Week 16

This week I've finished TAS and started on the movies. I figure I will watch I - VI of the movies because they are all TOS era. Technically, I will be watching them out of order since I have been following release dates, not chronological time. But I want to have all the movies watched before the new film is out next week.

While TAS had some good episodes, and I recommend any TOS fan to watch them, I won't miss it as much as I am missing TOS. So the movies are a welcome change, even if everyone does look like hell. For the first movie, they redesigned the entire Enterprise to be boring and sterile. The uniforms are ridiculous; they all look like aging hippies wearing yoga outfits. And to top it all off, the entire plot of the first film was a repeat, WTF? The whole "probe from Earth evolves with outside help and corrupts it's programming before returning to endanger it's creator" was done back in TOS season two. Specifically, "The Changling" had Nomad, and the entire plot is almost exactly the same, right down to humans being imperfect and infesting the Enterprise. Not a good start. But it gets better...

KHAAAANNN!!!

The second film was far better, and arguably the best Star Trek film ever. The uniforms were reworked and actually look like uniforms, so big improvement there. The plot was more complex and involving. The themes were deep and meaningful. The conversations between Kirk, Bones, and Spock were wonderful and timely. Some of the best dialog ever written for any Star Trek characters come from this movie. Just a few examples:

• "Galloping around the cosmos is a game for the young, Doctor." - Kirk
  
• "Damn it, Jim; what the hell is the matter with you?! Other people have birthdays; why are we treating yours like a funeral?" - Bones
  
• "Jim, I'm your doctor and I'm also your friend. Get back your command! Get it back before you turn into part of this collection, before you really do grow old." - Bones
  
• "If I may be so bold, it was a mistake for you to accept promotion. Commanding a starship is your first, best destiny; anything else is a waste of material." - Spock
  
• "It's a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done before. A far better resting place that I go to than I have ever known." - Kirk, on the death of Spock.
  

It doesn't get any better than that. I only wish the writer who wrote those lines was writing for all the movies. One can only wish.

98. TAS: Albatross ••••
    
99. TAS: How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth •••
    
100. TAS: The Counter-Clock Incident ••
     
101. Star Trek: The Motion Picture •••
     
102. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn •••••
     

Count 97 of 737*
*Note, I have updated the total count to include the 11 movies. The original count was TV episodes only.

Week 15

I'm having mixed emotions about TAS. In some ways it's cool to have new episodes of TOS. But I think the animated aspect has freed the writers from budget restrictions and the result is some really wacky episodes with ridiculous aliens and premises. It seems that some episodes made use of scripts that were intended for TOS, but then at some point they ran out of those scripts and let the Scooby Doo writers come up with some shows. There were some bad ones this week. One of which was written by Walter Koenig (The Infinite Vulcan). Bad, just really bad. It even ended with Sulu looking into the camera with a smile and winking. Like a goddamn Hana Barbara cartoon.

Another thing is the opening sequence. While Shatner's voice-over is the same, the music is more like something out of The Love Boat than Star Trek.


But there is definitely some good in the series. There was even a holodeck in "The Practical Joker"! And here I always thought TNG had come up with that. Also, after seeing more Romulans in Klingon D7 battlecruisers, I finally looked up why that was so. Apparently, there was a fire at the CBS studios and the only Romulan Bird of Prey model was destroyed, so they had to use Klingon D7's for the Romulan episodes. I guess non-canon sources (books and manuals) explain the phenomenon as a trade between the empires. The Romulans gave the Klingons cloaking devices and Klingons gave Romulans some battlecruisers. Interesting factoid, or so I thought.

85. The Infinite Vulcan •
    
86. The Magicks of Megas-tu ••
    
87. Once Upon a Planet •••
    
88. Mudd's Passion •••
    
89. The Terratin Incident •••
    
90. The Time Trap •••
    
91. The Ambergris Element •••
    
92. The Slaver Weapon ••••
    
93. The Eye of the Beholder •••
    
94. The Jihad •
    
95. The Pirates of Orion ••••
    
96. Bem ••
    
97. The Practical Joker •••
    
    

Count 97 of 726

Week 14

This week, I watched several episodes of Star Trek: The Animated Series. It's pretty awesome to see new Trek, especially new Trek with Shatner, Nimoy, Kelley and the others. The only one missing is Chekov, but that is a small price to pay. The other main difference, aside from the animated aspect, is that the episodes are only half an hour now. And it shows. Some episodes move along at a breakneck pace, as if they took a script written for TOS and stuffed it into a half hour. The first episode also suffered from stiff voice acting. Uhura and Kirk were the biggest offenders. They sounded like they were just reading sentences from a newspaper. This improved in the next episode and finally I think they became comfortable with the voice acting in the third episode. Overall, this is true Star Trek, not to be missed by any fan of TOS.

79. Beyond the Farthest Star ••••
    
80. Yesteryear ••••
    
81. One of Our Planets is Missing ••••
    
82. The Lorelei Signal •••
    
83. More Tribbles, More Troubles •••
    
84. The Survivor •••
    

Count 84 of 726

Week 13

This last week was a bitter sweet one. I finished all episodes of TOS. That's right, all of them. While I will miss watching Season 3 Kirk holding in his gut, I am also excited to move onto some new Trek. Well, sort of new. Next up is The Animated Series (TAS). Yes, TAS is a new acronym in my Star Trek vocab. I've never seen a single episode before. Looking forward to it.

This last week of TOS was a pretty good one. It featured some hotties, had cut back on the dramatic camera effects, everyone's hair is back to normal, and the stories are more interesting, even if they are a little Shatner-centric. The Lights of Zetar was notable for it's love interest actually being between Scotty and a girl, even getting in the way of Scotty's only true love, the Enterprise. Requiem for Methuselah has Kirk falling in love with a robot and fighting over it. The Way to Eden had a dumb hippy cult get their bare feet burned by the acid grass of Eden. All Our Yesterdays was a good episode co-starring hotty Mariette Hartley. And finally Turnabout Intruder was a very fun episode just to watch Kirk act like a woman, which I think he did pretty well.

I can see how the show was canceled. The budget had gotten too large while the viewers had shrunk. The sets for the planets in the 3rd season were very elaborate when compared to the simple one room sets of season one. Heck, half the time season one just went to the mountains outside Hollywood to film alien planets.

In any case, TOS, you will be missed.

72. The Lights of Zetar •••
    
73. Requiem for Methuselah ••••
    
74. The Way to Eden ••
    
75. The Cloud Minders ••••
    
76. The Savage Curtain •••
    
77. All Our Yesterdays ••••
    
78. Turnabout Intruder ••••
    

Count 78 of 726