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In defence of TNG, my distant second favourite Trek series, we couldn’t have had the sheer magnificence of DS9 without it.

Yes, I really do rank DS9 that highly. Which isn’t a knock to TNG itself, which remains a fine series.

Shame about Voyager though. So much wasted potential.

 warboss wrote:
I might rewatch TOS as well and did the same (cancel CBS) before my free month was even up and only partly through the short treks. I don't have any negative feelings towards TOS (it's my favorite era to RPG/tabletop game in) but I haven't done a full series rewatch since I was a pre-teen and it was on daily reruns. Outside of a few famous episodes, my knowledge of it is based on distant memory and nostalgia and I'm curious if the more cynical and jaded 2020 version of me will enjoy it.

I rewatched DS9 a few years back and really enjoyed it. It definitely cemented its position for me ahead of TNG. I also stopped watching Enterprise after the first season (due to the hit or miss nature of that season as well as corporate shennanigans that put it in my area at the exact same timeslot as Stargate SG-1 during its prime) and it changed my previously negative opinion of that. It still had plenty of warts early on (I didn't like either the Xindi or Temporal Cold War arcs) but I think it really hit its stride in the 4th season with a great mix of multipart and independent episodes.

Haven't gotten to Enterprise yet, but I like Scott Bakula well enough. It's the only series (pre-2005) for which I've yet to see a single episode - before I became a Trekkie I'd seen at least one episode from each other series (and most of Voyager). I'll probably watch it over the course of a few years.

Re: cynicism and being jaded, I've found TOS to be positively soothing. I consider myself to be fairly aware politically and very active in local politics, and so have my share of frustrations with the real world. What I like about Star Trek utopianism is that it is not naive; look at The Drumhead, for example; it takes hard work from everybody to maintain the high standards of a society, to help people become the best version of ourselves. It's a collaborative utopia, that expects much from its citizens. That expectation is healthily channeled into self-improvement and a spirit of cooperation. TOS has plenty of moments where things get heated and frustrating, but the crew use ethics, reason, and nonviolence to solve the problem. In other words, they show the work that gets them there; problems aren't just handwaved away.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
In defence of TNG, my distant second favourite Trek series, we couldn’t have had the sheer magnificence of DS9 without it.

Yes, I really do rank DS9 that highly. Which isn’t a knock to TNG itself, which remains a fine series.

Shame about Voyager though. So much wasted potential.

I agree completely. For what it's worth, it took me about two and a half years to finish TNG; I finished DS9 in five months.

 Don Qui Hotep wrote:
Haven't gotten to Enterprise yet, but I like Scott Bakula well enough. It's the only series (pre-2005) for which I've yet to see a single episode - before I became a Trekkie I'd seen at least one episode from each other series (and most of Voyager). I'll probably watch it over the course of a few years.

It's an interesting show from both a technical and thematic perspective. Regarding the tech, it was filmed in full 1080p iirc but the effects were initially done at a lower resolution for the first season or two and it really shows. At least with DS9/Voyager, it's all muddy standard definition so it matches. Thematically, the end credits are a "trekky" orchestral tune but the much criticized opening credits have a pop song that is quite jarring for many. I personally liked that Archer was basically a bit of a naive space racist (at least towards vulcans) and grew both as a captain and person throughout the course of the show. I also enjoyed them putting the NX into scenarios where they would repeated and reliably get pasted unlike the UFP flagship Galaxy Class or punching way above its weight class Defiant. There are some continuity errors as well as cringey moments (decontamination anyone?) but it really starts to come together in season 3 and is firing on all nacelles in season 4. Unlike with STD and Picard though, it doesn't feel like they're actively trying to be badly received by core fans by design but rather just relearning lessons in how to make trek that they should have known to begin with after TNG/DS9/VOY.

I do remember liking season 4 of Enterprise and being sad that it basically felt like they had to merge every plotline they had planned for the next 4 years into a series of 2 hour specials.

 warboss wrote:
Thematically, the end credits are a "trekky" orchestral tune but the much criticized opening credits have a pop song that is quite jarring for many.

Don't worry; I have heard the Enterprise theme song.

As much as I like DS9 ( my favorite of the series) I found most of the first season, and the first few episodes of the second season to be horrible. I particularly disliked when they tried to ham-fist in a Q episode, which didn't really work in my opinion (although oddly I loved him on Voyager, where I think it worked out well enough). I liked that characters were actually put in moral dilemmas where they'd actually hate themselves for it later.

I also feel this way about TNG. Most pre-bearded Johnathan Frakes episodes were trash.

As a side note, there is a rumor about DS9 that I want to see if anyone can confirm. It's noted specifically in the series that Federation and Kardasian tech isn't totally compatible, which is the reason that they don't have TNG style hover platforms to move things around. Federation platforms don't work on Kardasian gravity plating. I heard they had to write that in because they wanted to save money for post-production work.

The only thing I remember about DS9’s Q episode is Sisko punching him in the face. Just straight up socking the all powerful space god in the nose.

 cuda1179 wrote:
As much as I like DS9 ( my favorite of the series) I found most of the first season, and the first few episodes of the second season to be horrible. I particularly disliked when they tried to ham-fist in a Q episode, which didn't really work in my opinion (although oddly I loved him on Voyager, where I think it worked out well enough). I liked that characters were actually put in moral dilemmas where they'd actually hate themselves for it later.

I also feel this way about TNG. Most pre-bearded Johnathan Frakes episodes were trash.

As a side note, there is a rumor about DS9 that I want to see if anyone can confirm. It's noted specifically in the series that Federation and Kardasian tech isn't totally compatible, which is the reason that they don't have TNG style hover platforms to move things around. Federation platforms don't work on Kardasian gravity plating. I heard they had to write that in because they wanted to save money for post-production work.

O'brien bitches about it a few times. Spoonhead tech and starfleet stuff just doesn't like working together. Not that O'brien was that big a fan of the cardies to start with.

 AduroT wrote:
The only thing I remember about DS9’s Q episode is Sisko punching him in the face. Just straight up socking the all powerful space god in the nose.

I enjoyed it - its quite fun with Q and Vash - life is good if you catch the eye of a god (mostly)

Thought the Voyager version was awful - just glad they did not scew up a Mirror Universe epsiode.

 AduroT wrote:
The only thing I remember about DS9’s Q episode is Sisko punching him in the face. Just straight up socking the all powerful space god in the nose.

"You hit me! Picard never hit me!"

A nice, almost 4th wall breaking observation in case TNG fans were wondering about the change in atmosphere of DS9.

 chromedog wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
As much as I like DS9 ( my favorite of the series) I found most of the first season, and the first few episodes of the second season to be horrible. I particularly disliked when they tried to ham-fist in a Q episode, which didn't really work in my opinion (although oddly I loved him on Voyager, where I think it worked out well enough). I liked that characters were actually put in moral dilemmas where they'd actually hate themselves for it later.

I also feel this way about TNG. Most pre-bearded Johnathan Frakes episodes were trash.

As a side note, there is a rumor about DS9 that I want to see if anyone can confirm. It's noted specifically in the series that Federation and Kardasian tech isn't totally compatible, which is the reason that they don't have TNG style hover platforms to move things around. Federation platforms don't work on Kardasian gravity plating. I heard they had to write that in because they wanted to save money for post-production work.

O'brien bitches about it a few times. Spoonhead tech and starfleet stuff just doesn't like working together. Not that O'brien was that big a fan of the cardies to start with.

Spoonhead...

The level of racism towards Cardassians from O'Brien is alarming and the writers really came up with some creative slurs.

 cuda1179 wrote:
As much as I like DS9 ( my favorite of the series) I found most of the first season, and the first few episodes of the second season to be horrible. I particularly disliked when they tried to ham-fist in a Q episode, which didn't really work in my opinion (although oddly I loved him on Voyager, where I think it worked out well enough). I liked that characters were actually put in moral dilemmas where they'd actually hate themselves for it later.

I agree, it was a pretty rough start. Move Along Home is a complete joke of an episode - when it was over I said out loud "What even was the point of this episode?" The one with Rumpelstiltskin was pretty trash also. But I thought the two episode arc at the end of season one with Kai Ratched was really well-done, and set the stage for the the tone of the rest of the series.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 AduroT wrote:
The only thing I remember about DS9’s Q episode is Sisko punching him in the face. Just straight up socking the all powerful space god in the nose.

I enjoyed it - its quite fun with Q and Vash - life is good if you catch the eye of a god (mostly)

Thought the Voyager version was awful - just glad they did not scew up a Mirror Universe epsiode.

I'm afraid I have to agree with Cuda here, I really didn't care for the Q episode. The way that they play Q is pretty off-putting. It seemed petulant, and I'd hope the Q Continuum would be above that sort of thing. I thought it was very different from how he was portrayed as Picard's personal gadfly. On the surface it seems petty, but it's about something deeper than just pissing Picard off; it's an ongoing trial of humanity, and that comes across each time (mostly). I figured if Vash decided to head home Q would just say "okay, that's another human mayfly out of my life. Doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things." Getting clingy and jealous felt out of character.

The Q Continuim has never show any sign of anything deep or especially moral or even really intelligent - just immensley powerful.

Pretty much all the "gods" in Trek are petty and jealous - like the old Greek, Norse etc gods. It follows on they have favourite pets and toys to play with /torment/assist.

They tend to look for things to occupy their attention = be that a entire race, galaxy or a person.

The trial of humanity really did not wok for me as no other race seemed to have the same test - and even then - the Enterprise has mutiple races not just humans. B but I guess it works if its just a fleeting moment of a bored gods attention.

 trexmeyer wrote:

 chromedog wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
As much as I like DS9 ( my favorite of the series) I found most of the first season, and the first few episodes of the second season to be horrible. I particularly disliked when they tried to ham-fist in a Q episode, which didn't really work in my opinion (although oddly I loved him on Voyager, where I think it worked out well enough). I liked that characters were actually put in moral dilemmas where they'd actually hate themselves for it later.

I also feel this way about TNG. Most pre-bearded Johnathan Frakes episodes were trash.

As a side note, there is a rumor about DS9 that I want to see if anyone can confirm. It's noted specifically in the series that Federation and Kardasian tech isn't totally compatible, which is the reason that they don't have TNG style hover platforms to move things around. Federation platforms don't work on Kardasian gravity plating. I heard they had to write that in because they wanted to save money for post-production work.

O'brien bitches about it a few times. Spoonhead tech and starfleet stuff just doesn't like working together. Not that O'brien was that big a fan of the cardies to start with.

Spoonhead...

The level of racism towards Cardassians from O'Brien is alarming and the writers really came up with some creative slurs.

O'Brien was as weird oddity. In TNG he was the career non-com that kept wandering in and out of 'officer country' (which was the show focus), and making him a major character of DS9 meant keeping all those little oddities.
Problem was, I don't think the writers (for either show) really understood all the 20th century stereotypes they kept piling on the character. Not the Irish ones, nor the military ones. But the military ones had a lot of implications and baggage (more once they sorted out what his rank actually was) that was a pretty poor fit for Star Trek.

Of course, you also have the issue that he seemed to be the writer's punching bag. 'How do we make Miles' life worse?' seems to be a fairly repetitive plot element of DS9.

Watched the first lower Decks episodes. I was really ready to hate on this show but surprisingly I'm liking it so far. It was funnier than the trailer and the characters are more likable than anything in ST Picard.

Voss wrote:

 trexmeyer wrote:

 chromedog wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
As much as I like DS9 ( my favorite of the series) I found most of the first season, and the first few episodes of the second season to be horrible. I particularly disliked when they tried to ham-fist in a Q episode, which didn't really work in my opinion (although oddly I loved him on Voyager, where I think it worked out well enough). I liked that characters were actually put in moral dilemmas where they'd actually hate themselves for it later.

I also feel this way about TNG. Most pre-bearded Johnathan Frakes episodes were trash.

As a side note, there is a rumor about DS9 that I want to see if anyone can confirm. It's noted specifically in the series that Federation and Kardasian tech isn't totally compatible, which is the reason that they don't have TNG style hover platforms to move things around. Federation platforms don't work on Kardasian gravity plating. I heard they had to write that in because they wanted to save money for post-production work.

O'brien bitches about it a few times. Spoonhead tech and starfleet stuff just doesn't like working together. Not that O'brien was that big a fan of the cardies to start with.

Spoonhead...

The level of racism towards Cardassians from O'Brien is alarming and the writers really came up with some creative slurs.

O'Brien was as weird oddity. In TNG he was the career non-com that kept wandering in and out of 'officer country' (which was the show focus), and making him a major character of DS9 meant keeping all those little oddities.
Problem was, I don't think the writers (for either show) really understood all the 20th century stereotypes they kept piling on the character. Not the Irish ones, nor the military ones. But the military ones had a lot of implications and baggage (more once they sorted out what his rank actually was) that was a pretty poor fit for Star Trek.

Of course, you also have the issue that he seemed to be the writer's punching bag. 'How do we make Miles' life worse?' seems to be a fairly repetitive plot element of DS9.

It's been a while but looking back on it I quite liked O'Brien. Remember that crazy episode where he was trapped as a prisoner for a long time and ended up killing his inmate? And then it turned out it was all a simulation or something. He could never catch a break, it was borderline amusing.

Grimmest thing about that episode of O’Brien Must Suffer is he kept those memories. All of them.

I always thought O'Brien had enough pluck and humor in him to get through the hard times. And ever since he found out how to replicate Scotch-flavored gum, I can't imagine he's not walking around Starship Academy, microdosing on the reg. He's probably that one professor that all the undergrads are scared of, that uses no notes in his lectures, and has impossible-to-understand tests.

----

I just started Season 3 of TOS and am not loving it! Got halfway through "Spock's Brain" and turned it off. Some research indicates that's one of the worst episodes in the series so I think I'll just skip to episode 2. I miss Season 2 already; it was such peak Star Trek. All the characters really sharp, with great chemistry between them, and really off-the-wall sci-fi concepts. "Return to Tomorrow" and "Journey to Babel" have each landed on my Best Episodes list (although to be fair, "A Private War" and "Patterns of Force" ended up on my Worst Episodes list; those were the only real low points in the season, though).

Part of the fun was finally watching "Mirror, Mirror" and "Gamesters of Triskellion." I thought I'd be too familiar with the tropes to enjoy them, but guess what; they're classics for a reason! Really well put-together. I thought that Uhura and Sulu got a little more screen time and felt like actual characters this season; Season 1 it was mostly Kirk-Spock-Bones-Scotty. Chekhov kind of fills the role that Sulu had in Season 1 - "we need a generic Star Fleet Guy to do some Star Fleet Stuff. Let's through Takei at it." And he was great at it - but that's not really a character.

I completely see how TOS could have captured so many people's imaginations. Even with a modern gaze I think the quality of the writing and acting are pretty solid. The only dated bits are the lingering bits of racial and gender representation ("She's a fine officer, but soon she'll find a man and leave the service."). I can't wait to watch the films; I'm gonna make a week of it, one film a night for six days.

Well, there was a trek first for me in this stunning and brave new era of nuTrek... I actually genuinely like a newly introduced ship design!




I don't watch the show (no interest after those first two trailers) so can't comment on the commentary/conjecture regarding the ship but I think that the Kurtzman era has finally come up with a good original design for a ship. Some ships have been flawed but tolerable (like the Shephard and Cardenas classes) to borderline good (like the Connie revamp in the original concept art moreso than what actually made it to the screen) but this is the first new design that I can wholeheartedly say that I like... and it only took three years and four seasons! Obviously, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder and anyone is free to disagree (regarding this ship or with my general dislike of nuTrek designs in general).

That ship looks like an homage to the Wolf 359 kitbashes. I love it.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
That ship looks like an homage to the Wolf 359 kitbashes. I love it.

I could see it being there as well if it was the TNG movie era due to the nacelle style. About the only thing I'd tweak are the massively protruding impulse engines but that's a minor quibble.

 Don Qui Hotep wrote:
I always thought O'Brien had enough pluck and humor in him to get through the hard times. And ever since he found out how to replicate Scotch-flavored gum, I can't imagine he's not walking around Starship Academy, microdosing on the reg. He's probably that one professor that all the undergrads are scared of, that uses no notes in his lectures, and has impossible-to-understand tests.

----

I just started Season 3 of TOS and am not loving it! Got halfway through "Spock's Brain" and turned it off. Some research indicates that's one of the worst episodes in the series so I think I'll just skip to episode 2. I miss Season 2 already; it was such peak Star Trek. All the characters really sharp, with great chemistry between them, and really off-the-wall sci-fi concepts. "Return to Tomorrow" and "Journey to Babel" have each landed on my Best Episodes list (although to be fair, "A Private War" and "Patterns of Force" ended up on my Worst Episodes list; those were the only real low points in the season, though).

Part of the fun was finally watching "Mirror, Mirror" and "Gamesters of Triskellion." I thought I'd be too familiar with the tropes to enjoy them, but guess what; they're classics for a reason! Really well put-together. I thought that Uhura and Sulu got a little more screen time and felt like actual characters this season; Season 1 it was mostly Kirk-Spock-Bones-Scotty. Chekhov kind of fills the role that Sulu had in Season 1 - "we need a generic Star Fleet Guy to do some Star Fleet Stuff. Let's through Takei at it." And he was great at it - but that's not really a character.

I completely see how TOS could have captured so many people's imaginations. Even with a modern gaze I think the quality of the writing and acting are pretty solid. The only dated bits are the lingering bits of racial and gender representation ("She's a fine officer, but soon she'll find a man and leave the service."). I can't wait to watch the films; I'm gonna make a week of it, one film a night for six days.

TOS had a lot in common with The Twilight Zone/The Outer Limits imo. The only clear difference between a purely episodic series and an anthology is that you have a recurring cast. I don't recall TOS ever really building on previous episodes and the only two part one was The Menagerie. I think TNG clearly had more character and plot development over the entire run, partly due to its length, even though it was episodic as well. My point being that TOS told what amounted to short stories that attempted to deal with real world issues in a way that got around censorship, much the same as The Twilight Zone.

TNG has some elements of that, but honestly, post-TNG Star Trek has very little in common with TOS. I say that even though DS9 is my favorite of the Trek series. There's some key element that has been lost. I think an obvious issue is that TOS was episodic and that style of TV is no longer en vogue.

 trexmeyer wrote:

TOS had a lot in common with The Twilight Zone/The Outer Limits imo.

As someone who started with TNG and is going through TOS currently, this is actually one of the things I found most baffling/annoying with TOS. TOS doesn't seem to be sure at times if it a sci-fi show or if it is a Twillight Zone sort off show. One episode that really highlights this is "The Omega Glory", where they ham-fistedly try to insert a planet of the apes twist ending, even though it makes no sense in the shows internal logic.

Back in the Original Series they weren't really telling long term stories. In fact a lot of TV of its day was the same. You had a formula, you repeated that formula each week. Perhaps you got a bit of character development here and there, but by and large most episodes could appear in any order. It let them produce in any order and have different writers etc... Sometimes you'd get a story element in the last and first episodes of a season, but by and large they were not building connected storie.s

That was one of the big changes that TNG started doing. They introduced character arcs and stories that ran across more than one episode. They even added and removed key characters from the series here and there (I don't think we lost anyone from the Original Series save for copious redshirts).


Don't forget this a different age of TV. Heck this was when the writer for Babalon 5 was making huge waves with his longer story arcs; it was a brand new thing (esp for sci fi) and a huge risk. Today we've both kinds of TV, but even so its taken a long while for the rise of non-episodic TV stories to really take off.

dyndraig wrote:

 trexmeyer wrote:

TOS had a lot in common with The Twilight Zone/The Outer Limits imo.

As someone who started with TNG and is going through TOS currently, this is actually one of the things I found most baffling/annoying with TOS. TOS doesn't seem to be sure at times if it a sci-fi show or if it is a Twillight Zone sort off show. One episode that really highlights this is "The Omega Glory", where they ham-fistedly try to insert a planet of the apes twist ending, even though it makes no sense in the shows internal logic.

Character development and story arcs weren't really a thing in the 60s so pretty much all TV was a series of one-offs, with only the fact the cast and location was the same each week tying them all together. The idea of a season-long story arc is actually not as old as people think. Yes, there were series that did it back in the 60s (and probably even earlier) but it's only in the last 25 years or so it's really become the standard approach to making episodic TV. I remember thinking it was weird when I rewatched the X-Files that there's barely any continuity between any of the episodes. It's series-spanning story was one of the many things that made Babylon 5 stand out so much.

I'm fine with the episodic nature of TOS, The trouble I have with it is that it cant decide at times if it a sci-fi series or a Twillight Zone anthology series.
Take the "The Omega Glory" for example, they turn up to a planet which have two warring native tribes called Yangs and Koms, which have a primitive level of technology. The twist is that Yang and Koms are actually Yankees and Communist that have fallen back in development after a nuclear war. the Yangs/Yankees even have the exact same flag and constitution as the USA on earth.

This would be fine as a Planet of the Apes sort-of episode in an anthology series like Twilight Zone. But it doesn't work in TOS as we know that we didn't do any off-world colonization during the cold war, which leaves only the laughable notion that this planet had the exact same development as Earth, down to the exact wording of the American constitution! So the episode just falls flat on its face.

Usually they are smart enough to write around it, like in Patterns of Force (The nazi episode). There they established it's an Starfleet official that has pushed the planet into becoming a nazi dictatorship, so it makes in the internal logic of the show compared to the "The Omega Glory".

TOS having less identity makes sense, chances are many episodes were written by different people who were not always connected. In a way it was a bit Twilght Zone. It wasn't trying to be serious even if the actors acted serious.

Heck consider that they met more than a few aliens with godlike powers.


In the end TOS didn't actually get serious nor tie into what Startrek became until The Motion Picture. Plus don't forget their multinational command crew and core actors was already ST being very brazen and wild for its day. Their movies actually shifted gear and introduced a very bold move of linked films one after the other with several of the movies directly feeding into the next. Something that we rarely saw ever happen again.

dyndraig wrote:
I'm fine with the episodic nature of TOS, The trouble I have with it is that it cant decide at times if it a sci-fi series or a Twillight Zone anthology series.
Take the "The Omega Glory" for example, they turn up to a planet which have two warring native tribes called Yangs and Koms, which have a primitive level of technology. The twist is that Yang and Koms are actually Yankees and Communist that have fallen back in development after a nuclear war. the Yangs/Yankees even have the exact same flag and constitution as the USA on earth.

This would be fine as a Planet of the Apes sort-of episode in an anthology series like Twilight Zone. But it doesn't work in TOS as we know that we didn't do any off-world colonization during the cold war, which leaves only the laughable notion that this planet had the exact same development as Earth, down to the exact wording of the American constitution! So the episode just falls flat on its face.

Usually they are smart enough to write around it, like in Patterns of Force (The nazi episode). There they established it's an Starfleet official that has pushed the planet into becoming a nazi dictatorship, so it makes in the internal logic of the show compared to the "The Omega Glory".

Definitely agree about "The Omega Glory." I really liked the first half of the episode - for some reason Star Fleet officials gone rogue is a plot hook that always gets me. And the premise of whether you would violate the prime directive for a fountain of youth was interesting. But then they pull out the literal goddam Constitution and it's like, "woah buddy, whatever happened to allegories?"

As an Anthropologist, it's interesting because it's one of the unusual episodes of TOS that pull more from Ursula LeGuin-style Social Science Fiction (as opposed to Hard Science Fiction). I feel like throughout the course of TNG that became more normalized, and you have a pretty healthy balance between space phenomena and space politics episodes. But it subscribes to Louis Henry Morgan's prescription for cultural development, which, I'll save you some googling, dates to 1877 and has been long debunked, but still had some currency in the 1960s when TOS was being made (despite critiques within academia, but that's academia and who was paying attention?). So it's interesting for that reason but so overdone. Also there's a bit of the usual "Asiatic race" and similar thrown around that reads problematic in the present day.

But TOS is over 50 years old at this point. I think it holds up really well, all things considered. My critiques come from a place of love.

Re: multiple aliens with godlike powers, although the trope is overdone a bit, for the most part they ended up being largely benign; see "Shore Leave" or "The Corbomite Maneuver" where the implication is that as we'll continue to evolve towards omnipotence, we'll become more and more graceful and tolerant. I like that optimism. My favorite example is probably "Return to Tomorrow", in which the divine beings are more fleshed-out as characters.

 Overread wrote:
TOS having less identity makes sense, chances are many episodes were written by different people who were not always connected. In a way it was a bit Twilght Zone. It wasn't trying to be serious even if the actors acted serious.

Heck consider that they met more than a few aliens with godlike powers.


In the end TOS didn't actually get serious nor tie into what Startrek became until The Motion Picture. Plus don't forget their multinational command crew and core actors was already ST being very brazen and wild for its day. Their movies actually shifted gear and introduced a very bold move of linked films one after the other with several of the movies directly feeding into the next. Something that we rarely saw ever happen again.

TOS absolutely was serious as was The Twilight Zone. Any comical aspect is due to cultural changes since that time.

 trexmeyer wrote:

 Overread wrote:
TOS having less identity makes sense, chances are many episodes were written by different people who were not always connected. In a way it was a bit Twilght Zone. It wasn't trying to be serious even if the actors acted serious.

Heck consider that they met more than a few aliens with godlike powers.


In the end TOS didn't actually get serious nor tie into what Startrek became until The Motion Picture. Plus don't forget their multinational command crew and core actors was already ST being very brazen and wild for its day. Their movies actually shifted gear and introduced a very bold move of linked films one after the other with several of the movies directly feeding into the next. Something that we rarely saw ever happen again.

TOS absolutely was serious as was The Twilight Zone. Any comical aspect is due to cultural changes since that time.

I agree. The few deliberately comedy episodes ("A Piece of the Action" comes to mind) were definitely the weaker ones.