It is remarkable how quickly some of the most iconic tropes of TOS were established:
1. Spock and McCoy begin their bickering as early as "The Man Trap" and even more for in "Charlie X"; note, "The Man Trap" was the first episode broadcast, the third (after "The Cage" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before") episode filmed;
2. Nurse Chapel's love for Spock is established in "The Naked Time", the fifth episode broadcast;
3. The struggle between Spock's Human and Vulcan halves is established in that same episode.
And the leap from the technology shown in the two pilot episodes ("Where No Man" and "The Cage") and the later show (starting with "The Man Trap") is remarkable. The pilots require the relocation of the ship's phasers to the planet's surface to hit a small target, for example, and the ship's sensors are very confined (a single beam that has to be aimed, versus a continuous three-sixty sweep) as well.
What is remarkable is the quality of those early episodes, both dramatically and technically. If you can get past the cheesiness of the Salt Vampire in "The Man Trap", these are all exceptional dramatic episodes of television. The tension between Spock's cold and logical approach to the superpowers building in "Where No Man" and Kirk and McCoy's more human response is especially effective, while the moment in "Charlie X" where the senior crew recognize that the ship is in the hands of an adolescent with god-like powers is also remarkable.
Interestingly, "Where No Man" and "Charlie X" are basically the same story - how does the crew of the Enterprise deal with an entity that possesses god-like powers and no understanding of/regard for the needs, the lives of the people around him.
I have not watched these early episodes, in their entirety, for more than a decade and I had forgotten how exceptional they really are.
No comments:
Post a Comment