Star Trek Thoughts - Part 5
Feb. 12th, 2026 08:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chris_gerribI am continuing my ongoing (semi-) rewatch of Star Trek: The Original Series. I've started on Season 2 and this post will cover stories from episode 1 ("Amok Time") to episode 5 ("The Apple").
Technical: Thanks to the improved video of the remastered edition, it remains obvious every time they swap out a stunt double for a lead actor in a fight scene. Also, any time an alien world is a soundstage it looks, well, sound-stagey. I'll list it here under technical: in the interests of getting more commercials in, the short scene where Mirror Kirk is tossed in the brig is cut out of the re-runs.
Story: Kind of a mixed bag. "Amok Time" is when Spock has to go to Vulcan to get his freak on. The more recent series "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" has made a hash of this episode. In the newer series, Chapel has *met* T'Pring (and presumably bumped ugly with Spock) where as in this episode all of Vulcan is strange and new. Even taking the episode at face value it's just okay. We also get the first Mirror Universe story which is good.
Then we get episode 5, "The Apple" which is the first appearance of space hippies. (Enough said.) However, this is an episode where we see some reversion away from the redshirt phenomenon - Kirk is visibly upset at the deaths of his crewmembers and concerned about loosing everybody on the ship. Additionally, the pattern of the three main characters cracking wise at the end of the episode is getting pretty firmly established.
Finally, I've found it interesting to look at the Wikipedia entries of the episodes. Every episode seems to have a new female character. Reading their Wikipedia biographies highlights the sexist nature of Hollywood at the time. Basically, almost all have ended their acting careers by the end of the 70s and gone onto other work.
Technical: Thanks to the improved video of the remastered edition, it remains obvious every time they swap out a stunt double for a lead actor in a fight scene. Also, any time an alien world is a soundstage it looks, well, sound-stagey. I'll list it here under technical: in the interests of getting more commercials in, the short scene where Mirror Kirk is tossed in the brig is cut out of the re-runs.
Story: Kind of a mixed bag. "Amok Time" is when Spock has to go to Vulcan to get his freak on. The more recent series "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" has made a hash of this episode. In the newer series, Chapel has *met* T'Pring (and presumably bumped ugly with Spock) where as in this episode all of Vulcan is strange and new. Even taking the episode at face value it's just okay. We also get the first Mirror Universe story which is good.
Then we get episode 5, "The Apple" which is the first appearance of space hippies. (Enough said.) However, this is an episode where we see some reversion away from the redshirt phenomenon - Kirk is visibly upset at the deaths of his crewmembers and concerned about loosing everybody on the ship. Additionally, the pattern of the three main characters cracking wise at the end of the episode is getting pretty firmly established.
Finally, I've found it interesting to look at the Wikipedia entries of the episodes. Every episode seems to have a new female character. Reading their Wikipedia biographies highlights the sexist nature of Hollywood at the time. Basically, almost all have ended their acting careers by the end of the 70s and gone onto other work.
