For some reason I figured I wanted to watch the old Star Trek series again. I didn't have a set and didn't want to buy them so I NetFlix'd 'em. Now they are poppin' into my mailbox and I'm started watchin' the first season. I hadn't seen but a few of these shows for nearly 40 years. When the series started in the 1960's I had to watch the last half of the show since the rest of the family wanted to watch some sitcom during the first half hour. I got to watch the whole show in the reruns that summer and in subsequent syndication over the next few years. Then I didn't watch them anymore. I went to see the Star Trek movies in the theaters but never cared for the other ST TV series that followed the original and I just didn't become a fan. I only recently got a copy of all the ST movies and still don't care that much for some of them.
I'm going to go through the series disc by disc and comment on them a bit so I can read this later and remember if I need to pick these up on BluRay, or whatever the new format is by then. I hope it's digital downloads directly to your brain, imagine the resolution. The dvd's from NetFlix are the Remastered versions of the show. The space scenes have been replaced with CGI versions. The scenes with people in the ship or on planets are highly processed and they look pretty good. I saw them in black and white when they came out so anything looks better than that. I didn't see a color episode until I went to a science fiction convention in the mid-70's and it was on 16 mm film. I don't see a problem with replacing the old ships and planets with nice clear detailed images. Cleaning up the rest of the show, sharpening the image, and adjusting the colors so they look nice just makes sense. There's a nice 20 minute featurette on the first disc that talks about the changes. Just the work on the image, when compared to the last dvd release, is worth the cost and effort. Not like they didn't make some money from re-release on tv and the opportunity to resell the same series on dvd, to the same people, is high.
The Man Trap was first broadcast Sept 8, 1966 and of course I remember nothing about it. It was the premiere episode on tv but the 6th one produced. The episode was written by George Clayton Johnson of later Logan's Run fame. The Captain, Doctor McCoy and Crewman deadguy Darnell go down to surface of a dry red planet to check up on Professor Crater and his wife. He's studying the long dead race that had lived and died there. Just a routine health check for humans living all alone on a planet. McCoy had once dated Mrs Crater but he hasn't seen her for ten years. When he first sees her she appears as a young woman from the time before they parted. The Captain sees her as an older grey haired woman and Crewman Darnell sees her as a blonde he had once known on a naughty planet. What's up with that, huh. Turns out it's an alien with powers of illusion. That way it can get close to you and then suck the salt out of you. That's not a euphemism, it's salt the alien is jonesin' for, and poor Darnell is the first to sucked saltless. That alien is the last of it's kind but it's been sucking the salt out of the crew until they die and that's a death sentence so it's gotta get destroyed at the end of the show. They made the doctor kill the creature. He had to blast it while it looked like his old girlfriend pleading for her life. Ain't that a bitch! It's a tough episode, kind of dark, not sure why they lead with that one. Maybe they thought the drama laced show would attract some notice and get people to come back. I know I did. I was like many kids who liked science fiction who were just waiting for a good show to come along. It might look dated but at the time it was pretty amazing. Not all the episodes were great in it's three year run but many were. I do like that the show went to different places and that we got to meet, and often kill, some different alien life forms. It's a tough old universe in Gene Roddenberry's vision, lots of conflict, many die.
Charlie X was the second episode broadcast and it was the 8th one they produced. The Enterprise picks up a 17 year old guy from a cargo ship. Robert Walker Jr plays Charlie and he's does a pretty good job playing a tough role. Charlie had been found on a planet, the only survivor of a ship wreck 14 years earlier, and he'd learned to speak from tapes in the ship. Turns out Charlie has some magical powers and can change things with his mind. He's a bratty kid who can't wait for whatever he wants and if he doesn't get his way he can send you off to nothingness or worse. Kind of reminded me of the Twilight Zone episode with the kid that sends you off to the cornfield if you don't do what he wants. You see a lot of repeated ideas when you watch as much tv as I do. Kirk keeps Charlie in check for a while but soon enough he proves to be a danger to the ship. Charlie takes over the ships controls, blocking contact with the outside world. Kirk figures out a way to overload Charlie so he drops his defenses. Turns out the ship hailing them is a race of super powerful aliens that gave Charlie his powers so he could survive. They've come to take Charlie with them, and even though he really really doesn't want to go with the aliens, all Charlie gets from the captain and the rest of the crew is a cold stoney stare. So, all you teens better get the message, the human race will only put up with so much of your shit, then they'll sell your ass out. It's a fairly entertaining episode though I tired of Charlie sooner than the captain did. I wouldn't help his ass by the end of the show either. I might like to kiss up to the aliens though, they could come in handy to know, what with having some powers and all. I don't believe we ever seen them again.
Where No Man Has Gone Before is the somewhat re-edited second pilot. The Cage was the first pilot and it didn't have Captain Kirk. The Cage appears on the DVD but later in the set. Spock was the only character in both pilots. Gary Lockwood plays Gary Mitchell, the helsman on the bridge and Kirk's self declared best friend, Sally Kellerman is a psychiatrist. Both of them pass out when the ship encounters a rift in space. When Gary wakes up he's got the start of some rapidly growing mental powers and bright shiny eyes. He gets all full of himself and eventually threathens the human race. They plan to put him down on a planet and keep him there but it doesn't go well and the captain has to blast his old pal and crush him with a giant bolder. Sally had the same powers develop much slower and she's was still human enough to fight Gary near the end of the show, draining him of his power, allowing Kirk to kill his best friend. That's another harsh show. Oh, yeah, Sally dies too. Babylon 5 had an episode with a similar story about a powerful telepath being hunted by the Psycops. Being too different or powerful can bring death on a tv show which is a good lesson to be learned. Of course in our mundane world you can get shanked in some houses for changing the TV channel. I just heard that happened last week. Another fairly good episode but it's too bad they didn't open with it. It breaks up the continuity a bit, not that a person couldn't watch the episodes in whatever order they like. There's a sequel to this episode in the fan made Of Gods And Men. I haven't watched it.
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