quote:

ORIGINAL: Termyn8or

But that was not my intent, subject wise. Consider the episode "Balance Of Power". This is when Kirk stole the cloaking device from the Romulans. A clear act of espionage and sabotage, yet it was OK because they had used it to destroy a bunch of Federation outposts. Of course Kirk got them, but simply because they had that weapon, we had to have it as well. Sound familiar ? Then they outlaw the thing.


And then remember what it was like at the end of part one of "The Doomsday Machine" when the words appear "TO BE CONTINUED". Talk about ensuring good ratings next week. Can you even imagine not watching part two ? I actually have that back to back as well on VHS.


Who was the other person who wrote some of TOS episodes ? I seem to remember D.C. Fontana or something like that. The ones he wrote usually had war and conflict of some sort. I'm sure this was done under Roddenberry's auspices. But they were good as well, in fact "Balance Of Power" may have been written by Fontana, that is if I got the name right.

quote:

ORIGINAL: MasterG2kTR

Ok...a couple of facts for the younger Trekkies here....

1. The original pilot "The Menagerie" starring Jeffery Hunter as Capt. Christopher Pike was produced in 1963 and pitched to the networks in 1964. It failed to grab the interest of the network execs at the time who were more interested in westerns like Gunsmoke.

2. The Original Series as we know it "Star Trek" starring William Shatner as Capt. James T. Kirk started in sept. 1966 was canceled in 1968 after the second season. Thousands of outraged fans wrote letters begging them not to cancel and it was subsequently revived for one more season 1969. If memory serves me correctly it garnered a total of 79 episodes.

3. The original pilot never actually aired as part of the series, but was later released and aired in syndication. In the original series, the original pilot was mixed with new footage to create "The Cage" where Spock hijacked the Enterprise to Talos IV, in order to give Capt. Pike a more pleasing outlook to the end of his life. They had portrayed him as a quadraplegic vegetable bound to a wheelchair only able to communicate via a blinking light connected to his brain. The Talosians were able to let him live within the confines of his mind and be fully functional again (sort of like the Matrix).

4. I don't remember the name of the episode, but it was a Greek culture setting where Kirk was forced to kiss Uhuru. That was TV's first interracial kiss. Uhuru (Nichelle Nichols) was also the first African-American female to have a primary role in a TV series.

5. She (Nichols) also dated Gene Roddenberry for a time, before he eventually married Majel Barrett, who starred as nurse Christine Chapel in TOS and Lwaxana Troi in TNG, and as the computer voice in ALL star trek productions.

ok....yeah....I'm a trekkie and probably know way too many facts about the show, but I enjoyed them all, though I did not much like the last one titled "Enterprise", as well I will concede that Voyager and DS9 struggled to stay alive in their last 2 and 3 seasons respectively. The only series I can think of that comes close in over all quality of content and screenplay of social issues is M*A*S*H. Roddenberry was a genius in that regard and had a high demand for conformity in his vision of the future. Sadly, when Rick Berman inheirited the legacy of Roddenberry, he was more interested in creating conflicts within each of the series and straying far to the left of what Gene believed in.

quote:

ORIGINAL: MasterG2kTR

Correct for the most part....the culture had no disease (thus no doctors) but even the smallest of injuries could be fatal to them which was why they needed the help from Dr. McCoy, as the society leader had gotten a cut (or something). The little person's character name was Alexander and the only reason he had no powers was because his body did not metabolize the proteins that gave the rest of them their powers.

Aslo, agreed, while I could google the answers, but it's more fun to remember it all, and then have someone who is far more anal for perfectly correct info to come in here and correct me. I may not come up 100% right in all of my statements, but I believe I am not too far off on any of it.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Termyn8or

I think you are right laz, The Cage came first. A minor mistake. It was forty years ago after all.  

Now does anyone remember the other episode with Pike as captain ? Or is that the episode to which you refer ?

In it they pass through this strange field and one crewmember was seemingly taken down, but actually was imbued with Godlike powers, more than the PK or TK, even telepathy, the whole ten yards. He took a female crew member with him down to this planet to be his concubine or whatever and start a new life, in fact a new world. To this day I don't know why Pike went after them, they were just too dangerous ? Why not just leave them alone and go away ?

Thus what I said about the whole thing. So many moral and ethical issues were explored.

Keep it coming. Jogging my memory here. And guess what else, even though this thread has some relation to politics, it is not about politics. So far so good.

T

quote:

ORIGINAL: lazarus1983

quote:

ORIGINAL: MasterG2kTR

Correct for the most part....the culture had no disease (thus no doctors) but even the smallest of injuries could be fatal to them which was why they needed the help from Dr. McCoy, as the society leader had gotten a cut (or something). The little person's character name was Alexander and the only reason he had no powers was because his body did not metabolize the proteins that gave the rest of them their powers.

Also, agreed, while I could google the answers, but it's more fun to remember it all, and then have someone who is far more anal for perfectly correct info to come in here and correct me. I may not come up 100% right in all of my statements, but I believe I am not too far off on any of it.

Haha, says the guy who came swaggering in here to tell all us young Trekkies the facts.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Termyn8or

Very true laz, but that other pilot I personally saw with Captain Pike, not Kirk.

T

quote:

ORIGINAL: MasterG2kTR

quote:

ORIGINAL: lazarus1983

quote:

ORIGINAL: MasterG2kTR

Correct for the most part....the culture had no disease (thus no doctors) but even the smallest of injuries could be fatal to them which was why they needed the help from Dr. McCoy, as the society leader had gotten a cut (or something). The little person's character name was Alexander and the only reason he had no powers was because his body did not metabolize the proteins that gave the rest of them their powers.

Also, agreed, while I could google the answers, but it's more fun to remember it all, and then have someone who is far more anal for perfectly correct info to come in here and correct me. I may not come up 100% right in all of my statements, but I believe I am not too far off on any of it.

Haha, says the guy who came swaggering in here to tell all us young Trekkies the facts.

wow....what a major faux pas.....I had the titles backwards

like I said.....googling the data takes all the fun out of it....

but let's see now.....hmmmm.....they had to promote Cmdr. Sisco to Capt. Sisco so they could introduce a battle ship (Defiant) to the space station so he could go out and fight in a war they had to create to improve series ratings be cause the third season of DS9 almost brought an end to the entire saga, because of such poor ratings. DS9 was considered the bastard child simply because it took place on a stationary space station, where all other series took place in a different location almost every episode. The writers were limited in the scope of that series, because it lacked the open ended adventures the others enjoyed.

So now tell me, did I miss something when I said "Sadly, when Rick Berman inheirited the legacy of Roddenberry, he was more interested in creating conflicts within each of the series and straying far to the left of what Gene believed in." The conflicts to which I refer were the warlike conflicts in each of the series that were greatly escalated after Berman had control. Gene Roddenberry firmly believed we will have elevated ourselves beyond cultural conflicts by that time and strived for that ideal in the series' that he controlled while he lived.