High Lord Tolkien wrote:I started watching the animated series on Netflix.
I expected it to be just silly but it was really good! (first 4 episodes anyway, I haven't seen the rest yet).
I think most of the cast came back for voices too.
They ARE surprisingly good for being a Saturday morning children's show, HLT! Yes, most of the original series actors, save Walter Koenig as Chekhov, came back to voice this series, and some of the original series writers (D.C. Fontana, David Gerrold, etc.) returned for this show as well--and some entertaining sci-fi happens.
Star Trek - The Original Series episode "The Devil In The Dark" (#26)
Opening teaser: The guard Schmitter gets burned, literally, by trusting mining Chief Vanderburg's assurance that "you'll be alright". So much for the reliability of any Vanderberg promise! If he were my boss, I'd sure have to quit and get off mining planet Janus VI as soon as possible. This episode's opening sequence is the only one in the entire original series that doesn't have any Enterprise crewmember featured, I'm pretty sure.
Guest stars Ken Lynch (Chief Vanderberg) and Brad Weston (Ed Appel) do a good job of radiating a surly bitterness. You can tell they have a contempt for Federation officers they see as braggarts that can't face danger without being wrapped inside a starship. It makes the background story of the miners being people who suffered hardship and recent loss, and remaining under threat from some unknown monster, much more believable.
"Silicon-based life is physiologically impossible, especially in an oxygen atmosphere."--Dr. Leonard McCoy, in response to Mr. Spock's supposition that the miner-killing monster is silicon-based life instead of carbon-based life. But Spock stays ahead of McCoy and everyone else at finding the truth, by stating he thinks silicon-based life could stand being in an oxygen atmosphere for short time periods. Mr. Spock intuitively tells Captain Kirk to be certain not to damage the silicon nodules. All of Spock's guesses about the monster, which we find out is called the Horta, prove to be correct.
Spock wants to capture the Horta, but Kirk wants to kill it so as to lose no more men. Killing it is a crime against science, Spock correctly (in my view) argues. But Kirk is not sure he can trust Spock to follow his orders in this matter of finding the monster, and wants him to go help Mr. Scott with a temporary nuclear reactor. Spock wants to stay engaged in the hunt for the Horta, so he objects that Mr. Scott's knowledge of nuclear reactors far surpasses his knowledge. Then Kirk objects that they both can't be put in danger, as they are the two highest-ranking Federation officers there. So, Spock returns that they are 2 out of a search party of 100 looking for one killer creature. "The odds of both of us being killed are approximately 2,228.7 to 1."--Mr. Spock to Captain Kirk. I think it's funny how Spock pulls up that number so fast, with a decimal place to make it sound more impressive. And Kirk's face of amusement at Spock's reasoning makes the scene seem funny to me, like he knows Spock's desire to stay involved in the hunt is the real reason why Spock is protesting like this.
There's that sign the Horta might be reasoned with as it backs up from Kirk's phaser. This idea Kirk gets to "win the Horta's trust" by having the Horta healed by McCoy is an inspiration that seemingly comes out of nowhere, but it has some chance of working when considering the Horta's apparent intelligence.
The scene that I consider the centerpiece of the episode is where Spock mind-melds with the Horta, finding out its name, personal history, species population cycle, and deeply-held grievances all in one relatively short mental conversation. The acting by Leonard Nimoy is good, showing some if his widest emotional range in the series. But I think William Shatner's acting deserves some praise, too, such as when he's trying to absorb Spock's revelations about the Horta, when in real life Shatner had just been informed of his father's death before filming those scenes. Very professional work from Bill Shatner. Really, this entire episode is well-acted by all involved.
Kirk's demanding McCoy heal the Horta inspires one of McCoy's best-known lines: "I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer!" (Thermo-concrete, mostly silicon, is the patch McCoy uses to heal the Horta.) "You're a healer, that's your patient." Kirk sure doesn't show a lot of sensitivity for what McCoy has to go through to accomplish his desires (which is often how he treats Scotty, too, come to think of it).
"...And you've killed thousands of her children." Kirk's rejoinder to Vanderberg's charge against the Horta effectively shuts all the miners up. They can't deny their willful destruction of the silicon nodules, nor their surprise that realizing they started this war with the Horta. This is an interesting study about an endangered species aggressively protecting its eggs on a planet mined by humans, causing it to be a serious economic and physical threat to humans. This endangered Horta is responsible for choosing the P-XK pergium (a mineable element that exists in the Star Trek universe) reactor to steal, revealing its intelligence in damaging the mining colony by taking its most vital and irreplaceable piece of life-support equipment.
Spock, after mind-melding with the Horta: "Every 50,000 years the entire race dies but one", referring to the mother Horta, who has to raise all of the children that will represent the species. It's wild imaginings like this, where an alien race has this incredible history, that makes me continue to love science fiction so much.
The extra economic incentive that the Hortas will save the miners lots of money by tunneling for them makes it much easier for them to suffer the Horta and her race to live and thrive. It's a nice tie-up in the plot for the miners to profit from not exterminating a life form--but, unfortunately, if there were no profit in protecting and tolerating the Horta's race, humans probably would cling to the goal of exterminating to satisfy desires of revenge for slain comrades. The profit angle certainly makes the story wrap-up more credible.
At the episode wrap-up back on the Enterprise bridge, McCoy asks Spock the strange question "Did she"--the mother Horta--"say anything about those pointed ears?" I say that's a strange question, because the Horta being so physically alien compared to any bipedal humanoid, Vulcan or otherwise, makes it unlikely that the Horta would fixate on ears over any other body feature. McCoy is imagining the Horta thinking like a human , because the Vulcan ears would be the most distinguishing difference between Earth humans and Vulcans. So, like I said, a strange question from McCoy, now prompting a strange answer from Spock: "Indeed, she complimented me on them, and I gather she thought it was a regular feature of humanoids. I didn't have the heart to tell her I was the only one who had them." And when Spock tells Kirk, "Really, Captain, my modesty--", he seems uncharacteristically melodramatic. "Does not bear close inspection," Kirk remarks. "Mr. Spock, I suspect you're becoming more human all the time." Spock says he "sees no reason to stand here and be insulted" and walks away as Kirk and McCoy chuckle.
It seems to me this final sequence is a cheap laugh. But the episode itself, overall, seems to work. It manages to be one of the more memorable ST original series episodes, probably because it effectively preaches empathy for a very different lifeform, and thus argues for more empathy in our real life. It also promotes the idea of reaching out to communicate and comprehend, rather than just to condemn and kill, which also makes me feel positive about this story.
I have no master plan on reviewing these Star Trek episodes other than to just scribble down thoughts while I'm watching, and try to make those thoughts into sentences. I may add a touch of background research into the episodes before I post the reviews. That's my "method", such as it is.
Nimoy: There was also the case where George and Nichelle were not hired to do their voices in the animated series . I refused to do Spock until they were hired.
We miss you Tracie but your Spirit will always shine brightly on the Watch
SoulBiter wrote:An interesting tidbit about the animated series.
Nimoy: There was also the case where George and Nichelle were not hired to do their voices in the animated series . I refused to do Spock until they were hired.
That's great, SoulBiter! I have read that when the Star Trek reboot movie of 2009 was considering casting both Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner in supporting roles, William Shatner indicated with the producers that he wouldn't do the movie if other original series cast members were going to appear, and
However, Leonard Nimoy liked the idea of doing the movie but wanted to know if they "had a part for my friend Bill" in it. Leonard Nimoy seems like he was a thoughtful, loyal person to the other original series cast members.
This was the first Star Trek episode that I ever saw, on an uncle's black-and-white television, with siblings and cousins on a humid summer night in 1974. I remember thinking it was kind of scary, with the idea of humanoids in multiple planetary systems being controlled by single-celled aliens that exerted pain through the nervous systems of their victims.
Weird stuff, like someone from this Federation planet of Deneva flying a spaceship into the sun and screaming, "I'm free!" just before burning up. Also, the Enterprise landing party encounters Denevan human colonists trying to warn them away from danger while coming for the bearing clubs against them.
The screen time of the actress (Joan Swift) that plays Kirk's sister-in-law Aurelan is mercifully brief, as she is a horribly screeching actress. Yeah, I know her character is supposed to be in pain, but...her acting is just too much.
Great acting by DeForest Kelley as always, especially when he's being a McCoy outraged by Kirk deciding to allow Spock (also attacked by one of the single-celled aliens) to get out of his hospital bed and continue doing research on Deneva's surface.
Maybe not great acting, but still good acting: Leonard Nimoy's head-flinching and neck-twitching convincingly communicates that Spock is fighting to ignore pain.
I think this episode kind of stinks, though, for this reason: we just have to assume that Kirk's nephew Peter will be all right, instead of seeing him up and about, and actually getting a speaking line.
The brightness of the Vulcan sun gave Vulcans the evolutionary advantage of an extra inner eyelid to protect vision, and they ignore its existence like humans ignore their appendixes--who knew?
I found it mildly funny that McCoy didn't want Spock to know that he considered Spock the best first officer in the fleet. That's all I have to say about this fairly mediocre ST:TOS episode.
This is an episode supposed to be first shown around October 31, on the holiday of Halloween. So this episode has a campy kind of creepiness about it. It's got thick fog on a drearily-lit rocky planet, moaning and cackling witches, skeletons hanging to walls on chains, and a black cat that can change its size, and really annoying "suspense music".
This is the first episode of Star Trek's second season, and the first episode to feature Ensign Pavel Checkhov (Walter Koenig). I like the studied look of deeply worried concentration that emanates from the face of Nichelle Nichols (Lieutenant Nyota Uhura) when the bridge crew learns that the landing party of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy just had their life signs vanish on the planet's surface. The guy who plays Deputy Engineer LeSalle (Mike Barrier) has a certain believable hard-bitten dedication about him that gives the plight of the ship under Sylvia's control seem like it's really happening.
The two aliens from outside our galaxy that threaten our heroes and the rest of the crew play a game of good magician (Korob)/bad magician (Sylvia) with Kirk and company. Scotty and Sulu are already under the control of Sylvia, alas, but of course don't seem to be permanently harmed from the experience. Korob seems like he has some kind of conscience and sanity about him, but Sylvia seems dangerously capricious. The actress (Antionette Bower) playing Sylvia looks suitably stressed to the point of seeming on the brink of being unhinged and sadistic.
The ending, where Kirk figures out the wand is the source of the aliens' power, is simplistic. Kirk just smashes the wand, and that's that. The crew under Sylvia's spell are freed, and Korob and Sylvia are reverted by to their forms of tiny blue pipe cleaner crustacean things that quickly die. Pretty much an uninspiring episode, but I liked when after the witches spoke, Spock commented, "Very bad poetry," to Kirk.
This was the first Star Trek episode that I ever saw, on an uncle's black-and-white television, with siblings and cousins on a humid summer night in 1974.
This was the first Star Trek episode that I ever saw, on an uncle's black-and-white television, with siblings and cousins on a humid summer night in 1974.
Star Trek The Original Series "The Doomsday Machine" (episode #35)
Guest star William Windom (Commodore Matt Decker) is a talented actor, showing a disciplined single-mindedness while still fidgeting with his hands in a way that lets us know he is inwardly unhinged. When Kirk, McCoy, Scott, and an engineering crew board Decker's damaged starship the Constellation and find him, he talks about a threat coming "right out of hell! I SAW it!!!" with a believable horror emanating from his voice and face.
Windom is one asset of this episode, but I also love the special effects here. The seething flickering light within the robot planet-killer conveys a bristling menace, and the heavy use of brass with dramatic piano in the musical score when we first look down the machine's "maw" makes the moment more intense.
The original special effects show some flaws, though: stars are seen moving through the planet-killer's supposedly sold (though maybe partially transparent?) neutronium hull,, and the way the starship phasers hit the outside of the planet-killer looks cheap and tacky. But the mesmerizing interior of the planet-killer continues to get "cool points" from me, and I like the earlier effects of its interior better than the "Enhanced Effects" version that came out circa 2007-8.
The episode has one of those classic Dr. McCoy lines. While they are both still on board the Constellation and just moments ago found Decker, Kirk asks McCoy, "Bones, have you ever hear of a 'doomsday machine'?" McCoy quips, "No, I'm a doctor, not a mechanic!"
Riveting dram happens on the Enterprise bridge as Matt Decker first seizes command in Kirk's absence, then gets relieved of it, on Kirk's personal authority.
The fight between Decker and Security Officer Matthews in the Enterprise hallways was fairly fun to watch, as well. Matthews didn't give up easily!
Okay, I have already praised Windom for his acting, but I have to add that he's especially fantastic in the scene where his character Decker sends himself in a shuttle craft to go inside the "doomsday machine" to die. The intensely discordant feel of the music here really ratchets up the level of excitement in this story. So, I can mostly forgive the shuttlecraft being too large in scale for the shot when it's going into the planet-killer.
James Doohan does a pretty good job here, being a seriously-focused Mr. Scott. So I can forgive his letting his Scottish accent slip, for a fragment of a sentence: "...thirty seconds later, POOF!"
Composer Sol Kaplan wrote GREAT music for the final minutes of this episode!
Superb suspense in the range of camera shots juxtaposed, varying from: Kirk's looks of sharp concern to the looming planet-killer to Scott desperately fixing transporter parts in a Jeffries tube to Sulu on the Enterprise bridge counting down the time before the Constellation's explosion to the smoke booming on the faulty transporter pads--all really contribute to making this episode's conclusion VERY gripping!
So, just for the record, according to Mr. Spock, it is an explosion of 97.835 megatons used to destroy the planet-killing "doomsday machine".
Spock: "Mr. Scott, Mr....Scott...try inverse phasing." This turns out to be very timely advice, after all.
I consider it fortunate that this episode is one of the six Star Trek original series on VHS videotape that my sister gave me for Christmas! That's because I'm pretty sure this is my favorite episode of the original series!!!
Star Trek The Original Series "The Trouble With Tribbles" (episode #42)
Ensign Chekhov to Captain Kirk, in answer to a question of how close they were to the Klingons: "One parsec, sir. Close enough to smell them." Mr. Spock, interjecting, "Thai is illogical, Ensign. Odors cannot travel through the vacuum of space." A defensive Chekov states, "I was making a little joke, sir." Spock the literalist scolds him, "Extremely little, Ensign." This episode has a quirky beginning, and the quirkiness just gets better and better as the episode rolls along.
It's weird how these little trilling furballs called tribbles have their charm, and Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Uhura sells that notion of their charm early on, looking very pleased to hold, pet, and own one.
Before the truth of the tribbles' extraordinary multiplicative proclivity becomes apparent, they have their charms. After that's known? Then they appear to be more of a serious pest species. You clearly don't have to be a Klingon to dislike them (but it helps).
Spock, talking about tribbles while holding and stroking one, to Kirk, McCoy, Uhura, and other crew members in the ship's lounge area: "Its trilling seems to have a soothing effect on the human nervous system. Fortunately I am immune." Then Spock puts the tribble down with slight embarrassment as Kirk ever-so-briefly smirks. I liked that moment.
Cyrano Jones just making it out of the space station K-7 bar fight having gotten three drinks in his system, is carrying a fourth out when the barkeep comes back with Federation security and takes it from him just as he is about to sip it. That seems funny to me, already, but it's made funnier because Jones had another drink in one of the deep pockets of his coat.
Kirk looks comically glum when he realizes Scotty started the fight with the Klingons on K-7 for insults against the Enterprise, but not for insults against it's captain! Scott's excuse" "WELL, sir...this was a matter of PRIDE!" It's funny that as punishment Kirk confines Scotty to his quarters where Scott get to do what he wanted to do all along: read his technical journals.
Kirk's almost sitting on a squealing tribble in his bridge command chair is a good introduction to showing how tribble numbers are getting out of hand. Spock and Kirk are quick to pick up on the likelihood of the tribbles getting into the space station's grain storage compartments. "Kirk, you should have known!" Undersecretary Baris opines at him, unfairly so in my opinion. The dead tribbles point to the triticale grain being poisoned, and the live tribble point to Baris' assistant Arne Darvin to being a Klingon agent. Nice plot twists, those.
When Kirk observes of tribbles, "But they DO like Vulcans," then Spock is quick to say "Obviously, tribbles are very perceptive creatures, Captain." Deadpan Vulcan humor; I've got to love it! "Obviously."
Other episode cast notes: Stanley Adams as Cyrano Jones is good as a nervous trader who feigns far more confidence than he really feels. Actors William Campbell and Michael Pataki are likewise memorable as haughty, snotty Klingon leaders, deserving of Scotty's parting gift of transported tribbles.
This episode, and the immediately previous episode "I, Mudd", are the funniest episodes in the original series, I think. I still like watching "The Doomsday Machine" better, I think, but this one is still rather good.
Cord Hurn wrote:
I consider it fortunate that this episode is one of the six Star Trek original series on VHS videotape that my sister gave me for Christmas!
Correction: make that seven Star Trek original series episodes on VHS I got from my sister as an Xmas present. I still haven't watched and reviewed "Journey To Babel", yet.
Star Trek The Original Series "Journey To Babel" (episode #44)
The Enterprise is picking up and transporting many Federation ambassadors to a planet called "Babel" (which means "confusion", appropriate for the complicated plot of this episode) to vote on admitting a planetary system called Koridon into the Federation. The plot is complex, but elements of it are gradually eased into the story at a disciplined pace so as to make it easy to take it all in and not get lost.
The first time I watched the opening teaser, I remember it was such a pleasant surprise to find out that Vulcan ambassador Sarek and his human wife Amanda are Mr. Spock's parents! I just couldn't wait for the theme and the commercial to be over with so I could find out more about them!
"Humans smile with so little provocation,"--Spock, explaining to Amanda why he keeps a somber facial expression. Also while Amanda is being addressed, a major plot point of this episode is introduced early on by Spock: "The situation between my father and myself has not changed." Kirk gets to the bottom of their problem when it's his turn to chat with Amanda: "They're...both...STUBBORN!"
The issue of Federation admission of the Koridon system into its ranks being controversial among Federation ambassadors is put forward as the reason for heightened security aboard the Enterprise.
This episode is the first time we've seen the Andorians, extraterrestrials with faces as pale blue as much of a daytime cloudless sky on Earth, and with antennae that resemble mammalian antlers. I realize to some extent Andorians resemble the old stereotype of aliens with the antennae (though such alien head appendages tended to look more insect-like than mammalian), but I still think they have a cool look.
Dr. McCoy can sometimes be an annoying opportunist when it comes to looking for ways to needle Spock, grilling Amanda at a social occasion to find out something embarrassing (in Vulcan terms) about Spock's childhood. But Spock nearly always finds some way to put McCoy in his place, and does so here. McCoy finds out that Spock has a pet salat, which Amanda describes as a Fat teddy bear", and McCoy gleefully jibes at Spock about it. But Spock efficiently shuts down McCoy's smirking attitude by point out salats are living creatures with long fangs. But we know McCoy will come after Spock with some other accusation, because McCoy's a glutton for that kind of punishment from Spock.
Hot-headed and pig-faced Tellarite ambassador Gav is found dead in a Jeffries tube, not long after shouting and attacking Sarek. So we can now add murder mystery to family drama (Sarek doesn't respect Spock joining Starfleet instead of the Vulcan Science Academy)--and then add medical trauma with Sarek needing emergency surgery and Kirk getting stabbed by fake Andorian Thelev. And then the Enterprise gets fired upon by an alien vessel to complicate things further. Well, I can't credibly complain the plot is stale with so much going on, can I?!?
I like the hissing murmur Andorian ambassador Shras uses when he tells Spock that instead of relying on logic to guess the murderer's identity, "Search for passion and gain; those are motives for murder." I like it because the way he says it makes his advice sound scarier.
Under attack from an alien vessel that is much faster, Kirk tries a trick that worked for him before, making the ship appear dead until the alien ship approaches at a slow enough speed to get disabled by phasers.
I'm amused by the close to the episode, which I always seem to forget about shortly after I see the episode, for whatever reason: "Well, what do you know? I finally got the last word!"--McCoy, while grinning ear-to-ear and rocking back on his hells in giddy pleasure. I find it funny because it strikes me as correct that McCoy usually doesn't get the last word, in any episode or any scene.
Well, it's been fun watching these old original series episodes I have been given, and reviewing them on the Watch. My sister also gave me five Next Generation episodes on VHS videotape, so I'll watch them soon and review them on the thread STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, fairly soon.
