The one where they go to Russia?
Zsofia, you’ve probably seen too much Lost in Space. Very different from Star Trek TOS.
You’re also missing out on 99.99% of the sound effects. Most of the background noises (doors, consoles, etc.) are from TOS.
With The Cage behind me, I’m going to watch Where No Man Has Gone Before next, and then follow the production numbers. I realize that TOS isn’t a serial and doesn’t have story arcs, and therefore each episode stands by itself, so I want to follow its evolution (and apparent destruction) in the order it was created. I’ll follow that plan unless/until TOS starts to bore me and then make sure I see all the remaining good/important episodes before moving on to the films.
One thing that struck me is that in at least one of the earlier episodes, Mr. Spock shouted orders and reports as if he were an ate-up XO from a bad early-'50s war film.
In fact, this includes every character except Spock (if you only count canon for the main universe, anyway - Pike appears in the recent movie, and he, Number One, and Yoeman Colt have appeared in non-canon stories (no sign of Dr Boyce, so far as I know)).
Pike appears in The Menagerie, which incorporated a lot of footage from The Cage. Not just in that footage, but in the court martial framing. He’s the guy in the scars and space wheelchair.
‘Except for in The Menagerie’ was taken as read, given the conceit of the episode.
The Menagerie is not a pilot. I cast you out of Geekdom.
If you start with TOS and get into it, just watch it in order and then watch the TOS movies in order. If you don’t really get into TOS, watch Star Trek 6, to give you an idea of what the best of TOS can be like, and then go onto TNG. Seasons 1 and 2 move pretty slow, but there’s a handful of good episodes. Watch up through Season 6, then watch DS9 S1, then finish TNG and watch Generations. Start DS9 S2 and get sucked in by the end and by the time you’re in S3, you’ll see it’s the best series. Try to mix the TNG movies in where they belong during the DS9 arc to get references in the movie and in DS9. Watch Voyager and Enterprise as you see fit. I’ve only watched the highest rated episodes of Voyager and have never seen Enterprise. I’ll catch up on both after grad school using Netflix.
Confused yet?
The highlights for me are ST6, First Contact, TNG S3-S7, and DS9 S3-S7.
Just what the Dope needs - a Star Trek pedant.
If I show you a photo of my license plate - WRP SPD - will you let me back in?
The only Star Trek I really like is TOS. The rest are pale shadows of the original.
I wouldn’t be so quick to write off the animated series, BTW. The animation is crap, but the writing is excellent and it’s voiced by the original actors. If you treat it more like Star Trek: The Radio Drama it’s actually quite entertaining.
Well, I disagree! I watched Star Trek in the order it appeared in my lifetime, which was movies, then TNG, then DS9 (and embarrassingly Voyager, which I gave up on). I’m only now getting around to TOS, and I’m not at all confused. They trek. In space. What’s there to make sense of?
I think it’s fun to watch TOS in order to watch how the tech evolves. Everything we take for granted in TNG was pretty much made up on the fly in TOS. Little stuff like originally calling the shields screens, to being able to go to the edge and centers of the galaxy and fly past warp 10, is nifty, and stuff like Spock’s signature moves are so obviously added last minute. It’s fun.
Even if you don’t watch all of the episodes, these are my three personal top picks.
“Amok Time” - Spock returns to Vulcan for a once-every-seven-years mating ritual, in which he must battle his best friend and captain - Captain James T. Kirk.
“The City on the Edge of Forever” - Kirk faces one of his hardest decisions when he must balance his duty with love as the fate of the entire Federation hangs in the balance.
“Journey To Babel” - The Enterprise ferries a collection of diplomats to a neutral planet. Complicating Kirk’s mission is a spy on board and Spock’s father, Sarek, the Ambassador from Vulcan. Spock must balance his duty with the health of his father.
I’m sure these episodes would come highly recommended by most Star Trek fans.
Every Star Trek series that comes after it.
By the way, in 1967, MAD Magazine published the first of many Star Trek parodies, Star Blecch. It was written by Dick DeBartolo and illustrated by Mort Drucker (with a nod to Don Martin). It originally was published in black and white, but it has been colored in and can be seen here.
I totally see how you end up with slash fanfiction out of this, because half the time we just want them to forget about whatever stupid planet is down there and keep hanging out together. We’d watch “Star Trek: Fire Drill” and “Star Trek: Mess Hall” and “Star Trek: Paperwork”, honestly - that’s the core of the show for us.
It really doesn’t matter all that much. “The Man Trap” is a first-season episode that just happened to be the first one aired, not a “pilot” per se. The original pilot “The Cage” is very different from the rest of the series (Spock is about the only major character who carried over, and the emotionally-repressed Vulcan personality had not yet been developed). “Where No Man Has Gone Before” seems much more like a pilot episode for the original series as it finally jelled (most of the main characters are in place).
“The Menagerie” is a two-part episode that incorporates almost all of “The Cage” (the original pilot) as flashbacks (I hasten to reassure you that it’s a well-done framing story, not a lame clip show). This makes the differences in characters and visual style less jarring, and you can decide later whether to go back and watch “The Cage” without the framing device.
To actually answer the question, I’d start with WNMHGB.
They’re also going to be available for streaming from Netflix, starting in April. I don’t know if they’ll have the new FX or not, though.
I don’t see why on earth you’d want the new effects. What exactly is the point, there? Isn’t it part of the charm? Part of the whole context? Not to mention that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the old ones.