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Nate the Great 09-08-2016 05:06 PM

50th Anniversary TOS Episode Discussion Marathon
 
Fifty years ago today "The Man Trap" aired in the United States (apparently two days earlier in Canada). It was followed by "Charlie X", "Where No Man Has Gone Before", "The Naked Time," and so forth.

Yikes. If that initial lineup aired in today's world of social media and instant ratings calculations, do you think the series would have survived? I don't.

Anyway, here's what I propose as a forum game for the anniversary. On the anniversary of each episode's initial broadcast (link to Memory Alpha, we'll use the "Initial Airdate" column), somebody (not always me, we can share the tasks) will post a link to the appropriate fiver, and talk about each episode and the fiver for the week until the next episode.

I'll start in the next post.

Nate the Great 09-08-2016 05:40 PM

September 8th, 1966, "The Man Trap"

The Fiver (by IDJ GAF)
Memory Alpha Page
Transcript (courtesy of chakoteya.net)

Thoughts:

* Wrigley's Pleasure Planet was always a funny concept to me. To me "Wrigley" still means chewing gum.
* First example of the captain's log knowing things that the cast doesn't. I mean, it's weird how the captain's log was never fully explained. How, where, and when are these "omniscient narrator" entries made?
* It seems fitting that "may the Great Bird of the Galaxy bless your planet" appears in the first episode aired.

Fiver quotes:

Captain's Log: We've beamed down to the planet to investigate the Crater of two evils.

Oh, the puns in this fiver.

Crater: It's the last creature of its kind -- much like the passenger pigeon, American buffalo, dodo bird...
Kirk: ...Diatryma, Smilodon, Tyrannosaur... I get the picture.

I looked these up. Diatryma was an early giant flightless bird whose status as carnivorous or vegetarian is in dispute. Smilodon was one of the saber-tooth tiger species. That being said, I don't understand the comparison of long-extinct species to those who went extinct in more recent times due to the interference of man.

Kirk: She's an it. It's a salt monster.
Nancy: Mmmm.... Kirk sweat....
Spock: (entering room) Shoot it, Doctor!
McCoy: I dunno, I think I need more evidence than that.
(Nancy morphs into a salt monster)
Salt Monster: Mmmm.... Kirk sweat....
McCoy: Good enough. (Fires)
Salt Monster: GAK!

Ah yes, the ever-popular Gak. But the idea that Kirk's sweat would be considered more delicious than McCoy's or Spocks has disturbing implications.

Further discoveries from the Memory Alpha page:

Mainly because this episode was chosen to be first via process of elimination, the initial reviews weren't all that great. However, this is what got David Gerrold hooked and led to many collaborations.

Comment and so forth. I hope someone else can take care of the main entry for "Charlie X" next week.

NAHTMMM 09-09-2016 08:53 AM

Great thread! :) I'll have to come back later to actually comment.

Nate the Great 09-09-2016 03:26 PM

"The Man Trap" coverage, part two.

The Nitpicker's Guide entry for "The Man Trap" says that Allan Asherman (author of The Star Trek Compendium) dubbed Kirk the "male Fay Wray" because of his ability to scream with expression and emotion. In this episode he does so when the salt vampire attacks him.

Clip of Spock hitting the salt vampire (the nerve pinch hasn't been invented yet) to no effect, only for it to backhand him across the room. This clip also includes the Kirk scream.

A salt vampire cosplayer dances (and strips away her costume) at a Star Trek Beauty Contest at Dragoncon. So, um, that happened...

You probably don't remember Sulu's pet weeper plant Gertrude (formerly known at Beuregard). Well, the creators of The Red Shirt Diaries do. I just discovered these videos, so enjoy their episode for "The Man Trap".
Wait until the end for a special twist. I've just seen the first episode, I want to watch the others as I make the anniversary entries here.

Hallmark made a Christmas Tree Ornament for this episode.

Nate the Great 09-09-2016 03:52 PM

"The Man Trap" coverage, part three. All of this is from Memory Alpha.

The actress inside the salt vampire costume, Sandra Gimpel, also played a Talosian in "The Cage." The staff wanted someone small who could act in costume. She didn't know about the fandom's affection for the salt vampire until she attended her first Star Trek convention earlier this year.

I'd never noticed the salt vampire costume on display in Trelane's mansion along with other aliens.

Originally the NX-01 crew was supposed to go to Wrigley's Pleasure Planet in "Two Days and Two Nights", but Risa was substituted, as the Enterprise was supposed to be far removed from places with human names. After all, W.P.P. does sound like something Harry Mudd or Cyrano Jones would set up, right?

(Okay, this next one is Memory Beta)

If the Star Trek Roleplaying Game is to be believed, Wrigley's Pleasure Planet was built inside a hollowed-out asteroid in the solar system.

Nate the Great 09-10-2016 10:54 PM

Um, guys? Anybody besides NAHTMMM out there?

NAHTMMM 09-12-2016 08:24 AM

Good work digging all that up, Nate. I appreciate it. :)

Quote:

McCoy: I'm nervous; how come I have to get the girl the first episode?
Kirk: You already got her, and she dumped you. Probably because you're not me.
McCoy: You're doing wonders for my nervousness.
In the actual episode, Kirk's teasing here felt a little cruel to me.

There have been complaints elsewhere about the salt vampire being killed. Letting it live would have been the Trek thing to do, and it should have been within the crew's capability. Stun it, beam it down to the planet, leave it some pellets. If Dr. Crater truly wants to take his chances with it, that's his decision. I don't know how well that ending would have gone over with the rest of the episode leading up to it, though.

The fiver is pretty good. It parodies the plot pretty well, brings out the creature's salt obsession, and takes the "first episode" opportunity to snark on a few Trek cliches:
Quote:

Transporter Guy: (over comm) Landing party reports one casualty sir.
Spock: Meh.
Uhura: I don't believe it, a man dead and NO emotion from you!
Spock: It'll catch on with the rest of you soon enough.

[...]

McCoy: (over the comm) I found something suspicious, could you come down here?
Kirk: Why can't you say whatever it is over the comm?
McCoy: Doctor/cadaver confidentiality.
As far as citing ancient extinctions, maybe IJD deliberately had Kirk miss the point. Or maybe he was just picking words he liked.

Nate the Great 09-12-2016 05:40 PM

I assume I'm doing Charlie X on Thursday.

Nate the Great 09-15-2016 11:24 AM

September 15th, 1966, "Charlie X"

The Fiver (by Derek)
Memory Alpha Page
Transcript by chakoteya.net

Thoughts on the episode:

* Charlie learned to talk by speaking to the computer? Yeah, no. Maybe if you plunked a kid in a classroom with a computer specifically programmed to teach language skills like in the NextGen episode "Rascals." In the 23rd century, with a computer designed to be used in a colony, a computer even less sophisticated than the Enterprise's? Yeah, no. At best Charlie would babble at it and the computer would respond "invalid command" over and over.
* The bottom slapping bit always seemed out of place. The final punchline needed to be stronger to justify the setup, and it wasn't.
* Since Kirk is from Iowa, the idea that he'd be the one in favor of promoting at least minimal observance of Thanksgiving makes sense.
* Ah, yes, UESPA, the United Earth Space Probe Agency. After this episode and "Tomorrow is Yesterday", UESPA would be relegated to cameos. Some have suggested that any usage of a military rank instead of a naval rank (i.e. Colonel West) marks a UESPA officer, not a Starfleet one. At least this bit of early weirdness hasn't entirely gone away, unlike Vulcanians and lithium crystals.
* I'm still iffy on this whole "Thasians can teach the ability to transmute matter to humans" thing. When it comes to inhuman powers, I don't think they can be "taught." I'd think teaching a human to nerve pinch would be about the maximum possible without outright genetic modification.
* I do like how Charlie admits that the Enterprise is more complicated than the Antares and he outright can't control everything by himself. It calls to mind Scotty's jerry-rig of the ship in The Search for Spock.
* If the Thasians can grant their power without being able to take it back, I guess they're lower on the cosmic food chain than the Q, who can do it with a finger snap. I like that, they're not quite omnipotent. Call it semi-phenomenal, nearly cosmic.

Thoughts on the fiver:

I understand the Star Wars jokes, but reminding me of the prequels isn't very pleasant. Sorry, Derek.

Uhura: (singing) Charlie X, Charlie X, for you that name might vex. But be glad indeed your name's not Malcolm Reed or you'd be called Malcolm X. Ack!
Charlie: I find your lack of good lyrics disturbing.

Classic trilogy jokes, however, are a-okay.

Ramart: (over the comm) Kirk, I wanted to warn you about Charlie X. He's a Q! GAK!
Kirk: What's a "Q"?
Spock: It's a letter of the alphabet as far as I know.

Classic "Gak!" gag. Obligatory "All Good Things" reference, move along...

Rand: Argh! Enough with the Star Wars quotes already! Get out!

I'm with you on this one, Janice.

Spock: I can't believe my ears!
Charlie: I can't believe your ears either.

Okay, is this more Abbot and Castello or Marx Brothers? Decisions, decisions...

Memory Alpha thoughts:

* I wasn't aware that an early title considered was "Charlie's Law", a science joke. I remember covering this in school, but we jumped quickly to the Ideal Gas Law.
* I didn't know that Gene Roddenberry's only cameo (as a voice) was in this episode.
* I've read the Blish adaptations, but it's been a long time. I didn't know that Blish was able to save the disappeared Enterprise crew by saved by the Thasians.
* The article mentions that Charlie and the Antares crew use leftover, outdated uniforms from "The Cage." This makes sense, as when uniforms are updated priority would be given to the starship crews, with smaller ships and outposts lower down in the pecking order.
* Thanksgiving in 2266 would be on November 22nd, giving an exact "real-world" date for this episode.
* I'm amazed that at various points the Antares is called a cargo vessel, a transport ship, a science probe vessel, and a survey ship. Maybe the last two could be considered alternate terms for each other, but in general wouldn't these tasks require different kinds of crews and ship equipment? Clearly the script needed another run-through by an editor.

Nate the Great 09-16-2016 12:15 PM

C'mon guys, fiftieth anniversaries don't come along every year.

Nate the Great 09-17-2016 01:11 PM

Perhaps we need to change the thread title? "50th Anniversary TOS Episode Discussion Marathon?"

NAHTMMM 09-17-2016 08:45 PM

Sorry, I was going to rewatch Thursday but other stuff kept coming up.

From what I remember, there's an undercurrent of Kirk and the crew failing Charlie. Obviously Kirk didn't know at first how special Charlie was, and he had a ship to run and Charlie was just another passenger, but in the context of the episode Kirk doesn't look very empathetic. (In fact, looking at the transcript, Kirk tries to push the task of an initial father figure off on Bones.) I know it was '60s TV, but seriously:
Quote:

Well, um, er, there are things you can do with a lady, er, Charlie, that you er. There's no right way to hit a woman. I mean, man to man is one thing, but, er, man and woman, er, it's, er, it's, er. Well it's, er, another thing. Do you understand?
No. Nobody's going to understand that.

I wonder (if I may take this into a weird meta space) how a later Kirk might have handled Charlie, during the second season for example, when the character was more familiar to the writers and Shatner. Could the episode have gone in a different direction, with Charlie and the crew finding some understanding of each other, only for Charlie to be taken away at the end despite showing promise? Would that be more or less effective?


Oh, and the fiver is very good.
Quote:

Charlie: Is that a girl?
Kirk: No, those are the transporter controls. This is your first time around other people, isn't it?
Classic parodic lines. And the Star Wars jokes are wonderfully over-the-top.

Nate the Great 09-22-2016 09:32 AM

September 22nd, 1966, "Where No Man Has Gone Before"

The Fiver (by Zeke)
Memory Alpha Page
Transcript by chakoteya.net

Thoughts on the episode:

* Ah yes, the second pilot. The one that would never have been made in today's television industry. Today "The Cage" would've been rejected and Star Trek never would've happened.
* One of Spock's ancestors married a human? Why wasn't the precise nature of Spock's heritage in the series bible? Sarek and Amanda should've been in the series bible by now.
* Lots of outdated technobabble. I've already preached enough on this topic, I'll move on.
* I always hate it when a show's cast introduces themselves and their specialties in turn. There had to have been a way to do this more organically.
* Like many fans, I interpret the "little blonde lab technician" as Carol Marcus.
* "James R. Kirk." I wonder what name starting with "R" would have been as memetic as "Tiberius".

Thoughts on the fiver:

Kelso: Are you sure? Could be risky.
Kirk: Risk? Risk is our business! That's what this starship is all abou--
Spock: Ahem. Jim? Not till the one where we switch brains with robots.
Kirk: Oh yeah. Sorry.

I always did love the "risk is our business" quote. I remember that the novel Imzadi says that Kirk adopted that phrase as the title of his autobiography.

Kirk:
Okay, activate the transporter.
Scotty: You mean the materializer, right?
Kirk: Materializer? Yeesh, even Archer called it a transporter! What kind of losers are we?

Oh yeah, that's a lame name. Even "Vulcanian" isn't that pathetic.

Sulu: Mitchell's powers are doubling every day. Think of it this way, sir: suppose you make one penny today, then two pennies tomorrow, four pennies the next day, and so on. Know what happens after a month? You get busted for forgery.
Kirk: I'm not sure I followed that.
Spock: Try "us good, Gary bad."
Kirk: Hmmm...yeah, that's better. Let's dump him on a planet and run.

Classic twist on the "wheat and chessboard problem" (I remember the rice variant, but whatever Wikipedia says, goes, I guess).

Piper: Mitchell left after killing Kelso and putting you and Spock to sleep.
Kirk: How did he do that?
Piper: According to our security camera, he started reading out the script of Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Nobody deserves that kind of torture.

Kirk: Sorry you got, you know, killed.
Dehner: Meh, no biggie. It was... fun....
Kirk: Why do I feel like I just looked into my own grave?

Yikes, Z. How many shoutouts to other episodes and movies can you fit into one fiver?

Kirk: "James R. Kirk."
Spock: Right. What's with that? A god wouldn't make such a grave mistake.
Kirk: What mistake? It was a sentence: "James are Kirk." Which I are.
Spock: Hmm... becoming the brains of this outfit may be easier than I expected.

Was the juxtaposition of a clever pun with a lame pun your intention? Because that was clever if so.

Memory Alpha thoughts:

* I'd forgotten about Sulu's shifting job description in the early episodes. I almost wonder if this is similar to Chekov and Wesley having multiple jobs to better round out their education and training.
* They bring up Kirk and Mitchell's visit to Deneb IV, to be featured in "Encounter at Farpoint." Odd, while watching that episode I got the impression that Deneb IV had only recently joined the galactic community, perhaps wanting to leverage Farpoint Station and its new trading position to increase it's position.
* I knew that Isaac Asimov was a fan, but didn't know that he first encountered the show at a screening, nor did I know that Roddenberry "shushed" him.

NAHTMMM 09-22-2016 02:51 PM

My favorite bit of the fiver is probably:
Quote:

Kirk: And now, onward! Onward we go, to expand the frontiers of human exploration and become legends!

Spock: Well, that was a bust.
Kirk: Oh, shut up.
The bit where Dehner says "I think I'm some kind of psychiatrist" amuses me too.

I imagine that the series bible simply said "this guy's half-alien, half-human" and left it at that. A lot of Trek just got made up as they went along; it's a big reason why canon is such an issue.

Zeke 09-23-2016 01:23 AM

This thread is a great idea (though yes, the title you suggested is more on point -- can you change it yourself or is that a mod privilege?). I'll be sure to link it in the next update.

I don't think I was consciously camouflaging a good pun with a bad one -- I think I was just throwing around all the puns I could.

Jim's "middle initial" is one of my favourite TOS references to make (I actually have not one but two more jokes about it in in-progress stuff). I'm particularly proud of the blurb for "The Changeling".

"Risk is our business" is another one I love -- and the reference in Imzadi was actually my first encounter with it! I came in with TNG and it was a long time before I knew much about TOS. (There are still a lot of episodes I haven't seen -- Minutemen 1 is based on a true story. Tried to order the Blu-Ray sets a while ago when I could afford it, only to get nearly swindled by the eBay seller.) Anyway, there have been several references by me and others, some of which I had actually forgotten. Do a Ctrl+F for "risk" in this VVS9 episode.

There's a recent article, based on the big 50th-anniversary book, which discusses Gene's fairly awful behind-the-scenes antics (not news to any Trekkie, though some of the details may be). I bring this up because of a very interesting claim made in the comments: apparently the network's objection to Number One in "The Cage" was less about her being a woman (which was always how Gene told it) and more about Gene giving his mistress a huge role not commensurate with her talents. I wonder if that's true.

Nate the Great 09-23-2016 01:39 AM

Is that what the blank "Title" space is for at the top of the reply page? Hmmm...

One episode a week seems okay, we won't have a break of more than a week until December. I was contemplating doing an overlap of episodes (one from each season per week) so that next fall could celebrate 30 years of NextGen, but that's a lot of work if only a handful of people are reading. In fact, if I'm going to be writing all of the initial posts I may have to write up a batch at a time and just copy-and-paste once a week.

Incidentally, was "grave mistake" an intentional pun anyway?

Zeke 09-23-2016 01:49 AM

Oh yeah, definitely.

(Title now changed, btw.)

evay 09-24-2016 11:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeke (Post 80563)
and more about Gene giving his mistress a huge role not commensurate with her talents. I wonder if that's true.

Considering that Majel is a perfectly fine actress who brought depth to Christine and Lwaxana, which could both have been cardboard or throwaway roles, I'm thinking "not commensurate with her talents" is the bullshit part.

My favorite Majel anecdote comes from my best friend, who was working security at a Trek con. It was the first con Majel had attended after Gene's death, and the outpouring of love for her as she entered the room was a tsunami. My friend asked if she was okay, and she said something like "Of course, I'm finally home." She later told him she slept through the night that night for the first time since Gene died.

Nate the Great 09-29-2016 12:33 PM

September 29th, 1966, "The Naked Time"

Oh, boy, here we go...

The Fiver (by Derek)
Memory Alpha Page
Transcript

The episode:

* Let's get this out of the way: Why are the gloves on isolation suits so easy to remove? Tormolen is a shmuck who should've been forced to recalibrate all of the warp coils by hand for that stunt. Couldn't the same thing have been accomplished by him snagging the suit on something and tearing a hole that nobody noticed?
* You need to be in decreasing orbit to conduct scans on a planet that's breaking up? What happened to the probes?
* I'm glad that they acknowledge Sulu's past in botany. The more I read these early episodes the more parallels I see with Worf's status in Season One, a sort of pre-senior officer.
* I remember this one from the Nitpicker's Guide, Kirk's "a disease is spreading that we don't know about" Captain's Log entry. Ugh.
* Spock's read The Three Musketeers? That's a new one.
* Ah yes, the bowling alley. Some have interpreted this as being a joke on Riley's part, but everybody since (and a lot of novels) insist that there was such a place, usually located along the spine of the secondary hull.
* It's always funny to see what precisely will be the tipping point for Kirk in a crisis. Here it's Riley singing "I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen."
* Rand is taking the helm instead of Uhura?
* Spock refers to his parents in the past tense. I'm glad this was just polywater intoxication muddling him, otherwise we would've missed out on some great performances. On the other hand, why would Kirk ask him in "The Journey to Babel" if Spock wanted to see his parents if Kirk thinks that said parents are dead?
* Here we go folks, the discovery of time warp. How the script writers (and the viewer) will enjoy using and abusing this plot device in years to come.

The fiver:

Joe: Oh, sir, it was terrible! They just lay down and died. It must've been the Pax!

I Wikipedia'ed "pax" and I'm still stumped (seemingly no applicable definition). We may as well resurrect the old fiver reference thread here as we discuss them.

Sulu: I'm bored at work.
Riley: You could try writing a parody.
Sulu: Nah. What kind of losers would do that?

I'm sad that I came to the site after the BaW era had ended. Then again, at the time I was reliant on college computers for Internet and didn't have the kind of access needed to do impromptu parodies.

Scotty: The engines are off and it takes half an hour to turn them back on.
Kirk: And when you say half an hour, you do mean seven and a half minutes, right?
Scotty: Right, but we're still screwed.
Kirk: Well, fix it anyway and then you can reminisce about this scene on TNG.
Scotty: Okay, okay....

Ah yes, "Relics" reference. The weird thing is, the way everybody was talking, what Scotty did here was a major innovation in starship engineering and would end up in textbooks.

Memory Alpha:

* "The bowling alley on Kirk's Enterprise was located on deck 21 in the Star Trek Blueprints. It was depicted in an easter egg in the aborted PC game Star Trek: Secret of Vulcan Fury."
* The DS9 tech crew put up a sign saying that the Promenade had a bowling alley as well. Odd, as I'd think a holosuite could do that job just as well and let's face it, few nonhumans would want to play it.
* In an interesting bit of trivia, this is the only TOS episode that contained Uhura, Chapel, and Rand together.

YouTube clips:

* Sulu's sword antics
* Somebody set clips to "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah"
* Scotty can't change the laws of physics
* A preview trailer for this episode

Nate the Great 09-29-2016 06:50 PM

More coverage of "Where No Man Has Gone Before"

Final battle

I forgot to mention how they accomplished the silver eye effect for this episode (courtesy of the book Inside Star Trek): a layer of tin foil (with a pinhole for vision) between two glass contact lenses. Ouch. Apparently Gary Lockwood had real trouble with them, only being able to use them a few minutes at a time. Sally Kellerman had no such problem. Incidentally this also necessitated that Gary do that "head tilted up, looking down" pose to look through the lenses which conveyed his growing detachment from humanity and arrogance.

Memory Alpha also mentions that the "James R. Kirk" think was an in-joke; that when they met Kirk told Mitchell that his middle name was "racquetball."

Nate the Great 09-29-2016 08:03 PM

General pre-production timeline from the Memory Alpha article:

1956: Gene's first science fiction story, "The Secret Weapon of 117", airs on the anthology show Chevron Theatre.
1960: Gene begins work on a story called "Star Trek"
1963: Gene's first show, The Lieutenant.
1964, March: First proposal for the show submitted to Desilu. The Drake Equation, a precursor to Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planet Development, and the "Wagon Train to the Stars" concept are already present. Here we meet Captain April (later to appear in TAS as the first captain of the Enterprise) of the Yorktown. Many preliminary ideas for TOS episodes are presented as the kind of thing that the show would be about.
1964, April: Desilu makes a three-year deal with Gene to develop a show.
1964, Spring-Summer: Gene consults with various experts, Matt Jeffries comes on board. See the Antiques Roadshow clip about the consultation here (I already posted this elsewhere, but why not do it again here?)
1964, June: "The Cage" outline is submitted and approved.
1964, September: "The Cage" script is finished, shooting is approved.
1964, October: Matt Jeffries hard at work on the Enterprise model and various props. Casting completed. Robert Justman is hired.
1964, November: Shooting begins.
1965, February: "The Cage" screened by NBC. A second pilot ordered.
1965, July: "Where No Man" begins filming.

Nate the Great 09-29-2016 11:00 PM

There was an art exhibition for the 50th anniversary consisting of 50 artists giving their version of a series, cast, episode, etc.

Of course, one of them is the Dusty Abell group shot of all TOS characters that I love so much. This is one I'll have to buy when I can actually afford it.

Homestead by Amir Abou-Roumie. George and Gracie in San Francisco Bay, the Vulcan ship from First Contact, a Q judge puttering around in an aircar, Geordi and a Klingon on a hoverbus, Picard enjoying some tea, and so forth. Many vignettes, very fun.

The Bridge by Glen Brogan. Just another day on the bridge of the Enterprise, with each crew member either fantasizing or ranting about what they're known for. I don't like being reminded of Uhura's fan dance, but Chekov's "V and W aren't the same" dictionary is funny.

Fifty Aliens by Derek Charm. Just for fun, I'm going to see if I can name all fifty races from memory:

First Row: The dog creature that was split into good and evil back in "The Enemy Within", Klingon, Horta
Second Row: A member of Darmok's race (I confess that I had to look up "Tamarian"), Vulcan, Romulan, Cardassian
Third Row: Son'a, Balok's illusion (First Federation), Andorian, Reman, Tribbles
Fourth Row: Tribbles, Breen, Gorn, Ferengi, Tholian, Orion, Tribbles
Fifth Row: Benzite, Borg, Q, Salt Vampire, Lurian
Sixth Row: Tribbles, Don't know (I think he's found in DS9 and isn't one of Worf's holodeck monsters), Species 8472, Vorta, Mr. Homn's race (never given)
Seventh Row: Don't know (the mandrill-looking one), Hirogen, Don't know (the slug/blob one), Founder, Jem'Hadar, Charonian
Eight Row: Xindi Insectoid, Don't know (I've seen that race around, but the name isn't coming to me), Deltan, Future Guy?, Talaxian
Ninth Row: Mugato, Tellarite, Don't know (the short guy), Kazon, Bolian, One of those guys from Miramanee's planet?, Don't know (the green guy, I want to say the race begins with "S")
Tenth Row: Crystalline Entity, Antedean, Don't know (the dog guy, wasn't he in one of the TOS movies?), whatever race the Federation President from Undiscovered Country is, Tribbles, Bajoran

Star Trek Inception: The Cage by Paul Shipper
A poster for the nonexistant movie version of "The Cage"

Klingons by J.K. Woodward
A celebration of all of our favorite Klingons. My only problem is that Chang's smile twists his face in a Uncanny Valley sort of way.

NAHTMMM 10-01-2016 09:50 PM

Great pictures!

I'll get to the episode this Monday. :)

Nate the Great 10-01-2016 10:17 PM

Monday? The next episode is "The Enemy Within" on Thursday.

NAHTMMM 10-03-2016 05:42 PM

No, I'm still on "The Naked Time".

Really good teaser. What could possibly have come among these people to cause all this destruction and strangeness?

Tormolen is a jerk for tossing his glove on the dead person like that. Have some respect!

"Instruments only register those things they are designed to register." Some nice scientific sanity to counterbalance the nonsense of a shrinking object invisibly losing mass or gaining gravity.

Watching McCoy and Chapel work on Tormolen, I'm thinking about how something like House or Bones would insist on having the two of them banter about some inane B-plot, rather than risk two seconds of silence.

Sickbay's entrance is not well-designed to get a stretcher into the place.

I see Memory Alpha mentions it partly, but another Trek book talks about Spock's breakdown scene further. TPTB wanted a series of short cuts. Nimoy insisted on attempting the more difficult single long take. It was the end of the production day and they did indeed have just the one shot at doing it the way he wanted. Watching it now I'd say they nailed it.

And I love that, when Spock is so vulnerable as to tell Kirk that he considers Kirk a friend and is ashamed of it, Kirk just slaps him again. :D Kirk is just not a touchy-feely guy.


Quote:

Kirk: What's happening? Is it more magic?
Spock: Yes. If you knew the deeper magic, you'd know that when the planet cracked, time itself would start working backwards.
I'm sure this is a reference that I don't recognize.

I do not know what the Pax would be either.

evay 10-04-2016 11:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NAHTMMM (Post 80588)
And I love that, when Spock is so vulnerable as to tell Kirk that he considers Kirk a friend and is ashamed of it, Kirk just slaps him again. :D Kirk is just not a touchy-feely guy.

I don't know if it's that so much as Kirk needs his XO and is in a bit of a panic. If they weren't on duty, or if the Plot Crisis de la Semaine wasn't about to hit its third-act peak, he'd have the luxury of letting him express these emotions (see Amok Time, the scene in Spock's quarters), but right at that moment Kirk can't indulge him.

Looking at it through the hindsight of vast character development, we could speculate that Kirk realizes that Spock would/will be ashamed of this emotional display later, so he's trying to help Spock out of this state as fast as possible, and he knows from McCoy/M'Benga that Vulcans need physical pain to focus on to break out of deep meditative states, so he hopes this will work. But that's a bit of post hoc fanwank.

Nate the Great 10-06-2016 07:52 AM

October 6th, 1966, "The Enemy Within"

The Fiver (by Kira)
Memory Alpha Page
Transcript by chakotea.net

The Episode:

* Ah yes, another "this event that is unknown to us" Captain's Log. More proof that these things are recorded after the fact.
* Combine the events of this episode with the Tom Riker and Tuvix incidents and we pretty much have confirmation that the transporter doesn't send your original matter along to be reconstituted.
* That still doesn't explain the delay in the materialization of Evil Kirk. More contrivance. If the ship had a second transporter room, I would've preferred that Evil Kirk had been shunted to said empty transporter room for simultaneous materialization.
* One missed opportunity is having Evil Kirk make his own Captain's Logs to show us what he's thinking.
* Couldn't the shuttle have been used offscreen for budgetary reasons? Sure, the attempt would have to fail to preserve the sense of urgency, but surely just a few shots of Sulu being shaken around by a storm and giving up was within the budget.
* Ah yes, "Hey crew, the imposter has face scars. That's right, the only way to tell us apart at first glance is something that's easily concealed. Good luck!" Don't dermal regenerators exist yet? Surely it would be easier to say "I'm staying on the bridge with Spock. If you see a Kirk wandering around alone it's the imposter, arrest him"?
* (Stolen from the Nitpicker's Guide) Spock considers his Vulcan half the alien one? Huh?
* Even back then I considered "Can half a man live?" to be quite profound. It reminds me of Picard in "Tapestry." We are the sum of our acts, good and bad. Mistakes give us the chance to grow and do better next time.

The fiver:

Captain's Log: Spock forgot to check the weather channel before our away mission, but I'm sure nothing will happen to strand any of us on this frozen wasteland.
Fisher: Ow! My hand! And I'm covered in this weird dust!
Apparently I have a poor sense of pattern recognition.

Don't worry about it, Jim. Starship captains will be making that mistake for centuries to come.

Evil Kirk: Say Bones, have anything to drink around here? Some Saurian Brandy, perhaps?
McCoy: I'm a doctor, not a bartender.

I think Doctor Boyce would claim that the two aren't mutually exclusive, Bones.

Evil Kirk: I must be Good Kirk, right?
Wilson: Hm, there is that evil music playing in the background. And the fact that your speaker credit is "Evil Kirk."

Looking at speaker tags is a common fiver thing, this technique would come in awfully handy during real episodes as well. What a shame.

Spock: Could there be any more plot complications?

When did Spock turn into Chandler Bing?

Memory Alpha discussion:

* Apparently this is the first appearance of Kirk's green wraparound tunic. I always did hate that thing.
* The first appearance of the neck pinch. Can you imagine how the franchise would be different if Nimoy hadn't inspired it's creation?

Nitpicker's Guide notes:

* Apparently this was the first time a keen-eyed viewer could see that James Doohan is missing a finger.
* In the opening scene several characters were missing their chest emblems (I still call them Cochrane deltas for reasons explained elsewhere). Memory Alpha thinks that they had been removed for cleaning and someone forgot to put them back on before shooting. I'm leaning more toward's Phil's theory can removing them lets the production staff flip the camera horizontally to make the planet set look larger.

Nate the Great 10-08-2016 01:52 PM

A video clip of the duplication.

I'm reminded of a passage from the Nitpicker's Guide now. Scotty sent an underling off to get a "synchronic meter" to double-check the transporter after the yellow ore messed with it. Then Scotty proceeds to beam the captain aboard without double-checking it. Huh? Yeah yeah, if he had waited there'd be no episode, but still! The arctic night wasn't imminent, nobody on the planet was in imminent danger. Scotty, it's okay to tell the Captain that there's a hiccup in the transporter and would he mind waiting half an hour!

Nate the Great 10-14-2016 12:26 PM

October 13th, 1966, "Mudd's Women"

This is Take Two due to the server glitch. Hence a bit shorter and less nitpicking.

The fiver (by Derek)
Memory Alpha Page
Transcript

The episode:

* When can I stop complaining about lithium crystals? At least by now we've starting moving away from "crystal as fuel source" and toward "crystal as key engine component."
* I'm interested in the idea that somehow Vulcan hybrids look different enough to normal Vulcans that Mudd can see that. If Spock isn't the first, I'd assume that they're pretty rare.
* Women as "cargo." Um, yeah...
* Silly Mudd trying to claim he didn't know the Enterprise is a starship. Cue rants about energy output profiles, ID transponders, warp field signatures, etc. here.
* I'm sad that the "hypnotic effect" of the women must largely be communicated via Captain's Log because there isn't money for unnecessary extras. I'm reminded of how effectively NextGen did a similar scene in "The Perfect Mate".
* Just three miners? Obviously they can't even have offscreen workers because they'd fight over the women and use up screentime. There are ways to work around this. The three are at a remote outpost and the married guys are elsewhere, the others are too old or young to be desirable, the others are criminals or aliens that would be considered undesirable, etc.
* I do wish that the true nature of the Venus Drug was more consistent. Just a gelatin placebo? Well then you can't have onscreen transformation like that. A real drug? Well then they have to have a Kirk speech convincing them that they don't need it. It was real until the final scene when Kirk tricked them with gelatin placebos? A variant of the Kirk speech.
* I'm still confused about why the women would want to live in this place of complete isolation, constant storms, and constant hard labor. There weren't any transports going in the direction of Earth available?

The fiver:

I get the Powerpuff Girls references, but maybe there were a few too many.

Mudd: Hi, my name is Walsh.
Spock: Your speaker credits say your name is Mudd.
Mudd: Who are you going to believe, the fiver or me?
Spock: Welcome abord, Mr. Walsh.

Zeke, there's a typo there. Anyway, nice dig at the unreliability of the fiving process and the fivist himself (jk Derek :D)

Memory Alpha notes:

* Harlan Ellison visited the set during the filming. Even though he enjoyed himself, that's still unfortunate.
* I had forgotten about the subspace radio marriage idea. This is a loaded issue worthy of an essay by itself.

NAHTMMM 10-15-2016 06:01 PM

Yeah, "The Enemy Within" has a dumb decision leading to the plot, but the plot is a good one, so it gets slack where so much of later Trek doesn't. It's a good exploration of a sci-fi idea. Spock's first dissertation on the "good" vs. "evil" side was a bit too on-the-nose for me, especially his willingness to label them good and evil -- the two Kirks don't have labels to that effect on them. But even though we follow the "weak" Kirk around as he's trying to solve the plot to everyone's satisfaction, the "dark" Kirk isn't treated as an enemy to be conquered despite the title, and I like that. Shatner did a particularly good job showing weak Kirk's descent into ineffectiveness.

I agree that I don't much care for the wraparound tunic. I thought we already had a neck pinch in "The Naked Now", when Spock gets Sulu with it.

Quote:

Captain's Log: Spock forgot to check the weather channel before our away mission, but I'm sure nothing will happen to strand any of us on this frozen wasteland.
Fisher: Ow! My hand! And I'm covered in this weird dust!
Apparently I have a poor sense of pattern recognition.
This type of joke always amuses me.
Quote:

Fisher: Hey! I was already injured once this episode! Don't you have some "one use only" rule for redshirts?
(WHACK! THUMP! THWACK!)
Fisher: Oof....
Evil Kirk: I'll have to get rid of that rule before Chekov comes aboard....
:D

NAHTMMM 10-15-2016 06:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nate the Great (Post 80603)
* Silly Mudd trying to claim he didn't know the Enterprise is a starship. Cue rants about energy output profiles, ID transponders, warp field signatures, etc. here.

I'm sure he knew it was a proper starship, but given his ineptitude in blowing his ship up, I think anything other than reading the transponder output would be beyond him.
Quote:

* Just three miners? Obviously they can't even have offscreen workers because they'd fight over the women and use up screentime. There are ways to work around this. The three are at a remote outpost and the married guys are elsewhere, the others are too old or young to be desirable, the others are criminals or aliens that would be considered undesirable, etc.
Well, you can claim that the operation is sufficiently automated that just three people are needed on-planet to keep it running. I find it more concerning that, despite lithium mining supposedly being lucrative (granted, Mudd said that to the women), the buildings were so bare of anything decorative. You'd think the women would have beamed down, looked around, seen nary a vase or Van Gogh, and gotten suspicious.
Quote:

* I do wish that the true nature of the Venus Drug was more consistent. Just a gelatin placebo? Well then you can't have onscreen transformation like that.
That last transformation, where even Eve's clothes changed, was ridiculous.

Quote:

* I'm still confused about why the women would want to live in this place of complete isolation, constant storms, and constant hard labor. There weren't any transports going in the direction of Earth available?
Yeah, this is a serious plot hole, combined with the apparent lack of luxury. The women have access to a proper starship now, they can get passage to wherever they like. Nowadays, at least one would probably have decided to forego marriage in favor of a career. Or at least they could have shown actual connections developing between the other two miners and women . . . but I guess Eve was the designated guest star character so she got the airtime.

I have nothing to add about the fiver, it's good. :)

Katy Jane 10-15-2016 08:47 PM

I forgot what a stinker this one was... you want someone beautiful but you should really want someone like me who will cook and clean for you... Bleh.

Nate the Great 10-15-2016 09:17 PM

The lithium cracking station on Delta Vega back in "Where No Man..." was fully automated. I'm just saying that three people stuck with only each other for months at a time would lead to at least one of them becoming violent or otherwise emotionally unstable.

Nate the Great 10-20-2016 11:14 AM

October 20th, 1966, "What Are Little Girls Made Of"

The fiver (by Kristina)
Memory Alpha page
Transcript

The episode:

* Yeah, this "I left my career to take a job as a nurse for the remote chance of finding my lost fiancee, except I've also been fawning over Spock therefore I'm kinda cheating on said fiancee" thing is a whole kettle of fish best left unexplored. But seriously, couldn't they have held out on Chapel's infatuation until after this episode?
* Um, contact with Korby's been lost, we're not sure we can find him again, oh wait there he is. Just a little too convenient, don't you think?
* Ever since Phil Farrand pointed out how short the legs on that unformed android were, it's always bugged me. Putting aside "was fixing that beyond the show's budget", the real question is "who was the incompetent that built them too short in the first place?"
* Kirk's implantation of prejudice against Spock into the double really is clever.
* The first mention of Kirk's brother George and his family. Aside from the space amoeba episode nothing's really going to be done with them except in the novels. I'll wait until that one to discuss Peter Kirk's future.
* I think this episode is the first to feature Kirk outsmarting a computer. Classic staple of the show.
* This idea of "a Kirk that doesn't want to kiss a willing woman is an imposter" thing is amusing.

The fiver:

Captain's Log: We've found Korby and his associates. They all live in a yellow.... uh, some underground caves.

Um, how does a Beatles reference connect to this scene?

Kirk: Then one phaser shot it is, straight from the hip.
"Brown": GAK?
Chapel: Captain, I presume you'll be charged-- with battery.

Oh, the puns.

Kirk: Right. I think I'm between a Ruk and a hard place.... but pull me up, will you?

Okay, that one's pretty clever.

Memory Alpha notes:

* It would make sense that the people on the planet would have older-style phaser pistols.
* Apparently this episode has the first official redshirt death, but I'm not sure if Memory Alpha goes by airdate or production order.

NAHTMMM 10-21-2016 08:28 PM

A much better episode than last time.

Ruk made a good android. Andrea had her moments too.

Imagine back when it first aired, sitting through the commercials waiting to see what was on, and it comes back to a naked man and a blob on a rotating platform thing. What kind of show is this?


Quote:

Andrea: Oh, Christine, you are as beautiful as your name sounds.
Chapel: You're news to me and look a little too good for comfort. Where did you come from?
Andrea: I can only remember waking up, feeling a bit dizzy. Rogeybuns was the first thing I saw.
Chapel: Captain, permission to turn green.
Kirk: Granted.
Very good summary of that moment.

NAHTMMM 10-22-2016 08:45 AM

Oh, also, when Kirk, Chapel, and Brown are overlooking the precipice where one of the redshirts just fell, that upwards camera angle of Brown was very effective in making him look as off-kilter as he was acting. Something about his hand made it look disproportionate to the rest of his body.

Nate the Great 10-27-2016 12:37 PM

October 27th, 1966, "Miri"

The Fiver (by Kristina)
Memory Alpha Page
Transcript

The Episode:

* With all of these early warp colonies sending out SOS's, I'm wondering: Are SOS's still going to be a thing in the era of subspace? Wouldn't the Vulcans have an equivalent signal that would be more efficient? Is it possible to tap out dots and dashes in a subspace signal that would "hold itself together" further and through more interference because of it's simplicity?
* Ah yes, our first "it looks exactly like Earth to save money" planet. One of the Shatnerverse novels tells us that the Preservers made all of these copies. Yeah, still don't buy it. Even if the same proto-Pangea (insert Magrathea joke here) was set in motion on each planet, there are enough variables to scramble the final continental arrangement, weather system, evolved humanoid form, etc. Just wait until we have exact historical duplication, folks!
* I'm glad that for once we're not relying solely on the available tricorders. It's nice that they remembered that "we have an incurable disease" means "we can still beam stuff IN without contamination."
* Still doesn't mean that the ship couldn't beam new communicators in when the old ones were stolen.
* "Space Central"? Must be a branch of UESPA.

The fiver:

Kirk: Miri has the hots for me? Heavy.

Odd place for a Back to the Future joke, but okay.

Uhura: (over the comm) Data acknowledged. The answer is 42.
McCoy: Good. Now if we could only figure out the question... 47 minus 5?

Makes one wonder how long it would take Deep Thought to find the cure.

Redshirt: Is there something wrong with this episode? I have this gut feeling I shouldn't be alive.

A classic fiver gag.

Memory Alpha:

* They point out that the duplicate Earth thing is never resolved. Of course this is merely to save money on the special effects. I wonder why the remastered version didn't change the planet and cut these lines to avoid this problem. I sure would have.
* Apparently Rand only appeared in eight episodes, and this is the only one where she left the ship. It sure seems like she was in more than that, doesn't it?
* There's a Department of Temporal Investigations novel that says that this planet looks like Earth because it's the Earth of a parallel universe that was accidentally brought here by a subspace phenomenon. Yeah, um, I'd almost rather go with the Preserver idea.

Nate the Great 11-03-2016 11:55 AM

November 3rd, 1966, "Dagger of the Mind"

The Fiver (by Sa'ar Chasm)
Memory Alpha Page
Transcript

The episode:

* That whole "you can sneak onto a starship by being beamed inside a box" thing always annoyed me. The transporter sensors should've found him.
* I'm a little confused at the Kirk/Noel relationship. Regardless of who Kirk thought she was at the time, afterward she should've been reassigned. As has been noted in other episodes, a distracted Kirk is a less effective Kirk. And for a mission to an insane asylum, a distracted Kirk is a in-danger Kirk.
* No security guards for a mission to an insane asylum? No redshirts for the inmates to kill? Huh?
* Apparently I mingled this episode in my mind with "Whom Gods Destroy", I kept expecting Garth to show up.

The fiver:

McCoy: You keep your inmates in crates? What kind of sadistic beasts are you?
Tantalus Colony: It's merely an exercise in removing their socially unproductive habits and promoting a great social conformity.
Kirk: Are you trying to say that crated minds think alike?

That's a lot of psychobabble for a pun.

Van Gelder: No! Yes! Maybe!
McCoy: Indecisive, isn't he?
Van Gelder: Signs point to no! Ask again later! Results hazy at this time!

Ah, the Magic 8 Ball.

Kirk: Is this a dagger I see before me? Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hands?

I had to look this up. I knew it was Shakespeare but didn't know it was MacBeth.

Kirk: And now Birnam Wood comes toward Dunsinane!

Sadly I knew that this one was MacBeth because of the Reduced Shakespeare Company.

Nate the Great 11-04-2016 10:59 PM

20th Anniversary of "Trials and Tribble-ations."

Yikes, does that make me feel old.

Nate the Great 11-10-2016 01:58 PM

November 10th, 1966, "The Corbomite Maneuver"

The Fiver (by IJD GAF)
Memory Alpha Page
Transcript

The episode:

* Ugh, photographs.
* I consider it a lost opportunity that they had to create Bailey for this. If they'd held off until the end of the season they could've shipped off one of the side characters like DeSalle, Farrell, Kyle, M'Benga, Riley, or even Janice Rand. It certainly would've made for a more emotional connection.
* McCoy's line about "If I jumped every time a light came on around here, I'd end up talking to myself." is funny. He did end up like that!
* Going through the script I feel that Bailey was given way too many lines for a one-off. Even Stiles in "Balance of Terror" wasn't given that many lines. With the screentime Bailey got you could be forgiven for thinking that he'd become a recurring character like those I listed above.
* That being said, I do like that there's a bit more of the bridge crew coordinating with other parts of the ship. It makes you feel that there really are all of these other people below the bridge running the ship.
* "United Earth ship Enterprise"? I wonder if this was one of those times that UESPA is managing the mission instead of Starfleet.
* Does anyone else think that Kirk is the only captain who would have the audacity for such a lie as the corbomite maneuver?
* Does anyone else wonder what tranya tastes like?

The fiver:

Spock: STAND BY TO PHOTOGRAPH!
Uhura: We have to photograph the stars to chart them? That's lame.

Yes, Nyota, it is.

Spock: (over the comm) What's more important? An unstopable alien cube, or the support of female viewers?
Kirk: Ah, a question the creators of Voyager never quite answered.

Typo aside, that's clever.

Balok: Yep. It gets lonely here, so I devised a plan to capture myself a friend. Which one of you will it be?
Kirk: I know the perfect man for the job. Kirk to Enterprise; beam myself and Doctor McCoy up.
Bailey: Wha...? Don't I even get a say?
Kirk: Nope, and that's an order, redshirt. Energize.

Redshirts never get a say, I thought that was in the contract.

Memory Alpha:

* The moon shuttle conductor article at Memory Alpha is laughably short. The moon shuttle article is little better. I assume that this is just a shuttle between Earth and Luna, probably a very boring job. The transporter range value of 40,000 kilometers is pretty well established, and the moon is about ten times that distance from Earth, so a moon shuttle would have to be a thing. Unless you would prefer the idea of transporter relay satellites akin to the Intergalactic Gate Bridge.
* First Federation? Wouldn't that confuse the casual viewer?
* Apparently the moon shuttle conductor line in this episode is the first use of McCoy's recurring joke.
* Uhura wears a gold uniform for this episode. The simplest explanation I can think of is that UESPA is in command of this mission, and they put Communications in the Command sector instead of Operations like Starfleet does.

Youtube clips:

* Kirk and McCoy clips. Interesting how McCoy notices the red alert light flashing but doesn't tell Kirk. Also, I always thought those blocks in the wall that you have to push in and out were silly. Also includes the "moon shuttle conductor" line and "talking to myself" from McCoy.
* Someone dubstepped the tranya scene. I shouldn't have to be the only one to see it.
* Someone turned the episode into a sitcom by converting clips to sepia-tone and adding goofy sound effects.


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