The Naked Time - This episode scores points with me for having an Irishman act as obnoxious as he wants. You do you, Riley. It's strange, though, that this episode is considered so legendary when other episodes are leaps and bounds better.
The show has always stereotyped the Irish characters, from Riley in TOS, to O'Brien and the Irish colonists in TNG, to the "Fair Haven" villagers in the Voyager series.
The Squire of Gothos - The most underrated episode in this season, if not the whole series. A near-perfect examination of fascism and narcissism and how it isolates the most well-meaning of us. Kirk attempts many strategies with the Squire, only to realize that the Squire will never engage him in good faith. Exceedingly relevant for our times.
Yep. During the last couple of days or so, Canadians learned that on at least one important plank of the current government's election platform, they are never going to deal in good faith. I don't hold out much hope of the others acting in good faith, either.
Some people interpret this episode to mean that Trelane and his parents are Q, and I remember the night that a couple of dozen SCA people (still in our medieval costumes after having spent the day at a tournament and feast) gathered in someone's living room to watch the premiere of TNG. As soon as Q started strutting around in his costumes and pontificating, someone said, "That's Trelane, all grown up."
I've never yet seen a convincing argument to refute the idea that Trelane is part of the Q Continuum, although not necessarily the same person as John deLancie's character.
Arena - Hovering just above average, Kirk is used by the writers as a stand-in for the Federation's war mentality. They do the same trick of having the crew watch TV with us as in the courtroom episodes, and it doesn't work as well here.
This episode was based on a short story by Frederick Brown. I've read the original story; it was pretty bleak.
A Taste of Armageddon - There are episodes like this one where Star Trek gets pretty close to being Doctor Who. It makes for some entertaining escapades even as we shake our heads at the concept.
In what way do you consider this episode to have Whovian qualities?
If I'd written this episode, I would have made a few changes, among them making it a two-parter and included scenes where they beam down to Vendikar and discover that there's nobody left alive, and hasn't been for centuries. That would have made the Eminians' situation all the more tragic, and given them added incentive for rejecting war and rebuilding their society.
The City on the Edge of Forever - Yup, it's "City on the Edge of Forever", the one episode no one is allowed to dislike. And you know what, it is a great episode, filled with excellent character moments for our core trio, and so tightly written as to feel thirty minutes shorter than it is. Especially great coda after the climax.
There is a really excellent novel called Provenance of Shadows, in which Kirk and Spock fail to find McCoy and correct the timeline. He has to live out his life in the past, and deal with a World War II in which everything happens differently from what he was taught.
I still think it's stupid that 1) They set the TV show in a different timeline than the movies and 2) That it's going to be accessible on a streaming service only (after the pilot, IIRC)
Of course Canada gets shafted. The series is shot in Canada, but we're not allowed to watch it unless we do it illegally or it might make it to Canadian Netflix some day.
Same with the Handmaid's Tale TV series. It's going to be shown on Hulu. Canadians cannot legally access Hulu.
Having the same franchise have different things happening in different timelines, at the same time, that's stupid. In my opinion, anyway.
It's lazy, it makes the franchise as a whole appear less coherent, it will confuse some people, and it basically just sounds like a really stupid idea to me. Pick one timeline and stick to it, if you start jumping around you're just going to lose people. Your average person doesn't have time to even start thinking about this mess.
It doesn't seem that it even has to be a problem. This story is supposed to take place 10 years before Kirk's first mission or something like that, and at that time both timelines were probably pretty much the same.. minus some minor changes like Kirk's Dad dying early.. which wouldn't affect a show not about Kirk. So what's the problem? Why have two timelines? It's not necessary. Whether this show is in the original timeline or the new one, you get the exact same show.. unless I'm missing something.
Assuming I will actually get to watch this some day, I'm relieved that it's not set in the nuTrek universe. I hate Abramstrek, and most of the actors can't act to save their lives. There's exactly one line of Spock's I liked - the one about displaying multiple attitudes simultaneously.
Confusing? Nope. You're underestimating the audience. People who can keep track of multiple plotlines and minute details of superhero movies can certainly keep track of which Star Trek universe they're watching. Superhero movies don't mean a thing to me, but I've watched soap operas and read fanfiction for nearly 30 years. A person gets practice in juggling timelines.
Keiko was only in 1 episode of TNG or something like that, right? I thought she was a rather useless character in the first couple seasons of DS9, she didn't get much chance to develop much of a personality. The writers didn't seem to care about that and the main focus of her character seemed to exist to give more depth to O'Brien's character instead. Later they developed her a bit more, but at first there wasn't really much there.
There's a current thread at TrekBBS about Keiko. I'm in the "I-can't-stand-her" camp. She was in several TNG episodes, and the only DS9 episode where I liked her a little bit was when she stood up to Kai Winn about the school (but she was whiny even in that one).
I agree about Troi needing a slight accent, but don't think she necessarily needs to be foreign.
Troi had an accent because Marina Sirtis has an accent. Otherwise, it makes no sense for Troi to have an accent unless Lwaxana also has an accent. Unless Troi grew up immersed in a culture other than on Betazed or Earth, there is absolutely no reason for her to have an accent because neither of her parents did (or at least her father wouldn't have had the same one she did).
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