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Mar. 9th, 2020 09:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynWatched some more original series Star Trek episodes.
Thank the little grey gods of Asgard for the remastered version of The Doomsday Machine, because the episode before it on Netflix was The Apple, and OH GOD WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY
There were just... there were just so many things wrong with The Apple, and I had forgotten virtually all of them. I think I had mixed it up with A Private Little War because of the hair and the lower-tech natives, or possibly with the space hippies episode because of the body paint. (including the fact that I could no longer look at the body paint design on at least one guy's cheek and not see it as a scroll up/scroll down cursor.) I don't know. There was so much wrong with The Apple, including 'One of my fellow crewmembers died in- whoops, two of- whoops, three of- oh, whatever, hey, yeoman who looks like Adele, wanna get it on?' Chekov, that the only redeeming feature I could think of for it was that the yeoman who looked like Adele actually kicked some ass when it came time to fight. Mostly it was just Benji Saves The Universe levels of bad.
The remastered Doomsday Machine, however, was brilliant, and overcame the only issue I think I ever really had with the episode, which was that I first saw it when I was maybe nine or ten and had to have my father explain to me that Star Trek was made before George Lucas came on the scene and that it really wasn't fair to compare the special effects to Star Wars. I believe I thought the Machine itself was made of papier-mache at the time. Having dealt with that issue, the writing and acting and characterization all got to stand out properly, and I very much appreciated that fact. I'm putting that one up there with Balance of Terror for best episodes I've rewatched so far.
Memory Alpha said two things about the episode that surprised me. One was that D. C. Fontana said it was her least favorite episode of the entire series. The other was that the actor playing Commodore Decker admitted that he thought the whole premise was silly, that he acted the part like he was in a cartoon, and that he didn't realize it had been written as a Moby Dick analogue with him in the Ahab slot until seeing it in a review several years after the fact.
Thank the little grey gods of Asgard for the remastered version of The Doomsday Machine, because the episode before it on Netflix was The Apple, and OH GOD WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY
There were just... there were just so many things wrong with The Apple, and I had forgotten virtually all of them. I think I had mixed it up with A Private Little War because of the hair and the lower-tech natives, or possibly with the space hippies episode because of the body paint. (including the fact that I could no longer look at the body paint design on at least one guy's cheek and not see it as a scroll up/scroll down cursor.) I don't know. There was so much wrong with The Apple, including 'One of my fellow crewmembers died in- whoops, two of- whoops, three of- oh, whatever, hey, yeoman who looks like Adele, wanna get it on?' Chekov, that the only redeeming feature I could think of for it was that the yeoman who looked like Adele actually kicked some ass when it came time to fight. Mostly it was just Benji Saves The Universe levels of bad.
The remastered Doomsday Machine, however, was brilliant, and overcame the only issue I think I ever really had with the episode, which was that I first saw it when I was maybe nine or ten and had to have my father explain to me that Star Trek was made before George Lucas came on the scene and that it really wasn't fair to compare the special effects to Star Wars. I believe I thought the Machine itself was made of papier-mache at the time. Having dealt with that issue, the writing and acting and characterization all got to stand out properly, and I very much appreciated that fact. I'm putting that one up there with Balance of Terror for best episodes I've rewatched so far.
Memory Alpha said two things about the episode that surprised me. One was that D. C. Fontana said it was her least favorite episode of the entire series. The other was that the actor playing Commodore Decker admitted that he thought the whole premise was silly, that he acted the part like he was in a cartoon, and that he didn't realize it had been written as a Moby Dick analogue with him in the Ahab slot until seeing it in a review several years after the fact.
Greetings!
Date: 2020-03-09 01:42 pm (UTC)One Trivial Pursuit point: This is the only time in the original series that we actually hear someone else doing a Captain’s Log entry.
- But I agree, the remastered FX are amazing. Hey, given the budget of money and time they had, it’s amazing they could do what they did, even using a store-bought AMT Enterprise model w/ chopped-up decals!
Updated to add: I saw an Error 404 image I liked, of W Windom emoting and the caption, “The Page Was Here - But Not Any More!!”
Re: Greetings!
Date: 2020-03-09 01:48 pm (UTC)From what I recall, Spinrad was a little peeved at what they did with the Machine's design. He'd been envisioning something bristling with evil-looking weaponry and nasty bits poking off every surface, and what they had the budget for in the original filming was a windsock dipped in cement, or something. Still, they made a hell of an episode.