Scott Atwell Star Trek Discussion thread (Series and Films) (8 Viewers)

[Nelson Au]

Good one.

 

[Nelson Au]

Josh, I’ve had The Lieutenant series on my list to pick up and watch. It’s been mentioned so often over the decades as the series that preceded Star Trek and I’ve never seen it.

There’s also another series I recently heard that has Roddenberry-isms and a Star Trek feel called Have Gun Will Travel. Doug Drexler had made a case to see it on one of the Inglorious Treksperts episodes. I’d not known much about it before. I didn’t recall that Roddenberry had written several episodes for it. So I’m curious about it too.

 

[bmasters9]

There’s also another series I recently heard that has Roddenberry-isms and a Star Trek feel called Have Gun Will Travel. Doug Drexler had made a case to see it on one of the Inglorious Treksperts episodes. I’d not known much about it before. I didn’t recall that Roddenberry had written several episodes for it. So I’m curious about it too.

I have the all-in-one of that one, and it's been so good, I'm just about to clear Season 4!

 

[John*Wells]

I am watching Star Trek TOS The Menagerie Spock is told that if the Enterprise enters the Talos star group in violation of General Order 7, he will risk a charge involving the Death Penalty.
I wasn’t aware the Federation had the death penalty

 

[Josh Steinberg]

It was the last death penalty left on the books, they said in another line of dialogue in that episode.

 

[John*Wells]

It was the last death penalty left on the books, they said in another line of dialogue in that episode.

I got that part too. But then in Turnabout Intruder, in season 3, it is stated that the only death penalty left is under General Order 4

so are we to assume that the law was changed as the Talosians allowed captain pike to live out his life with them without his physical limitations?

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Probably more that Roddenberry had washed his hands of the show at that point, the staff writers who created the universe had all left or been laid off, and that Freiberger was just trying to get an episode shot in time to make an airdate. He either didn’t know he was producing a continuity error or didn’t care; in 1969, the likelihood of anyone seeing an old episode of a dying show and noticing that detail was thought to be minuscule.

 

[ScottRE]

There’s also another series I recently heard that has Roddenberry-isms and a Star Trek feel called Have Gun Will Travel. Doug Drexler had made a case to see it on one of the Inglorious Treksperts episodes. I’d not known much about it before. I didn’t recall that Roddenberry had written several episodes for it. So I’m curious about it too.

Have Gun Will Travel is my favorite western. It’s really an amazing series. Roddenberry wrote 24 episodes for the series. Really worth a look. The complete series on dvd is pretty cheap too

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I’m slowly working my way through it but at $40 for the complete series on DVD it was a great buy. The episodes look pretty great on my 4K TV too.

 

[Blimpoy06]

Probably more that Roddenberry had washed his hands of the show at that point

I would say that Roddenberry was more involved with the third season than most people realize. As to "Turnabout Intruder" specifically, he wrote the story.

He either didn’t know he was producing a continuity error or didn’t care

"Turnabout Intruder" has dialogue that directly mentions events from "The Tholian Web" and "The Empath". I would view this as the actions of a writing staff that did care about continuity. The series was rife with continuity errors well before the third season anyway.

I enjoy all of the so called "lesser" episodes of the third season to any of the comic trilogy episodes of the second. "A Piece Of The Action", "I,Mudd" and yes even "The Trouble With Tribbles". I'm fine with comic touches and light moments in Trek, but not to these extremes.

 

[Nelson Au]

Memory Alpha has the General Orders defined as best as possible based on the episodes:

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Starfleet_General_Orders_and_Regulations

I think Josh’s explanation is the case though. Miss Fontana might not have been around at that time too to have any input.

 

[Nelson Au]

I wasn’t going to be posting about each episode while I have been viewing the third season episodes but there has been some good ones that made me think about them again.

Enterprise Incident is a great one, though I don’t think the mission of the Enterprise is to go on spy missions. But Kirk has said that a Starship can go on any kind of mission that Starfleet deems necessary. I’ve always liked the story of the Romulan Commander and her involvement with Spock. They both get more then they bargained for too. I’ve always wondered in the end if the Romulan commander joined Spock beaming back to the Enterprise knowing that she’d probably be in more trouble with the Romulan Praetor then being a prisoner of the Federation. But the “secret” that both she and Spock shares is something that I became more aware of in recent years as I never got that in my youth. That is an interesting aspect of the story of what Spock did for the mission.

After Paradise Syndrome, I’ve wondered if the Federation or Kirk did anything to help the people on the planet. My most recent guess is that maybe Kirk told Salish what the secret is to the Stone temple so that he can pass it on.

Not much to say about And the Children Shall Lead. Except that not seeing it for such a long time, as it’s not one of my favorites, it did go by pretty fast. The children take over the Enterprise quickly.

I’ve recently been thinking of Spectre of the Gun as a re-work of The Corbomite Maneuver, except the Melkot test wasn’t a benevolent one. I always liked the production design of the partial buildings to give that sense of the town and the OK Corral being dream-like and un-real. And I liked the ending.

Is There In Truth No Beauty wasn’t a favorite. It’s an interesting episode that tries to follow up on the theme that beauty has to be good. So I liked the duality that brings to Miranda and how she grew from the experience after melding with Spock after Spock melded with Kollos. So she got what she wanted and more then she bargained for too!

Day of the Dove is a real favorite. I’ve always liked that episode on many levels. The action, the science fiction and the way the conflict was resolved. It would have been Glorious had John Colicos been available to play Kor again. But then we got Kang, a worthy new Klingon character. I wonder if Susan Howard would still play Mara if John Colicos was in the episode. It was very cool to see the big three, Kor, Kang and Koloth together later on DS9.

For the World is Hollow and I have Touched the Sky has a great premise. I remember watching this and the rest of the episodes a lot in the olden days of syndication. But on home video, it doesn’t get a lot of rotation for me. On seeing it again, it brought back all the memories of my earlier viewings. I still remember many of the lines. But I’d forgotten it was the one episode where McCoy or any of the crew resigns. And of course, he resigns because he has a disease and only a year to live.

 

[Nelson Au]

Josh, you got a real deal on Have Gun Will Travel. It’s currently $90.00 at Amazon. I’d like to still buy it and see it.

 

[KPmusmag]

I wasn’t going to be posting about each episode while I have been viewing the third season episodes but there has been some good ones that made me think about them again.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts about the S3 episodes. I have a soft spot for the 3rd season because I remember seeing those in prime time, watching with my Mom and Dad. That was the only TV show my Dad watched, except for news and sports, so even then it seemed like a very special show to me, and they knew quite a bit of the "lore" as well, such as Spock's background on Vulcan and such. I don't really remember any episodes from S1 or S2, until seeing them in syndication. I think there are more strong episodes than S3 generally gets credit for. I felt really haunted by The Tholian Web for some reason, and the medusa in Is There in Truth No Beauty scared me because it just seemed so mysterious, and my mother explained the medusa from ancient mythology, so not really understanding what mythology was at the time, I thought such a thing really existed here on Earth. But, I was 6 years old, I recall the banshee in Darby O'Gill nearly sent me running out of the theater. Funny how kids think.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Josh, you got a real deal on Have Gun Will Travel. It’s currently $90.00 at Amazon. I’d like to still buy it and see it.

Nelson, that’s one from a third party seller. Try searching this AISN number on Amazon and it should bring you to the one they’re selling, which is currently $39.99 and back in stock Jan. 7th:

B07FDMXLRX

 

[ScottRE]

I would say that Roddenberry was more involved with the third season than most people realize. As to "Turnabout Intruder" specifically, he wrote the story.

it’s my understanding that while Roddenberry originated the idea of the episode, he only actually wrote the first half before giving up. Arthur Singer was contracted to write one episode. He pretty much did the last half and he and Fred Freiberger filled in the rest of it in their script polish. Gene began the season fairly involved but by the time they were halfway through the season, he was gone. Note the credits list Singer as doing the teleplay. The basic story was Gene’s but he had nothing to do with the episode's production.

By the last 8 episodes, Star Trek’s writing was supervised by two guys: Freiberger and Singer. Nobody from the beginning was left.

 

[Nelson Au]

Thanks Josh! I’m beginning to see that more and more of the items on Amazon can be from multiple sellers and prices vary. I didn’t look closely to see it was from a third party. So thanks for that! The AISN number shows that the complete series is from 2018. The other set was from 2015 if we can believe the descriptions. Thanks again! Got any hints on Alfred Hitchcock Presents? ha, ha!

 

[Blimpoy06]

By the last 8 episodes, Star Trek’s writing was supervised by two guys: Freiberger and Singer. Nobody from the beginning was left.

I seem to be in the minority on the third season, having enjoyed it more than most, and tend to come to it's defense a bit too often. But so what if the third year writing staff were not around at the beginning of the show? Gene Coon and Dorthy Fontana did not start on the show until mid first season. (I am aware that Ms. Fontana was Gene's secretary, but she was the third script editor that year.)

Roddenberry was absent for several months during season two. (He was developing some feature film scripts that were never produced.) That's when the silly shows started to creep in. Gene Coon was getting burned out and parted ways with the show on good terms and developed many year three stories and two scripts. I enjoyed the return to the serious tone under producer John Meredith Lucas. He was an OK writer for Trek, but one of the stronger directors IMHO. He too contributed to season three. D.C. Fontanna wanted to do more and left the show and the end of year two.

Enter Fred Freiberger. A producer who, again IMHO, defined the tone of The Wild, Wild West in it's turbulent first year. (Interesting fact. Gene Coon succeeded Freiberger as a producer on WWW.) He was given a show that was twice on the edge of being cancelled and had it's budget cut to the level of a "really good radio show" according to co-producer of the third year Bob Justman. In a Starlog magazine interview Freiberger said -
" when I went on Star Trek, Roddenberry, who had thought the show was dead after the second season, had given out seventeen story assignments... for whatever reason. I honored those assignments...I may have cut off a couple of them because they didn’t work out, so let’s say there were 15 out of 22 that were not mine."

Season three does the best job in presenting diverse stories that don't repeat similar themes too often. I don't think Kirk talks a computer in to destroying itself one time. And he only fights a duplicate of himself once. The Prime Directive isn't brought up only to be broken, and there is only one planet that has an Earth culture on it! (Well, two if you count Sarpedion) Progress was made in those regards. Speaking of progress, the third season has more women writers than the first two seasons combined.

 

[Nelson Au]

Hey Kevin- you’re welcome! I can understand your soft spot for the third season. I think in my mind as I learned more about Star Trek in my later youth and that Fred Freiberger was the devil incarnate, it altered my opinion of the season. Before then, I didn’t really have as much issue with the third year. So in the past several years, my perception of the season has changed and I think Fred did his best under a difficult situation. No one knew Star Trek back then as well as Roddenberry, so his stepping back from the series was unfortunate.

The Tholian Web was a really good episode, It continues that feud between Spock and McCoy. And I’m looking forward to Shatner and France Nuyen reuniting for Elaan.

Darin, I still think the third year wasn’t as strong as the first, but I’d have to agree that so far, of the episodes I’ve been re-viewing that I usually avoid, most are engaging still on different levels. It’s too bad that Miramanee didn’t survive with the child too.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Because I’m less familiar with season three and will probably always feel that way because it wasn’t overexposed to me as a kid, I’m constantly being surprised in positive ways by it. Even the episodes I might not look forward to revisiting in advance tend to offer something worthwhile once I put them on.