They both have eccentric deliveries, but Cage seems different to me.
I think Nick Cage and Colin Farrell have similar deliveries, but Colin does it with an Irish twist.
Shatner is not that different from some other 50s/60s series leads like Robert Stack in the Untouchables.
I really don’t mind Shatner’s delivery, and probably wouldn’t have noticed it if people didn’t make fun of it, but it reminds me of the way classic movie stars acted back in the day. The only thing that really stands out is the contrast between this sort of classic delivery on Shatner’s part and what I would call the realism on Nimoy’s part. And that kind of surprised me because I expected the original Spock to kind of play it up like he was some kind of automaton, and instead he seems really wise and grounded, and thoroughly believable.
You know, I’m the contrarian on this episode. I liked it, and I’ll tell you why.
As aliens in full costumes go, it wasn’t bad for it’s time. I had no trouble with its looks. I was a TOS fan from the early 70’s (wasnt’ quite born early enough for the original run), so I had no trouble with somewhat marginal effects anyway.
I thought the Gorn race was interesting and genuinely possible, unlike the weird xenomorph mash-up of the current Gorn. It’s not hard to imagine a strong but slow-ish lizard race, particularly if it was functioning in a cooler-than-normal environment. We don’t know how hot their native planet is, so it could have been operating in the equivalent of a Midwest winter.
I enjoyed Kirk being stripped of modern tech and having to depend on his wits to overcome a stronger, implacable opponent. That’s the essence of every TOS conflict anyway: They don’t gadget or technobabble their way out, they come up with clever or sneaky ways out.
The source of the conflict was morally ambiguous. The Federation was just doing their normal thing, but they accidentally built an outpost in an area the Gorn considered theirs. In this scenario, the Federation meant no harm, but you could see where a powerful foreign entity building bases in their territory could be seen at a dangerous threat to the Gorn. A far cry from the modern day Gorn that want to fucking EAT us.
Now, I don’t want to get off on a rant here, but I got grievances with the clown-show that is the modern-day Gorn, and I don’t see why I shouldn’t take this opportunity to subject you all to them. 
They just didn’t try with this race. It can’t be a thing, it can’t ever have evolved to this point. It makes no logical sense. There’s a lot of info out there about Vulcans, Orions, Andorians, etc. Have they attempted to logic their way into how this race could have evolved in any reality?
Say what you want about the original Gorn species in, “The Arena”, they could actually have evolved into what we saw.
Not to mention that the whole message of “the Arena” is, “Those aliens are just like us, even though they look kind of scary, and we’d get along if it were not for meddling godlike beings”.
There are a few aliens in science fiction who only develop sentience after puberty. The whole “Leave the kids alone to fend for themselves until their brains start working” notion isn’t new to SNW.
Using planets of neighboring intelligent species who possess world-destroying weapons as their breeding grounds is kind of new, though.
I don’t think you are the contrarian in the episode, I think the condiment mustelid is. At least, I had always assumed that Arena was a generally well-liked (if campy) episode. It is definitely one of the most famous, most recognized ones. Inspired one of the most quoted lines in Galaxy Quest
He has a cameo on TBBT
It really is an iconic episode.
I knew I had mentioned intelligent species with r-strategy reproduction here before, it turns out that was about the Gorn, too:
And there are other types as well. In the Legacy of the Aldenata series, the Posleen are mostly semi-sentient, with only a relative few developing higher cognitive abilities as they get old enough. The older Posleen just keep the kids in pens until the smart ones develop the outward signs of intelligence.
Scott Sigler’s Galactic football league series has one species that always has multiple births, about 8 per birth, but birth order determines their relative status. The first born becomes the guy in charge, because he selectively cannibalizes bits of their siblings. Like, the next few are castrated, and become warrior types, and then a few are made into drone worker types, and they’re all hormonally attracted to following the leader, who is the smartest among them.
This week’s was very predictable and boring until the very end. But then even that was a retread.
Definitely not one of the light episodes! Part Arena, part Darmok, part Enemy Mine.
From the second we saw it was a Gorn, it was clear exactly what was going to happen. My main complaint is that giving your captain false information, risking the ship and thousands of other lives, is a big deal. Tolerating that without major consequence? No.
I am unfortunately increasingly disappointed with this season. Good it’s not another goofy ep. But it also is not one with any fresh ideas or new things to think about.
I’m glad, “Terrarium” (I somewhat regret that the name wasn’t, “Terrorium” 
)wasn’t a silly episode, which I don’t have a problem with, EXCEPT I think now we’re up to around 25%-30% of them being silly. I liked that that Erica was stranded on a really alien-looking moon and not Vasquez Rocks. It’s nice to have a budget, but it’s a shame that, with 10 episodes a season, they’re recycling old sci-fi plots. If they were going to do this one though, Erica was the right character to do it with. Only La’an would have been as interesting, or more so, in that situation. Maybe Captain Batel, but she’s not a core character.
One of the things that made, “Enemy Mine” work was that the two pilots were stranded for a long time. I think it might have worked better (to me, at least) if they had left Erica to deliver the vaccine, then came back for her. Give them a couple weeks. The timeline was somewhat fuzzy, I thought(I think it was left deliberately vague, except for the occasional, “We have to help the colonists!”), but it seemed like a couple days.
It occurred to me the TOS benefited from the golden age of pulp and sci-fi periodicals that took place in the decades before the show premiered. All this seasoned, honed sci-fi talent like Harlan Ellison, Robert Block, and Jerome Bixby, eager to finally tell their stories in a visual medium. Nowadays, it’s harder to be original, and the talent is diluted among many, many more shows. . .and it seems like many writers take the job because it’s a job, and not out of love of sci-fi. I feel like that’s where we get sci-fi with ‘Rule of Cool’ stuff rather than sci-fi that stands up to examination.
Finally, back to my earlier Gorn rant in another post, I don’t think the fact that the, “let the kids fend for themselves awhile” plot has been used in other fiction addresses my argument that it’s not a viable strategy to develop a sentient, technological race. I suppose I’m thinking too much about it, and I should repeat to myself, “It’s just a show, I should really just relax.” Rule of Cool and all. . .
Gah! That’s obviously “Bloch”.
Let’s all pause for a moment, center our katras with a cleansing breath, and reassuringly repeat to ourselves, “At least it’s not Discovery.”
Your points are well made, but let’s face it, most of our stories have been told before. They can still be covered in creative new ways. Lots of great early sci fi was cribbing storylines from … the myths, Shakespeare, Westerns, so on. This show is just limiting itself to related genres and Trek lore.
And FWIW that I don’t mind. There can be many different ecologies than earth’s. It really is not that difficult to imagine one in which this very alien one makes could result. High birth rate. Long life span for those fewer who make it past the early development phase. Feeding on potentially competing civilizations or species in earlier evolution preventing them from reaching as much of a threat. But coupled with dormancy cycles like locusts.
They just aren’t so interesting.
If I had to rank all of the episodes of SNW, this may well be last on the list. Monologuing isn’t easy for any actor, but the actress who plays Ortegas is particularly unconvincing at it. And is there anybody who’s seen the TOS Gorn episode who didn’t guess the identity of the lights in the distance and what they were up to?
There was a reference in this episode to something called Division 12. The implication is they investigate paranormal stuff. As far as I know this is the first time it was ever referenced in Trek before. I wonder if this is a set up for some kind of X-Files type Star Trek show?
I didn’t - I even had read the spoiler above and it didn’t quite dawn on me. For one, why would they need to appear as ‘lights’ at all?
I liked this version of the Metrons alot less - I did like that their power was well demonstrated (unlike in the aforementioned Arena) - but in Arena, they just wanted to be left alone - this time, they set up a test because they were curious.
Interestingly (for certain definitions of “interestingly”), the Division 12 line of dialogue was omitted from the closed captions. That’s some strange phenomena right there.
Maybe Division 12 was a last minute add that someone thought of late in production. Or maybe whoever does the captions just fucked up.