science Fiction itself is more mainstream. Everyone knows of ST and SW regardless of whether or not they like them.
When I talk to people who are NOT into sci-fi, they still know who Kirk and Spock are. Ask those same people who Data or Janeway is and they have no clue.
This is the impact that TOS has.
When I talk to people who are NOT into sci-fi, they still know who Kirk and Spock are. Ask those same people who Data or Janeway is and they have no clue.
This is the impact that TOS has.
Only in this case it is.
