STAR TREK

[Henry R. Kujawa]

Today I was SO worn out, I did something I can hardly believe...  With very few exceptions, I have not watched STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION since it was first-run (24 YEARS ago).  So far today, I have just watched the first 14 episodes in a row!!!

 

    You know what's funny?  The show is actually fun to watch in a sort-of tacky way.  Some of the character quirks are amusing, before they became really annoying.  And I'm reminded of some of the early relationship dynamics, which, it seems to me, got totally screwed over the longer the show was on the air.

 

    Like-- it's obvious Picard & Beverly are attracted to each other.  WHY did they spend most of the run not having this go anywhere?  Then there's Will Riker & Deanna Troi, who the moment they meet are like a really bad, awkward retread of Will Decker & Ilia.  They're so stiff at first it's unbelieveable.  I think all the acting got 10 times better after the 2-hour pilot.  Anyway, the story that introduces Lwaxana was a hoot, and also showed that, despite whatever the hell the problem is, Will & Deanna do somehow care for each other deeply.  So... WHY didn't it EVER go anywhere (until the 2nd feature film?).  Both Wesley & Data are far less annoying here than they later became.

 

    Strange but true:  while I saw the show from the first episode (and taped every single one of them), my Mom never saw it until somewhere in the 3rd or 4th season.  And when she did, she got HOOKED, big-time.  She started watching it every time it was on.  Since they got to running the stories twice a week, that means, while I saw each story ONCE, she saw each one FOUR TIMES!!!

 

    At some point, she got around to seeing reruns of the 1st season.  I always remember walking thru the dining room, where she spent most of her time sitting watching the small tv on the table, and noting she was watching the 2-hour pilot.  And she looked at me and says, "This is the DUMBEST story I've ever seen!"  That's after having seen dozens (maybe a hundred or more) later ones.

 

    I've noted I have a lot more tolerance for "bad" films when I can't sleep, and that may account for my being able to sit thru so much of this today.

 

    It's a shame that my favorite woman on the show's 1st season, Tasha, got killed off suddenly when Denise Crosby announced she wanted to quit the show.  She may not have been my favorite kind of woman as far as face or personality, but I have a feeling I might have gotten along with her.  By the episode "Angel One", she seemed to be loosening up a lot.  I can't understand the complaint about her "not having enough to do".  Her movie career sure didn't take off...  (Doesn't that seem to be a running thing in the 80's and beyond?  People quitting successful shows and then regretting it?)

 

    A few times early-on, I found myself thinking how this might have gone if Paramount hadn't been so cheap.  After the tremendous success of STAR TREK IV, the push was on to finally do a new tv series.  But because the actors' salaries kept getting bigger and bigger by then, the decision was made, purely monetary, to do an entirely new series, with CHEAPER actors.

 

    What stands out is the thought that the "cruise ship" version of the Enterprise was said to be a brand-new ship fresh out of dry dock (just like at the end of ST4).  And the "battle bridge" seen in Ep.1 was clearly the bridge from the movies.

 

    I liked how about 10 episodes in, you finally saw a rectangular hallway (like on the old show).  Those octogonal vertical halls from the movies get on my nerves.

[Kirk G]

Are there any clips on Youtube so that i may see what you all are talking about?

I stopped watching saturday morning cartoons back in the 60s, when they took the FF and Spider-Man off the air.

I never saw any appeal in the "Get-Along Gang".

[Henry R. Kujawa]

It's a shame they never made a 2nd season of FANTASTIC FOUR (before Gerald Mohr died), as it might have fared better in syndication if they'd done more (as happened with SPIDER-MAN).

 

[Kirk G]

OK, so here's a list of all 18 episodes of the season of Fantastic Four.

Can you identify which COMIC ISSUES were the inspiration for each of these shows, based upon the title or your memory?

I've done some of the more obvious ones, but feel free to disagree or correct m assumptions.

"Fantastic 4" (18 episodes )
1.Menace of the Mole Man (9 September 1967)     FF #1 or #21  or #31?
2.Diablo (16 September 1967)    FF #30
3.The Way It All Began (23 September 1967)     FF #1
4.Invasion of the Super Skrulls (30 September 1967)     FF #18 or #32
5.KIaws (7 October 1967)  FF #52-53-56
6.Prisoners of Planet X (14 October 1967)     FF #9
7.It Started on Yancy Street (21 October 1967)     FF #29
8.Three Predictions of Doctor Doom (28 October 1967)  ????
9.Rama-Tut (9 November 1967)  FF #19?
10.Demon of the Deep (11 November 1967)   FF #4, 14 or 33?
11.Danger in the Depths (18 November 1967)    FF #14, 27 or 33?
12.Return of the Mole Man (25 November 1967)   FF #22 or 31?
13.Galactus (16 December 1967)    FF# 48-49-50
14.The Micro World of Dr. Doom (30 December 1967)   FF #16-17
15.Blast Starr, the Living Bomb Burst (6 January 1968)  FF #62-63
16.The Mysterious Molecule Man (13 January 1968)    FF#20
17.The Terrible Tribunal (14 September 1968)     ?????
18.The Deadly Director (21 September 1968)     Gideon?  FF #34? or FF #9?

[Philip Portelli]

I recall that Namor was altered to Prince Triton in his episodes because he was part of the Marvel Super-Heroes programs. In fact wasn't Fantastic Four #6 redone with the original X-Men instead of the FF?

[Kirk G]

I'm going to spin off this discussion of the FF animation source into it's own thread, since it don't have much to do with Star Trek, right?

[Henry R. Kujawa]

Sometimes I think THE NEXT GENERATION doesn't have much to do with STAR TREK, either...  (Halfway thru TNG's 6th season, just started on DS9 this morning!)

[doc photo]

Shifting back to Star Trek TOS - I found a copy of David Gerrold's Galactic Whirlpool/An Original Star Trek Novel at a used book sale. I have read some of Gerrold's other fiction, as well as his non-fiction Trek books and have found him pretty  entertaining, Galactic Whirlpool is no exception.  Gerrold certainly understood the characters and does a good job of presenting them in the book - I can "hear" Shatner's voice when reading Kirk's dialogue. I believe the plot for this novel was one of the stories Gerrold presented to Gene Coon as a possible Trek episode, but it was rejected as being too expensive to produce. From Gerrold's outlines they selected "The Trouble With Tribbles" instead.

[Kirk G]

Would that be episode 10 or 11, or both?
And, obviously, the romantic tie to Sue was eliminate, right?

Philip Portelli said:

I recall that Namor was altered to Prince Triton in his episodes because he was part of the Marvel Super-Heroes programs. In fact wasn't Fantastic Four #6 redone with the original X-Men instead of the FF?

[Henry R. Kujawa]

I just finished DEEP SPACE NINE today.  The whole thing (TNG / DS9) took just about 2 months.  WOW.  I always figured it would take me years to plow thru those, if I ever got the urge to dig 'em out. I have seen a lot of the DS9's on reruns, at a rate of 5 episodes a week, when someone was running tham at 4 AM. But this was the first time I've seen them without commercials.  Much better this way!

2 things about the finale continue to bug me.

One, the structure of the story involving the Pah Wraiths, almost seems tacked on, and works against the entire "big epic climax" they spent so long building to. Having TWO problems like that going on at the same time (the war, the Wraiths), and coming to a head at the SAME TIME, is bordering on ridiculous.

Two... after they spent so many YEARS before finally letting Odo and Kira get together, he announces "it's time" he rejoined the link. I can see his feeling the need to cure his people from the plague, AND, share his knowledge and experiences with them, so they can learn to trust "solids".  HELL, if he'd done this years earlier, there might never have been a war.  (Not that that stopped the female changeling he DID link with from continuing the war earlier.) But considering the way the female changeling changes her tune SO IMMEDIATELY after linking, WHY does Odo seem to think he'll NEVER be coming back??? WTF??? It just seems like a totally out-of-left-field violation of everything they built up in his characters for 7 whole years of the show.

Of course, you also have Miles leaving for Earth, AT THE SAME TIME. And Worf going to Kronos, AT THE SAME TIME.  And Nog, becoming Grand Nagus, AT THE SAME TIME.  It just seems forced, because they figured it was gonna be the last episode.



A few days back, I found myself thinking back over a lot of the major events in the show (sort of like I did after seeing the 1897 sequence on DARK SHADOWS), and I realized something I don't know if anyone ever made note of.  Gowron, who was absent for most of Season 7 (until he showed up, started acting STUPID, and got himself KILLED by Worf!!) was, in a way, VERY much responsible for the war happenning in the first place.  Gowron attacked Cardassia, thinking they'd been taken over by the shape-shifters... when, they HADN'T.  As a result of this, Worf objected, and Gowron took all titles and properties from Worf's family. As a result of Gowron occupying Cardassia, Gul Ducat negotiated with The Dominion to make Cardassia part of the Dominion, giving them a foothold in the Alpha Quadrant.  (And someone had the stupidity to say Ben Sisko was "the man who started the war"-- HUH?? WHEN? HOW?) It's funny that Gowron was unseen for so many episodes, and when he did finally turn up again, he got himself killed because of his arrogance and stupidity, going to his death STILL insisting "You-- will not-- have--this-- day..." * A**H***!!!