🌟 Star Trek, TOS 🌟

I never watched Star Trek: Discovery and after another Google search I find that it's actually a prequel which supposedly took place a decade or so before Captain Kirk's five year mission. It's a little disappointing to learn that.

I haven't watched it either (I'm not even sure how to watch it - it's on some pay network or streaming or something?)

Anyway, I've only seen bits of it on YouTube and apparently, although everything LOOKS far more advanced than anything in TOS (due to modern effects & such), it ties into the TOS timeline as Captain Pike becomes a character on the show along with a young Spock and the Enterprise shows up - I'm assuming this all occurred at the end of it's last season???

I will give it kudos for making the original Enterprise 1701 look pretty cool by keeping the look the same, but with just a few tweaks (mostly using lighting effects) to let it look like it belongs in the show's universe.



P.S. People are still upset that they've completely changed the Klingons (yet, again).
We've reviewed how the only reason the Klingons didn't appear as Roddenberry wanted them to in TOS was because of budget restraints - and that their appearances were altered for the movies and subsequent series to make them more alien as originally intended, but that excuse cannot be made for this latest arbitrary alteration.

Who are they?

Without cheating:
1. Bella Oxmix from the gangster planet. (I always used to call him "Bella Abzug" after the real-life lady politician.)
2. Mr. Atoz (Librarian and inventor of the Atoz cart!)

Can't tell you either of the actor's names off the top of my head at the moment.

I'm not good with names either, and the guy who played Mr. Atoz (Ian Wolfe) also played Septimus in Bread and Circuses.

I looked it up after my guess and found I spelled the character's name wrong: it should by Oxmyx. And he was played by Anthony Caruso (how could I forget that name?)

He was probably the most likable mob boss ever!

And, of course "Mel" was in "A Piece of the Action" too!

That's have more pic clues, Mesmirized.

How many different characters did Mark Lenard play throughout the entire ST franchise (TV & movies included)?

I loved that episode. Pure comedy.

Oxmyx:. Nobody helps nobody but himself.

Spock: Sir, you are employing a double negative.

Oxmyx: Huh?

He played a Romulan in Balance of Terror, a Vulcan in Journey to Babel, and a Klingon in Star Trek, the Motion Picture.

Of course he also returned in Star Trek 4 and 6 as Ambassador Sarek.

He also played in a few episodes of TNG and he died in the arms of Captain Picard.

Can you reword that? I don't understand that sentence.

Whoops, that would read better as: Mesmerized, let's have some more picture clues to guess.

Excellent!

(Just to be a nit-picking completest, I'm sure you meant to include ST 3: Search For Spock! This means there were only 2 of the 6 "original crew" movies that Lenard did not appear in! And of course, due to the make-up, no one recognized him as the Klingon captain in TMP!)

Additional trivia: Lenard provided his voice for Sarek in ST the Animated Series in 1973!

Been away for a couple of weeks and trying to catch up!

I liked the Technical Emmy presentation for Star Trek (except for anything to do with Discovery of course!) and loved seeing Shatner and Koenig. But I really loved seeing Terry Farrell, Jeri Ryan, and Linda Park, all of whom looked outstanding still after all these years! Wow!

Here is my take on Roddenberry's vision, etc. When he sold "Trek" to NBC, he told them it was essentially "Wagon Train To the Stars," which, if that's what he originally meant, insinuated it was an action show. Sure, "Wagon Train" had it characters and drama moments but there was lots of action in the show. It never would have been a success if everyone just sat around the campfire and talked about their feelings. In hindsight, we are told that Roddenberry was held back from his original vision by executives who wanted more action. That would seem to be born out by the original pilot The Cage, which was definitely more cerebral than what would follow. And we all know that NBC rejected that but were cool enough to allow a second pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before, which was definitely more action-oriented but still allowed for drama with Gary Lockwood's and Sally Kellerman's characters to turn into god-like beings. So, you had some of both, which was fine. The series that followed was and is, still my favorite.

Now, when TNG was announced, inside, I rebelled against the very idea of another Trek, yet, as it approached, I couldn't help but be hopeful. I enjoyed the pilot, Encounter at Farpoint and thought it was a great start. But the first two seasons for me, were a crashing bore because of us being told that they were following Roddenberry's original formula of a future where everyone gets along, nobody fights, and they go off and explore "strange new worlds and new civilizations." So, first two seasons you get lots of ship-bound episodes with Picard picking on Wesley Crusher, who is constantly saving the ship. And Picard, when the ship is threatened by some more-powerful alien presence or an overwhelming armada of enemy ships, would call out, "Conference!" And the main crew would go off and talk about what to do!

Now, I'm all for the crew working together to solve a dilemma---in fact, my favorite TNG episode Darmok had all the makings of Roddenberry's and NBC's original ideas put together, cerebral and acton: the crew trying to solve what to do when faced with a strange ship that has kidnapped Picard and put him on a planet with an alien Captain, Dathon, played by the always-excellent Paul Winfield. They are stuck together on the planet and the alien ship will not allow the Enterprise to rescue them, even though there is a Predator-like creature on the planet, threatening the two Captains. Dathon, (and his crew) speak only in metaphor and story-telling language, trying to break through to communicate with Picard the only way they know how. Picard (and Data and Troi on the Enterprise) figure this out, and try to get Riker to stop fighting with the alien ship. Picard ends up not wanting to be rescued but to stay and fight alongside Dathon, with the result hopefully being that each ship and crew will reach a breakthrough in the language barrier and hopefully become allies. All this, of course, with Dathon willing to risk both his life and Picard's against the evil alien. Dathon's people really loved their adventure stories and this is how they made new compatriots. Just a terrific episode and one that is really well-thought out and thrilling all the way through. What every episode should be but unfortunately you're not going to get that if Roddenberry is allowed to continue with his vision. Hate to say but it's true. Darmok was 5th season episode but TNG was really kick-started at the end of its 3rd season with the introduction of the Borg and Picard's life being changed forever. Because, by this time, Mike Piller and Rick Berman had essentially taken over control of the show and Berman the Trek entertainment universe in general.

I don't know exactly how they pushed Roddenberry bit-by-bit to the side but sad (and glad) to say, the show/shows got better as a result. Roddenberry wanted that "all peaceful, everybody get's along" universe, which is a wonderful idea, but unfortunately makes for dull television. Because to have drama (as any writing, acting, production Grade 1 will tell you), you have to have conflict. And Roddenberry didn't want to have conflict. Thus the bulk of dull episodes. Don't get me wrong, there were a handful of fine episodes in each of the first two seasons, but they were few and far-between. I was so bored by the show that until the time the penultimate episode of season 1, Conspiracy. came along, I was about ready to pack it in. But this episode kept me watching. There was mystery, action, and unbelievably, graphic violence! But it all served the story. The show kind of backslid in season 2 with more talky, whimsical episodes, with more "conference" crap going on. Yes, Picard was more of a diplomat than Kirk. Kirk was a take-action Captain and he didn't need a conference when he was on the bridge. He made decisions on the spot. Roddenberry once called Kirk "Hornblower in Space" and Horatio Hornblower in his high seas adventures was a take-action man, not a diplomat. So I'm not totally sold on the idea that Roddenberry had originally envisioned a peaceful future where everyone gets along. If so, why did he call it (before it aired) "Wagon Train to the Stars" and "Hornblower in Space?" Both mostly action tales where everyone decidedly does NOT get along and the heroes are forced a lot of the time to come up with violent solutions to problems.

Yet, to hear Bill Nye the Science Guy on the Emmy show say it, the show was originally Roddenberry's "optimistic view of the future through science, addressed many of the social, political, and cultural issues that impact our society today.......he offered us an idea, a hope, of what humanity could become. He dreamed of a world where different species worked together in perfect/imperfect harmony." I don't know if I totally agree with that as being Roddenberry's original vision. Nye talks about all that social, cultural, etc. stuff disguised as a science fiction/action show being Roddenberry's original idea, in other words, the first thing he saw it as. I don't think so. Well, maybe partly. The Cage does partly bear that out, but there was action and violence to a smaller degree in that. That tells me that Roddenberry wanted an entertaining show, because the worst thing in the world you can do to your audience is bore them. I like The Cage but I like Where No Man Has Gone Before better, because it is less preachy. I think somewhere along the line that Roddenberry started believing his own hype and really pushed it when TNG came along. Thus the aforementioned boredom of the first two seasons (and if I'm honest to myself, part of the third). But by the end of the third season, TNG truly became what I at least wanted it to be and I ended up loving the show almost as much as TOS. Almost. TOS will always be the standard bearer for me. I've liked all the other series too, except for the latest one.

For me, the success of the other series worked because they followed more the map of TOS than Roddenberry's map. Watch them and tell me honestly that you don't think S1 and S2 of TNG are light years away from what the rest of the saga, especially TOS, is. All this, of course, is just MHO.

__________________
"Miss Jean Louise, Mr. Arthur Radley."

I read somewhere that Roddenberry was not all that serious when he pitched Star Trek as a western in space, that he just knew westerns had been very popular at the time and hoped it would help sell the series. But I think that he initially understood the need for action and lost sight of that a bit when he developed the story for the first film and the Next Generation.

I agree with Dadgumblah about the first two seasons of Next Generation, and "Darmok" is one of my favorites, too. I like a lot of the movies, but I think Star Trek works best as a TV series. Then the stories can be heady one week and humorous another, without the pressure to repeat the success of the previous film.

I've been watching Blu Ray extras on my TNG set, and the various producers, actors, etc, have talked about Gene Roddenberry. I think they all loved him, but he drove people crazy with his daily micro management of TNG in the first couple seasons. One of the producers said Roddenberry would take a script that had been finished and as they were about to shoot it, he'd cross out big chunks of the script and rewrite it himself. I heard he did that on the fist ST movie too, so much so that the studio later banned him from the set of other ST movies. I have to say the first couple seasons of TNG are OK but after Roddenberry stopped micro managing the show, it got much much better....until we get some of the most unique ideas and best acting that's been done on a TV series.

Speculation satire of Roddenberry pitching TNG to network executives:

GR: All the other networks are doing adventure shows about something - our show will be about NOTHING!

Executive: Nothing?

GR: NOTHING!

Executive: Well, surely there are stories and outer space battles and something happens?

GR: No, no, no! NOTHING HAPPENS! There are no stories - its a science fiction about nothing. Look, what did you do today?

Executive: I got up and came to work.

GR: Captain Picard gets up and goes to the bridge - there's a show, that's a show!

Executive: That's a show???

GR: Look... people get up and go to work on the Enterprise, they talk, they have dinner, they talk, they read.

Executive: They read? On the TV, they read? If nothing happens why am I watching this?

GR: Because it's on TV!

Executive: Not yet, it's not.

A show about nothing? Was Jerry Seinfeld on the Enterprise too?

@Captain Steel, very funny! And @lenslady that's exactly what I was thinking. Seinfeld in Space! (said in Seinfeld's voice)..."Who are these aliens? Do we really need a conference? I don't think so!" Okay, then.

Here's a link to a story about a William Shatner video that covers the first two seasons of TNG and the chaos surrounding it. Since this is mainly TOS stuff on this thread and I've kind of been posting TNG-related material, I'll just provide the link:

http://trekcore.com/newspaper/2015/0...on-the-bridge/

I seem to remember when J.J. Abrams' first Trek movie came out, with Leonard Nimoy in it, and Shatner was reportedly upset that Kirk wasn't featured in it. Well, I felt the movie was already top-loaded with new actors to get to know, plus Nimoy's and Eric Bana's co-starring roles, so I don't think Shatner was thinking too clearly on that count. Plus, his character was DEAD! But, as he replied when someone pointed that out, "This is science fiction, you can do anything!" True, up to a point.

One last thing on TNG....when I talked about the first two seasons, I think I pointed out that there were some good episodes in the lot and without going down an extensive list, I'll say that I liked the Picard as Dixon Hill on the Holodeck, the trial of Data in "The Measure of a Man," Professor Moriarty on the Holodeck coming to life, Riker serving on the Klingon ship, Q introducing the crew to the Borg, Worf's honey K'Ehleyr, and that's about it for me.

So, how about that Original Series?

BWT, click on my new avatar---it's the only way I could save this image. I thought it was pretty funny and it's definitely TOS-related.

EDIT: Well, you can't link to the internet from my avatar and get a big size, so here's the page I got it from and it shows up pretty good:

https://i.pinimg.com/236x/59/f8/27/5...cada35a43d.jpg

My spoof and Seinfeld homage was based on your previous post (about how Roddenberry felt that TNG should not be like other sci-fi shows, there wouldn't be any battles as everyone would get along, it would be more about character's lives, etc. i.e. "nothing" would happen - the same idea behind Seinfeld, at least according to the episodes where they're trying to sell the show to NBC).