StarTrek (TOS) 1.05-06
Mar. 25th, 2016 08:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urthReal life has kind of been kicking my ass this week, but have some more Star Trek reviews for now.
TOS 1x05: The Naked Time
That was much better than WNMHGB, in fact it was kind of actually pretty decent. The plot clipped along at a good rate, we got some good character insight (some of it perhaps questionable, but a lot of it solid), and while I wouldn’t exactly call it tense, it was engaging. There were times when I was a little distracted thinking about The Naked Now, so I suspect the reverse was true for TOS fans watching TNG; some of it working better here and some of it better in the later version.
I also suspect this is an ep that at least for modern viewers launches a thousand ships, as there were a lot of combinations showing chemistry here. Sulu and Riley were clearly dating right? All the ladies love Spock, and he gets all woobie at this and it’s adorable; while I’m still more for Spock/Uhura overall, Spock/Chapel is a valid second choice. I’m starting to think I personally ship Bones with everyone and this was fine for that. And if one is inclined towards Kirk/Spock there’s that material too I suppose (it’s still not hitting ship material for me, but I can see it fitting for those who do see it).
Probably the characters that get the most actual development are Spock and more subtly Uhura. Uhura is just there demonstrating utter competence at whatever task she’s given, but we’re also shown she has limits to how much she can have people putting pressure on her to fill that role, it was subtle but I definitely saw it there and enjoyed it. This is probably the first time Spock’s character has gotten much development, and it may have been forced, but it doesn’t feel like it was done wrong either. I’m coming at this from a lifetime of knowledge of Vulcans, but that hasn’t happened yet on the show here, we don’t know how Spock or Vulcans in general relate to their emotions yet, and this is relevant establishment going on. If it hadn’t all certainly been said over the last 50 years I could get into a real evaluation of Spock’s reactions here and how it both kicked him in the feels and the infection shattered his control and so he was just spiraling and so everything came up all of a sudden, and it really worked for me.
Kirk on the other hand was just hysterical. I suspect Kirk will eventually become an actual character, but I’m not seeing it so far. If it feels like something in universe is pushing Spock to be more emotional, Kirk’s speech just feels forced. And a pretty dumb speech to make so forced, couldn’t anyone see how bad the lines were even before Shatner’s terrible delivery? Yes, yes, Kirk/Enterprise OTP or whatever, but that’s the kind of thing that should definitely be shown rather than told.
But I spent the whole episode still annoyed by the guy at the beginning who just didn’t get the point of contamination suits. Granted, they were pretty bad contamination suits to start with and supposedly they were going through decon when they got back to the ship, but I found that pretty poor. Also that while I suppose the set/costumes in that opening bit were no worse than say Doctor Who at the time, they still looked really bad.
Plus, the ending where they randomly invent time travel for no reason, that was weird and a very strange decision to put in the writing.
TOS 1x06: The Enemy Within
I think that gets a stamp of meh; really I want to say it was bad, but I think lowering it that far has more to do with watching it 50 years later instead of the episode quality. By now this is such a common trope and this just seems a very basic treatment of it; but while I’m sure the trope existed before, it’s certainly become more common since this aired.
But damn did this feel like such a nothing of an episode. The only parts I felt anything for were Sulu and his team and the poor doggie. I suppose I might have felt for Rand if her reactions had gotten more focus and not been really brushed off by the ending. And part of what I feel for Sulu and the away team was annoyance that the crew wasn’t focused more on how to help them. Even barring shuttlecraft – which the ship should have even though transporters may be the primary method of transportation – I can think of half a dozen things the crew on the ship could have done to do better by the away team. Don’t they have escape pods even if not shuttlecraft? Focusing on fixing the transporters so they can either beam the team up or at least beam things down to help should be easier to do than recombining separated people, so maybe focus on getting that done. Could they beam down some wood and matches, some better blankets, a tent? Or could they launch supplies down in a retrofitted probe or torpedo? I’m sure there’s at least one member of that team who could build something useful if sent down basic parts. And what about once they were able to transport the dog and operated on the assumption it died because of shock of being rejoined; but apparently the transporters were working by then so couldn’t they have done something for the team at that point? I was *really* bothered by no one putting their brains to work on this subject.
On top of which it’s really unclear what the timeframe we’re working with here is. They said early on that it gets super cold during nights on the planet, but how long is night for this planet? Scotty also says repairs are going to take a week at one point, and even allowing for Scotty’s known exaggeration, was the away team left without food and water supplies while all this was going on? If it was a matter of 12 hours or so, okay so they conveniently got the solution for Kirk at the same time as the transporters got fixed; rather convenient, but sure they were focused on approaching the problem head on instead of other ways to deal with the actual threat of cold. But if they were at this for days, I’m not happy with the approach the crew took to the problem.
What’s more, it actually cut into what the episode was supposed to be about, the two halves of Kirk’s psyche being externalized. Have Scotty and his team figure out a solution to the away team much earlier on and have the story then be about dealing with Kirk; if they must, have the transporters damaged in the fight so the idea of figuring out how to rejoin them becomes harder; but focus in on something character driven without confusing it with the mostly inconsequential not-even-action plot. That, or actually try and make them relate to each other more. By having the Kirks vie for command and those decisions affecting the fate of the away team; but because the plot takes the mystery off the table early and contains Kirk B for so much of the episode, there isn’t room for much tension.
And all of those problems are before I even start comparing it to other Star Trek versions of the person split in half story, not to mention other sources. It’s also before I address the fact that the acting pretty much sucks, and while I don’t just mean Shatner as no one’s very good, this sort of story requires a much better actor that I’m confident saying Shatner is (especially at this stage). That too, I’m sure, is partially influenced by when this was made and the style of TV acting for the time, but not enough for me to let it go unmentioned either. This one just wasn’t very good, although still better than WNMHGB, beyond that...I’ll have to think.
TOS 1x05: The Naked Time
That was much better than WNMHGB, in fact it was kind of actually pretty decent. The plot clipped along at a good rate, we got some good character insight (some of it perhaps questionable, but a lot of it solid), and while I wouldn’t exactly call it tense, it was engaging. There were times when I was a little distracted thinking about The Naked Now, so I suspect the reverse was true for TOS fans watching TNG; some of it working better here and some of it better in the later version.
I also suspect this is an ep that at least for modern viewers launches a thousand ships, as there were a lot of combinations showing chemistry here. Sulu and Riley were clearly dating right? All the ladies love Spock, and he gets all woobie at this and it’s adorable; while I’m still more for Spock/Uhura overall, Spock/Chapel is a valid second choice. I’m starting to think I personally ship Bones with everyone and this was fine for that. And if one is inclined towards Kirk/Spock there’s that material too I suppose (it’s still not hitting ship material for me, but I can see it fitting for those who do see it).
Probably the characters that get the most actual development are Spock and more subtly Uhura. Uhura is just there demonstrating utter competence at whatever task she’s given, but we’re also shown she has limits to how much she can have people putting pressure on her to fill that role, it was subtle but I definitely saw it there and enjoyed it. This is probably the first time Spock’s character has gotten much development, and it may have been forced, but it doesn’t feel like it was done wrong either. I’m coming at this from a lifetime of knowledge of Vulcans, but that hasn’t happened yet on the show here, we don’t know how Spock or Vulcans in general relate to their emotions yet, and this is relevant establishment going on. If it hadn’t all certainly been said over the last 50 years I could get into a real evaluation of Spock’s reactions here and how it both kicked him in the feels and the infection shattered his control and so he was just spiraling and so everything came up all of a sudden, and it really worked for me.
Kirk on the other hand was just hysterical. I suspect Kirk will eventually become an actual character, but I’m not seeing it so far. If it feels like something in universe is pushing Spock to be more emotional, Kirk’s speech just feels forced. And a pretty dumb speech to make so forced, couldn’t anyone see how bad the lines were even before Shatner’s terrible delivery? Yes, yes, Kirk/Enterprise OTP or whatever, but that’s the kind of thing that should definitely be shown rather than told.
But I spent the whole episode still annoyed by the guy at the beginning who just didn’t get the point of contamination suits. Granted, they were pretty bad contamination suits to start with and supposedly they were going through decon when they got back to the ship, but I found that pretty poor. Also that while I suppose the set/costumes in that opening bit were no worse than say Doctor Who at the time, they still looked really bad.
Plus, the ending where they randomly invent time travel for no reason, that was weird and a very strange decision to put in the writing.
TOS 1x06: The Enemy Within
I think that gets a stamp of meh; really I want to say it was bad, but I think lowering it that far has more to do with watching it 50 years later instead of the episode quality. By now this is such a common trope and this just seems a very basic treatment of it; but while I’m sure the trope existed before, it’s certainly become more common since this aired.
But damn did this feel like such a nothing of an episode. The only parts I felt anything for were Sulu and his team and the poor doggie. I suppose I might have felt for Rand if her reactions had gotten more focus and not been really brushed off by the ending. And part of what I feel for Sulu and the away team was annoyance that the crew wasn’t focused more on how to help them. Even barring shuttlecraft – which the ship should have even though transporters may be the primary method of transportation – I can think of half a dozen things the crew on the ship could have done to do better by the away team. Don’t they have escape pods even if not shuttlecraft? Focusing on fixing the transporters so they can either beam the team up or at least beam things down to help should be easier to do than recombining separated people, so maybe focus on getting that done. Could they beam down some wood and matches, some better blankets, a tent? Or could they launch supplies down in a retrofitted probe or torpedo? I’m sure there’s at least one member of that team who could build something useful if sent down basic parts. And what about once they were able to transport the dog and operated on the assumption it died because of shock of being rejoined; but apparently the transporters were working by then so couldn’t they have done something for the team at that point? I was *really* bothered by no one putting their brains to work on this subject.
On top of which it’s really unclear what the timeframe we’re working with here is. They said early on that it gets super cold during nights on the planet, but how long is night for this planet? Scotty also says repairs are going to take a week at one point, and even allowing for Scotty’s known exaggeration, was the away team left without food and water supplies while all this was going on? If it was a matter of 12 hours or so, okay so they conveniently got the solution for Kirk at the same time as the transporters got fixed; rather convenient, but sure they were focused on approaching the problem head on instead of other ways to deal with the actual threat of cold. But if they were at this for days, I’m not happy with the approach the crew took to the problem.
What’s more, it actually cut into what the episode was supposed to be about, the two halves of Kirk’s psyche being externalized. Have Scotty and his team figure out a solution to the away team much earlier on and have the story then be about dealing with Kirk; if they must, have the transporters damaged in the fight so the idea of figuring out how to rejoin them becomes harder; but focus in on something character driven without confusing it with the mostly inconsequential not-even-action plot. That, or actually try and make them relate to each other more. By having the Kirks vie for command and those decisions affecting the fate of the away team; but because the plot takes the mystery off the table early and contains Kirk B for so much of the episode, there isn’t room for much tension.
And all of those problems are before I even start comparing it to other Star Trek versions of the person split in half story, not to mention other sources. It’s also before I address the fact that the acting pretty much sucks, and while I don’t just mean Shatner as no one’s very good, this sort of story requires a much better actor that I’m confident saying Shatner is (especially at this stage). That too, I’m sure, is partially influenced by when this was made and the style of TV acting for the time, but not enough for me to let it go unmentioned either. This one just wasn’t very good, although still better than WNMHGB, beyond that...I’ll have to think.
