What's On? Star Trek: The Original Series

ZOMG IT'S SAI!

Sorry about the spacing, I tried to fix it, but blogger is being a pain in the ass and won't accept my changes.

Well first of all, sorry about the huge gap in posting. Truth be told, I watched 4 episodes over the summer. It was unfortunate because I had only the second half of the final season remaining going into the summer, so I should have finished it up quickly and moved on, but I did not. Though this was a short series, it did take much longer than I hope even longer series' to take.

The Star Trek franchise is one of the most, if not the most well known franchise in all of science fiction. It was originally cancelled after 3 seasons (the third which was due to overwhelming fan support writing letters to NBC to protest the cancellation of the show after the second season). Unfortunately, in its 3rd season, the show never fully recovered and it was cancelled after just 3 seasons. Today though, it has enjoyed a lot of success including inspiring 5 series (many of which experienced great success and ratings) as well as 12 movies (of varying levels of greatness).

While mostly corny, the effects in the original series were ahead of their time and the writers employed had great imaginations to have to create worlds for each episode. Unfortunately, the too often present cheesiness factor can really turn people off from this show. For example, the first half of the first season and scattered throughout the series are some enemies that can basically do anything with just their minds. The idea gets repetitive, but once you get through the first season, it becomes less of an issue. The characters are all interesting and they have cool personality quirks to bring to the table that spark up some funny dialogues at times. The characters are:

Captain James T. Kirk- The captain of the USS Enterprise, a headstrong leader and a great one at that. He values the lives of the people on the Enterprise over his own. He is basically a copy of an honorable captain of a sailing vessel from ye olde england. He always upholds the laws of the Federation and he is the strong kind of leader that everyone looks up to for guidance.

1st Officer/Science Officer Spock- Spock is half human and half vulcan. He really tries to reject his human side though in favor of the cold, logical vulcan half. It does make him useful though. More often than not, he is the calm boon that others look to when the situation gets dire.

Chief Medical Officer Leonard "Bones" McCoy- He's the southern doctor who is frequently arguing with Spock. They have a rather entertaining relationship that gives the show some funny moments in otherwise boring places. He's really thick-headed, but that's what makes him cool. He also has spawned some great quotes, such as "Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a [insert obscure profession here]!" and "He's dead, Jim" which is also an overused thing in the first season.

Chief Engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott- One of the two characters that has a pretty cheesy fake accent. Scotty is, in my opinion, one of the coolest characters. He is the second in command, which means when both Kirk and Spock are planetside (which happens more often than you would think), he is in charge of the Enterprise. He acts mainly on his feelings and for some reason, he has a much higher level of success with that than the other characters that do.

Communications Officer/Lieutenant Nyota Uhura- She is the stereotypical woman of the '60's. She is obsessed with her feminine beauty and she actually seems to suffer physically in one episode when she sees an ugly reflection of herself. She and Kirk actually experience an on screen kiss in one episode that was really racy at the time. She rarely leaves the ship, but nonetheless, she has become a popular example of how sexist (in a funny way) the series was.

Helmsman Hikaru Sulu- His character remains rather mysterious, but we do find out that he is kind of a ninja. He doesn't speak very much, but as far as characters go, he is kind of like a backup Spock in that his character is very logical, but can falter at time since he is human after all.

Navigator Pavel Chekov- He's the new guy. He actually doesn't arrive in the show until the second season, so don't be too confused if he isn't there. It is clear this show was made in the Cold War era because he has the cheesiest Russian accent I have ever heard. He still has good chemistry with Sulu though as they are both responsible for basically steering the Enterprise. His character is a bit more explained than Sulu's, which is fine by me because his character is often much more entertaining (hearing about stories from back in the motherland).

Nurse Christine Chapel- She's the kind, motherly nurse that is not in every episode, but makes frequent appearences. She is a kind person that is often too trusting, but she is also very professional.

Yeoman Janice Rand- She is only in the first season and the first couple of episodes of the second season. She resembles Chloe from 24 and she is not a very interesting character to be honest.

Unfortunately, it is often easy to call what will happen in an episode. For example, Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and some random guy in a red shirt will go down to the planet to explore. When something like that happens, it's pretty obvious that the unknown guy will be killed. I guess the expendable people are given red shirts so that the enemy knows who to shoot.

Probably the best part about Star Trek is that it doesn't really require you to watch all the episodes in order. I would of course recommend watching the early half of season one in order, but after that, go wild. The episodes are always contained within themselves (with maybe one exception throughout the series), so you can watch whichever one you want whenever.

The biggest problem with the episodes though is that the main plot of the episode takes about 15-20 minutes to get to (very slow build) and then in the last 5 minutes of the hour long episode, everything is suddenly resolved. By that, I mean that we go from them talking about the issue, and then in the last 5 minutes, there's all the action, then the closure for the episode. It gets a bit tiring to watch the episodes multiple ones at a time because of that.

All in all, it's a good show that you should definitely look into if you're into science fiction. It may surprise you how many references are made to Star Trek: The Original Series in other very famous science fiction movies.

Ok that's it for this time on "What's On?" Now, I will start watching shows that were around for much longer, but hopefully I'll avoid having such a large gap as this last one between postings. So yeah, tune in next time for more good watches.