[JPX sez, recently JSP informed me that he was starting to download Star Trek OS episodes onto his IPOD and he wanted some direction on choosing the best episodes to watch. Realizing that I was in over my head, I quickly went to the expert and asked Jordan if he could come up with a list of his 10 favorite episodes. As Jordan tends to do, he went above and beyond the call of duty and he sent me the email reprinted below. Given the amount of effort he put into this assignment, it seemed a shame to waste it in an email. With his permission I give you Jordan’s thoughtful recommendations].
When I successfully introduced a college friend to original Star Trek, what struck him was how different it was to what he was expecting: he told me that he'd always assumed it was "campy" (like the Batman TV series) and generally unserious and juvenile. (The episode that turned HIM around was "Court Martial," which is good but doesn't make my top ten, listed below—it was when he first began to realize what a great protagonist Kirk is, as he put it.)
And all that happened in the late eighties. Now TOS is twice as old (it's been a staggering 42 years since its network debut) and really looks it. In 2008, the main thing to realize about the original show is that it's like Shakespeare: the miserable production values don't matter at all because the whole focus is the writing and the acting. That's the thing to emphasize to the modern viewer, since it's unusual for sci-fi to work that way. Sure, the sets are made of gypsum board and two-by-fours with pastel-colored lights shining everywhere, and the grainy effects shots are laughable, and many of the aliens are just floating de-focused blobs. (Remember that the colored gels on the lights were forced on them by the network, which was invested in selling color televisions.) But it's Trek, and once you get past that it's stunning, miraculous, unforgettable. Here are my favorite TOS episodes:
First Season:
THE NAKED TIME
My absolute #1 favorite. I'm not saying it's "the best" episode -- that's probably "City on the Edge of Forever" (see below) -- but definitely my own #1 choice. The premise is an alien chemical that produces a disease that spreads through the crew, breaking down their mental constraints and making their inner identities come out (McCoy says it "acts like alcohol, breaking down inhibitions). But this happens while the Enterprise is in a risky decaying orbit over a collapsing planet, and by halfway through the episode an insane crewman has locked himself in the engine room and they've got twenty-five minutes until they blow up. Notable for outstanding performances (especially Nimoy and Shatner as the disease hits them) and superb, stellar directing. The last fifteen minutes is a masterpiece of suspense. Plus you get to see everyone go nuts! Graffitti on the Enterprise wall says "LOVE MANKIND." A wonderful parable about control, inhibitions, and strength of character. No aliens, no bullshit...just fantastic filmmaking.
MIRI
I've always loved this one, because I love the horror-movie formula of "Something really, really bad happened here, and when it was over, everyone was dead...and now, since you've arrived, it's going to happen to you. Your only hope is figuring out what went wrong last time." (Alien is a great example; Evil Dead 2 is another.) A ruined world; a young teenage girl in love with Kirk; a wasting disease that's killing the landing party slowly; Michael J. Pollard stealing the communicators. Very gothic; very well written and performed. (McCOY: "Jim, we've absolutely got to have those communicators. Without the communicators we don't have the computers and without the computers we don't have a chance." KIRK: "We're trying, Bones; we're trying." McCOY (shouts) "THAT ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH!")
SPACE SEED
I mean, come on. It's Khan's intro. Done. The thing is, though, it's a good episode in its own right. It DESERVED to get the feature-film treatment. And I have to include at least one "somebody took over the Enterprise" story. "We offered the world ORDER!"
DEVIL IN THE DARK
This one's particularly old-fashioned looking, and you REALLY have to be generous to the set design and just pretend you're looking at an entire planetwide underground network of tunnels and mining caves. But it's dead-on Trek at its best; a message of tolerance and forebearance, and some fantastic "mind meld" action from Nimoy. NO KILL I. Again, remember: it's the Sixties.
CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER
This is every bit as good as its reputation suggests. I love that Kirk quite literally has to create the Trek future out of our world by sacrificing the love of his life. Award-winning script by Harlan Ellison. (Re-written by Roddenberry: BOTH versions won separate awards.)
Second Season:
THE DOOMSDAY MACHINE
The first of the "bad captains" -- other examples of Starfleet command officers who illustrate why Kirk is so good by being much, much worse -- is introduced here. Commodore Decker lost his entire crew to the Machine...and now the Enterprise will suffer the same fate unless Kirk can screw his own head on and come up with a good plan. Very Herman Melville, plus I love the messed-up other starship (another Trek first). Thinly-veiled cold-war parable but aren't they all? The Decker character is the father of "Decker" from Star Trek The Motion Picture. And for some reason crewman Washburn cracks me up throughout this episode. "Come on, Washburn." "Washburn, you go in there." "Go back to the ship, Washburn." Hilarious, at least to me.
THE OMEGA GLORY
I have to include some of the "planet of alien savages" stories, and this one's very well paced and directed, although the ht-you-over-the-head message is a bit much. Use your own judgement here. Another "bad captain," another near-duplicate Earth, another interventionalist parable.
JOURNEY TO BABEL
Another ship-based story; probably the episode that most resembles The Next Generation in that it's all Federation politics and dignitaries and treaties etc. with Kirk having to play the Picard role. Except that they're making it all up for the first time. And the business with Spock's parents is just fantastic. Dorothy Fontana (originally Roddenberry's typist/assistant) wrote this one extremely well.
Third Season:
THE ENTERPRISE INCIDENT
Great fun. Suspenseful espionage and galactic intrigue with the Romulans; a female Romulan commander; Shatner doing his crazy thing; the first ever "cloaking device" (phraseology stolen by George Lucas and everyone else). A real crackerjack episode.
THE THOLIAN WEB
Riveting drama with Kirk gone and presumed dead for most of the episode. As you can see I have a preference for ship-board, character-driven TOS (over "planet of primitive/super-advanced crazies" stories). But then, that's the kind of thing that makes modern-day Galactica as good as it is: Galactica is about getting rid of the damn "explore alien worlds" motif and focus on the spacefaring characters, which is fine with me. Tholian Web won some "best sci-fi drama" awards, and deserves it. I stole a scene in my novel (part of a scene) directly from this episode. Some of the best McCoy/Spock material is here.
That's my list. I reiterate my point at the top, which is that it's unusually important to get in the right frame of mind, given the age of the show and the barrage of ridicule/love/silliness TOS has generated over the decades. But this is the real stuff, and everything that's come since is really just re-doing what the gang did here for the first time. An incredible cultural achievement. Live long and prosper!"
11 comments:
Wow! That's fantastic, thank you both! I bookmarked the post for reference and look forward to diving in. I'm finally ready to give these episodes the attention they deserve.
jordan's writeup reminds me why i used to love TOS so much. recent re-watchings have made me squirm, but i suppose i can give them another shot via netflix (once i'm caught up on avatar, that is). i could go for one of the really silly ones, like "a piece of the action," right about now. every few years i teach my nephews to play fizzbin.
btw, who knew that's how d.c. fontana got her start? jordan, that's who!
Yay, excellent list! Journey to Babel has always been one of my favorites, but my fave of all is probably The Doomsday Machine. I always wanted one of the modern Trek shows to feature an episode with that thing -- not another one, but that very same one that's been sitting for decades in the Federation equivalent of an impound lot.
And I agree about TOS's strengths. I often think of them like unto radio dramas.
It's like radio except that the visuals of the acting are so good and the directing and photography are so good. The only thing that sucks is the special effects and the unfortunate 1960s lighting schemes, but then, Hitchcock movies have that same problem, wherein somebody's living room is illuminated by banks of blinding overhead floodlights that you can see gleaming off Jimmy Stewart's hair and casting lampshade shadows as sharp as those cast by the desert sun.
At the time, Trek was considered to be at the high end of television production values, like LOST is today. And, as I've pointed out in a few of my capsule descriptions, the directing (from a shots/editing standpoint) can be superb.
I'm in awe. I have never spent that much time or effort to examine my marriage with the same depth as Jordan broke down Star Trek. (Don't know who that bodes most badly for.)
(And yes I am posting alot today, because I'm stuck in the lobby of the SF Hilton waiting for my room to be ready)
Jordan could (and should) teach a class on film and science fiction.
The "time and effort" spent was about an hour; maybe less. Forty five minutes of typing. The only "effort" was opening a Word document I had somewhere with a list of TOS episodes. I'm absolutely sure you've spent more than forty-five minutes analyzing your marriage.
jpx got all the pictures in there. That was the only hard part.
"I love the horror-movie formula of "Something really, really bad happened here, and when it was over, everyone was dead...and now, since you've arrived, it's going to happen to you. Your only hope is figuring out what went wrong last time."
Have you read The Ruins? It's exactly that concept!
No, but I saw the trailer for the movie they made of it. It looks pretty badass.
What's nice about that trailer is that it doesn't give away the terrible predicament the vacationers find themselves struggling with. I've been discussing this with AC, who originally recommended it to me, and I noted that it's a lot like Stephen King's The Raft.
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