Epic Star Trek Re-Watch - TOS Movies Final Week - Final Frontier & Undiscovered Country! Pg 28! (TNG NEXT WEEK)

The first season of this has been kind of rubbish so far. It's fun to watch though.

Finished both parts of The Menagerie now, not really much to add beyond my comments on part 1: it's a clever re-use of the pilot material and the setup in part 1 has some very good mystery to it with us questioning Spock's action and wondering exactly what is going on. Ultimately it's all a bit obvious where it all ends up and part 2 is almost entirely made up of flashback material which diminishes it somewhat, but again that's a criticism that only really stands up in the situation where someone has seen The Cage which wouldn't have been the case in '66 - overall it was decent.

Plus any opportunity to see Vina do this fantastic facial expression and turn again has got to be seen as a win!

The Menagerie (parts 1 and 2)

I've only just watched The Cage and so I skipped the pilot footage and watched the newer footage. Which made the two episodes very quick to watch.

It's a shame I'd seen The Cage, this would have been a great double parter otherwise. That wouldn't have been a problem back in the '60s of course.

Moggy wrote:The Menagerie (parts 1 and 2)

I've only just watched The Cage and so I skipped the pilot footage and watched the newer footage. Which made the two episodes very quick to watch.

It's a shame I'd seen The Cage, this would have been a great double parter otherwise. That wouldn't have been a problem back in the '60s of course.

Yeah I finished The Menagerie earlier today as well. 2nd part is definitely heavier on the re-used footage than the first one, but yeah that wouldn't have been an issue at the time.

For what it's worth I can only think of one more episode in ALL of Star Trek that re-uses footage or clips like this so it's not something we need to worry about showing up again anytime soon.

Jenuall wrote:Finished both parts of The Menagerie now, not really much to add beyond my comments on part 1: it's a clever re-use of the pilot material and the setup in part 1 has some very good mystery to it with us questioning Spock's action and wondering exactly what is going on. Ultimately it's all a bit obvious where it all ends up and part 2 is almost entirely made up of flashback material which diminishes it somewhat, but again that's a criticism that only really stands up in the situation where someone has seen The Cage which wouldn't have been the case in '66 - overall it was decent.

Plus any opportunity to see Vina do this fantastic facial expression and turn again has got to be seen as a win!

I love that shot. :lol:

"Conscience of the King" was a great wee episode. Well put together, though I'm not entirely sure why Kirk didn't bring Spock and McCoy in on his suspicions earlier.

Next episode is "Balance of Terror" which I remember being really good. Hope I'm not wrong. :lol:

I'm a bit behind. Been busy lately. Hope to get caught up as I'm really enjoying this.

Squinty wrote:I'm a bit behind. Been busy lately. Hope to get caught up as I'm really enjoying this.

No rush.

I'm thinking about putting a week off between seasons to allow people to catch up a little if they need to.

That said, feel free to go at your own pace.

Watched "The Conscience of the King" myself last night, it's a decent episode with a good core plot that works really well, but something about the execution lets it down for me. There's definitely a lull in the middle portion.

And yeah Cheeky you're right, it really doesn't make sense why Kirk doesn't just confide in anyone! That said he does some of his research into the situation whilst just sat on the bridge where anyone could hear him and the computer talking to each other so it was hardly top secret! :lol:

Posting Riley back down to engineering is strawberry floated up as well - initially my assumption was that Kirk was trying to protect him by keeping him out of harms way but in reality he has just stuck him in a part of the ship where he's all alone and easy to assassinate!

Also the idea that in the 23rd century they would have to rely on a voice sample to identify someone is a bit ridiculous, but it probably felt incredibly high tech back in the 60s! :lol:

Jenuall wrote:Also the idea that in the 23rd century they would have to rely on a voice sample to identify someone is a bit ridiculous, but it probably felt incredibly high tech back in the 60s!

Well for the voice sample part, in universe they might not have had anything like a DNA scan on file for whatever reason (We're dealing with basically a dictator, destroying medical records was probably not too out of the question for him). The 20 year old photo and voice sample may have been all they had to compare against.

Lagamorph wrote:
Jenuall wrote:Also the idea that in the 23rd century they would have to rely on a voice sample to identify someone is a bit ridiculous, but it probably felt incredibly high tech back in the 60s!

Well for the voice sample part, in universe they might not have had anything like a DNA scan on file for whatever reason (We're dealing with basically a dictator, destroying medical records was probably not too out of the question for him). The 20 year old photo and voice sample may have been all they had to compare against.

True, although I imagine that the governor of an Earth colony would have had data on file back on Earth that he wouldn't have been able to destroy.

But yeah ultimately it's easy enough to suspend disbelief for the purposes of the plot, it just another one of those technological anachronisms that come from watching a show produced 60 years ago about events 150 years in the future!

Last edited by Jenuall on Tue Sep 14, 2021 7:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Watching Balance of Terror. The couple whose marriage ceremony was interrupted by the plot just had a conversation along the lines of "nothing will stop me from marrying you!"

...

Yeah one of these guys is going to be dead soon! :lol:

What I love about Balance of Terror is everyone freaking out that the Romulans look like Vulcans, yet nobody bats an eye at the half dozen alien races that look completely human they bump into every week :lol:

The Conscience of the King

There was a good idea for a story behind this episode, but it was shoddily executed. It was pretty obvious that the daughter was the killer and it was insane to send that guy to the engine room by himself :lol:

Balance of Terror

Easily the best episode I've seen so far. Tense, dramatic, exciting and a scrap with the Roman Empire in space! Excellent stuff, only let down by the couple trying to get married, it was WAY too obvious what was going to happen.

Yep Balance of Terror is comfortably the best episode so far! Great setup with the bases being destroyed along the neutral zone, the message from the last guy remaining at one of the outposts before it gets destroyed, the reveal of the Romulan's, the tense battle between the two ships and the two captains... just really good stuff all round!

Quite how we go from that to the nonsense that is Shore Leave I will never know! I mean I guess that is part of the appeal of the show - the fact it can cover so many different types of story and setting, but this is definitely one of the most "really? we're going to do that are we?!" moments in the show.

INT. STAR TREK PRODUCTION OFFICE - EVENING

PRODUCER
Guys you gave us a cracking episode last week - tension, drama, space battles, it had the lot! What have you got for us now?

JUNIOR WRITER
Well we've come up with a story about the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland and Sulu getting obsessed with an old school revolver and Kirk has a rubbish fight with some random Irish bloke oh and there's a Knight on horseback and then there's a WW2 plane...

PRODUCER

Bones is the best part about Shore Leave.

His reaction to Alice and the Rabbit is spot on, and then later on in the episode he becomes even hornier than Kirk.

strawberry floatin Lad.

"Bones" isn't just a nickname, amirite! Oi oi! Bants!

Lagamorph wrote:Bones is the best part about Shore Leave.

He's easily the best thing about the entire show. He's fantastic.

Shore Leave was utter shite. :lol:

I am caught up now. So far it's a better show than I imagine it'd be. But when it's bad, it's REALLY bad. Still, I've enjoyed it enough that I'll continue into next week.

Moggy wrote:
Lagamorph wrote:Bones is the best part about Shore Leave.

He's easily the best thing about the entire show. He's fantastic.

Shore Leave was utter shite.

I am caught up now. So far it's a better show than I imagine it'd be. But when it's bad, it's REALLY bad. Still, I've enjoyed it enough that I'll continue into next week.

We've not even seen some of the worst episodes yet. :nod:

But yeah TOS is very much highs and lows.

Cheeky Devlin wrote:
Moggy wrote:
Lagamorph wrote:Bones is the best part about Shore Leave.

He's easily the best thing about the entire show. He's fantastic.

Shore Leave was utter shite.

I am caught up now. So far it's a better show than I imagine it'd be. But when it's bad, it's REALLY bad. Still, I've enjoyed it enough that I'll continue into next week.

We've not even seen some of the worst episodes yet.

But yeah TOS is very much highs and lows.

Balance of Terror is one of original Star Trek's highest peaks, and it definitely hits that point again several times across the run.

So week four passed with two fairly good episodes, one classic episode, oh and Shore Leave was a thing as well. We also had the first appearance of Mark Lenard (The Romulan commander in "Balance of Terror"), who goes on to play a fairly important recurring character for the series.

As for this week we've got horrendously thrown spears, more God-Like entities, one of the most iconic Kirk fights of all time and the first "proper" time travel story in Trek.

Epic Star Trek Re-Watch - TOS Movies Final Week - Final Frontier & Undiscovered Country! Pg 28! (TNG NEXT WEEK)

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