With a desire to better understand Deep Space Nine, Solai started a thread for DS9 discussion. I have really enjoyed reading it and figured I’d start a thread for each of the series. So have at 'em!
The original series was my first love. Every epsiode from City on the Edge of Forever to Spock’s Brain, I love and adore. Gauze film over camera len chicks to Shatner’s ripped shirts, throwing paper mache rocks to throw rug silicone aliens, I love it all.
Share your love for the show.
All Hail, Frakkintalos: Great Maker of Trek Discussion Threads!!
Well, you know my feelings about Star Trek: TOS. It was also my first love.
My mother tells me she remembers distinctly me glued to the TV set at a very young age watching the show. Even I’m too young, to have watched it when it first aired. But the must have run in pretty frequently in re-runs in the early 70s and beyond. Because I remember doing a lot of watching and rewatching of Trek episodes.
I’ve said this before elsewhere, but I’ll repeat it here: It may be hard for some of you younger folks to understand, but Star Trek holds a special place for sci-fan fans of my age group. You have to remember that there was really almost NOTHING on TV in terms of space-sci fi. So Star Trek was it. But even though they weren’t making new Star Trek in that long period between TOS going off the air, and Star Trek: THe Motion Picture coming out, Star Trek lived and thrived in the imaginations of kids (like me) and adults who loved the show. It lived in books, in magazines, plastic models, and just in the pure imagination of Trekkies everywhere.
As a result of all that that, I really can’t make an objective, un-emotional comparison between TOS, TNG, Enterprise, etc.
It’s interesting as I write this I’m realizing that I didn’t really realize how deep and strong my affection for Star Trek was until I joined this GWC Forum and discovered others like me.
I thot I’d outgrew it, but it’s still in me alive and well I’m happy to say. 
I absolutely love TOS. I was also to young to see it first run but I remember as a kid it was shown in syndication at 3PM and I would book it home from school to watch it. I had [still have] all the James Blish? noveliztions. I would use a audio tape recorder to recorder effects to play with my AMT models kits.
I watched the cartoons Saturday morning. Later when my sister became a fan it became a game to guess the episode name as the show began.
When the Motion Picture was release I was so jazzed to see it and was left flat. Thank goodness the rest got better.
FWIW my first date with my wife was to see The Undiscovered Country. Two geeks in a pod I guess.
Sounds like we’re on the same page. Yup, I remember the James Blish novels, and AMT models. Great fun.
Interestingly, the 1st Star Trek novels I read/owned were the Alan Dean Foster adaptations of the Star Trek animated series episodes (Star Trek Logs I think they were called). And when I read them, I don’t even think I knew that the animated series existed. And because in a book your imagination does all the imagery, the stories weren’t “tainted” or “cheapened” at all in my head the way they may have been if I’d saw those episodes in animated form before reading the books.
I was talkiing with The GF a bit ago about how the Blish books and the photonovels were like the VCRs of the time. (Tivo, for you lawnrats.)
She was confused when we got the TOS DVDs and a scene that she remembered wasn’t in one of the episodes. We finally figured out it was from the Blish book.
My friends used to try and stump me all the time with guessing episode titles. “Can you name that episode with a five word description?”
Wow. I’d forgotten all about those photo-novels! I had those too. Yeah, there was a rich, rich set of Trek material available for us geeks of that period.
That happened to me with Star Wars. I had maybe seen it once in the theatre but had re-lived it many times in the Storybooks. I swore up and down that the Biggs on Tatooine scene was in the theatrical release.
I found these three books in my attic recently so I’m re-reading them. They were published in the 1999 timeframe. Great backstory of the Jim Kirk/Gary Mitchell Friendship…a friendship that’s so much of the core of Kirk’s being, but the end of the friendship opens the door to begin the enduring Kirk/Spock friendship.
Great fun. I highly recommend them.
I think I read that first one. Is that where they ‘explain’ the “James R. Kirk” tombstone?
Wow–yes, exactly. I had (still have, in a box in the basement) all the Blish books, too. I remember scouring used book stores to find them all; I was very proud of my complete collection. Back then (early '80s in my case), those books (and the Star Wars novelizations) were a godsend. I could only catch each episode about once, but knew them all by heart via reliving them through the books.
I think reading them actually ingrained them in my brain a lot more deeply than just watching them, even if I had been able to watch multiple times.
Recently I’ve been watching some of the original series on my laptop (the remastered versions), after having not seen the episodes since my original middle school obsession. I’m up to “The Conscience Of The King,” which has been my favorite episode so far (I loved it as a kid, too–I always had a thing for Kevin Riley). It doesn’t seem to be a very popular episode, but I was pleased to read that it’s RDM’s favorite!
One. More. Time!
That was one of the ones that freaked me out as a kid. Giant space amoebas? No problem. Man-sized lizards? Feh. Windex in your drink? Gaaaaaaaaaahhh!!!
Young Academy Jim to Young Academy Gary: “Racquetball? Sure, I’ll play you. ‘Racquetball’ is my middle name.”
Hence the “R”.
Wow!! I’m seeing some parallels between Admiral Cain and Kodos the Executioner. Neat.
Hahahaha, I loved that part as a kid! First of all, I thought it was really hilarious and endearing that Kevin Riley drank milk; second… that mysterious hand with the Windex bottle = too cool!
They should get a Kevin Riley character in The New Voyages. Nah, never mind. They’d probably ruin him. (Although they do usually do a good-ish job with the minor characters…) Re: minor recurring characters, I always liked Lt. Kyle, too.
DeSalle on New Voyages/Phase II is one of the best actors on set. I have no idea why they didn’t run with Riley.
“The Conscience Of The King,” isn’t my favorite episode but I think it’s the best. That episode works completely today, even with 60’s tech. It’s a simple human story. Another episode like that is Court Martial. I would stel from those episodes in any series I produced.
Conscience of the King is awesome! First time I was scared of someone that titillated. It was a fascinating experience. (See what I did there)
LOL. She did have a scary laugh, didn’t she?
titillated! I giggled a little…