Shark Bytes

Never jumped. Even the worst of Star Trek TOS is better than most television these days.

Another vote for “Spock’s Brain”… where was Hannibal Lecter when you needed him?

Rest In Peace Majel Barrett Roddenberry aka Nurse Chapel.

The writers were making the point that the Yangs once had the same democratic ideals that the people of the United States have. I think it makes the point very well, and is an example of good writing, not bad.

David, you & I will agree to disagree about the writing in this episode. While I completely agree with your assessment of the critical components of writing, those are the very elements that were most trampled in this episode. In particular, somehow the Constitution & flag make it to this world light years away from Earth & affect its future. This same plot device was used to death in the original ST (remember the Nazis & gangsters?).

Truly, what started out as a pretty fair episode ended up like something from the abyss of a high school writing project when the kid runs out of time & throws in the first thing he can think of; complete with the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" playing in the background, no less.

Nope. Lame, lazy, trite & overly sentimental. IMHO, of course. Others' mileage may vary.

A couple of the e-mails here have talked about the original Star Trek series as having bad writing, citing Kirk's reading of the preamble to the U.S. Constitution in "The Omega Glory" as evidence of the bad writing. Granted there were more than a few bad episodes of the series, but overall the writing on the show was certainly among the best for television of its era. Although the dialogue is an essential part of writing, it is only a fraction of the whole. Writing is theme, character, and plot coming together in a cohesive whole. To say that including the preamble in the dialogue of the show is an example of bad writing is missing the big picture of the whole story. The important thing isn't that the writers had the character read it, but WHY they had him read it. Kirk's reading of the preamble is a perfectly acceptable plot development in the story. The writers were making the point that the Yangs once had the same democratic ideals that the people of the United States have. I think it makes the point very well, and is an example of good writing, not bad.

To all of those who do not like "The Way to Eden" you just don't understand what Trek is all about .......

In that episode, it was clearly about jumping on the hippie bandwagon, either to show how well the show "related" to that demographic or because the writers ran out of ideas (a la the "Lost in Space" big carrot episode).

Kinda interesting how they presented hippies: narcissistic, self-absorbed know-it-alls who were willing to resort to thievery and lawlessness to get whatever they wanted. Hmm........

To all of those who do not like "The Way to Eden" you just don't understand what Trek is all about .......

"Spock's Brain". Once that happened, the show was heading down the toilet. Of course, there were other crap episodes ("The Way to Eden" comes to mind with the craptacular space hippies) but that one signaled the beginning of the end.

It's too bad they didn't have Adam West as a guest star (make him some sort of evil captain or admiral) and allow him and Kirk to ham it up.

Kirk: "My...God...what...are...you...doing...Captain...West...."

West: "Don't...try...to....stop.......me......Kirk....."

(Of course, after three lines, it'd be time to run the credits.)

Robert Casey is more generous than I. Throwing in the Constitution was, in my view, a substitute for something more substantive. It was either laziness or a lack of creativity.

Now don't get me wrong--some episodes, like "The City on the Edge of Forever," were brilliant. And yes, I'll still watch a "Star Trek" rerun over "American Idol" or some reality junk any day of the week.

However, the original Star Trek scripts were very uneven; many were OK, if heavy on the formulaic and gratuitous violence found on the westerns of that same period. Let's face it, writing on the "Twilight Zone" (which pre-dated ST) was generally much better. As well, "Star Trek: The Next Generation" had all-around better writing than the original (although it missed the boat a few times as well).

A bad episode of Star Trek is still better than a good day at work...

Don't forget that the Constitution of the United States is not copyrighted. So Cap't Kirk could get away with quoting it in that ep. That ep had a great beginning, but when they brought in that American flag later on, it had its own shark jumping. I suppose the American flag and the Constitution quoting was a form of story-telling shorthand (so you could get the ep done within an hour of TV time, it just came off badly written. Still Trek still did better writing, on average, than most TV.

Lest we forget the short lifespans of the red shirted crewmembers and William Shatners excellent portrayal as woman experiencing the worst case of PMS ever in Turnabout Intruder-should have won an emmy for that Captain Kirk overdosing on estrogen moment-I could see the new Captain Kirk getting a visit from the monthly guest and saying-"I'm not moving this ship anywhere,got some Midol and Bones you got something for this heavy flow"

There were some BAD episodes, but ST never jumped the shark.

This show just amazes me. Watched most of it out of order and random and I keep noticing the following:

1. Everywhere they beam down will invariably be Earthlike, Type M, with an atmosphere of 78.08% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, BUT when in orbit and on the ground, the planet will always be a random psychedelic color - usually neon green or red.

2. Maybe someone can tell me. In exactly how many episodes do they duplicate this shot:

Red Alert! (insert repeated zoom in-zoom out shot of blinking red light as scene fades)

3. Female federation uniforms. When creating the specification, someone apparently replaced the "minimum acceptable length" with "maximum" (not that I mind).

4. A drunk-on-juleps and spore-stoned McCoy does not a convincing Southerner make.

5. Wow. Shatner really has always been overly-paternalistic.

6. In the shot of the Enterprise in the Earth sky (complete with square edges from however it was pasted there) someone really dropped the ball on that edit.

It's one of my alltime favorite shows, but several of the Season Three episodes were just downright stupid. I watch the Abraham Lincoln episode only to laugh when "Help me, Spock!" is shouted out.

We could have done without "The Empath" and "Spock's Brain".

The two part Captain Pike episode isn't one of my favorites either, but it did give my friends and I quite a bit to make fun of.

I find it amusing the occasional commenters who berate this great show. C'mon! just admit it, you're closet trekkies and that's why you peruse sites like this! Keep it coming though. It provides a nice contrast to the gushing adoration. Concerning episodes, it's interesting the variety of likes and dislikes among you all. It just goes to show how subjective it all is. One of my favorite episodes that you don't hear many people talk about is What Are Little Girls Made Of? Love the eeriness factor. The cavernous underground setting. The revelation that they are all robots. And of course who can forget the awesome figure of Ted Cassidy as Ruk? This episode also featured one of my favorite Trek babes, the extraordinarily sexy Sherry Jackson as Andrea. She ranks right up there with Barbara Luna (Mirror,Mirror) and that lovely girl in Dagger Of The Mind, another great episode. Mantrap is also one of my favorites. They should have stuck with the original title The Unreal McCoy, however. Has more relevance. Scariest episode of the series by far with spooky music and a weird ambiance that was seldom seen in the series again. The second season boasted many classics, but one lesser regaled episode that I enjoy watching is Return To Tomorrow with Diana Muldaur. Wonderful music in that one and a wonderfully realized performance by Nimoy as the evil Henoch. Probably my favorite offering from the third season is The Enterprise Incident. The ruse factor is intriguing with Shatner chewing the scenery once again as Kirk slips into feigned madness. "The Captain is not sane" Spoke bluntly concludes, shortly before the deployment of the dreaded Vulcan Death Grip...classic! The scenes between Spock and the beautiful Romulan commander make the episode and are once again set against a hauntingly lovely score. My vote for worst episode of the series: The Alternative Factor. That's one I have a hard time sitting through. Oh well folks, it's been a pleasure. Not necessarily for you! Just love the show, that's all. Never jumped.