Star Trek: Classic or Dud?

So they had this great German cinematographer Karl Freund who worked for Desilu on I Love Lucy who figured out how to shoot a sitcom along with this guy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Daniels?wprov=sfti1 who also directed many, many episodes of another Desilu production, Star Trek.

FLOYD RULES. Actually I don't know what Floyd’s Barber Shop is... or was.

We never got that over here.

It’s kind of a US version of The Sweeney except...

I was bored and unwell and put the animated series on Netflix yesterday and watched an episode called The Jihad. It was the most baffling 20 minutes of cartoon show I think Ive ever watched.

- An alien shaped like a badly taxidermied cat gathers Kirk, Spock and a ragtag team of other aliens (ft: some wormulon dude, an amazonian with big tits, a lizard and a winged eagle thing)
- they are meant to be going to some "mad planet" to locate a holy relic bcs if they dont, the people of said planet will start a jihad bcs its stolen and will kill everyone for some reason
- oh and btw this planets atmos goes from 200Kelvin below to 200 above freezing and is covered in volcanoes and earthquakes but NBD
- nekminnit they are all on the surface just hanging out in this volcanic minus kelvin weather with NO PROTECTVE GEAR, amazon lady barely has anything on, no one is cold/hot/bothered in any way.
- amazon lady comments on how men are dumb but hey Kirk yr kinda hot wanna make out? She does this multiple times during the episode
- oh no a lava flow is heading our way, and we cant outrun it! Quick lets spend 10 minutes reconfiguring the energymotron or whatever to make our escape! Oh no its still going to outrun us. Never mind one of the crew can FLY and could have I dunno, picked them all up in his talons or something?
- they find the thingy theyre looking for but oh no its a trap! Eagle dude always does this
- by this point I gave up and I lost track of WTH was going on to be quite honest.

yesteryear is the only tas episode worth watching. maybe the clip of the holodeck too.

i had never seen the one before where kirk gives a dramatic reading of the constitution to a band of white mongol (?) liberty-worshippers

That one is kind of bad, despite that classic moment.

yesteryear is the only tas episode worth watching. maybe the clip of the holodeck too.

I like it because the episodes are shorter

Series two has started. Obviously took them a while to get Chekov's wig right, he looks ridiculous in the these early episodes.

There are some classics in the early part of Season 2.

Didn't Roddenberry go missing towards the end of season 2?

the gene l. coon era was the best -- he started doing the script-editing/showrunning when Miri was being filmed, stayed on until around halfway through season 2. he amped up the kirk/spock/mccoy dynamic and made the show more lighthearted.

Sounds about right.

that dynamic = "Earth people have moved beyond racism but Vulcans are fair game"

Roddenberry stepped back a bit after Miri in season 1, giving the main line producer/showrunner job to Coon. then later he pretty much abandoned the show when nbc gave season 3 a bad slot.

(xp) That reminds me, Kirk called Scotty a "stiff necked thistle head" at one point in today's episode.

Scotty was acting like a complete arse though, all gooey-eyed and lovestruck over this week's female guest star.

i saw the last 15 minutes of Apollo getting murdered

do they repeat the evening show the following morning or is it the same episode twice a day

I believe it's a repeat of the evening show.

Looking forward to the discussion once "The Gamesters of Triskelion" rolls around. Lowest of TOS for me, though "Cheeee-koooof" busts me up.

Thanks to more evening time at home, watched seasons 1-3 on blu for the first time. Enjoyed the new effects quite a bit. Noticed all sorts of things my younger self missed, thanks to the rapid watching. McCoy offsets his country doctor persona with a lot more harsh criticism than I remembered, and Kirk is sharper with Spock at times than needs be. The Federation bureaucracy exists pretty much to set arbitrary deadlines, hector, and not enforce the Prime Directive. Lots of disconnects between talk and walk - racism as mentioned above re: Vulcans, sexism is alive and well, money isn't the motivating force except when it is, etc.

But much great progressive stuff as well for its time - anti-war scripts galore, class warfare (The Cloud Minders), racism (Let That Be Your Last Battlefield might be too obvious, but it sure highlights the issue's stupidity), the bridge melting pot, Pike's Number 1 being Majel Barrett, etc. Overall, my nostalgia came out justified.

Next up, the animated series. Have seen only bits of one, so it's like a new season.

The guy who played Apollo was very good... and still alive at 91!

pretty sure i watched all of TAS as a kid, and have never seen it since

yeah Apollo was good and moving even if he was obv a bit of a douche

That guy was some kind of Next Charlton Heston or something.

Directed by Marc Daniels and co-written by Gene L. Coon, so all our favorites involved in that one.

Watching Mrs. Redd watch TNG and Seymour Cassel just showed up as a guest star of some sort.

Some kind of benign Charlie X episode, it seems.

Also, sorry if I’m late to the game, but what’s with Counselor Troi’s accent?

I don't think she changed her natural voice...

Also, why doesn't Worf's name start with a 'K'?

I just looked up the thing about Troi. She claims her speech was based on an Israeli friend, however her parents are Greek, which is what her character sounds like, and she grew up in London and actually has a Cockney accent.

it is a silent k

kworf

Not so much cockney as Tottenham, which is where Marina Sirtis grew up I think, sorry 'fink'.

watched some interviews. dang, i honestly didn't notice until now. though i guess her Troi voice does sound.. vaguely Gal Godot-ish

I always assumed she was trying to do some kind of variation of her parents' Greek accent, didn't know it was supposed to be Israeli.

Classic episode on right now, as some radiation, or somethin', turns Kirk, McCoy, Scotty and even Spock into doddery crotchety old geezers shuffling about forgetting what they just said.

https://i0.wp.com/www.tor.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/st-deadly25.jpg

Part of the aging process being McCoy's accent getting more and more Southern.

https://www.powells.com/post/guests/did-people-used-to-develop-southern-accents-as-they-got-older

Does that still work in the 23rd century though?

pretty sure mccoy's got more southern because after he retired he would have spent more time drinking mint juleps on the veranda

Ha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rNoR8jnPRU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz1c1xdoUFc

I like how Patrick Stewart de-emphasizes it most of the time.

To celebrate #StarTrekUnited, stream Star Trek's most culturally impactful episodes FREE at the locations below:
- https://t.co/pyZ9OyqyUQ: https://t.co/mYgkivaH32
- CBS: https://t.co/Z3Y1KT4edN
- Twitch: https://t.co/1S7XpZcQuE
- PlutoTV: https://t.co/gGJJMKX82x pic.twitter.com/rnU01MuWXI

— CBS All Access (@CBSAllAccess) June 17, 2020

personally i always thought the one where spock mind-melds with the horta was super culturally impactful

Devil in the Dark would be on my list, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qSVb9bQeqM

https://www.startrek.com/news/star-trek-lower-decks-sets-release-date

I think at some point I'll order CBS for a month and binge all the ST content at once.