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A Newbies Look at Star Trek: The Original Series, Part 1.

Prompted by J. J. Abrams’ fantastic 2009 Star Trek film, I have rented the first Blu-Ray disc of Star Trek (The Original Series, as it is now known).  Below are a few random thoughts that occurred to this virtual ST: TOS newbie.

Before I begin I should give a bit of background on my knowledge of Star Trek.  As a child I grew up in the mid seventies and through the eighties, so Star Trek, to me, was a TV series BBC2 repeated a lot at 6PM and there were also a few films.  I’m not an American and I certainly wasn’t around in the late 60s to see TOS when it first aired.  Star Trek was something my father watched and bored me terribly.  It wasn’t as exciting as Star Wars (and all the adventures my expansive Palitoy/Kenner action figure collection had) or as fun as Doctor Who.  To be honest, I hated the Star Trek TV series.  Boring, old fashioned rubbish.

RigellianThere were also the Star Trek films.  I have vague memories of going to the cinema with my father to see Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I would have been about 4½ at the time and perhaps this film has more to do with my childhood hatred for Star Trek than the original TV series did!  I don’t remember much about it, except being disappointed that some humanoid turtle creatures featured in a film promo magazine (that I presumably picked up at the cinema and looked through, waiting for the film to start) didn’t actually appear in the film.  I’m sure they must have been there somewhere but I failed to spot them (perhaps because I had to go to the toilet part way through the very long film!)  [Just now I did a Google search and discover that the creatures are called Rigellians.]  I was hoping for something like Star Wars but what I got was anything but!

Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home has rather fonder memories for me, however.  It was probably one of, if not the first, film that my friend Ian and I went to see on our own.  Unlike other Star Trek, as it seemed to me at the time, this one had a sense of humour.  It had some action and didn’t try to preach quite so hard (though clearly it had a preachy theme at its core!)  I was also familiar with Star Trek 2 and 3, though I’ve never cared much for Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock.

So, my knowledge of original Star Trek is mainly from little bits of the TV series I caught (or were on in the background) and the film series.  So, I know the characters fairly well (at least in their, fatter, film forms).   I was a big fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation, though which I first saw in 1989 (and filled a bit of gap left by Doctor Who), so am very familiar with the Star Trek universe, just not the original series.

The remastered USS Enterprise

Now the first three Star Trek episodes are behind me, I feel ready to offer my initial thoughts and observations.  Those episodes are The Man Trap, Charlie X and Where No Man Has Gone Before.

I have watched the ‘remastered’ versions in HD.  Basically that means they’ve gone back to the original film footage, rescanned it in and fixed up visual defects, such as dirt on the film and faded colour.  On the Blu-Ray there is also the option of watched new CGI effects (most notably the new CGI Enterprise) or the originals.  Naturally I went with the new CGI effects.  Quick comparisons (via the ‘angle’ button on my remote) suggest (as does their featurette on the remastering process) that they have been very faithful to the original effects shots.  Certainly they feel as if they fit right in to me.  Like the improved picture quality (and the 7.1 audio mix) I suspect that most people, when they see the new HD version with CGI effects, will think nothing has changed at all.  This is probably how they remember it but, of course, their memory will be cheating them.  Most special effects, if done well, should not be noticed by the audience.  The same is true of remastered and HD material in general.  Of course if people saw the originals on a big HD TV they would be surprised by just how bad it looks.  It’s almost a shame so much work has to go into remastering when so few people will notice or appreciate the difference.

Onto the episodes themselves!

In some ways the three episodes are quite similar, particularly Charlie X and Where No Man Has Gone Before.  Each of them involve a threat to the Enterprise from a lone individual who has gained power over others.  In the first case, The Man Trap, it turns out not to be a human being but a ‘Salt Vampire’ with the ability to project a different physical appearance and paralyse people before sucking them dry of salt (don’t we all hate it when that happens!)  Charlie X sees the Enterprise ferry a young man, a recently rescued marooned survivor of a transport crash, who has some incredible telekinetic powers.  Naturally this Charlie Evans goes bad and starts to kill people and take over the Enterprise.  Likewise the episode Where No Man Has Gone Before (WNMHGB!) sees someone, this time Kirk’s old friend and subordinate Gary Mitchell, gain incredible telekinetic and telepathic powers, goes bad and takes over the Enterprise.  Given the unconnected episodic nature of Star Trek, it seems incredible to me that the producers didn’t do a better job of shifting these stories apart in the running order – they weren’t filmed in that order.  I am, of course, assuming that the episodes to come don’t feaure the same basic story idea!

As expected I did find the episodes quite plodding.  That isn’t quite as pronounced on the third of them, WNMHGB, which just felt like better TV than the other two.  WNMHGB is odd in that it is actually a pilot episode (the second pilot, after the suits didn’t like the first (which was, of course, partially recycled in The Menagerie – with a comedy Captain Pike and his beeper)).  There are many differences in WNMHGB and the other two, most notably some of the cast and the costumes.

Talking about Star Trek costumes… Why, oh why did they abandon the decent female uniforms in WNMHGB for the dreadful miniskirts that we all associate with Uhura and yeoman Rand?!  Take a look at these:

Star Trek female costumes

On the left we have Dr. Dehner and Yeoman Smith from the second pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before. On the right we have Lieutenant Uhura and Yeoman Rand from the series proper.  I couldn’t find decent full height shots of Dehner or Smith but they wear trousers – in stark contrast to the female uniforms from the rest of the series, as depicted here by Uhura and Rand.  Also the pilot costumes don’t have those stupid lopsided open necks.  What were they thinking when they changed them?! Let’s get rid of the practical outfits?! Don’t think I’m trying to be PC here – I honestly think Uhura and Rand’s costumes are rediculous!  Besides, to my taste I think Dehner and Smith look a lot more attractive in their uniforms – Uhura and Rand just look like they should be hanging around on street corners at night!  Let’s not even talk about those impractical and rather silly looking beehives haircuts they move to from the simple, practical ones of Dehner and Smith.  I like intelligent, practical women not two bit tarts!  Star Trek took such a massive backwards step and I don’t really understand why.  It is rather fitting that they parody the women’s final costumes in Futurama with Zapp Brannigan because parody is all those costumes are good for.  Kind of a shame J. J. Abrams continues that in the new film.

That’s where I’ll leave it, for now.  So far it hasn’t been anything like as bad as I expected.  It does feel very slow by today’s standards but that is equally true of Doctor Who from the same era.  It doesn’t yet exhibit the fun character interplay I expect from TOS but I assume that will come soon enough.  I am also hoping for a bit more variation in terms of basic plot but I assume that that too will come soon enough.  I’m trying to keep an open mind.  It has promise…

8 Responses to "A Newbies Look at Star Trek: The Original Series, Part 1."

  1. lizaanne says:

    I, too, was far too young to see the TOS episodes in their original run. I grew up on Next Gen & Voyager. However, I read TOS episodes as short stories in the seasons 1-3 collections books that my local library had. As I recall, having later seen the episodes, they actually read better than they showed; particially due to special effects, I think, but mostly to do with the extra depth of exposition– similar to the better Dr. Who novelizations. Also, I could skim the “Now, boys and girls, be nice to one another” sections. If you can find the stories, they might be worth your time. Certainly, each short story took considerably less than 25 minutes to read.

  2. Sounds like they Terrance Dicked TOS! (That sounds a tad dodgy looking back at it!) Back in the days when there were no video recorders there was a market for novelisations like that, I suppose (I should know, I do own all the Target Doctor Who books!) It does prove how slow these TOS episodes are that they can be condensed so easily (and with extra depth, as you say).

    I think I’ll certainly watch through all of season one on Blu-Ray. After that, maybe I will seek out these books – for one thing I could read them at work! Less of the preachy stuff would be most welcome, too…

  3. David says:

    about your female star trek costume comment, because the “dreadful” miniskirts looks better than the lesbian looking uniforms.

  4. The original series uniforms just don’t look like anything a female officer in a serious military organisation would wear. Also, they don’t fit into the progression from Enterprise, through the films and into the Next Gen, Voyager, DS9 era. However, being a man, I really shouldn’t have any objections, should I?

  5. I couldn’t agree more that the normal original series female uniforms just don’t look like serious military uniforms. More like Gene Roddenberry’s fantasies personified (at least as much as he could get away with!) These uniforms just make me think ‘Carry on Star Trek’ – you can just imagine the sort of risqué farce!

    The female uniforms in the pilot (with the trousers) seem much more ‘realistic’ and certainly much more in keeping with what the men are wearing. As I mentioned above, I personally actually think the women in the trouser uniforms look all the better for it! I certainly don’t think it makes them look, as David suggests, lesbian – they’re not wearing dungarees!

  6. David spurgeon says:

    in the military, in the real world, the women wear skirts unless they are in combat. this is a classic tv show and if the producer thought that the ugly lesbian looking uniforms look good they would have kepped them. but they wanted the men and women to look different and not the same. this is science fiction and in sci fi anything goes. so they made the right choice in choosing the skirts. and yes lesbian looking is a little harsh. lets just say manish looking. and if you notice the two women in the trousers looks almost alike.

  7. Mac says:

    Well these people are not military, these people know how to do a lot more things than just fight. So why should they look like military people???

  8. Mac says:

    Also… someone who hates Star Trek is going to tell Star Trek what’s good and what isn’t?????

    The only thing Star Wars has to offer is action with no real story or plot.

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