🌟 Star Trek, TOS 🌟

Ha, you know the creature from Man Trap looks a lot like the Morlocks from Time Machine (1960)

Yeah, I was thinking of them, but Bones was willing to stay with Natira because of his illness. I think he was more of a playboy with Yeoman Barrows, and Nancy Crater was an old flame (before she became on "old salt" ).

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"Miss Jean Louise, Mr. Arthur Radley."

Louise Sorel







Louise Sorel as Rayna Kapec


Requiem for Methuselah


Thus all the days of Methu′selah were nine hundred and sixty-nine years; and he died. - Genesis 5:27

A bit of trivia -

After it's premier in 1987, most people felt that Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) had little relation to The Original Series (TOS), except that it took place in the same continuity, but 75 years after TOS (and a brief cameo by a very aged McCoy at the end of the first TNG episode).

Most Trek enthusiasts know that the 1979 Star Trek: The Motion Picture (TMP) stemmed out of a planned TV sequel series to TOS that was going to be called Star Trek: Phase II to be released in 1978.

Phase II was going to be a continuation of TOS with most of the original cast returning, plus a few new characters - but the project was scrapped and its remnants became TMP.

The characters of Decker and Ilia, who were both created for Phase II, were carried over from the planned TV series to the movie.

For Phase II, Nimoy did not agree to return to his role as Spock, so the role of a new Vulcan named Xon was created - but he did not carry over into TMP because producers were able to convince Nimoy to return for the movie (promising him extended residuals from TOS that Nimoy had never received).

So Xon was scrapped for the movie. (The actor slated to play Xon, David Gautraeux, had a small role in TMP as the ill-fated Commander Branch of the Epsilon outpost that is destroyed by V-ger early on in the film.)

Jump ahead to TNG - several aspects of Phase II carried over into the new TV series: the character of Xon became the android Data (both were genius-level beings of pure logic struggling to understand human emotions).

Will Decker (Kirk's first officer) became Will Riker (Captain Piccard's first officer), and Ilia (an empathic alien) became the alien empath Deanna Troy - the relationship of former lovers between Decker and Ilia was carried over to Riker and Troy.

Yeah, that's a point .

You've reminded me that a few years ago I came across this — frankly astounding — interpretation of a Morlock online. I'd actually just read The Time Machine and was really impressed with the creatures, who are very different to their film and TV versions. Both the Eloi and the Morlocks are alien and by turns pathetic and creepy. This image, I think, perfectly represents the Morlocks in the book:

I always had a special place in my heart for Deanna Troi

I was spoiled with a real Central European in some other show .

I'm re-watching Next Gen right now, I'm at season 6. It's interesting how often they change Deanna's look. It be neat to see a block of side by side pics of her many different looks. I know in season 6 they put her in a standard uniform and gave her different hair style.

I was always disappointed that the female crew on TNG didn't wear miniskirts.

I'm not. And in the first season both male and female crew members had these dorky looking skirt-tunics with bare legs. So glad they didn't keep doing that.

They stopped that quite early on didn't they? You see it a few times in Season 1.

The thing that did my head in was when they split the jumpsuit in to two parts. Patrick Stewart's probably the most mannered with it, but every time anyone got up they had to straighten the top half of the uniform. I suppose it's just bad tailoring in the end – not something that happened on the original show or in the new films to my knowledge.

Ah yes – I forgot the men had that as well .

With the exception of the two pilot episodes for TOS, the women wore skirts. In fact, Sally Kellerman kept putting her hands over her croth during the shooting of the second pilot because her pants were too tight and she was embarrassed. They had to reshoot some of the close-up scenes of her that were shot.

Sally Kellerman as Dr. Elizabeth Dehner

Where No Man Has Gone Before

If Gene Roddenberry had had his way, many of the women in both series would go around naked, or at least topless.

Yoeman Rand: sex toy.

Too many incidents to cite, but last night I was watching Balance of Terror and I had to laugh when Kirk was hugging Rand (in full bodied embrace) on the bridge, in front of the crew, as they were battling the Romulans.
This was all because Rand was scared (plus she didn't have a chair to sit in and was just standing next to the Captain's seat in her mini-skirt). It was just so unprofessional - Kirk might as well have gotten Uhura in there for a group snuggle & grope!

Of course, he certainly wouldn't hug Sulu (which may be why George Takei still has resentment?)

In the same episode, there's a scene were McCoy enters Kirk's cabin to find Yoeman Rand there (as she came to see if the Captain wanted some "coffee" - as we learned from Seinfeld: "Coffee doesn't mean coffee!")
After Rand leaves, McCoy looks at Kirk with the most lecherous grin as if to say "What were you two doing... or about to do?"

And in the episode where Kirk gets split in half by the transporter, there are numerous inappropriate innuendos made toward Rand after she's suffered attempted rape by Kirk's aggressive half, basically insinuating that she found the attempted violation titillating... or if she didn't, she should have.

Even Spock gets in on the act at the end, making lewd comments to Rand about how the evil Kirk had some "interesting" qualities.



TOS: very Un-MeToo!

I have to say Spock's comment to Yeoman Rand is creepy. Not Spock's fault of course, but some caveman script writer.

I've said I can't narrow favorite episodes down to five, but The Enemy Within is one of my favorites - having one's psyche split by the transporter is such a cool psychological concept. It's strange how they kept referring to "bad" Kirk as the impostor even after they knew he was as much Kirk as the "good" Kirk - he was everything that made Kirk a leader.

One thing they might have delved into deeper was the idea that bad Kirk thought he was the rightful Captain of the ship just as the good Kirk did - but instead they played him like he really was an impostor (always sneaking around). He really should have been strutting through the halls with his chest out, yelling out orders and angrily writing crew members up for violations.

Balance of Terror is another favorite as it's one of the more serious episodes with a single-minded, military plot and no major subplots. It's basically a submarine movie (much like what would later be delivered in The Wrath of Khan),

I like your idea, it would have made for a better show as it could have dealt more with what is really good and what is really evil and by having both Kirks the real Captain it could have explored that better....I'd have neither of the Kirks being evil or being good.


I dig that episode, and you know I love me a good submarine movie I'll have to go look at an episode list to see which ones I like the best.

Many years ago, I saw Gene Roddenberry at a convention and someone asked him why one of the girls in his movie Genesis, (or maybe it was Genesis 2), had two belly buttons. He explained that the censors wouldn't allow them to show the girl's stomach, so he changed the character so that she had two belly buttons. That forced the censors to allow him to show her stomach because it became a trait of the character.

He said that he did things to go against the network and the censors whenever he could. For example, in the Star Trek pilot "The Cage", they didn't like that the first officer was a woman, but the actress was his then girlfriend (and later his wife), Majel Barrett, so she bleached her hair and changed her last name, and Roddenberry cast her as Nurse Chapel hoping that the network wouldn't recognize her. (They did.) They also told him to "get rid of the guy with the ears", but he refused and made him the new first officer.

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