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Posted: |
Oct 17, 2016 - 8:42 AM
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By: |
RoryR
(Member)
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Curiously, I like old DR. WHO better than I do STAR TREK -- and they both came out around the same time, and have the same "issues" in terms of production design etc.
DR. WHO from the mid-sixties?!!! Now, you are crazy, Thor. WHO was a video taped kid's show with a per episode budget of two pounds. ST was high budgeted American prime time TV aimed at a largely adult audience -- and you weren't even born then, so shut up, you Norwegian meatball! However, as far as the scripts at their basics, you may have a point other than just the one at the top of your head, Thor.
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Beautifully made points, William D. Helps reconfirm why I've always loved TOS - my own amateur and college theatrical background has ensured that I have always responded to its inherent theatricality. And I love the original effects - I've never found them problematic at all.
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I think the strange studio planet sets of TOS add tremendously to the atmosphere of STAR TREK. No amount of modern wonderland CGI can better minimalist stylized planet settings such as this:
When i recently rewatched a lot of the first Star Treks, i felt the alien landscape sets like this one pictured actually worked succesfully and looked a lot better on film than as a still. I really didn't mind them and they didn't feel cheap, just stylized. Which i was surprised about.
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I think the strange studio planet sets of TOS add tremendously to the atmosphere of STAR TREK. No amount of modern wonderland CGI can better minimalist stylized planet settings such as this:
When i recently rewatched a lot of the first Star Treks, i felt the alien landscape sets like this one pictured actually worked succesfully and looked a lot better on film than as a still. I really didn't mind them and they didn't feel cheap, just stylized. Which i was surprised about.
Yes, I really like them.
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Of course, the problem with old DR. WHO is that a lot of the episodes are lost. But when I went trough ALL episodes awhile back (even those that were reconstructed with only still images and sound), I found myself envelopped in the narratives and the dilemmas far more than I did STAR TREK. Granted, WHO is not my favourite sci fi either, but as long as we're talking what I earlier called "pointy ear sci fi", I mentioned it.
I have never seen even a single episode of DR. WHO. So one day, I could lose my DR. WHO virginity, to keep with the title of this thread.
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Beautifully made points, William D. Helps reconfirm why I've always loved TOS - my own amateur and college theatrical background has ensured that I have always responded to its inherent theatricality. And I love the original effects - I've never found them problematic at all.
That's why I seriously think some enterprising (no pun!) playwright could seriously make some genuinely good stage plays using the sets that we all know, good subdued lighting, and big name actors on tour. You could deal with a ton of psychological, political, spiritual, sociological, ethical issues in the old way, but meatily, like TS Elliot or the like.
Premiere the thing at something like the Edinburgh Festival to give it clout, REFUSE to emphasise phasers and monsters and Trekkie in-house OCD, and just write some good plays with the old characters. And don't market it for children or as so-called family entertainment.
Why hasn't somebody done that?
Part of the joy was the stylised sets, as you say; no-one in his right mind ever thought those flashing coloured rectangles and sliders could ever mean anything as controls ... because they weren't meant to be distractions. Just as the TOS uniforms were very minimal 'metaphors' for real uniforms. Theatre.
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Also the viewscreen. Many of my favorite Trek moments are just conversations across the view screen. My favorite episode of TOS, Balance of Terror, works exactly as a play would. And of course, in the general favorite Trek film, Wrath of Khan, the antagonists never meet in person. Just talking to each other across viewscreens or on radios - a completely theatrical conceit.
EDIT: Corrected the "balance," thanks to Ado.
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I don't think nostalgia is a big factor in the love for TOS.
IN my case, many shows from the 60's - that I loved as a child- do not hold up for me now
e.g, IT TAKES A THIEF, GET SMART, WILD, WILD, WEST....
TOS holds up very well indeed!
TOS is a class production with great writing throughout the 3 year run.
ANd, in SPock, it created one of the most memorable fictional characters of all time.
brm
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My favorite original series episodes are those that mainly take place aboard the Enterprise. The episode where they battle the giant single-cell organism always comes to mind. That's the reason why I liked "Voyager" so much.
you liked VOYAGER??????!!!!!!!
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Yikes, how embarrassing! Balance of Terror, of course.
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A guy I used to know, but have lost touch with, was a fan of ST.
He decided he wanted to be an astronaut, became a pilot, took up climbing, and got himself a PhD in astrophysics.
Now he's a top bod in the European Space Agency.
So, even the space Maguffins have had fruitful spin-offs. How many scientists could tell a similar tale, I wonder?
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