Week two of Star Trek. The rules are simple, but slightly altered.
No one can user later undiscussed episodes.
The movies are a no no.
Later Star Trek series are out of bounds as well. We’ll treat this as Star Trek Year Zero.
New Episodes Air Tuesday Nights at 8pm on NBC
If you have that Alberta station you may post 1 day early but you must use spoiler boxes.
You may treat this as it were the sixties on the grounds that the discussion sticks to the show. Each new episode is a new episode
If you need reference or want to know what is coming up next I’d suggest refering to this episode guide
[/QUOTE]
Last nights episode was Charlie X
Not bad. Charlie creeped me out with some of his powers (especially the one where he removes the face of that one woman. Yet I still felt sort of sorry for him in the end.
Another interesting aspect is it took place completely on the ship giving us a good view of not just the bridge, halls and breifing room but also crew quarters. Not a very efficient use of space though as it seems everyone’s quarters are the same size as the captains.
Of course to save costs they must have built the walls out of ply wood. In the scene where Charlie throws Kirk and spock against the wall there is a visible crack behind the Vulcanian.
So it is official the Enterprise has 428 people on board, that’s quite a lot.
I like the different types of Uniforms for the different levels, (Like the techies jump suits) even Kirk seems to have more than one type of tunic.
Good lines: “My legs are broken” It was weird how calmly Spock said these.
Hmm… don’t you think the crew, or at least the Captain, should have realsed something was up a little sooner? I mean, that business with the card-tricks was pretty out there… surely someone realised that there was a little more than slight of hand going on there? And the melted chess pieces, and the turkeys… a little more concern about unexplained phenomenons (phenomena? what the plural of phenomenon?) seems appropriate for a crew of explorers.
Even when that guy Sam in the gym vanished into thin air, Kirk still seemed pretty calm about it. It’s a crew member, Captain!
Nice job fom the guy that played Charlie. He looks a little old to be playing seventeen (no idea of his real age, he just looks older) but he played the role well. And his “I want to stay” at the end was downright creepy.
General series question… the intro says they’ve got a five year mission to explore, but last episode they were making deliveries, and this episode they were making some kind of security checks and acting as, basically, a big taxi. When do they start exploring?
No to sound sarcastic, but they’re exploring the characters at the moment, since we’re in the beginning of the program. I liked the look at their off-duty life. Most Space Opera usually just concentrates on the “shootin’,” the aliens, or the rock-jawed captain without a thought to the fact that a crew woud go stir crazy out there in space holed up in a tin can for months on end
Charlie was played by Robert Walker, Jr. His late dad turned in a couple creepy performances in his time, so it looks like the creepy acting gene got passed on.
I agree, this ep makes the Captain look a little dumb.
Do they make round playing cards, or were those a dummied-up prop?
I noticed that the uniforms that the Antares guys wore were different to the Enterprise’s. Different color, texture, different collars.
A good episode, but did anybody else notice that the captain got into the elevator with Charlie wearing a regular gold sweatshirt uniform, but got off at the bridge (with no implied stop in between) wearing a green wraparound tunic?
This is good sci-fi. It uses magic as an excuse to explore humanity. Charlie caused horrible, horrible destruction and was clearly on track to cause a hell of a lot more, but by the end we still feel sorry for him. He didn’t choose to become a monster – does that mean he’s not as monstrous as someone who purposely embraced darkness would be? I doubt the girl without a face gives a shit either way. (Creeeeepy, BTW.) Star Trek has shown us some cheesy acting already, but if this episode is any indication, it’s a show that’s running on ideas, and there’s not all that much of this out there.
–Cliffy
P.S. This is a great idea, king.
P.P.S. Sally Kellerman and that dude from 2001 are up next week – how are we going to handle guest stars that are recognizeable from other, future, roles?
Back to 2004, for a moment: The feeling I got from the first thread was that we don’t jokingly make reference to future events/future roles for the actors/future number of reshirts dead, etc.
I can live with this.
Yeah, I mean some one can make a reference but let’s not make it the center of the thread.
Another point I thought of that was interesting. 3D chess is a neat update to the game but it must be extremely difficult for beginers as I noticed Spock check mated Charlie in 2 moves. That must mean the initail set up is a lot less defensive than regular chess.
This episode also mentions the group the Enterprise belongs to: UESPA. My guess an acronym for United Earth Space something agency.
Kirk in one of his captains logs (A nice touch I must add but the Star dates are hard to decipher, any one have any idea what year this is set in?) mentions it.
Spock also still seems to be the only alien onboard. I wonder how he got hooked up with an Earth vessel?
Most of you guys may not know this, but Jeffrey Hunter, the guy who played Jesus a few years back and was also in the “Temple Houston” show back in 63-64, did the first Star Trek episode, made back in late 1964. For whatever reason, it didn’t get the go-ahead, but for a while there Mr. Hunter was all set to star. Anyway he gave an interview when it looked like he would play the captain and he described it as a “year 2000 show.”*
So, my guess is that it is set in the year 2000. By that time, we will certainly be, well, for lack of a better word, “futuristic.” I’ve never been to San Francisco or any big city like that, but I hear already some women are wearing dresses as short as those on the show.
Three dimensional chess has been around since the 1940s, I think.
And I agree with the above poster, this episode does bear some resemblance to Jerome Bixby’s classic story (and Twilight Zone episode) “It’s A Good Life.” Charlie sent the gym instructor and Yeoman Ryan to the “space cornfield,” I suppose.
Sir Rhosis
*2004 speaking: Hunter really did say those exact words in an early-1965 interview.
The episode reminded me a bit of that Twilight Zone episode, with the kid who’d send adults to the cornfield. And the ending was a bit too much deus ex machina for me – just hit the magic reset switch and fix everything; how uncreative can you get?
But 3-D chess was way cool. Wonder if I can buy a set for my living room?
Am I the only one who watched this episode thinking ‘Christ on a crutch! The folks on the Enterprise screwed up the care and feeding of poor Charlie 10 times out of 10!’
Charlie needs basic instruction in ALL facets of human life and interaction. Instead Kirk gets all ‘just don’t do it’ on the poor kid.
Sit down, explain to him about the two sexes, show him diagrams, give him some SERIOUS lessons in gender roles and gender interaction and watch him like a hawk.
And the other stuff. Charlie is feeling like a picked on adolescent. Well and good. But the Enterprise crew don’t do anything to make him aware that it’s a perfectly normal thing to go through. Hell, dig up a copy of Catcher in the Rye or something for him to read.
Anything to lessen the blow of suddenly having to integrate without help.
Face it. Not their finest hour. Demotions all around for this one.
Oh, and is it just me or am I right in assuming that there are now a LOT of Yeoman Rand lookalikes (pliant ones) on Thasus?
I’m glad that they gave Yeoman Rand a bit more to do here. I’d really like to see more of this character.
I thought the guy who played Charlie was kinda creepy, yet sensitive. He’d be perfectly cast in a horror movie. I hear Larry Hagman is thinking of directing one.
Very interesting episode. It really made you think. At first I was glad that Charlie got his comeuppance, but then I realized the future he will have, and how he never had a chance to develop properly. Such a waste. He really could have been an asset, being an all-powerful being and all.
The lady losing her face was so scary. How could Dr. McCoy fix that? And if she had no nose, how would she breathe? I guess that was Charlies’s way of torturing her.
(Back to the present…do you think Q might be Charlie All Growed Up?)
What did everyone think of the singing bit in the rec room?
Personally I have to say it was corny though the Comunication’s officer (Urhru?) is still pretty hot and has a nice voice, but those lyrics… once again with the cheesey spacey words.
“Saturn rings around my head with a road that is Martian red…”
Her hair? My god, I couldn’t take my eyes off her legs… and clevage!
How did they get costumes like that past the censors? The female crewmembers’ uniforms were nearly pornographic! I let my teenage son watch that program, and afterwards I could tell he was uncomfortable. He had to spend 20 minutes in the bathroom afterwards to recover.
And I won’t even address the lunacy of females serving aboard a military vessel.
This program is doomed by idiocy. It won’t be renewed.
Well, it is the future. Who knows! Maybe one day they’ll have a female captain! I mean, they even have a Negro* on the bridge! Imagine that!
*Don’t kill me…I’m playing 60s ignorance here.
I wouldn’t expect the Captain of a star ship to spend his time tutoring a teenager on his way to being resettled. Besides, I thought that’s what the yeoman was doing - at least until Charlie’s crush on her got out of hand.
