I just rewatched it on Netflix. Now that I’ve seen it again, it appears that Sulu is sweeping his phaser although the special effect is different than normal. It happens with 22 minutes left in the episode. My iPhone app doesn’t tell me how far into the show it was.
You’d think that they’d have heated the rocks up a little sooner.
Enjoy the journey. It’s long! I did a full rewatch about 5 years ago.
You definitely notice the shift in style and attitudes as time goes on. Early TNG is interesting as it feels very much like TOS (many of the episodes were unused TOS scripts, according to the reviews I was looking at on Memory Alpha, IIRC) and Riker tended to strike me as the Kirk-style rampant rabbit until he matured and grew that beard.
To me the whole set of series does follow something of a bell curve - I wasn’t all that enamoured by TOS, TNG got increasingly better, things peaked during DS9 then it was downhill from there. But either way you get to the end and there’s a big Star Trek shaped hole in your life. At least that will be remedied soon…
(OT: Also hello, first post on this nice rational site that attracted me, please be gentle)
Welcome aboard.
Personally, I think it’s fair to say ALL the shows had brilliant moments and painful moments, and whichever is your personal favourite is the one with the best ratio, according to your own formula.
On that basis, I choose TOS, while admittedly giving it extra points for working within the limitations of 1960s television.
Thank you!
That’s a good point - my own personal enjoyment of them happens to follow something close to the bell curve pattern but it’s by no means true for all, and I’ve known some massive fans of Voyager and Enterprise.
I’d love to know if anyone liked Voyager’s “Threshold” though 
Hi, TwiSpark, nice to meet you. It is a long journey, but a fun one.
To continue the voyage:
“Man Trap”
Trust no one unless you have eaten much salt with him --Cicero
(Cicero did not know the Salt Vampire.)
Salty is a pretty remarkable creature, what with its e.s.p. and shapeshifting abilities and all, but not really all that bright. No impulse control, for one thing, and it can’t seem to see the “big picture”. An intelligent creature, upon boarding the Enterprise, would hold back, check things out, and probably realize there’s sufficient salt to sustain it for an indefinite period of time, at least until it could jump ship at a suitable planet. But, no, it has to go killing everyone in sight; after surviving on salt tablets for so long, it just can’t control itself.
“Naked Time”
No Dance Tonight
At the time I first saw this episode, I was a hormone-addled twelve-year-old. When Spock started reciting multiplication tables to get his emotions under control, I heard “sex” instead of “six”. My parents were watching with me, and I thought for sure they would be frowning at the forbidden word, and Star Trek would be banned from our home. But they didn’t react, and I thought “Whew! They weren’t paying attention”. I really thought I’d had a lucky break. When I found out the truth, it was a bit of a let-down.
“Charlie X”
more (mind) power
One of my favorite episodes. Poor Charlie, pathetic and scary at the same time.
There’s a great thread on this episode here:http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=805465&highlight=charlie
You better call the Traveler, because that’s the kind of search likely to require going to alternate dimensions.
I don’t think it was shapeshifting, but had the hypnotic ability to make people see it as harmless, even attractive (hence McCoy, Kirk and Crewman Expendable getting three different impressions of her). It seems to need a template of some sort to work with, so it copied the real Nancy’s features as well as those of various crew members, and at some point must have run across that blonde tramp from Wrigley’s Pleasure Planet, or someone like her.
You didn’t start with the first pilot “The Menagerie?” This is an outrage! I demand a do over.
[slight nitpick] The first pilot was “The Cage,” which was used for the 2-part “The Menagerie.” Netflix has that in the TOS group. And yes, I know you know all that; your finger slipped on the keyboard. [sn]
Indeed, “The Menagerie” was basically a framing device for footage from “The Cage”.
Drats! I should have googled it and got my titles right before protesting. I am escorting myself to the brig as punishment. 
The original title of the first pilot was indeed “The Cage,” but Roddenberry changed it to “The Menagerie” about halfway through production. He felt the new title better reflected the situation in which Captain Pike found himself, and the finished film was shown to NBC executives as “The Menagerie.” The two-parter episode of the first season known as “The Menagerie” was indeed an “envelope” written around the footage of the first pilot.*
For many years, it was thought the original film had been lost, but both B&W and color versions were unearthed in the 1980s. (I saw the B&W version when Roddenberry came to St Paul in February of 1987.) Nowadays, the first pilot, which was released on video soon after it was rediscovered, is always referred to as “The Cage” to distinguish it from the two-parter “The Menagerie.”
*My source for this is Stephen E Whitfield’s The Making of Star Trek, which was written as ***TOS ***was being filmed.
I’ve always thought it drew its templates from the minds of its victims, which is why each one saw what he/she wanted or was expecting to see. Via telepathy, in other words.
It was a long time before I realized it wasn’t a shape-shifter precisely because it could simultaneously appear as different people to different viewers.
Its an alien. One shouldn’t apply human norms or understanding of intelligence to it.
And that scene with McCoy, Kirk and Spock near the end when they kill it…? That was horrifying.
Good point. But I think it was drawing material from people’s minds, or, more accurately, their libidos. Crewman Expendable was apparently rather obsessed with that gal from the pleasure planet. The man Uhura saw was like no one she recognized, but she was near overwhelmed by him. Evidently, the creature created an image of someone who would appeal to her, even though it had no actual template.
But, yeah, if it were actually shapeshifting, it wouldn’t appear as three different women.
What other standards would you apply?
Yes, final scene was horrifying. And the alien brought that on itself; not suggesting any ethical failure on its part, it’s entirely possible it really couldn’t help itself. But that would further imply it’s a creature of more instinct than reason.
It would seem to given its final pathetic appeal to McCoy rather than a Tarantinoesque, “Ok, ok ok OKAY!! Stop! Just STOPstopstopstopstop!”
I’m just saying that I could ascribe its actions as “Alien” as easily as “animalesque”
But if you held a phaser rifle to my head than yeah…I’d say it was more whassisfaces pet than his companion.
Maybe, but it was strongly implied he and his pet were, y’know… fucking. The creature needed love as well as salt, as I recall.
It will give you a chance to catch up on your technical journals.
Don’t worry. Halfway there, you can beat yourself up and then escape in a shuttlecraft!