Where Lots of Men (And Also Women) Have Gone Before

[andraste]

Recently, I finished watching the original Star Trek, beginning to end. Which actually makes it the first complete Trek that I have seen every single episode of! (I skipped an episode of DS9 - Covenant, I think? - because Selena advised me I was better off without it and I trust her judgement on these things, and I didn't watch all of the first two seasons of TNG because life is too short.) On the whole I enjoyed it, the irritations of television produced in the sixties not withstanding.

Things I had not previously realised about original Star Trek:

1. Random crew members wearing red die a lot, but not as often as I was expecting from the legendary power of the curse. (According to statistics I googled, it's really just being security personnel that you need to avoid. Those guys die incessantly. Which I guess is kind of their job.)

2. It's much funnier than I was expecting. I mean, intentionally. It's also the other kind of hilarious sometimes, but that's only to be expected after a gap of so many decades. I still think my favourite joke is the look on Kirk's face in The Trouble With Tribbles when Scotty explains why he had to beat up those Klingons. (Oh, like you wouldn't have punched the guy who called your beloved a garbage scow, Jim.)

3. Wow, Leonard Nimoy truly was the Most Valuable Player here, and it becomes particularly obvious whenever he's called on to play something other than Spock. Or to play Spock who has temporarily been afflicted with ~feelings~. This is not any insult to the rest of the cast, but he earned his reputation.

4. That said, Shatner is way better than pop culture osmosis would lead you to believe. (Especially in the first two seasons - I think he got a little lazy in the last one. Maybe one of those actors who needs a director to reign him in? Which would make sense given the stories of his behaviour on set.)

5. It's sort of boggling just how often Kirk's plan boiled down to 'seduce the closest pretty girl.' Except when he delegates that part of the job to McCoy or even Spock if she's a Romulan. It's even more boggling how often this works.

6. OMG, Kirk is lucky that his command style works out for him. The number of times the whole senior crew could have been taken out by one unlucky transporter accident is pretty frightening. I know they called this out in Generations, but still.

7. There were definitely more cats than I was expecting. Or, more aliens disguised as cats, anyway. It's a shame that later Trek series don't contain so many felines - I guess that after the various Spot actors were such a pain to work with during TNG they swore of animals that were difficult to wrangle. (Beagles are better behaved and fish just do their thing and look pretty in the back of the shot.)

8. I remain unconvinced that anyone understands or has ever understood the Prime Directive.

Comments

[feldman]

Completely agree with your third point, actually all your points are great, but the third one I can really appreciate now in a way I was oblivious to growing up with this show in syndication.

[selenak]

Yes, it was Covenant, and I feel gratified that you took my advice. :)

re: William Shatner - I do think he's one of those actors who benefits from strong direction. Walter Koenig writes in his memoirs that when they shot Generations, Shatner for the first time since eons got told by a director to play a scene differently than he'd done, and took the direction without any tantrum, which made Koenig reflect self critically that all them had done their share of making the Bill the Egomaniac situation possible simply but not standing up to him.

Speaking of Walter Koenig, isn't it weird to have seen him as Bester and go back to harmless Pavel Chekov?

re: Prime Directive, I think the only ST series who a) took it seriously, and b) did interesting things with it was TNG. On TOS I had the impression it was just there so Kirk could go up against it. On TNG Picard actually tried to work with it, and we got reflections on the damage done to indigenious cultures in ye conquistador days as an explanation of why it was originally developed.

[lynndyre]

Yay! What were your favorite episodes?

7- One of the novels had alien cats, too - Uhura's Song. I really loved the worldbuilding and that whole species. I think the Animated series had an alien-cat Starfleet officer, as well. (I am in favor of ALL THE KITTY ALIENS)

5- this happens in Man from UNCLE too, every time, so I guess it's very sixties? But also MfU is hilarious to watch for the sheer number of TOS stars who show up in it.

[lilacsigil]

4. Yes, and I think Shatner is particularly at playing off other actors - he's at his worst when he's alone, but he has a really great rapport with practically everyone he interacts with.

8. I agree, but I also liked that TNG explored it from a lot of angles rather than it being a barrier to fight again.

[conuly]

8. I remain unconvinced that anyone understands or has ever understood the Prime Directive.

Prime Directive: If solving this problem by throwing our weight around and using our fancy-schmancy tech would reduce the episode to five minutes, we have to spend the remaining 39 minutes dithering about the human condition with regard to the socially relevant topic of the day first.