Star Trek Memories

Jul 11, 2008 19:02



Star Trek Memories

I bought the DVD sets of ST: TOS last year and finished watching all of them a few months ago. Paramount has since re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-released at least some of the TOS episodes on home video, this time on HD-DVD (just in time for HD to lose the format wars to Blu-Ray). Because I have only an ordinary DVD player, I haven't yet made the investment in these new discs (but since I'm a Trekkie, it's almost inevitable that I will at some point in the future--on Blu-Ray, I suppose).

When I finally had all of the unaltered episodes available, I came to realize that I'd become somewhat "ordinary" in my Trekking: over the course of many years, I'd essentially turned into a "City" / "Tribbles" / "Mirror, Mirror" / "Menagerie" / "Amok Time" / "Doomsday Machine" fan, opting not to watch approximately one-third of the catalog. (Since there were three seasons of the original show, you might think that the one-third I refer to here is merely the final--and worst--season; almost, but not exactly.)

I watch DVDs and videotapes while I exercise (total weight loss over the last 8 years: 120+ pounds and counting!), so I eventually made my way through the entire classic set. Re-watching these neglected Trek episodes gave me the idea for this blog post: I'd rate the ones I hadn't seen in a while and point out how well (or poorly) my Trek memories tallied with my grown-up opinions.

This may make it appear that some questionable Trek segments have been inexplicably spared The Wrath Of The Science Officer. Keep in mind that since this is really an article about memory, and the tricks that it sometimes (but not always) plays, I won't offer a critique of every episode, but rather a list of my reactions upon re-watching episodes I hadn't seen in a while. The rule--more of a guideline, I guess--was that I wouldn't comment on episodes I'd seen "recently." I was deliberately a little arbitrary about what "recently" meant. So, for instance, I won't say anything, apart from this, about the laughably Ed Wood-ian "Spock's Brain" since I've seen that within the last year, whereas I hadn't seen the entirety of "Is There In Truth No Beauty?" since--literally--the late 1970s. No joke. Either I've inadvertently gotten a life, or I have just been watching too much neo-Galactica to bother with Classic Trek.

Here, in pseudo-random order, are The Science Officer's Star Trek Memories.

Note: apologies for the amateur-ish appearance of the HTML; it looked much better in a preview.

Same level of quality--good, bad, or otherwise--that I remembered:

"Gamesters Of Triskelion"
Ridiculous, yet funny; Kirk certainly does enjoy talking to off-world females about the lights in the sky!

"The Apple"
Painfully bad, but also funny.

"Requiem For Methuselah"
Very nearly awful, thoroughly implausible, and fails to entertain; you're quite mistaken if you expected me to call it "funny."

"The Cloud Minders"

Imaginative, and may have somehow inspired Cloud City from Star Wars V, but not great. Has anyone ever filked this episode's storyline to the tune of "Roxanne" by The Police? I imagine it would go something like, "Droxine... you don't have to dig the zenite... you don't have to be a troglyte..."

"Friday's Child"

A fairly solid entry from Trek's midlist; full of ad-hoccery of the "... according to their customs, a starship's surgeon may touch a pregnant woman only when it's dark on Thrusday" variety. Or are those the rules of fizzbin? I forget. Additionally, maybe televisions in the 1960s had poor bass response, prompting the producers to dub in a whine instead of a rumble--but I'm almost certain that there is essentially no way to cause a rockslide by using high-pitched sound. Although, don't sue me if you try it and get injured.

"The Squire Of Gothos"

Here, a foppish proto-Q taunts our heroes before he is revealed to be Charlie Evans' cousin. This episode was almost ineligible for this stupendously important blog posting since I sort of watched it on TV within the last year; this time, though, I watched it intently. Since this is fairly lightweight entertainment, the effect was almost exactly the same. On that basis, I'll call it the ideal Trek episode to watch if you're busy folding laundry or washing dishes and therefore can't devote your full attention. It's good, and entertaining, and not all that substantive... and sometimes that can work just fine.

"The Way To Eden"

The notorious "space-hippies" episode... I may not consider it as horrid as everyone else does, but my memory of its low quality level was accurate, even though I haven't watched this one since the 1980s. The folksy vocals were obviously overdubbed, since the room-tone doesn't match when the dialogue resumes.

"That Which Survives"

Spock is in a snit for some reason; some neato "electricity" and "vertical teleport" FX, but it's a ridiculous, pointless, insultingly bad story.

"Is There In Truth No Beauty?"

No, I suppose there isn't!

"Return To Tomorrow"
Overwrought, histrionic, with screechy music throughout... Diana Muldaur (guest star in both this and "Is There In Truth No Beauty?") eventually had a good run as the irascible Dr. Pulaski on TNG, but her participation in TOS is an heuristic for "skip this episode." Not her fault, of course. Kirk's "risk is our business" speech is pretty good. This show has about 10 minutes of actual story inflated to episode length.

"The Empath"
Quite possibly Trek's most impressive bottle-show ever, since the production values are so austere as to make a high school staging of Our Town look like Barry Lyndon vs Alien vs Predator vs AT-ATs, but it isn't brilliant.

"Catspaw"
After re-watching this not-great episode for the first time since maybe grade school, I am left with one and only one stimulating thought: could sympathetic magic work in reverse? Could the real Enterprise set fire to Sylvia and Korob's tablecloth by using its impulse engines or photon torpedoes, causing the lucite-encased voodoo model to ignite? Now, that would be interesting.

"The Enterprise Incident"
Could have--should have--been much better, but I'm happy to see that this has latterly earned recognition for being at least a good episode, if not a true classic.

"The Lights Of Zetar"

Knew it was a fairly bad one, watched it again anyway. Some great mock-computer displays in this one, especially the "matching brainwave" graphic. Would have been more plausible if Scotty's girlfriend were hotter--like maybe Catherine Zetar-Jones. I couldn't avoid making that joke. Apologies.

"Whom Gods Destroy"

Kind of cruddy and laden with continuity problems, but I loved Yvonne Craig--Batgirl herself!--as the incorrigible criminal Marta.

"Wink Of An Eye"

Almost didn't include this one in my Star Trek Memories list since I watched most of it on local TV fairly recently--just not all of it. It's as bad as I remembered, though parts of it are kind of fun. For the absolute last time: you cannot dodge a beam of light by speeding up your metabolism. If they're still making Red Bull in the 23rd century, someone is bound to try doing this. Late-breaking news! The excellent and addictive website TV Tropes has an entry on this story gimmick, branding it Caffeine Bullet Time. This episode is mentioned at the bottom of the page I linked to.

"The Mark Of Gideon"

So implausible as to make all other science fiction ever made look plausible. Here's a conspiracy theory for you: maybe this script was "workshopped" by 1960s SF writers who wanted to achieve exactly that result. Discuss!

Slightly better than I'd remembered:

"The Immunity Syndrome"

Giant amoeba threatens all life! Someone's gotta stop it! And speaking of ST possibly lending inspiration to Star Wars: Spock senses the death of the U.S.S. Intrepid's Vulcan crew in much the way that Obi-Wan senses the destruction of Alderaan. Best line: Shatner saying not "antibodies" but "an-teeee-bawd-deeeeeze!"

"The Paradise Syndrome"

The other TOS episode with "syndrome" in the title also isn't great, but I remembered it as being abysmal, which I'd now say it isn't. If SNL wanted to do an even better Trek spoof back in the 1970s, they should have had Chevy Chase dress up in a buckskin jacket and say, "I am Kirok... and you're not."

"Elaan Of Troyius"

Kirk plays Henry Higgins to a bitchy fashion model betrothed to a king; "lateral thinking" saves the day when her jewelry is substituted for dilithium crystals. Also nearly declined to include this one on my list since I re-watched it within the last two years.

"All Our Yesterdays"
Cannot hold a low-yield keychain phaser to its progenitor "City On The Edge Of Forever," but this penultimate TOS episode isn't awful.

"By Any Other Name"

The visual effect by which the Kelvans turn crewmembers into crumbly polyhedra is very well-done. And, it's amusing when Scotty and one of the bad guys get drunk (yielding the memorable line "it's green"), but this is not a great episode--just a little better than I'd believed.

Slightly worse than I'd remembered:

"Errand Of Mercy"
Can't pick any nits not already picked by the Nitpicker's Guide, so I won't even try. Those problems, though, combine to wash the foundation from beneath this episode. Disappointing.

Much worse than I'd remembered:

"The Alternative Factor"
This one, not "Spock's Brain" or any of the other flak-catchingly bad installments, gets my vote for the absolute worst of the Classic Trek, beating out even "Mark Of Gideon". Incomprehensible, and full of pseudo-profundity: a "winking out" is invading the uuuuuuniverse! AAAAAGH! Noooo! Invasion of the winking-out man! And it turns out there are two of him--! HEEEELLLLLLLP! Can our cosmos possibly survive the onslaught of an inverse-video wrestling match superimposed on a photo of the Triffid nebula? Such high drama! To be fair to the screenwriter, it may have looked okay on paper yet suffered from some questionable production decisions; I came to basically that conclusion regarding the very-good-but-not-quite-perfect "Conscience Of The King." (I like that episode enough that I usually watch it when it comes around in reruns.) I suppose that I never noticed the sheer egregiousness of "The Alternative Factor" because, as a kid, I didn't pay much attention to it. This time through, I did.

Finally, here's one that's much better than I'd remembered:

"Spectre of The Gun"

Excellent supporting cast, and--once we get over the substantial investment of suspension-of-disbelief required by this episode's goofy premise--darned entertaining. The sight of explosive "squibs" tearing apart the fence behind the landing party as phantom bullets fail to harm them is a memorable example of a special non-effect: it cost virtually nothing, but runs so counter to TV viewers' expectations that it's extremely effective. Still, the notion that Melkotians would prefer to harm our explorers by means of Old West simulacra rather than, maybe, daggers or dynamite (or two-by-fours with ugly jutting nails) lacks credibility.

In conclusion, there isn't much to be said about paleo-Trek that hasn't already been said in countless message-board posts, Trek Magazine from the 1970s and 1980s, etc. etc. etc. In revisiting Star Trek ONE... MORE... TIME!!!, I found some treasures and I found some... non-treasures.

But then again it's sort of pointless, even more pointless than blogging usually is, to point out the flaws of Star Trek. In a very nearly literal way, I grew up with Star Trek, and, even though it can be plenty of fun to pick nits, calling attention to bad episodes makes almost as little sense as pointing out the fact that, in the neighborhood where I grew up, some of the sidewalks are tilted because of overgrown tree-roots. So what if the sidewalks are a little off-kilter? It's where I grew up! And the same goes for Star Trek.

Live Long And Prosper, everybody...

The Science Officer

st, sf, trek, startrek

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