Oh, what fun...
As of yesterday I started watching episodes of the original Star Trek again. My first and lasting impression is just wow. I was quickly reminded of just how bad and how awesome the series really is. The quirkiness is why I love it so. Bad acting, convenient plot happenings, lame ship design - seriously who doesn't equip automatic doors with a panel or a manual override? I was reminded, again, though, of how much Bones is still my favorite character. Yay!
In a most unusual occurrence, I am going to use this space to expand a bit on my reactions to the various episodes. At least the first couple anyway. Who knows if I will remember to keep this given my not so good track record.
Starting with Season 1
The premise is that the ship has been mandated to go check up on a scientist and his wife living amongst some ruins on a far off planet. As it turns out the wife is an old crush of Bones, or so we think until very quickly it is determined that she really isn't herself but is instead an alien being - the last of it's kind who assumes any shape it so desires. To live the thing needs salt and presumably love though this last bit is a bit sketchy as the professor ends up dying by it's hands or rather suction cup tentacles in it's search for more salt.
Right from the get go this one is somewhat sketchy. Who lives with a chameleon like last of it's kind creature calls it one's wife and finds this to be an acceptable living arrangement? Clearly the scientist was deranged from years of being alone.
As per expected the creature manages to get aboard the ship where it ends up reeking havoc until it finally gets killed. What I find interesting is that after following around the nurse (who has a food tray with a salt bottle) it fails to attack her but later sucks the salt out of numerous people. Also it fails to find the mess hall or the storerooms too. I would also like to know more about the plant that gets scared of it right about this scene. Noone ever seems to mention it's reaction or take any lasting notice of it. Most interesting.
As a first episode though, it wasn't that bad. Some nice rolling around in the dirt was had through the ruins.
By far one of my least favorite episodes of all time.
In this one Charlie - an abandoned when 3 on a deserted planet - survivor is brought aboard the ship in the hopes of transporting him to the nearest colony. Spock is outright suspicious that this kid could have made it with no help other than the computer tapes and immediately decides a race of advanced beings only known by rumor must have been involved. It takes the whole episode to find out he's right - which I did find quite amusing. Charlie, in the mean time, is a socially inept very awkward super powered 17 year old. Who gets into much trouble. He apparently can't communicate well as he gets into social situations that give him grief but then can't explain the problem later. Had someone noticed he was having communication problems or that Kirk really isn't a good father figure as he also has communication problems, much of the angst would not have happened. Bones of course is also no good at this sort of thing (such as explaining why it's not a good idea to slap a woman on the butt) and lots of problems arise.
Charlie eventually uses his extra spiffy mind powers to control people, then the ship, make people disappear and destroy objects. For some reason he looks up to Kirk so Kirk is almost on several occasions able to take him down. Why he doesn't is beyond me. I suspect his character has psychological issues when it comes to his own father and so this leads into a whole mess of story that comes out later episodes if I remember right.
One of the best scenes in the whole episode is where Uhura sings a rather exciting song while Spock plays some weird stringed instrument. Her interest in him on a relational level comes out a fair amount on the bridge too. This adds some character development and pulls the focus away from Kirk for at least a short time - which is kinda nice.
Also I love, both in this episode, and later ones - the 3D chess game. So far as I can tell it makes no sense but the idea amuses me. I must remember to make an effort to see if there is such a game as 3D chess. It might be worth learning.
Anyway, the other thing that bothers me much, is Charlie himself, though to be fair it adds to the bad acting charm of the series. The boy is stilted, and some of the exagerated paused looks are just painful.
Interestingly enough, as a side note, both of these episodes reminded me heavily of some rather old science fiction stories I read out of this old compilation of best science fiction. I'm not surprised that these old stories are reused. It would be interesting to find out if this was intentional or just that these plot lines are common.
In this episode the ship is traveling outside of the galaxy in the attempts to see what's there. 200 years prior one of the first ships sent out went there and didn't come back so they want to know why. Conveniently as they approach the area of interest they find a capsule that had belonged to the other ship. And conveniently they find ships logs stored in it and some of them are even intelligible. Not enough to forewarn them of course, but enough to know that the other ship met problems, it was deemed too late and that ESP was important.
So, not thinking twice about this, Kirk orders the ship to full speed out of the galaxy. This is where I nearly lost it. The whole sequence of them leaving, then entering this mysterious pink haze - which both registers and doesn't register on the instruments - is just reckless. Straight in they go, on cue the explosions start and back out they go only after all of the systems are down. Seriously who just flies into an unknown pink stuff?!?
The results - as expected, are rather devastating. One of the crew - conveniently a guest and good friend of Kirk's gets heavily zapped. The result - his eyes are now silvery, and his already high ESP goes into over drive such that he can now utilize the rest of his brain. which means he has extra awesome powers such as object levitation, taking control of people, shooting lightning out of his hands, and eventually making objects at will. This guy of course automatically ends up deciding he should be a god. And the rest of the episode is spent trying to stop him.
I didn't mind most of this. The story is decent - other than the pink stuff expecting for 2 other major things.
1. Our man automatically turns his powers to evil. I realize this is plausible but nevertheless unlikely. You'd think that an officer - someone who's life depends on teamwork, and a human - who does have a good side, albeit how small, would show a bit more regard for those around him. No, instead this is the most vile self centered member that this could possibly happen to so naturally world or universal domination is the plan right from the get go.
2. The reaction of the woman psychologist. Her portrayal annoys me. Naturally she falls for this all powerful man. She's already infatuated with him and so from the start insists that he's fine - even when he's still semi normal. She later has this rather nasty outburst in the conference room - and not surprisingly falls under his spell full force and is almost elevated to his goddess. She ends up dying in the final attempt to kill him realizing as stated by Kirk that 2 gods with human emotions can't survive.
What bothers me about this part is the full scale jump to woman falls for man and is seduced. It happens, I know, but we couldn't get any more stereotypical in this instance. It may have been more interesting if their roles were reversed. We wouldn't have the comradere between the dude and Kirk but we wouldn't have poor pathetic woman stereotypes either. I realize this is too much to ask of a show that came out in the 60s. However, being born of an age where these stereotypes aren't acceptable (or shouldn't be anyway) I find this to be a low blow.
I love this episode. Out of the first 4 it is my favorite. It has it's share of problems, but it also has some awesome bits too.
The ship is sent to an ice planet that is about to desintigrate. A team of scientists is supposed to be down there observing. Naturally the first course of action is to rendez-vous with the scientists and bring them back up. Spock and a crewman go down and find the whole lot of them frozen to death in odd ways. A man was strangled. Another just frozen solid to a station - like he nonchalantly let it happen. And another was frozen in a shower with his clothing on.
As per stupid - the crewman takes off his glove and starts touching things just before Spock decides the reason for the deaths is probably some kind of disease. The dude naturally touches some blood and is infected. Back on the ship it becomes clear that everyone needs to be in tip top shape for the imminent implosion of the planet. Which of course means everything is just about to go wrong.
The now infected crewman ends up going crazy and ends up stabbing himself with a butter knife. He later dies. In the mean time the disease starts spreading. It pulls out the strongest desires and impulses of people. There are several awesome scenes where Sulu is topless and brandishing a fencing foil. Another guy decides he is dandy Irishman and is now captain. He ends up locking himself and the controls down in engineering.
This of course is what sets off the spiraling out of control issues. As the planet continues to disintegrate is shrinks and pulls the ship in. It ends up spiraling toward the planet where impact is imminent. To regain control it is decided that they must cut through the wall to engineering. This whole bit just kills me. Who doesn't make a door accessible from both sides? Or a second way into a space via ducts? I'm glad in later star trek series they fix this glaring error. It also should be noted that Scotty spends the most amount of time possible cutting through this wall.
The virus eventually spreads to just about everyone. It travels via sweat. Spock gets it and spends a whole very amusing scene having no control of his emotions. It's both kind of sad in a pathetic kind of way and hilarious. Interestingly it takes different amounts of time for people to get the disease. Kirk seems to get it early on as he continues to get more and more irritated but takes well until the end to really go full fledged. Spock on the other hand starts almost immediately. The only crew member not to get it is Bones. I'm still not entirely sure how this is though given that he touches just about everyone. My only explanation is that the disease has to specifically move through hand sweat. At least hand holding and sweaty hands are highlighted a lot. When Kirk finally gets it he goes through this rather interesting monologue about his lack of love while Spock now has it and how he can't form relationships with the crew. Clearly he's lonesome. (This is particularly funny with regard to the next episode.)
The best scene comes right near the end. Kirk attempts to fight off his feelings and manages to force himself onto the bridge. Just as he enters Bones stabs him with the antidote. The look on Bone's face here is Hilarious. I just about died laughing!
The major disaster at this point is that the want to be captain turned off the engines. The engines usually take awhile to warm up but they are trying a risky quick start that is near impossible and could very well kill them. Of course all of this in under 10 minutes when they are set to impact the imploding planet. The theoretical calculations work though and they make it out of there. Conveniently this method works and sends them back in time. Kirk famously suggests they may use this technique some day and I find it fun that they do in one of the movies. Yay for tie ins!
Overall a good episode - though they could have played up the inner desires more and some of the plot holes are a bit too holey for my liking.
I also like this episode. It seems there started to be some better writers on the staff after they made it passed the first couple.
Here the crew is on an uninhabited planet, again. As it turns out a crewman gets injured and the attempt to bring him back to the ship sets the transporters off a bit. Some weird yellow dust seems to throw the thing for a loop. Naturally no one thinks about this for quite some time. In the mean time Kirk is split in 2 when he is transported. He is split into light and dark. It seems his light side has the intelligence and compassion and his dark side has the action and leadership. The doppleganger isn't noticed for awhile though and spends the rest of the episode running amuck. He attempts to seduce Yeoman Janice and ends up attacking a bunch of people. As per normal his purpose is to take over the ship. Meanwhile several crew are stuck on the planet where it is becoming night and cold. The transporter takes forever to be fixed - no help to a convenient hole in it's circuitry when Kirk battles Kirk finally.
Kirk manages to loose more and more of his resolve thereby rendering Spock somewhat in control at times. The best comes toward the end when Kirk has to decide what to do but won't relinquish the ship. Bones then gives the line "Then we can't help you, Jim." and things almost come to disaster. As per normal it's eventually decided that to undo this process Kirk has to be reunited by having both halves transported back together. It works - which is nice and all of the crew are saved.
The best thing in this episode is the weird but cute "dog" creature that also has this split happen to it. Sadly the dog doesn't survive and I suspect animal rights activists were all upset at the time. They do kind of use it as a test subject after all.
In a most unusual occurrence, I am going to use this space to expand a bit on my reactions to the various episodes. At least the first couple anyway. Who knows if I will remember to keep this given my not so good track record.
Starting with Season 1
The premise is that the ship has been mandated to go check up on a scientist and his wife living amongst some ruins on a far off planet. As it turns out the wife is an old crush of Bones, or so we think until very quickly it is determined that she really isn't herself but is instead an alien being - the last of it's kind who assumes any shape it so desires. To live the thing needs salt and presumably love though this last bit is a bit sketchy as the professor ends up dying by it's hands or rather suction cup tentacles in it's search for more salt.
Right from the get go this one is somewhat sketchy. Who lives with a chameleon like last of it's kind creature calls it one's wife and finds this to be an acceptable living arrangement? Clearly the scientist was deranged from years of being alone.
As per expected the creature manages to get aboard the ship where it ends up reeking havoc until it finally gets killed. What I find interesting is that after following around the nurse (who has a food tray with a salt bottle) it fails to attack her but later sucks the salt out of numerous people. Also it fails to find the mess hall or the storerooms too. I would also like to know more about the plant that gets scared of it right about this scene. Noone ever seems to mention it's reaction or take any lasting notice of it. Most interesting.
As a first episode though, it wasn't that bad. Some nice rolling around in the dirt was had through the ruins.
By far one of my least favorite episodes of all time.
In this one Charlie - an abandoned when 3 on a deserted planet - survivor is brought aboard the ship in the hopes of transporting him to the nearest colony. Spock is outright suspicious that this kid could have made it with no help other than the computer tapes and immediately decides a race of advanced beings only known by rumor must have been involved. It takes the whole episode to find out he's right - which I did find quite amusing. Charlie, in the mean time, is a socially inept very awkward super powered 17 year old. Who gets into much trouble. He apparently can't communicate well as he gets into social situations that give him grief but then can't explain the problem later. Had someone noticed he was having communication problems or that Kirk really isn't a good father figure as he also has communication problems, much of the angst would not have happened. Bones of course is also no good at this sort of thing (such as explaining why it's not a good idea to slap a woman on the butt) and lots of problems arise.
Charlie eventually uses his extra spiffy mind powers to control people, then the ship, make people disappear and destroy objects. For some reason he looks up to Kirk so Kirk is almost on several occasions able to take him down. Why he doesn't is beyond me. I suspect his character has psychological issues when it comes to his own father and so this leads into a whole mess of story that comes out later episodes if I remember right.
One of the best scenes in the whole episode is where Uhura sings a rather exciting song while Spock plays some weird stringed instrument. Her interest in him on a relational level comes out a fair amount on the bridge too. This adds some character development and pulls the focus away from Kirk for at least a short time - which is kinda nice.
Also I love, both in this episode, and later ones - the 3D chess game. So far as I can tell it makes no sense but the idea amuses me. I must remember to make an effort to see if there is such a game as 3D chess. It might be worth learning.
Anyway, the other thing that bothers me much, is Charlie himself, though to be fair it adds to the bad acting charm of the series. The boy is stilted, and some of the exagerated paused looks are just painful.
Interestingly enough, as a side note, both of these episodes reminded me heavily of some rather old science fiction stories I read out of this old compilation of best science fiction. I'm not surprised that these old stories are reused. It would be interesting to find out if this was intentional or just that these plot lines are common.
In this episode the ship is traveling outside of the galaxy in the attempts to see what's there. 200 years prior one of the first ships sent out went there and didn't come back so they want to know why. Conveniently as they approach the area of interest they find a capsule that had belonged to the other ship. And conveniently they find ships logs stored in it and some of them are even intelligible. Not enough to forewarn them of course, but enough to know that the other ship met problems, it was deemed too late and that ESP was important.
So, not thinking twice about this, Kirk orders the ship to full speed out of the galaxy. This is where I nearly lost it. The whole sequence of them leaving, then entering this mysterious pink haze - which both registers and doesn't register on the instruments - is just reckless. Straight in they go, on cue the explosions start and back out they go only after all of the systems are down. Seriously who just flies into an unknown pink stuff?!?
The results - as expected, are rather devastating. One of the crew - conveniently a guest and good friend of Kirk's gets heavily zapped. The result - his eyes are now silvery, and his already high ESP goes into over drive such that he can now utilize the rest of his brain. which means he has extra awesome powers such as object levitation, taking control of people, shooting lightning out of his hands, and eventually making objects at will. This guy of course automatically ends up deciding he should be a god. And the rest of the episode is spent trying to stop him.
I didn't mind most of this. The story is decent - other than the pink stuff expecting for 2 other major things.
1. Our man automatically turns his powers to evil. I realize this is plausible but nevertheless unlikely. You'd think that an officer - someone who's life depends on teamwork, and a human - who does have a good side, albeit how small, would show a bit more regard for those around him. No, instead this is the most vile self centered member that this could possibly happen to so naturally world or universal domination is the plan right from the get go.
2. The reaction of the woman psychologist. Her portrayal annoys me. Naturally she falls for this all powerful man. She's already infatuated with him and so from the start insists that he's fine - even when he's still semi normal. She later has this rather nasty outburst in the conference room - and not surprisingly falls under his spell full force and is almost elevated to his goddess. She ends up dying in the final attempt to kill him realizing as stated by Kirk that 2 gods with human emotions can't survive.
What bothers me about this part is the full scale jump to woman falls for man and is seduced. It happens, I know, but we couldn't get any more stereotypical in this instance. It may have been more interesting if their roles were reversed. We wouldn't have the comradere between the dude and Kirk but we wouldn't have poor pathetic woman stereotypes either. I realize this is too much to ask of a show that came out in the 60s. However, being born of an age where these stereotypes aren't acceptable (or shouldn't be anyway) I find this to be a low blow.
I love this episode. Out of the first 4 it is my favorite. It has it's share of problems, but it also has some awesome bits too.
The ship is sent to an ice planet that is about to desintigrate. A team of scientists is supposed to be down there observing. Naturally the first course of action is to rendez-vous with the scientists and bring them back up. Spock and a crewman go down and find the whole lot of them frozen to death in odd ways. A man was strangled. Another just frozen solid to a station - like he nonchalantly let it happen. And another was frozen in a shower with his clothing on.
As per stupid - the crewman takes off his glove and starts touching things just before Spock decides the reason for the deaths is probably some kind of disease. The dude naturally touches some blood and is infected. Back on the ship it becomes clear that everyone needs to be in tip top shape for the imminent implosion of the planet. Which of course means everything is just about to go wrong.
The now infected crewman ends up going crazy and ends up stabbing himself with a butter knife. He later dies. In the mean time the disease starts spreading. It pulls out the strongest desires and impulses of people. There are several awesome scenes where Sulu is topless and brandishing a fencing foil. Another guy decides he is dandy Irishman and is now captain. He ends up locking himself and the controls down in engineering.
This of course is what sets off the spiraling out of control issues. As the planet continues to disintegrate is shrinks and pulls the ship in. It ends up spiraling toward the planet where impact is imminent. To regain control it is decided that they must cut through the wall to engineering. This whole bit just kills me. Who doesn't make a door accessible from both sides? Or a second way into a space via ducts? I'm glad in later star trek series they fix this glaring error. It also should be noted that Scotty spends the most amount of time possible cutting through this wall.
The virus eventually spreads to just about everyone. It travels via sweat. Spock gets it and spends a whole very amusing scene having no control of his emotions. It's both kind of sad in a pathetic kind of way and hilarious. Interestingly it takes different amounts of time for people to get the disease. Kirk seems to get it early on as he continues to get more and more irritated but takes well until the end to really go full fledged. Spock on the other hand starts almost immediately. The only crew member not to get it is Bones. I'm still not entirely sure how this is though given that he touches just about everyone. My only explanation is that the disease has to specifically move through hand sweat. At least hand holding and sweaty hands are highlighted a lot. When Kirk finally gets it he goes through this rather interesting monologue about his lack of love while Spock now has it and how he can't form relationships with the crew. Clearly he's lonesome. (This is particularly funny with regard to the next episode.)
The best scene comes right near the end. Kirk attempts to fight off his feelings and manages to force himself onto the bridge. Just as he enters Bones stabs him with the antidote. The look on Bone's face here is Hilarious. I just about died laughing!
The major disaster at this point is that the want to be captain turned off the engines. The engines usually take awhile to warm up but they are trying a risky quick start that is near impossible and could very well kill them. Of course all of this in under 10 minutes when they are set to impact the imploding planet. The theoretical calculations work though and they make it out of there. Conveniently this method works and sends them back in time. Kirk famously suggests they may use this technique some day and I find it fun that they do in one of the movies. Yay for tie ins!
Overall a good episode - though they could have played up the inner desires more and some of the plot holes are a bit too holey for my liking.
I also like this episode. It seems there started to be some better writers on the staff after they made it passed the first couple.
Here the crew is on an uninhabited planet, again. As it turns out a crewman gets injured and the attempt to bring him back to the ship sets the transporters off a bit. Some weird yellow dust seems to throw the thing for a loop. Naturally no one thinks about this for quite some time. In the mean time Kirk is split in 2 when he is transported. He is split into light and dark. It seems his light side has the intelligence and compassion and his dark side has the action and leadership. The doppleganger isn't noticed for awhile though and spends the rest of the episode running amuck. He attempts to seduce Yeoman Janice and ends up attacking a bunch of people. As per normal his purpose is to take over the ship. Meanwhile several crew are stuck on the planet where it is becoming night and cold. The transporter takes forever to be fixed - no help to a convenient hole in it's circuitry when Kirk battles Kirk finally.
Kirk manages to loose more and more of his resolve thereby rendering Spock somewhat in control at times. The best comes toward the end when Kirk has to decide what to do but won't relinquish the ship. Bones then gives the line "Then we can't help you, Jim." and things almost come to disaster. As per normal it's eventually decided that to undo this process Kirk has to be reunited by having both halves transported back together. It works - which is nice and all of the crew are saved.
The best thing in this episode is the weird but cute "dog" creature that also has this split happen to it. Sadly the dog doesn't survive and I suspect animal rights activists were all upset at the time. They do kind of use it as a test subject after all.