Moar Trek eps talk

[petronia]

S01E15-16 The Menagerie: G-good thing Spock's not inherently evil, you guys. If he were intelligent life in this universe would have a hard time of it. BULLET DODGED ._.;;;

The aesthetic tenets of Talosian cinematography strangely resemble those of 1960s American television series.

srsly though the whole first part of this ep is deeply frightening
it's like any other story where something benign and beloved in daily life goes haywire
without seeming reason or warning
like air turning noxious or the angel statues in that one Doctor Who ep or the birds
in Hitchcock
oh god the birds
Kirk has that shellshocked look on his face like
there is Spock perched on the bridge as usual hopping about
with his clever black eyes
and then
DIVEBOMB

As I mentioned to lazulisong this is more or less nixed by Reboot, I think - at least, the universe would have to be overwhelmingly cruel and Spock Prime would work to prevent it - which is good as the whole thing is just a clusterangstfuck. But if the Reboot writers were wondering how to advance the Kirk-Spock relationship in the second movie they could do worse than take a cue from here.


TOS S01E17 Shore Leave: It's that one "recreational" planet by which we mean they put LSD in the drinking water! FACEBOOK PROFILE PIC TIME WHAT WHAT

Highlights of this ep:

* McCoy's face
* McCoy's pimpmeister skillz
* Kirk's awkward nerd past
* everyone's 30-second attention spans
* the fact that the episode makes no effort to explain why a samurai attacks Sulu, cos it's Sulu and this is like the third time already
* I mean you're more surprised he didn't meet D'Artagnan, Batman, and the Master Chief on the road while he was at it
* IT'S A BIRD IT'S A PLANE
* I would burn a stick of incense to the spirits of Roddenberry and Sturgeon to get a look at the script directions for the backrub scene


S01 E18 The Squire Of Gothos: I am sort of over whimsical omnipotent alien beings dicking around the crew of the Enterprise for lulz, which... yeah. NOT LIKE THIS HAPPENS A LOT IN TREK OR ANYTHING. This ep is pretty explicit re this sort of... contemporary longing... for mommy and daddy some more advanced civilization to put an end to humanity's Playtime With Nuclear Holocaust, but in general the series resorts to deus ex machina to pull Kirk's nuts out of the fire pretty often; I guess because they keep setting up situations where if one were writing a standalone SF short story rocks would simply fall and everyone would die and it would be deeply meaningful and shit. XD; Possibly I think this because I'm reading The Martian Chronicles, which kicks off with no less than four, count'em, four White Man Bad Endings before American imperialism succeeds in making the red planet its own (via unintentional biological warfare, no less! If you really feel like writing an effed up Star Trek story one day, make it one where someone beams down from the Enterprise with a head cold and the virus wipes out an entire alien civilization). It's blackly hilarious, in a futuristic Edward Gorey sort of way.


S01 E19 Arena: speaking of "advanced civilizations", LMAO when the Metron dude was like "does my appearance surprise you" and Kirk is just like notoutloudnotoutloudthatrobeiskindagayshitwasthatoutloud. Anyway I started off thinking "Everyone makes fun of this episode but it's actually pretty good, there's a budget and explosions and action and stuff!" and then I got to the halfway mark ROTFL4EVR

(Something about the juxtaposition between the Looney Tunes nature of the battle and Shatner's "emotive" monologuing... actually I rather liked the narrative parallel between the "sophisticated" portable cannon they use at the beginning and the one Kirk cobbles together out of rocks and bamboo, but yeah there's no real way to take this shiz seriously. XD;)

Comments

[reddwarfer.livejournal.com]

My daughter commented on the backrub scene and Kirk's obvious discomfort when he realised Spock wasn't the one touching him. I sorta just lol'd a bit.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I think my fave bit is when Spock walks off and Kirk just, like, blatantly checks out his ass. IT'S NOT EVEN THE FIRST TIME HE DOES IT.

[reddwarfer.livejournal.com]

He really does. My daughter asked if they were dating. Which really cracked me up. She's ten.

[credoimprobus]

Belatedly dropping a line to say I'm really enjoying these (and clearly I should have been reading your Dreamwidth all along, haha; its existence just kinda slipped my mind, more's the obvious pity). Although they're making me want to pull my TOS dvds back out myself, because apparently 4 months is just enough time for me to have forgotten half of everything, heh.

One of the funnest things with seeing it all for the first time, for me, was spotting the origins of all the references one's seen in other tv shows and movies over the years -- Pike inna box being an obvious one, as well as the Squire of Gothos stuff. That 'OH HAHA THIS IS THE ONE THAT THING CAME FROM' moment, y'know.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Heh, glad you're enjoying it! If you want an invite to Dreamwidth, btw, I've still got quite a few. XD

I'm sure I've encountered as many references, but if I didn't know what they meant at the time I probably just... forgot them... XD;

[credoimprobus]

Think I'm gonna stick with just stalking DW from afar for now (have enough on my plate just sorely neglecting one blogging service, donchaknow XD), but thanks for the offer. :)