posted
The 40th anniversary got me thinking about my favorite TOS episodes.
It also got me thinking about the absolute turkeys.
Is there anyone who really likes "The Omega Glory"? Even the most devoted fans usually admit that this is one plot Gene should have buried.
"Yet another exact duplicate of 20th century Earth, only the Americans are like Indians and the Communists have taken over and here's Old Glory! Wowie zowie!"
Worst of all, it's just not much fun to watch. So fixated on making sure we get Gene's MESSAGE that there's little in the way of fun cheese.
What ST: TOS episodes do you normally skip?
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The 'rock monster' was so cheap. You could see the felt flip up around the edges of the afghan blanket that had draped over whoever was crawling around on the ground.
Spock melds with the rock monster from a distance.
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Though I find that the good stuff, which I once thought very good and interesting and so forth, now falls a little flat to the Polysci major within me.
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posted
The worst TNG episode was the Nancy Reagan-style, 'just say no' episode Symbiosis
particularly painful was Tasha explaining to Wesley why some people do drugs. I expected a "The more you know..." image to flash across the screen.
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posted
Before I clicked the link, Ian, I thought you were talking about that episode with that weird game with the flying discs and weird...Dr. Seuss looking chute things. The one that zaps you in the eyes.
However, Riker's beard was awesome, and the Horta is marvelous. (Leaving aside the depth of emotion Shatner displayed in that episode, probably due to the fact that his dad died during its filming.)
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posted
I'm surprised no one has brought up the obvious crowd favorite (un-favorite?). "Threshold" from Voyager, where they break warp 10, evolve to becoming salamanders, make babies, and then get "fixed" to becoming human again in the last five minutes. Seriously.
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posted
I liked Voyager most out of all the ST series. I never saw DS9 though- and I couldn't stand to watch a single episode of TOS.
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: I'm surprised no one has brought up the obvious crowd favorite (un-favorite?). "Threshold" from Voyager, where they break warp 10, evolve to becoming salamanders, make babies, and then get "fixed" to becoming human again in the last five minutes. Seriously.
We don't talk about that episode.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
That episode of TNG where Doctor Polaski has to save Riker's life by stimulating Bad and Good memories. Its basically the only really, really shameful clips episode the series ever did. Pathetic.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: That episode of TNG where Doctor Polaski has to save Riker's life by stimulating Bad and Good memories. Its basically the only really, really shameful clips episode the series ever did. Pathetic.
Good choice.
What's even worse, is that they did it in the second season, so they didn't have that many clips to choose from.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
You know, I like Will Wheaton. He's a funny guy who's always seemed down to earth about the whole 'we hate wesley' thing.
Spot on on that review.
Funny, Spock's Brain was just on this morning. It was bad. Kirk violates the prime directive again by forcing those humanoids to completely alter their society after of 1000's of years of complete mental lethargy, with a big pep-talk and a promise to stay around and help.
But is was no more dumb than the remarkably stupid Landru episode Return of the Archons. 'Oh no! It's 6 O'Clock. Party time.' <destroy everything in sight> Next day, everything is fixed and clean and the people are just as repressed as ever. And why does computer Landru do all this? ? ? ? ? ? Seriously, I have no idea. I don't think they got that far. Except that Kirk once again violates the Prime Directive (not that I think it was actually conceived of on the show, but with retcon, we still must consider it) and destroys that societies functioning (however loosely) ruling body.
posted
BTW, found this little comment by Wil Wheaton here about his episode with Ashley Judd:
quote:Actually, I never dated Ashley Judd, but my character Wesley did. It's a common mistake.
About that episode: I remember that everyone was making a big deal about her and her family, and she could really feel the weight of that, so I just tried to make her feel at ease, as best as I could.
I really liked her, and she was really sweet and friendly, but we didn't get to spend much time getting to know each other off the set, because there were always cameras and crap following her around.
I was her first on-screen kiss, and this was one of her first acting jobs, so rather than it being one of those "dude, we're totally making out" moments, it was pretty mechanical and self-conscious on both our parts. Of course, it didn't help that the director wouldn't stop talking during the entire scene, telling us how we were supposed to feel, and how hot it was. Actually, it was kinda creepy that he kept doing that.
So, over the years, much has been made of this moment, but it wasn't exactly the hottest thing in the world. . . maybe I can convince her to meet me somewhere for a private reshoot, someday.
posted
I can't remember the name of the episode, but the worst one has to be where the guy in red dies and Kirk gets the girl... Posts: 748 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
I think in DS9 that changed to the blue shirted science officer. Or in Voyager it was usually a gold shirt that got it, but they could hardly spare too many of them.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: I think in DS9 that changed to the blue shirted science officer. Or in Voyager it was usually a gold shirt that got it, but they could hardly spare too many of them.
Whether they can "spare too many of them" didn't really matter; Voyager probably replicated personnel the same way they replicated shuttlecraft. Didn't they seriously damage or lose one like every two weeks?
And I'm impressed at how many of you know episodes by name.
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posted
"Genesis", the one where the entire crew "devolved" was really stupid. Let's see. Spot devolved into an iguana, Barlkley into a spider, Picard into a lemur, Riker into some sort of neanderthal, Troi into a salamander, Worf into godzilla....
I also disliked "Sub-Rosa", where Beverly inherits a family heirloom haunting.
"Lower Decks" which focused on all of the junior officers was lame, because it brought in all these young characters of just one episode, and then effectively drops them.
"A Fistful of Datas", the one where Data's subconscious takes over the holodeck where Whorf is playing cowboys with is son, was horrible, just horrible. They should have let Spiner quit instead.
But the one I dislike the most is "The Chase". This is because it was such a good episode through most of it. It was interesting and exciting. Then they get to the end and find the answer, and retroactively made everything cool in that episode suck.
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posted
I'd like to nominate any episode where Alexander played a part. It's like the casting people couldn't find a decent actor to save their life. They were all a bunch of whiney bitches and I wanted to punch them all in the mouth.
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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posted
Porter's list is absolutely correct. In fact, it allows for the following generalizations (and please be aware that my geeky Trek knowledge comes from the fact that I have recently been on a Trek marathon binge over the last few weeks. Just completed my collection on DVD of TNG, TOS, and VOY).
1) Episodes that involve a device to place the characters in an historical setting (either through the holodeck in the old west and Dixon Hill; an alien planet set to look like an Earth from the past, as in "The Royale" or "A Piece of the Action") are, for the most part incredibly lame. Oh, they might seem interesting when they first come out. But invariably, once they are initially viewed and the novelty of seeing Kirk act like a 20's gangster or Data (was Brent Spiner ever a subtle actor when he wasn't playing Data?) as a million western characters, the thin-ness of the plot and lameness of the contrived situation comes through.
Now, there are exceptions. For example, in Season 6, TNG took the ho-hum episode "Elementary, Dear Data", where Moriarty becomes a sentient character, and they brought him back in Ship in a Bottle, which was, IMO, really quite interesting. Salvaged the original episode, despite the extremely heavy handed 'what is humanity' conversation that always came up between boring Dr. Polaski and Data/Geordi. There are others that I, no doubt, am forgetting.
2) Episodes where the 'reveal' of the problem takes almost the whole hour so that either it's gonna be a two-parter (in which case, cool- it's a good episode) or it's gonna wrap in 5 minutes, which is supremely lame. Take, for example, the above mentioned "The Chase". As Porter said, brilliant premise and idea. But the hunting down of the puzzle took so long that the resolution was quick, and poorly executed. It went from potentially great to a huge letdown. Again, another example cited above was "Genesis", the de-evolution episode. In fact, I remember the first time I saw it (because by then I had noticed this pattern) I looked at the clock at 45 after and realized that this was gonna be either a two-parter or a 5 minute plot resolve. And given the subject matter (quite simplistic with not much depth to it), I knew it'd be the latter. So when Data quickly whips up some 're-evolving' serum I rolled my eyes and laughed.
Contrast how those 'puzzles' developed and were then resolved in "The Game" (mentioned above). The pacing was perfect so that the resolution was NOT out of the blue. Wesley and Loeffler pieced the mystery together and began implementing a plan to fix things. The ending was, while not expected, still fully in harmony with what we had seen. Or in "Conundrum" (mass amnesia strikes the crew as they are commanded to destroy an enemy far weaker than they are.) Now, all plot inconsistancies aside (like how this race of people could have come up with their plan so quickly from the moment the Enterprise found their ship, to how powerful their technology MUST have been to block or erase information about who everybody was and what their mission was) the pacing was really good. The mystery unfolded, but already the seeds of resolution were planted early on.
There are, no doubt, other rules. I'll think of them later. Or you can.
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posted
I've always felt that, from TNG on, the quality of an episode was inversely proportional to the frequency of use of the word "subspace."
Posts: 563 | Registered: Feb 2006
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quote:was Brent Spiner ever a subtle actor when he wasn't playing Data?
No. He's actually a pretty crappy actor. But boy, he sure was great as Data. May we all be so luck to fund the role that we were born to play.
---------- "Frame of Mind" had the potential to be a superb episode, if only it didn't depend so much on the acting skils of Jonathon Frakes. Even still, it's pretty darn good.
quote:I Though that was "The Ensigns of Command" with the lame secondary officers
Nope. "Ensigns of Command" is the one where Data has to convince a colony to re-locate before the Big Bad Aliens That We Never Saw Before And Will Never See Again come and wipe them out.
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