# Why Do I Love Star Trek - TOS? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 16, 2009, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-love-star-trek-tos/481553 "2009-01-16T04:28:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-love-star-trek-tos/481553/21 "2009-01-17T05:40:17Z")
> [@chacoguy420](#): > > It’s all in the "special Effects’. :rolleyes: The special effects have actually been updated in the current syndication package- apparently, it’s so well-done that most people don’t notice it. CBS has put _Star Trek_ episodes on YouTube with limited commercial interruption. ---
**Author:** ![CaptMurdock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/captmurdock/32/11736_2.png) [@CaptMurdock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptMurdock)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-love-star-trek-tos/481553/22 "2009-01-17T05:51:55Z")
I just finished watching “The Menagerie” on Youtube, and damned if it doesn’t hold up as well as anything produced in the last forty years. The final scene with Kirk in the briefing room, and the Talosians show him a (albeit illusory) rejuvenated Pike reunited with Vina… “Captain Pike has an illusion, and you have reality. May you find your way as pleasant.” Excellent.🆒 ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-love-star-trek-tos/481553/23 "2009-01-17T05:58:47Z")
I don’t understand how anyone who’s seen Star Trek before can help but notice the new effects. They’re obviously not 1960’s quality anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-love-star-trek-tos/481553/24 "2009-01-17T07:05:38Z")
> [@The\_Tooth](#): > > I don’t understand how anyone who’s seen Star Trek before can help but notice the new effects. They’re obviously not 1960’s quality anymore. I find them a bit jarring, myself, and for the most part entirely unnecessary. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-love-star-trek-tos/481553/25 "2009-01-17T09:02:45Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Whoa, pardner. _A Private Litte War_ may look like a heaping bucket o’ cheese with Hill People v. Village People and a guy in a gorilla suit with fins, but that episode had a deeper statement to make about the bipolar politics of the day, namely that it was impossible to avoid proxy wars, bloody though they were, since they kept the larger powers from engaging in all-out mass destruction, hence it was necessary to arm the Hill People. Consider what Picard would have done in that situation: made some moralizing speeches and had Geordi and/or Data whip up some technobabble way to solve the problem and slap on a happy ending. The plot was in a sense simple, with a much deeper meaning, very obvious in the middle of the Vietnam War. Not many shows at the time had anything to say about the war at all, so this one stood out. And I totally agree with you about the power of the absence of a simple resolution. ---
**Author:** ![flex727](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/258eb7/32.png) [@flex727](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flex727)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-love-star-trek-tos/481553/26 "2009-01-17T16:37:23Z")
> [@Roadfood](#): > > But even just Spock and McCoy together had great chemistry. It’s been too long since I’ve seen any episodes to be able to bring in a cite, but there were a number of scenes between just the two of them that were truly great. Oh, thought of one: When Kirk is trapped on the ship that’s fading in and out, Spock and McCoy have a great confrontational scene that ends with McCoy saying something about wondering what Kirk would say if he were there. Spock responds, “I think he would say, ‘forget it, Bones’” (forgive me if I didn’t get the quote exactly right). To me, that little almost-throw-away-line speaks volumes. Don’t forget the scene in Bread and Circuses where Spock and McCoy are in jail together wondering how Kirk was faring (rather well actually 😉 ) > [@CaptMurdock](#): > > I just finished watching “The Menagerie” on Youtube, and damned if it doesn’t hold up as well as anything produced in the last forty years. > > The final scene with Kirk in the briefing room, and the Talosians show him a (albeit illusory) rejuvenated Pike reunited with Vina… “Captain Pike has an illusion, and you have reality. May you find your way as pleasant.” > > Excellent.🆒 I saw that episode in a movie theater recently with the updated SFx, etc. Even though I’ve been a fan since the original TV airing and have seen that episode dozens of times, I was riveted to my seat. Each time the episode came back to the ship with the ongoing trial I was desperate for the story to continue. That episode was so well done, especially considering its history (original pilot remade into a two-part episode) that it even held up great on the big screen. It was a fantastic experience. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-love-star-trek-tos/481553/27 "2009-01-17T16:51:08Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I find them a bit jarring, myself, and for the most part entirely unnecessary. Okay, but you do recognize them as different, right? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2009, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-love-star-trek-tos/481553/28 "2009-01-18T01:31:15Z")
> [@The\_Tooth](#): > > Okay, but you do recognize them as different, right? Well, yes, and that recognition is a distraction. I suppose if I watched each episode several times, I’d gradually stop noticing. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2009, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-love-star-trek-tos/481553/29 "2009-01-18T17:56:16Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally Posted by **Bryan Ekers** > Whoa, pardner. A Private Litte War may look like a heaping bucket o’ cheese . . . . but that episode had a deeper statement to make . . . . Likewise, the “space hippies” episode was not (quite) as bad as people remember. Buried deep amid all the counterculture silliness, there are a couple of scenes that raise pertinent questions about the responsibilities of leaders and followers. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-love-star-trek-tos/481553/30 "2009-01-19T01:10:17Z")
These are some good, thoughtful answers. I also wonder if TOS had an advantage in being closer, in time and in inspiration, to written science fiction, especially of the action-and-adventure-and-space-exploration sort, when that was in its prime. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-love-star-trek-tos/481553/31 "2009-01-19T03:33:09Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > These are some good, thoughtful answers. I also wonder if TOS had an advantage in being closer, in time and in inspiration, to written science fiction, especially of the action-and-adventure-and-space-exploration sort, when that was in its prime. More important in my mind is the fact that, at the time, it was one of only a small handful of shows that tackled science fiction, and there weren’t that many movies that did so in a realistic way, either. So we ate it up as science fiction fans, because it was OUR show, and in a way that Lost In Space never was. Even by the time of TNG, that wasn’t the case. The Star Wars movies, and all that they had spawned, made science fiction less of a wonderous thing on either screen. So while Trekkers ate up TNG, for the most part, science fiction fans were much more blasé about it. And by the time we had gotten through seven seasons of TNG, several seasons of DS9, and uncounted seasons of Voyager, we began to be heartily sick of the overdoing of science fiction, and the Trek premise. About the only reason I watched Enterprise the first season was because it offered something truly new: a look at the very beginnings of Earth space exploration. I had long since ceased watching Voyager, and have ignored almost all other science fiction on TV, which is mostly useless. BSG as re-imaged was an exception at first, but then it began to get quite average and mundane, too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-love-star-trek-tos/481553.md?page=1)