Scott Atwell Star Trek Discussion thread (Series and Films) (1 Viewer)

[Nelson Au]

Carolyn Seymour was great in those roles for sure Scott! And as Marista in TNG's First Contact as well, playing a nicer person!

 

[Ockeghem]

Nelson,Yes, Mirasta Yale was considerably more pleasant than the snobbish Mrs. Templeton. At least Capt. Janeway knew how to handle the latter quite well.Speaking of TNG, one of my daughters and I recently watched The Vengeance Factor and The Hunted. 'Twas nice seeing 'Zephram Cochrane' (The Hunted) in an earlier role.

 

[FanCollector]

I would like to believe that the Romulan Commander didn't suffer too much for having been duped out of the cloaking device and letting the Enterprise escape, but it just doesn't seem very likely to me that the Praetor would look the other way. Decius was dropped two steps in rank for sending a message; what would happen to someone who lost the cloaking device? The ending of the episode always seems even sadder to me because the Commander has neither Spock nor her career at that point.

 

[Nelson Au]

Rayna! Louise Sorel was born in 1940, and love interest for Kirk. I just watched Methuselah. If Flint really was DaVinci, Brahms, etc, he must have had a great make-up artist! This has always been a favorite episode of mine because I always liked the idea of someone who could have been immortal and could have been all those famous historical figures.And the Ditmers track is a great!

 

[FanCollector]

Yes, and I think Mariette Hartley was born in 1940 also. That seems to be the cutoff year for the most part.I think Requiem for Methuselah is the highlight of the latter half of the third season. It's one of the shows that combined a thought-provoking science fiction premise with character drama. Some people have complained that Kirk is out of character here, but I find it all believable and consistent enough. (Good point about the makeup, though! I never thought about that...)

 

[Nelson Au]

Lee, I don't think I've seen the complaints that Kirk seems out of character! I find it believable too. He speaks of his concern that he let Flint delay their efforts to get the ryetalin. And Rayna certainly was a distraction for Kirk. The idea that both he and Flint were lonely made it belIevable that Kirk fell for her so fast while dancing and playing pool.I forgot about Zarabeth! Mariette Hartley seemed like a kid in the Twilight Zone episode, The Long Morrow. Then Droxine might also fall into the cut off date? And Miramanie?

 

[FanCollector]

Good memory! They are both younger. (I just didn't think about Diana Ewing as Droxine, but I was surprised at how young Sabrina Scharf was.)

 

[Nelson Au]

Now this had me curious, only Celeste Yarnell was from the 1940's. I also looked up Jan Shutan and Emily Banks, and our recent discussion of Leslie Parrish also finds her and Jan and Emily born in the 1930's.And wow, Sabrina was just 25 or so on Star Trek!

 

[Nelson Au]

Watched most of The Savage Curtain last night. I was surprised how much I enjoyed the first half. I skipped the fight sequences and jumped to the end. Yarnek was a pretty impressive costume. It lit up and smoked! Yet I don't think there were any Federation planets named.I got into the Cushman book more. The Where No Man Has Gone Before section, finally into the episode discussions! Read up on the Shatner bio, it reminded me of how serious he was about his craft. Interesting his writing of each cast member hired and their pay. Shatner got a lot! And Nimoy's hesitancy to do Spock again. I haven't read Nimoy's book in a long time and I don't recall that he was afraid the part would ruin his career with the ears. And I hadn't realized Lockwood was that close to filming 2001. There's still a few more pages to read on the episode. Those things stuck out. Also interesting was Peeple's original ending verse the all out violent fight. I can see Peeple's point that his idea for how Gary goes down was, iirc as I was sleepy, less action oriented. It made sense for Roddenberry to make the change for more action to please NBC and get the series sold.

 

[FanCollector]

Yes, most of the more serious problems with The Savage Curtain are in the second half. The introduction of Yarnek is very well done and intriguing. A nice performance by Bart LaRue also. ("You will decide...otherwise.")I hadn't thought of it until you mentioned The Savage Curtain, but there is a planet mentioned there that is also mentioned in another third season episode. No reason to believe it is a Federation planet from this episode, but there is evidence in the other one. So there may be two more answers out there. Sorry...So many fascinating story changes to Where No Man Has Gone Before, right? The one that really amazed me was that Mitchell was Spock's friend rather than Kirk's in the earlier versions. If you look at the changes all together, they mostly serve to make Kirk a more active and involved protagonist. HIS best friend is affected. HE decides to go to the planet. HE has to remedy his mistake by chasing Mitchell and HE fights him to the death. In the original version, none of those ways of engaging Kirk as the central figure are present, so he would be a much more passive observer of what's happening. So beyond the need for a more action-oriented climax, I think they may have been seeking a more involved hero. There are a few episodes in which Kirk is not really making things happen, and some of them are good stories, but I can understand why you wouldn't want a pilot like that.

 

[FanCollector]

And Nimoy is always refreshingly honest about his concern that putting on the ears would compromise his reputation as a serious actor. It turned out fine, and he says he was very proud of the work in the end, but I can see his point without knowing how the show would turn out, that was a big risk. Doesn't it show Roddenberry the diplomat when he told Nimoy that if he still didn't like the ears after 13 weeks, the character could get plastic surgery to round out the ears?

 

[Nelson Au]

The producers job must include diplomacy to sooth the concern of his stars.

I'll have to complete reading the entry to Where No Man Has Gone Before tonight. I don't recall reading all those changes! You continue to amaze me with how you can analyze the story and points of punctuation.

And I'll be also watching the parts of The Savage Curtain I missed last night for that planet.

 

[Nelson Au]

Looney as an Arcturian Dogbird?

 

[FanCollector]

Keep experimenting...

 

[Ockeghem]

Keep experimenting...

Veiled hint?

 

[FanCollector]

Veiled hint?

Yep.

 

[Nelson Au]

I watched about 1/3 of Savage Curtain again last night, haven't found the veiled hint yet. One thing that came to mind, there must have been some directive to make Spock seem more naive. I mean that twice in the season, Spock comments to Uhura in That Which Survives when she asks him what happened and Spock says he hit his head on the chair and on Savage Curtain, Scott says Lincoln died on a planet hundreds of years ago and pointing towards earth and Spock says, more that direction. They are kind of Hymie moments when Max says kill the light and Hymie shoots the light out. they are fun light moments, for sure.On another subject, I was surprised to see that a member and reviewer of the HTF had commented on the Cushman book review at trekcore. He commented on my comments and he felt my impression that the Cushman book didn't get a mainstream publisher wasn't due to the content that CBS would prefer to stay hidden, but more that the book isn't a mainstream seller and there's already a glut of books such as the one from Solow and Justman and the books from the cast about the series. I believe that was your feeling Lee. I finished the section on Where No Man Has Gone Before. Another area I was taken by was the discussion of William Shatner verse Jeff Hunter. The producers felt Hunter didn't have the acting range of Shatner and and Shatner was much more dynamic. That's certainly true! Particularly when he confronts Dehner on Delta Vega with the impassioned speech. Of course we've heard before Nimoy's thoughts that once Shatner joined, he immediately felt a chemistry and found a way to play Spock.I was surprised, but I shouldn't be, that the opticals at the time for the energy bolts that Dehner and Mitchell fire at each other and the opticals of the ship in space were much more difficult and expensive to produce then they thought. But i would think that they would have been the perfect trial run as they would learn from the experience and when the series went to air, they'd have the process down. And when the pilot was finished and edited and delivered, it was 2 days over and 5 months of post production with a huge dollar figure attached. And the board at Desilu wanted the president to end Star Trek right then and there.

 

[FanCollector]

Hymie moments! That's exactly right. Perfect statement of the attitude. I feel that Spock's sense of humor was its usual dry wit for some episodes in the third season (The Enterprise Incident, The Empath, Whom Gods Destroy, and others). But then he is suddenly dense and humorless sometimes. I suppose Mr. Nimoy couldn't win every argument.I didn't realize the extent of the post-production delays until reading Cushman's book. I knew there were problems, especially early on, but I didn't know how often they almost missed airdates. Or that, in fact, they did miss one. I always assumed the December 1966 rerun was because of Christmas week, but they just couldn't get one ready in time for the 22nd.And I think Kirk's speech to Dehner is one of Shatner's series highlights.

 

[Ockeghem]

Lee and Nelson,Much of this recent season-three talk has inspired me to watch an episode from that season tonight. I have in my hands disc 3, which includes The Tholian Web, Plato's Stepchildren, Wink Of an Eye, and The Empath.

"A most difficult decision, Captain."

 

[Nelson Au]

I viewed Platos Stepchildren, The Tholian's Web , and am viewing The Empath now! Al are good choices, I choice to wait on Wink of an Eye.Could one planet be Gamma Vertis IV? The planet of mutes? Obviously not clearly stated its a Federation planet, but I'll try anything at this point!