Superman Through the Ages! Forum

Whoever doesn't like Star Trek doesn't like anything.

Though FUTURAMA made a remarkably wise observation: "C'mon, STAR TREK! It had 79 episodes...and 30 good ones."

When exactly did TREK "jump the shark?"

"The Apple", "Gamesters of Triskelion", and "By Any Other Name" seem to me that there was some lack of imagination by season two...

I'm tempted to say, "when Futurama did that Star Trek episode," but maybe it was when the first movie came out?  The animated shows, which I haven't seen for 20 years, had some good writing by all accounts.  The movie is the first major departure from the greatness.  Number 2 brought it back, but I haven't really liked any of the others (but I missed some --aren't there, like, 17 movies now?).

I was never hot on the Tribbles episode, but it is more like a freaky exception that proves the rule of Star Trek greatness and flexibility.

If I had to pick one of your limited categories, I would pick the Constitution ep, if only because it offends my super-refined sensibilities (tm) as a Canadian.  As well, it laid the groundwork for decades of thinly veiled American flag-waving in the Trekkie-verse.

Hey come on, the Space Hippies episode was great!

I think that the show jumped the shark after season 2. Gene Roddenberry took a much more reduced role, less hands-on, in the 3rd season.  As a result, his humanistic message was lost, and people were completely out of character - I even remember one 3rd season episode in which Spock (yes, Spock, not Kirk) was trying to pick-up some space babe!

:s:

Well, the reason the choices are limited is because 1) they only allow so many options for polls on this forum, 2) you only REALLY need "Spock's Brain," 3) I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the Shari Lewis episode (yes, THAT Shari Lewis), and 4) If there was an "Other..." choice, everybody would pick that one and it would defeat the purpose of a poll to begin with, wouldn't it?



Yeah, that's true. I loved that one, and even Spock with that funky autoharp of his joining a hippie jam session is more "wow, that's kinda kitschy and cool," sort of like episodes of the cartoon where the Harlem Globetrotters travel through time, or that episode of KNIGHT RIDER that guest-starred Gary Coleman.



There's a famous story about Gene leaving and Freddy Frieberger taking over.

When Frieberger was shown the series bible, he was leafing through it, and then suddenly looked up and said, "Oh, okay, so this is pretty much 'tits in space!' "

For me, Season III was the "shark jump" point too. Here's an amusing story about Gene Coon, writer of "Devil in the Dark" and that tribble episode:

According to Coon, he wrote "Spock's Brain" (the Season III opener) as a parody script to spoof Gene Roddenberry, who Coon felt never really understood science fiction. Coon never actually intended it to be filmed!

Hey I liked The Lights of Zetar and The peace hippies - the Yangs & Coms always cracked me up (yes, fans, another world deep in the galactic omniverse where yet another strange planet has mysteriously duplicated earth's history)

Jack Kirby liked the gangster ep he even did his own version in the FF>

Uh my vote would been Freiberger but I blew it --we blew it!

And if your space hippies include Jill Ireland, Id get sappy too (which was my vote)

I never should take polls on a 1/3 cup of am joe....

MatterEaterLad writes:



Whoa!  I agree those eps are pretty unlovable, but Season Two also gave us some truly great ones, including two of my personal top 3, "The Doomsday Machine" and "Mirror, Mirror."  If I had to be stranded on a desert island with only one DVD, it would have those two and "City on the Edge of Forever."  

Personally, I think "Trek" jumped the shark on a regular basis, but never really "stayed jumped".  The generally awful third season still had gems like "The Tholian Web" while even the much-loved first season had clunkers like "The Alternative Factor" and "Mudd's Women." Or maybe another way to look at it is that "Trek" gleefully lived its life on the far side of the shark: bad science, goofy make-up, hammy acting and sanctimonious sermonizing are usually enough to kill any show, but somehow they're all part of the appeal of Star Trek:TOS.  

For me, the spin-off series, with their flawless effects, sober-minded ensemble acting and general insistence on taking themselves seriously, totally sucked the charm out of Star Trek.  Technically, TNG, DS9 and the rest are superior in every way to Kirk's adventures, but for me they're about as much fun as watching laundry go around in one of those glass-fronted washing machines at Sears.

The excitement of original Star Trek, for me, is that it could be so daring and even reckless; it went out on a limb with some really wild ideas.  Some of them paid off in spades, others crashed and burned, but a great many of them at least reached for something bold.  If any eps were failures to me, it was the ones that played it safe and relied on formula, but even then you had all those great little moments of character interplay between Kirk, Spock and Bones.

So I reject your poll! Trek never jumped the shark!  And even if it had, I'd proudly display a poster of Shatner in leather jacket and waterskis over my desk.  He could have made it work!  

"We knew there would be sharks out here when we left Earth.  That's why we're here, gentlemen...to find the sharks of life, look...them...SQUARE in the eye...and then hurtle over them in a triumpant leap of the human spirit!  Risk is our business!  Spock, hand me that life-jacket...Scotty, full speed ahead!"

Oh, I agree that season 2 had a lot of strong episodes...I even think that the Lights of Zetar had a good beginning mystery and nice background score and blinking light effects...its just that they used the score and lights repeatedly instead of story for the whole last half of the episode... 8)

Julian, did you mean to say that Gene Coon wrote "that tribble episode"?

He didn't.  "The Trouble with Tribbles" was written by David Gerrold, author of When H.A.R.L.I.E. was one.  Mr. Gerrold also wrote a book about his experiences writing "The Trouble with Tribbles"  - from first draft to his interactions with Roddenberry and the rest of the Trek crew to seeing the final shoot of the episode.  He also wrote the sequel for the animated series, and he's also writing a  for Star Trek: New Voyages about which he promises: "What starts out funny won't be for long."

 (http://www.startreknewvoyages.com/800/news-archive.php[/url)

Thanks, Nightwing.  I needed that!

:s:

the 6th movie, b/c that's the last thing involving the original star trek, it never jumped the shark, until they stopped making it

Well said, sir!

The Original Series rules!  :D

And soon, you can see it in HD with re-done CGI effects!  :shock:

you could even say

"they went where no television series went before"!!

It will be interesting to see enhanced effects on STOS...

Actually, it really is a personal thing to me what episodes I liked in the series, I actually liked the "Way to Eden", especially Spock jamming with the kids, on the other hand, by "Spectre of the Gun", I was a little bored with crew members getting yanked off the Enterprise by omnipotent beings...actually, one universally panned episode I liked was "The Empath", even though it is improbable, I liked the spare sets and the human theme to it.

I felt the other way: I thought "The Empath" was a sadistic and perverse hour of torture with no real pay-off, while "Specter of the Gun" had some real tension to it, at least the first time I saw it. (There was also the neat twist of seeing De Kelly fight on the losing side of the OK Corral gunfight, having previously sided with the winners in the Lancaster/Douglas film version).

Both episodes pretty much define "spare sets", but in creative and interesting ways.  Any other show stuck with such a meager budget would be in real trouble, but since this is Sci-Fi, you can do a whole episode on a nearly empty stage -- or in the case of "Specter," with "sets" that have only one wall, or part of a wall -- and it comes off not as cheap, but as artful surrealism.  Contrast that to a sci-fi show like, say, The Six Million Dollar Man, which depended on exterior and location shots and looked junkier and junkier as time went on and budgets got smaller. Trek was a lot better at hiding how low-rent it ultimately got.

 
8)

How can you beat Kirk saying "you've lost the capacity to FEEL the very emotions you brought Gem here to experience!"... :wink:   And I wanted Scotty's quote about a "pearl of great price" to actually mean something (there was something about the wind up on the well-lit bridge set that I liked on some episodes), but alas, that wasn't meant to be...

Perhaps the only time I noticed the sets was in "That Which Survives", but then I never could stop laughing that the entire medical staff and computers of the Enterprise couldn't figure out what killed one crew member, and McCoy on the planet's surface used one wave of his diagnostic medical "fountain pen cap" and states "Jim, every cell in this man's body has been disrupted!"...

When it ended.

They were all great.

However, I didn't like any of the films.

well, you know the odd/even rule don't you?

If  the enhancements are somewhat like this, they would be fairly subtle and not bad, but here, the Constellation still looks like its twisting on a string in the first encounter...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9XHmj-dPEY

The correct answer is Star Trek V.

And it's not "jump the shark", but rather "jump the Sybok".  Some Terran ears don't hear that phrase right.  There's another popular Vulcan saying that Terrans manage to corrupt into "Only Nixon could go to China", for equally illogical reasons.