50th Anniversary TOS Episode Discussion Marathon

[Zeke]

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]

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]

Oh yeah, definitely.

(Title now changed, btw.)

[evay]

Originally Posted by Zeke

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Great pictures!

I'll get to the episode this Monday.