Scott Atwell Star Trek Discussion thread (Series and Films) (5 Viewers)

[FanCollector]

I, Mudd and The Savage Curtain?

Agreed, Scott. And especially impressive is the fact that scheduling conflicts forced Senensky to find some last-minute alternate...planets...for filming This Side of Paradise and it still looks that good.

 

[Nelson Au]

Correct for The Savage Curtain! Is it indicative of anything that the last three episodes start with the exact same music? Interesting about I Mudd, the clue would indicate that episode, but I had another episode in mind. I agree the music helps make Omicron feel like an alien world. The plants too!

 

[FanCollector]

The clue could apply to A Piece of the Action or The Changeling, but I really think A Piece of the Action does start with the fanfare. So I'll go with The Changeling.

 

[Nelson Au]

Shoot! My poor choice of clue has misdirected you. However it was fortuitous. The Changling was not on my list, but I was thinking of it coincidentally today. What makes this one hard is the music is not the fanfare, but the first two notes sound like the first two notes from the fanfare! I'll count this episode because it really does not sound like the fanfare, but sounds related! One more still.

 

[Nelson Au]

Perhaps reverse logic will give it away.

 

[FanCollector]

Call it a deep understanding of the way things happen to trivia...The Immunity Syndrome. (Can't take much credit for this one!)

 

[Nelson Au]

But 400 Trivia pages! Immunity Syndrome is correct and that completes the titles I think that start without the fanfare. That would be 26 times over the series. If I have some time, it could be fun to chase down all those tracks used in place of the fanfare, but in particular, ones that has a strong theme that feels like the fanfare. Your turn Lee!

 

[FanCollector]

I never would have guessed that there were a third of the episodes that didn't start with the fanfare. It just shows, as we have learned many times on this message board, that we tend to overgeneralize patterns of details like music and minor casting. (Or, I should say, I tend to do so. You asked the question, so you knew it happened a lot.)I will come up with a new question, unless anyone has one ready.

 

[Nelson Au]

What made me more aware of the fanfare use was from listening to the episodes. If I skipped an episode or three ahead, I can hear the first bits of the teaser of each episode and get a sense of it.Today I listened to I: Mudd for the first time and that was followed by Tribbles. I was surprised two highly humorous episodes were filmed back to back! And speaking of Kirk's philosophy, he's at it again with Norman arguing that man may not be perfect, and Norman's planet may be a very nice cage, but he has to be free to struggle and fight or die.

 

[Ockeghem]

Nelson,Speaking of Norman, I watched I, Mudd last week. The fight scene in the early goings on in engineering was interesting in that the stunt double for Norman doesn't look at all like him and you could really tell that it was a double. What surprised me is that the footage during the fight (unlike that in Court Martial and Space Seed) was shot quite closely so that the viewer could make out the faces of the actors rather easily. Of course, very few people were watching DVDs in the mid 1960s.

Lee,I haven't forgotten about your request that I elaborate a bit on the early 'feel' of some episodes of TOS over others.

 

[FanCollector]

Star Trek frequently revisited or repeated themes over the three years, and we have talked about a lot of the thematic episode pairings one can make as a viewer. I, Mudd has to be one of the most unusual examples of reexamining themes though, because of the tone. Ideas that were dealt with so very seriously in This Side of Paradise, What Are Little Girls Made Of? and The Return of the Archons all reappear in I, Mudd. Although the comedy is broad, the ideas are not satirized; that is, the situation is treated as funny, but the philosophy isn't. Perhaps the fact that the themes had been explored before in the series, made the producers feel freer about playing for laughs that time.

Scott, that is a very good question about the stunt photography in I, Mudd. Considering that all three episodes you named had the same director, all I can suggest is that it may not have seemed worth the trouble to disguise the stunt double for a brand new character right at the beginning of the episode. In Space Seed and Court Martial, the doubles were for the very familiar Captain Kirk and for guest stars who were (especially in the case of Space Seed) more readily recognizable by that point in the episode.

Trivia question: Captain Kirk seems to be personally acquainted with half the Federation, and we have had questions about his prior interactions with guest characters before. Can you name all the people the Enterprise crew encounters who were previously acquainted (by direct meeting, not reputation) with other crew members besides Kirk? (For the purposes of clarity, we will not count other Enterprise crew members.)

 

[Ockeghem]

Lee,I think I'm going to have to hazard a guess or two in order to understand what you are asking. Would 'Nancy' count since she had met Bones many years before and since she was not an Enterprise crew member? And would Cmmdr. Wesley count since it appears that Spock recognized him in The Ultimate Computer?

 

[Nelson Au]

I was noticing that too about the fight scene Scott! I was also thinking it was a terribly violent fight too. Norman could have killed. Which was incongruous to his comments later that they do not intend to harm any of them. Of course, Norman probably had to ramp up his fighting to subdue the crew. I'm thinking, in regards to the stunt man for Norman and Shatner and Montalban; perhaps back in the day, most TVs were 9" and then the fancy RCA TVs were 20". And not high def! Maybe in those days the episodes were thought to be seen twice and a few more time maybe in syndication? But who knew then that yes, we'd have high def blu rays to scrutinize every frame! I wonder how good reception too. Was it snowy? Even at its best, I think the resolution was low enough to mask most or some of the cheats! It's like the prop show I was at last weekend. The props that are real screen used don't look that good up close! Those replicas look far better then the real thing. If a bit clinical. They got away with murder then!

 

[Nelson Au]

Interesting question Lee and points about I, Mudd. I would guess that Leila knew the Vulcanian before. .

 

[Nelson Au]

And Chekov knew Irina prior to The Way to Eden.

 

[FanCollector]

Well , of course you have begun with the tricky answers! Although there are other explanations for the Spock/Wesley greeting, prior meeting seems the most plausible, so that's a point. Nancy Crater would work, except of course, she isn't Nancy.

Nelson, it was an issue even relatively recently. I most recently went on the NBC studio tour in New York just after the popularization of HD, and they showed us the set of Dateline, where Stone Phillips and Ann Curry would introduce various stories. The set was about to be abandoned and redone because when the show changed over to HD, the fake elements of the set would become obvious to the viewers.

 

[FanCollector]

The ladies were certainly not strangers to Spock and Chekov! Two points.

 

[Nelson Au]

The Teer or members of the Ten Tribes knew MacCoy?I agree with your thinking Lee about letting loose a little with I, Mudd, having some fun with the characters, yet leaving the underlying theme as sacrosanct. It also reminded me of another device the writers used that you mentioned Lee, such as By Any Other Name, in which the episode starts off seemingly deadly serious and softens slowly till we meet Harry. Oh yeah, now that I had a chance to sample several episodes of The In-laws, it made me wonder if the producers considered having Kay Ballard guest in a camero as Stella? She was probably too busy with her series. Or they wanted an actress with the kind of look they got. And it probably would have taken the audience out of the show.I, Mudd was never a big favorite, but after listening to it, I've come to like it more. I had a very quick look at a few scenes last night too and I forgot about the impressive pressure door they created as they entered Mudd. "Captain, the kind of a wholesome, antiseptic galaxy that these androids would run would be purgatory for a man like me. " That is a funny line I never really heard before.And the exchange between McCoy and Spock in the teaser is like a lost scene for me as i see it so infrequently, great scene!Oh yeah! Does Harry Mudd count since Spock, McCoy, Scotty all have met him before?

 

[Nelson Au]

And in the same thinking as Scott, Christine finds Roger, although its Android Roger. So not the real person, just a copy.

 

[FanCollector]

Mudd definitely counts. Korby is a hard one! He isn't Korby, but he has Korby's personality transferred, but...I suppose it would really be ignoring the message of the episode to count him, though. Did you have any specific Capellan in mind who seemed to know McCoy? Kaye Ballard as Stella would have been such a funny idea!! Either they didn't want the in-jokey cameo or they just couldn't afford her. I really love the idea, though. I also especially like the opening scene between Spock and McCoy. So much going on in a very brief exchange.