lol...awesome

do want

Okay, I've thought about it, and have rearranged my listings a bit, and added groupings:

Classics -
The Naked Time (S1E04)
The Enemy Within (S1E05)
The Corbomite Maneuver (S1E10)
Miri (S1E08)
Charlie X (S1E02)

Great -

Decent -
Mudds Women (S1E06)
The Menagerie (S1E11+12)
Where No Man Has Gone Before (S1E03)
The Man Trap (S1E01)
What Are Little Girls Made Of (S1E07)
Dagger of the Mind (S1E09)

Poor -




biggest shift was Mudd's Women. Mudd is a great character.

Does anyone remember the paperback books that would have a few novelizations of the episodes in each one? I devoured those as a kid.

yes, I do. They had 5 or 6 in each one. Bantam books. Mostly by James Blish. I got through lots of these, and the same for novelisations for Doctor Who.

I remember stealing them all from my school library, one book shoved down my pants at a time.

Don't judge me.

The Conscience of the King SEASON 1, EPISODE 13



Wiki Entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conscience_of_the_King

Yeah, a scifi reflection on nazi criminals on the run, I asssume. Not bad, especially some interesting detective stuff with Spock, and Kevin O'Reilly reappears and has some cool acting work. Shatner is also quite good, but the episode seems a little tedious and melodramatic, and the "twist" seemed obvious - I think, I've seen this episode several times, so I could be wrong. The title, and various Shakespearean scenes in this reaffims Star Trek's fascination with all things Shakespeare.

No red shirts down in this one

Running Red Shirt Dead Count: 2

Also, Yoeman Rand's last appearance (in production order).

Classics -
The Naked Time (S1E04)
The Enemy Within (S1E05)
The Corbomite Maneuver (S1E10)
Miri (S1E08)
Charlie X (S1E02)

Decent -
Mudds Women (S1E06)
The Menagerie (S1E11+12)
The Conscience of the King (S1E13)
Where No Man Has Gone Before (S1E03)
The Man Trap (S1E01)
What Are Little Girls Made Of (S1E07)
Dagger of the Mind (S1E09)

I'm really tempted to put Mudd's Women in the poor list, but Mudd is such a fun character to watch that he saves it. I agree 100% with the overall groupings.

McCoy: Would you care for a drink, Mr. Spock?
Spock: My father's race was spared the dubious benefits of alcohol.
McCoy: Oh, now I know why they were conquered.

O snap!

I really liked the first half of Conscience of the King. It's a good set-up, there's a lot of tension between Kirk/Spock/McCoy, there are surprisingly good performances by everyone, including Shatner. Unfortunately, it just sort of drags to a crawl in the second reel. Good premise with a poor execution imo.

Misc:

End of the road for Yeoman Rand, at least for now. Looking through the internets, there are several reasons cited for getting rid of Rand, including Grace Lee Whitney's alcohol problems, creative differences, and simple budget cuts. Whitney would eventually get off the sauce and she reappears in four of the Trek movies and several fan films. Being a Yeoman, the Rand character really never had any exciting things to do in TOS other than be an object of Kirk's desire.

Also this is the last time we see Officer Riley, who we last saw in The Naked Time. Which is too bad imo, because he was a fun minor character.

When were the Vulcans conquered?

According to the internet, they weren't. I guess drunkern McCoy had his history wrong.

I forgot to mention, Conscience of the King also has Nichelle Nichols singing one of those weird star trekky folk songs again.

Nichelle, but I'm glad her singing didn' become a standard thing. To be fair, it wasn't unusual to have a song number in 50's-60's TV.


Also, this makes me proud to be an American:

Balance of Terror SEASON 1, EPISODE 13



Wiki Entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_Terror

Wow, this is a terrific episode. Never was Kirk cooler than in this one, I think, and he has a great adversary in Mark Leonard's Romulan Commander (Mark Leonard would pop up later in Trek as Spock's father, Sarek - and his work here shows he's an excellent actor for such a role). There's some filler in there about weddings and a couple, plus a little intra-bridge conflict between a guy who lost some of his ancestry to Romulans, who antagonises Spock, because Vulcans and Romulans look the same (which is rather good).

A great episode, with the writing making it very clear how the Captains are trying to outthink each other and work out how to succeed and handle the situation, and introducing the Romulans to us.

No red shirts down in this one, but let's just say the wedding is put off indefinitely by the end.

Running Red Shirt Dead Count: 2

Also, Yoeman Rand's last appearance (in production order).

Classics -
The Naked Time (S1E04)
The Corbomite Maneuver (S1E10)
Balance of Terror (S1E14)
The Enemy Within (S1E05)
Miri (S1E08)
Charlie X (S1E02)

Decent -
Mudds Women (S1E06)
The Menagerie (S1E11+12)
The Conscience of the King (S1E13)
Where No Man Has Gone Before (S1E03)
The Man Trap (S1E01)
What Are Little Girls Made Of (S1E07)
Dagger of the Mind (S1E09)

Oh I forgot one outstanding line in Conscience of the King, spoken by the guest actress when alone with Kirk:


"And this ship... All this power, surging and throbbing yet under control. Are you like that, Captain?"


I reckon he could have had her.

I want to like Balance of Terror rather more than I actually do - cloaked ships, mysterious adversaries and the proverbial BFG what's not to like?

But I do think that it's deeply flawed by cheesy plot devices designed to further Star Trek's hippy moral agenda.

Firstly we are lectured on prejudice and old hatreds (a theme that will be revisited many times in later series) by having Stiles' anti-Romuanism rammed down our throats to a ridiculous degree. Yes, fine, we get it - chuck him off the bridge or out of the meeting and get on with it. The whole Spock saves his life and thus Stiles is redeemed to go through life a humbler, but wiser man is just so trite, obvious and gauche.

But not wanting to restrict us to just one piece of moralising per episode, we have the tragic death of Tomlinson, on the very eve of his wedding. Oh the horror of war! Such pathos and despair. I mean seriously? It's just so very clumsy.

I definitely got the impression that the episode was originally just supposed to have Stiles as the moral imperative, but that they then realised that the 'relationship' between Kirk and the wily veteran Romulan commander might make war seem somehow a gentleman's game. A intriguing contest of wits without bloody consequences if you will. And thus was Tomlinson's bride deprived of nuptial bliss in the furtherance of our moral guidance.

I found it a bit much, to be honest.

I can see how that would grate, it was very obvious, but it was the 60s.

I meant to say this was Rand's last appearance in screening order. Also meant to say elements of BoT were in Star Trek 2

I must admit that I prefer my sci-fi to be Aliens rather than Brazil.

Both had a very WWII submarine movie vibe, in a good way.

The entertainment industry tends to lean left, and remember, this aired essentially at the peak of the Vietnam War. people in the US were taking sides everywhere. It's not like this was a case of liberals proselytizing in a vacuum. Pro and Anti war statements were all over the place at the time.

Controversy sells.

I don't think it was about marketing for the Rod, but a little controversy never hurts

ST:TOS was a little ham-handed when it comes to politics, but I think you have to remember that much of TV in general was a lot more cheesy back then than what we have today. Also, a lot of this stuff about equality and prejudice was really controversial, subversive **** back in the 60s.

I always liked the fact that Trek was willing to charge into politics, and sometimes it worked rather well. The one with the white/black guy the black/white guy was brilliantly done.

But he's white on the right side!

It was The Enemy Below in space.