…at the begininng at least. I’m going to assume it was a combination of Roddenberry cockblocking and most of the writers being TV writers.
TOS starts with the two aforementioned eps and WNMHGB. That’s three eps in a row with haunting endings. I don’t see TOS so much as Wagon Train in space as Twilight Zone in space at first.
Meanwhile, what does TNG start with?? A being judged by God ep?? Really Roddenberry? In your first ep? Booooo. Bad form sir.
So many bad early, cringy TNG episodes.
Even in Alternative Factor, at least the stakes are high. Meanwhile on TNG…oh the warlord of a planet of stereotypes has kidnapped Lt. Yar. I’m sorry, how is that science fiction???
I think you’re probably right about Roddenberry at first.
That said, the writers over the long haul used Q and the ‘judged by God’ thing to full advantage by reworking Q and connecting him to things that could rightfully be said to matter.
For the record: “The Man Trap” was written by George Clayton Johnson.
“Charlie X” was written by Dorothy Fontana, who wrote some of the series’ best episodes and is (I believe) the last surviving member of the production crew. She probably knows more about the show than anyone else alive. The story line was one of the original “springboards” from Roddenberry’s 1964 series format.
Like any other show, it took some time for it to hit its stride. This went beyond the writing to the actors developing their characters and learning to work off of one another. I see a dramatic change in the middle of the first season (around the time of “The Galileo Seven” and “The Squire of Gothos”), especially in Shatner and Nimoy’s performances. That was also around the time Gene Coon came in as Producer.
The episodes were not, BTW, aired in the order they were filmed (and are not being aired that way now, SFAICT). “The Man Trap” was actually the fifth show filmed after the second pilot.
I love Shatners sorta-Brandoesque, very casual acting in the early eps.
Doing a Brad Pitt and eating while acting, off the cuff remarks overlapping dialogue stuff like “Take one of those little read pills you gave me. You’ll sleep!”
Also only realized today that from Kirk’s POV in Charlie X, until the shit hits the fan, he’s greatly bemused by the whole thing. His exchange with Rand on the bridge “Iiiii’ve already talked to him about the slap on the rear!” is hilarious. How exasperated he is to be thrust into this situation.
Also of course the early eps have Rand. I like Rand. And I like how the early eps make good use of the supporting crew. And things like checklists (!) as seen in The Naked Time. The “Engineering tension” seen in that ep and That Which Survives is great.
I agree with you. In “The Naked Time,” I love how, near the end, when they’re all wondering if they’re going to make it, the camera flashes from one face to another.
Upon rereading the original post, I see it’s more a critique of ***TNG ***than TOS. And I agree the former sucked, especially in the first couple of years. By the time it debuted, Roddenberry was already past his prime, sadly and unfortunately. It improved (somewhat) after other people took control of it. The best thing they did was minimize the aspect of having families aboard, to the point where they were all but forgotten.
In James Blish’s adaptation of that episode, the ending is very different. Scotty et al. manage to break into Engineering, get the engines going, and put the ship back into its orbit as the planet breaks up below them. That’s it. They don’t travel three days back into time.
Blish was apparently working from early draft scripts, and most of his adaptations differed considerably from what was aired. For instance, it was Sulu who knew about quadrotriticale in “The Trouble with Tribbles” and not Chekov, and it was revealed at the end of “Who Mourns for Adonais?” that Caroline Polomas was carrying Apollo’s child.
I agree about the early episodes of ST:TNG being pretty disappointing. Among other things, a lot of them felt like retreads of TOS episodes. There wasn’t enough “real science fiction” in the series – it felt like jargon (TOS used a lot of sf authors and genre TV writers, especially at first). It got so bad that I stopped watching, and missed out when it started getting good again.
I was trying to think of the most TOS like early TNG episode: High stakes/haunting ending wherein crew commiserates with each other/guest star runs amuck
Closest I could think of was that first season ep where the Guest Crazy Admiral keeps getting younger…and the second to last ep “Conspiricy”
There’s a very good documentary about the early days of TNG, written and directed by William Shatner, of all people, called Chaos on the Bridge. It was on Netflix; I’m not sure whether it still is or not. One of the things I learned from it is that Roddenberry was actually preparing to retire and move to Hawaii when TNG started. He was a bit surprised, coming out of the TNG negotiations, to realize that he had agreed to become the producer of a new series, at a time when he had been looking forward to taking it easy.
I always chuckle at the “which is better” arguments.
TOS had a higher percentage of poor episodes, but TNG worse episodes were an order of magnitude worse. Take Genesis v Spock’s Brain, or Masks vs Alternative Factor. They all suck, but I can’t rewatch Genesis ever again.
And while both Naked Time and Naked Now are poor episodes, Naked Now suffers much more by being a copy with no need to exist other than fill out an already weak season.
I personally find the “resolution by god-like aliens” to be an annoying part of the Original Series, and thus Charlie X doesn’t work for me. He is just a lesser Q being naughty. Sure the theme of belonging is interesting, but I find it mired by the “super powerful aliens come back and save the day” ending. I actually like the first TNG episode better because Q doesn’t come in and resolve it once the humans have done all they can. We actually solve the problem. We show up the godlike being who thinks we can’t do it, unlike TOS’s constant “godlike aliens are better than us” vibe.
“Man Trap” is good, but it feels weird knowing it came so early. It feels like it should be later, after characters have been established more. And I’m not really sure how I feel about “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” IT just feels weird. Even with the godlike aliens, I find that I like the first pilot more. Maybe it’s because, once again, humanity beats the godlike aliens (or, at least, goes beyond their expectations. I know I like the TOS episode with the Gorn for that, too.)
It’s weird that “Man Trap” was the first episode broadcast, considering how poorly Dr. McCoy comes off in it. So besotted by meeting his old girlfriend again (even though it’s not really her), he gets distracted from his job and ends up making mistake after mistake. You can tell that this wasn’t actually intended to be the first episode. Surely no TV producer in their right mind would want to introduce one of their main characters with an episode that portrays him as such a bungler.
Jethro Gibbs. In his introduction in JAG, he came across as incredibly incompetent. He was SURE Rabb murdered Lt Singer. In real life, of course, it was possible that he might have, so Gibbs should investigate with that as a theory. But we in the audience know Rabb didn’t, and Gibbs didn’t seem to want to consider even the possibility he didn’t. Since Rabb did not in fact murder her, Gibbs looked lazy and stupid.
Kept me from ever watching NCIS because I disliked the Gibbs character so much.
NBC chose “The Man Trap” for the first episode aired for a couple of reasons. First of all, though it was the fifth episode filmed,* the only others completed by the time the series debuted were “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” “The Naked Time,” and “Mudd’s Women.” It was felt the first “was made for selling, not for airing,” the second was “too expository,” and the third had too much “hanky-panky in space.” Second, “The Man Trap” was considered to have the most “science fiction flavor” (by people who, I would guess, were used to watching Lost in Space).
Everyone was concerned about making a good impression on the critics, a company of whom was on set when they were filming the Sick Bay scene in “The Man Trap.” You can imagine the reaction when they heard a guy with pointed ears and green blood tell the Captain that he’d been attacked by a monster.
I personally would not have put the episodes on in the order they were aired, but that’s the way it goes…
*I misspoke in my earlier post. It was the fifth episode filmed *including *the second pilot.