From: rawdon@cabrales.cs.wisc.edu (Michael Rawdon)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.misc
Subject: Re: Series' beginnings
Date: 14 Apr 92 17:56:35 GMT
Reply-To: rawdon@cabrales.cs.wisc.edu
Organization: University of Wisconsin Computer Sciences Dept., Madison, WI

Well, this should be entertaining. :-)

In <9204131503.AA22417@tyrell.CFSMO.Honeywell.COM> ottoh3@CFSMO.Honeywell.COM (Otto Heuer #3) writes:
>Jason Snell posts:
>| Now, to flame point #2: "Where No Man Has Gone Before," which, in my mind, is
>| one of TOS' best episodes.

>Let's see if I can even IMAGINE something from the show that could have
>made it even an AVERAGE episode of TOS...  hmmm.... any humorous
>interaction between the crewmen?  nope...

Yeah, least of all that exchange in the elevator after Kirk beat Spock at
chess. :-)

>					    any deep thought-provoking plot?
>nope...

Kirk has to kill his best friend and first officer.  Yeah, pretty lame. :-)

>	 any deep look into a major character?  nope...

Kirk watches his best friend become inhuman before his eyes, is forced to
kill him, argues with Spock about this point, even as Kirk has to begin
relying on Spock as his de facto first officer.  That's pretty deep, I think.

>Okay, feel free to try to convince me why this episode is so good.

I dunno; maybe you're right. :-)

Actually, "WNMHGB" is in my top 5 Trek stories, so I obviously disagree. :-)

>| You've got a mysterious force which kills a few
>| crewmembers, and seriously injures others,

>"mysterious"? sorry... didn't even cause me to CARE.  Maybe if they had
>concentrated on exploring WHY this was happening at the barrier it 
>would have held my interest, but they just decided to abandon it and
>focus on this minor character that we aren't even led to care about.

I disagree.  I felt that Mitchell was built up as a very sympathetic
character, and a look at WHY the barrier did what it did I think would have
been disastrously tedious.  As in "Yesterday's Enterprise", the more
exciting option is to deal with the effects rather than explore the causes.

>| The evil-looking first
>| officer, who is not really close to the captain,

>Maybe that's another reason I didn't like it.  It doesn't mesh with
>the rest of the series.  Inconsistencies...

Actually, the rest of the series didn't mesh with it.  "WNMHGB" came first,
remember.

I think Spock was visually more interesting in this episode than in most
of the rest of the series.  The uniforms were better too.

>| "WNMHGB" is classic trek,

>"WNMHGB" is classic drek, with cardboard characters (Mitchell and the
>doctor, not to mention the worst acting I've seen from Kellerman in her
>entire career).

Gee, I hate to think of where that puts the rest of the series. :-)

>| chilling and disturbing, 

>Musta been watching different episodes...

Obviously! :-)

>| as well as being a pretty
>| solid action show.

>They had at least 10 better show that were "action" oriented:
[some deleted]
>Patterns of Force
>A Piece of the Action
>The Savage Curtain
>Spectre of the Gun
>Dagger of the Mind

I can't buy any of these as being even in the same nation, much less the
same ballpark. :-)

>Even if we steer away from the "action" episodes, there were many that were
>better that WNMHGB":
[Again, some deleted]

>The Paradise Syndrome
>Wink of an Eye
>By Any Other Name
>I, Mudd
>The Way to Eden

Ditto these.  In fact, except for the first, I find all of these episodes to
be very poor; mind-candy at best.

>I really do find it painful to watch DM.   When Decker  starts drooling and
>spitting on the cast members as he utters (with no sense of  acting at all)

We obviously have different definitions of the word "acting". :-)

>"it had a maw that could swallow a dozen  (or was  it thousand) starships!"
>(as we see a shuttle that looks larger  than the  stone carrot),  I have to
>reach for the remote and hope there's an  old rerun  of "The  Gong Show" on
>another channel to raise the entertainment level a few notches.   (Sorry, I
>used to watch these in the 70s).

Personally, I think "The Doomsday Machine" is the best episode that Trek
Classic ever produced.  (And second only to ST2:TWOK in all of Trek.)  It
just doesn't get much better than that.  I certainly don't think that any
of the 20 episodes you listed above approach it in quality.

>| Singling out "EaF" as an average TNG is a slap in the face,

>Not when I can name 50 episodes of TNG that were worse...

I agree with you on "EaF".  I find it to be quite average, myself.  Which I
think *is* a testimony to the low quality of TNG.

>| but saying that
>| "WNMHGB" is dreck is just baffling.

>.and can name 50 episodes of TOS that were better.

I might be able to name 3, if I tried hard. :-)

-- 
Michael Rawdon
rawdon@cabrales.cs.wisc.edu
University of Wisconsin Computer Sciences Department, Madison, WI

"Can this world not do better than you for a champion?"
"Probably.  I just do the best I can."
					- The Brigadier
					  Doctor Who, "Battlefield"
					  [Probably misquoted]