Star Trek - General Discussion

[Guest]

This is the place to discuss all things related to Star Trek (the original series).

[starri]

If they're going to continue to crib from the classic series in order to tell stories in the reboot universe, I really hope they consider doing an update of "Balance of Terror."

It's a nearly 50-year-old hour of television that I've seen multiple times, and it still brings me to the edge of my seat.  People remember "The City of the Edge of Forever" as being the absolute best of TOS, but not for me.

[Runningwild]

I would love to see Gary Mitchell and Where No Man Has Gone Before.

[SVNBob]

A cultural touchstone like this series gets mentioned and referenced a lot. 

 

So Mark Oshiro has finally begun his biggest TV watching project (he's at the middle of the beginning of his biggest reading project: all of the Discworld novels); Star Trek.  For those unaware, Mark came to prominence on the web with his scathing reviews of the Twilight books, and has built his reputation by posting his reactions to popular series of books and TV as he encounters them for the first time.  This includes the Harry Potter novels, Lord of the Rings, pretty much all of the Whedon-verse, the West Wing (which he just finished), and Supernatural (he's near the end of season 4, and will continue to play catch-up on that).  And very shortly, he'll watching Farscape for the first time.

 

But right now he's starting on his own Star Trek.  And given the fact that Trek is a pop-cultural juggernaut, he's going in with surprisingly little fore-knowledge.  Like he knows who George Takei is and that he plays Sulu, but he doesn't know what Sulu is all about.  And he's aware of the slash, but not how it got started.

 

Mark'll be blogging about 2 or 3 episodes per week, and if someone has sponsored it, he publishes a video of himself watching the episode for the post.  Those are normally only available to see with a paid subscription, but the video for Man Trap will be available for free until he publishes the first episode of Season 2.

 

He's also got a decent-sized community of his own that dwell in the comments on his posts.  They're a pretty welcoming bunch.  Lots have seen or read the media he's discussing, so they often do a re-watch while enjoying seeing his reactions.  But a lot of them are often in the same boat as Mark and haven't seen or read what he's doing, so they join in and post their reactions too.  As such, there is a strict spoiler and language policy on his site.  If you decide to post there, be careful.

 

 

And while I'm talking about Star Trek media and re-watches; the Mission Log Podcast just posted on Thursday their episode about The Wrath of Khan.  Next Thursday is The Search for Spock.  And TNG should start in August.

[Runningwild]

Not sure if this is the right place to put this, but I keep seeing all these stories about why George Takei still hates William Shatner. Apparently Takei is still miffed about the way he was treated during the original series. Really? No new slights to report? You're going to make a career and a living out of the fact that once upon a time you were a minor character on a show where the lead actor was a bit self-centered? Seriously? You thought when you became an actor you wouldn't run into any self-centered people?

[Meushell]

I could be wrong, but I got the impression that Takei just doesn't like Shatner. There's a difference between that and actively hating someone.

I know it has been years, but I don't really see a problem with it. Not everyone is going to like everyone they work with. They don't have to.

[Ubiquitous]

You know, as advanced as technology in the original Star Trek was, you'd think they'd be able to provide something better than a single beeping light for Christopher Pike to communicate!

[Kev]

 

You know, as advanced as technology in the original Star Trek was, you'd think they'd be able to provide something better than a single beeping light for Christopher Pike to communicate!

But it was so effective as a storytelling device. Plus, it saved some money.  

[Runningwild]

Heartbroken now. Leonard Nimoy passed away this morning from COPD.

[Sparkling Beth]

RIP Leonard Nimoy.  What a legacy to have created a character for the ages. 

[elle]

We will remember, Mr. Nimoy, we will remember.

[SimoneS]

I feel like part of my life is suddenly behind me. Spock was such an important influence on my life. When I first saw Star Trek (in repeats), I would tell everyone including my teachers that they should be logical. Spock made me respect science and want to be a scientist of some kind which impacted my choice of major in college. I have never met anyone in my discipline who was not influenced by some degree by Spock. I will miss Spock, but also Leonard Nimoy. 

Rest in peace, Leonard.

Edited February 27, 2015 by SimoneS

[AntiBeeSpray]

RIP Mr. Nimoy. The movies helped to make me interested in science fiction and Spock was and still is one of my favorite characters from Star Trek. Thanks for the memories.

[TigerLynx]

RIP Mr. Nimoy.  This is so sad.  Spock was my favorite character, but I loved Leonard Nimoy in other roles to.

[BigBeagle]

It's such a cliche to say one is heart-broken when a celebrity passes, but I truly feel a part of childhood has been ripped away. Nobody lives forever, but I secretly wished Mr. Nimoy would turn the trick.

 

RIP, Leonard.

[MisterGlass]

He was such a part of my childhood, and there are moment when it is still a comfort to think of his moments as Spock.  RIP Leonard.  And thank you.

 

Perhaps I should look up the Ballad of Bilbo Baggins.

[Julia]

I wasn't three yet when TOS came out, and it was one of the few things my mom watched on TV. In my head, this shouldn't have happened because Vulcans live longer, dammit. He's supposed to be on Romulus waiting for our grandchildren to find him.

 

Yeah, I know, it just feels that way.

Edited February 27, 2015 by Julia

[starri]

[millennium]

Lay in a course for the Genesis Planet.   Just do it.

 

 

 

Goodbye, old friend (please forgive my show of emotion).

[starri]

If Spock were here, he'd tell me I was an irrational, illogical human being, but I have to admit that I've cried more than a little over this.

 

I lost a brother once.  I was lucky I got him back.

[elle]

starri, your motivational poster for "Coolness" made me smile.

 

If Spock were here, he'd tell me I was an irrational, illogical human being, but I have to admit that I've cried more than a little over this.

 

I lost a brother once.  I was lucky I got him back.

This made me cry.

 

One show, a universe of fans.  <<hugs>>

[Lebanna]

As Spock would probably say, ' Yes, it happened... and he is dead now. Dead and buried. Long ago.' And he'd be secretly sad it was over and very glad that it happened at all.

I think that the many needed Spock. I certainly did. The first time I watched original Star Trek, it was ' The Search For Spock'. I was six, and sat there in front of our blurry old TV, and I had no idea why Spock was special. But I loved him immediately, through the love that the other characters had for him. He was dead to me before he was alive, and he's always been a symbol of rebirth. And when I got older, he was my hero, the only character who would get how being alone and odd was actually a good thing for little girl to be. And when I grew up a bit, I suddenly discovered (right along with Jadzia - that line in DS9 literally made me laugh, then look again and suddenly... oooh, wait...), that Spock was the sexy one.

He was all kinds of good things to me. Probably one of the most important fictional characters in my life. I'm glad that Spock lives, I'm happy that his story continues, that Leonard Nimoy was there when we needed him, and I'm so glad it happened.

[starri]

This made me cry.

Don't grieve.  It is logical.

 

What has really touched me about the whole thing has been discovering how much Leonard and Spock meant to so many other people, whether it was Facebook friends I would have never thought of as Trekkies or the President of the United States.  

Edited February 27, 2015 by starri

[benteen]

RIP, Leonard Nimoy.

[millennium]

One of my favorite non-Spock Leonard Nimoy appearances, in the Bangles video for "Going Down to Liverpool":

 

[wanderingstar]

When I first watched Star Trek as a kid (my dad got me watching the syndicated reruns in the 80s), I found Spock a bit intimidating (scary, even) but also intriguing. Over the years, as I grew to love the Star Trek franchise, Spock became my favorite. I was absolutely delighted to see Nimoy on Fringe and in the most recent Star Trek films.

 

He's a legend and will be missed.

[Pete Martell]

TOS is one of those shows I sat down and watched all the way through only after hearing about it as a pop culture joke/touchstone for many years, after seeing the movies and TNG first, etc. I had half-expected it to be dated camp, and maybe some of it is, but Nimoy's performance was first-class, always imbuing Spock with humor droll but never cruel, with just enough humanity to remind us he was an alien but not a robot, and terrific rapport with everyone he shared scenes with. I loved Spock's relationship with McCoy most of all, but he and Kirk always had such a relationship of strength and tenderness, a believable battle of wills and caring and love that would not be allowed today as it would just need to be a "bromance." 

 

I always think of that scene in "City on the Edge of Forever" where Kirk has to let Edith Keeler die - the scene is about Kirk, and Shatner gives a beautiful performance, but it wouldn't work without Spock's line, matter-of-fact and yet in his own way, heartbroken ("He knows, Dr. He knows.") Nothing better sums up the theme of the episode, and of the best of Star Trek as a whole - it's a terrible, terrible choice, but it's one you have no choice but to make. 

[blueray]

I was so sad when I heard :(. While I wasn't alive when the show was on, I grew up watching the movies. Leonard rest in peace.

Edited February 28, 2015 by blueray

[starri]

This headline hit me right in the feels.

[prican58]

I was about 8-11 yrs old during the original run. My brother, older by about 14 months, used to watch it and I remember not really liking/understanding it but being quite impressed by Spock. The ears, of course, and his way of speaking were intriguing. But I really started watching in college during repeats at night and I couldn't believe just how intoxicating the show was. I mean I never wanted to really watch it but once you get into the episode it's amazing how much you just can't let go. It's still like that.

 

R.I.P. Leonard

 

Re Takei not liking Shatner...Shatner I think is just the kind of guy  you like or you don't. He is a bit of a conceited guy but at the same time he surely doesn't take himself too seriously. His Priceline ads speak to that.

I believe that NImoy was a guy who accepted people for who they were. He seems to have accepted Shatner warts and all.People are multifaceted and they don't always have consistancy in their nature. They obviously connected on a certain level and it endured for almost 50 years.     

[SVNBob]

They obviously connected on a certain level and it endured for almost 50 years.

I'd guess they had the same rabbi for a while.  Remember:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=qUCNAnp2QAI#t=125

Edited March 1, 2015 by SVNBob

[ennui]

For anyone who has MeTV in their cable package, Star Trek has been added to the daily schedule. It's on at 4 p.m. in my time zone. 

[AntiBeeSpray]

I was so sad when I heard :(. While I wasn't alive when the show was on, I grew up watching the movies. Leonard rest in peace.

 

Same here :(. I grew up watching the movies and Spock was my favorite character, followed by Bones, Scotty. Sulu, Uhura and Chekov.

[Granny58]

I'm old enough that I was aware of them the first time around, but didn't care.  By age 14 I was watching reruns in the afternoon (early 1970s).  In the 1980s ST was on late Saturday nights and was a date staple for my then-boyfriend and me.  I've watched ST actually all my life...and in a weird/sentimental way consider Kirk, Spock, Uhura, McCoy my "friends" and feel comforted when once again on Saturday night I am curled up watching.  So sad that one of my friends has passed.  

[Lebanna]

RIP Yeoman Rand.

http://tvline.com/2015/05/03/grace-lee-whitney-death-dies-star-trek-janice-rand/

She had the most amazing beehive in the history of television.

[SimoneS]

Another loss for the Star Trek community. I read in Grace Lee Whitney's NY Times obituary (below) that she had become an alcoholic and that Leonard Nimoy helped her restart her career after she got treatment. Shows that Leonard Nimoy was a generous person. I am so glad that she got a second chance was able to help so others (including Star Trek fans) with their addictions.

 

Rest in peace, Grace.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/05/movies/grace-lee-whitney-yeoman-janice-rand-on-star-trek-dies-at-85.html?module=WatchingPortal&region=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=thumb_square&state=standard&contentPlacement=5&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2015%2F05%2F05%2Fmovies%2Fgrace-lee-whitney-yeoman-janice-rand-on-star-trek-dies-at-85.html&eventName=Watching-article-click

Edited May 4, 2015 by SimoneS

[legaleagle53]

Yes, she talked in many interviews over the years about what a rough life she had during and after Star Trek, starting with being raped and going through a long period of alcohol abuse and sleeping with just about anyone who would ask her to as a means of self-validation.  Fortunately, she was able to get help and turn her life around.

 

May she indeed rest in peace.

[legaleagle53]

Nichelle Nichols has been rushed to the hospital following a mild stroke:  http://www.tmz.com/2015/06/04/nichelle-nichols-hospitalized-stroke-star-trek/

 

I have to say, she looks incredible for 82.  I just hope the stroke hasn't done any long-term damage.

[LeighAnne]

The Flicks and the City people recorded the William Shatner panel at the 2015 San Diego International Comic Con:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxDUkqh3lwQ

[Actionmage]

Today, on the channel Decades, the channel was saluting  the Moon Landing and space exploration. They showed 2 ST: TOS episodes for the latter. Those episodes?

Tomorrow Is Yesterday and The Omega Glory ( a S2 ep, but still Trek).

 

I thought there were better episodes that dealt with exploration far better, but I am not the programmer at the network. What would the rest of you have chosen to highlight "space exploration" in Trek ?  .

 

(If this is too broad, feel free to move it as needed.)

Edited July 21, 2015 by Actionmage

[legaleagle53]

I would have swapped out The Omega Glory for Assignment: Earth.  That episode was a better showcase for space exploration against the background of the time period.  Or, if a Season 1 episode would be more appropriate, The City on the Edge of Forever.  Edith Keeler's vision of the future was a recipe for disaster for the time she lived in, but she was nevertheless spot-on in her predictions of what mankind would accomplish by the time we actually did land on the moon.

[SmithW6079]

"Where No Man Has Gone Before" to me epitomizes exploration. The Enterprise is literally going where no one has gone before -- the edge of the galaxy, and then the crew has to deal with the consequences.

[MerelyAFan]

Omega Glory? So Return to Tomorrow, which has a speech by Kirk saying how exploration, no matter how risky, is worth it... is completely omitted in favor of arguably the worst episode of season 2 complete with stereotypical Asian villains and a nonsensical plot that ends with Kirk gushing over the American flag. 

 

That's like looking over the entirety of Trek to find the best episode which demonstrates the inherent beauty of man's intelligence tempered with morality and going with Spock's Brain. 

[VCRTracking]

Watching The Cloud Miners. Everybody on this planet is an asshole.

[paigow]

On 21/07/2015 at 6:19 PM, legaleagle53 said:

I would have swapped out The Omega Glory for Assignment: Earth.  That episode was a better showcase for space exploration against the background of the time period. 

Assignment: Earth was about establishing a fleet of sub-orbital nuclear warheads...not exploration. Gary Seven & Isis saved 20th century earth from itself.

[SmithW6079]

The Heroes and Icon channel is running all the Treks uncut. 

"Charlie X" aired tonight. I only ever watched Star Trek in syndication, so there are scenes I never saw before. The cut scenes were mostly of Charlie observing the routine of the ship, watching the crew members go about their jobs. There are some nice shots of him smiling in delight, and to me it just makes his eventual return/banishment more heartbreaking, even after all he'd done.

Also, to this day,  the sight of the crew member whose face Charlie removes still creeps me out.

[Maverick]

 I believe on TOS is being shown uncut.  The phrasing on the commercial is a little misleading.

[supposebly]

I'm decades too late to the party.

Since Netflix Canada decided to add TOS, I thought I might see if I can stand watching it. I used to watch it sometimes back in the seventies when I was little, so I don't really remember much. So far, the only episode I remember ever watching was Arena with Kirk fighting a lizard in a shiny apron. I am wondering if they had a strategically ripped shirt for all those instances Kirk's shirt was supposed to get ripped.

It's surprisingly a lot of fun. And now I finally get the whole Kirk/Spock slashing. Holy crap, their chemistry was off the charts! Kirk always invading Spock's personal space, the constant touching, the looks as if he knows something about Spock no one else knows.

I'm having way too much fun imagining that Spock and Kirk are having a secret a torrid love affair which ends in angry sex at the end of every episode Kirk gets close to any alien of the female persuasion. It's very amusing this way, I keep adding a lot of subtext in my head to almost every dialog. Shatner's inappropriate smoldering most of the time doesn't make this very difficult. And McCoy knows all about it.

Apart from that, taking away the dated effects, the terrible soft-filters on the women to be desired in the respective episodes, the cell phones, pardon, communicators that look like the shell-type phones that were in style about 10 years ago, the somewhat hokey scripts and dated gender relations, I'm finally getting why this show became the beginning of an enduring franchise. I've seen most of TNG and was mostly bored by it, I thought DS9 was the best but this is a lot of fun. And some episodes hold up quite well, maybe because or despite some of the idealism that shines through.

Off to season 2!

[supposebly]

Ok, season 2 meant a lot more skipping through and past episodes by me. I'm starting to see why Shatner's acting was mocked, he does move from excellent to sometimes laughably awful, sometimes within the same episodes. Maybe it was the corset. Poor man does show the weight gain although it's not as bad as I was lead to believe from pop culture rumor and internet gossip. Still, although not my type, he still handles the womanizing captain well. I like his quieter introspective moments a lot, especially when he worried that his job would be taken over by a computer.

Nimoy is pretty awesome throughout although often, he has not much to do except raise an eyebrow, look stoic or be snotty with McCoy. He is very disconcerting when he plays an alternative role, especially when his body was taken over by some alien that had none and refused to work on an android. He was supercreepy. Still, I kept thinking, why can't these advanced aliens not build an android that works like a human body? Stem cell research not heard of in the 1960s? But I guess if non-corporeal existence is the best they can do, doing research on replacement bodies is not high no the priority list.

It seems it's becoming more of an adventure show and it seems a lot more of the themes of how an advanced society would deal with other societies. I like that the non-interference prime directive or whatever it's called became more of a topic, but it seems it was often barely upheld and sometimes taken as lording it over other more "primitive" societies.

The Nazi episode was terrible, seriously, what were they thinking? Why would a historian think this would be a good idea? I get that it seems like a long time ago from his perspective, and one can look at it more objectively from a time more removed from its impact and that might explain his idea but that was not what the episode did. I'm really not sure what the point was except get Kirk AND Spock to be shirtless for a while.

The tribble episode was as entertaining as its reputation, Shatner does annoyed Kirk so very well.

The Roman society with the "gladiators" was only nice because of McCoy and Spock's interaction and Kirk's comment on that no one really knows if they hate each other or not, including themselves. I often wonder what McCoy really wants when he insists it would be good if Spock's human side came out to play more often. But more often than not, he sounds rather racist. I like that Spock gives back as good in this season.

All I remember from my childhood was the giant amoeba episode. That one, I still liked.

Overall, I was a little less entertained. Kirk and Spock's secret torrid love affair seems to have cooled a little closer to a comfortable relationship. ;-)

Off to season 3!

[holly4755]

well, at a loss where to put this - but happy 50th anniversary Star Trek.  I was watching BBC america and they said they are going to have all the uncut shows n a marathon