The Enterprise discovers an abandoned starship in orbit around a planet where the parallel Earth development went horribly wrong
The Remastered team again pick a ‘theme’ episode to go along with a holiday, in this case it is the strangely patriotic show for the week of the 4th of July. The remastered team do not have a lot to work with but we will get a chance to see two Constitution Class ships together at once.
Reading the Preamble
Don Knotts showing Kirk up.
I’m looking forward to the whole battle of captains and the close up of Spock putting the gal in a trance. Not bad at all until the end.
Oh, and especially looking forward to the two starships in orbit. It’ll be a “first” for the remastered as far as two ships in orbit. ;-)
First ever post here! The mad dude from ‘Dagger of the mind’ just looks wrong in gold!
When I first saw this episode I thought it was going to be my all time favorite. It has a great beginning, great middle, then the floor comes out. Some great moments though with the Exeter and Kirk and Tracy duking it out.
Don Knotts + Barney Fife = Pure Genius. That show never gets old.
Just finished watching the show. There’s a nice zoom in on the Exeter saucer that shows off the registry number when Kirk’s log voiceover says something along the lines of “we’ve regrouped on the Exeter’s bridge” or something like that. Captain Tracey’s phaser blasts look like they’ve been massaged a little bit. I had never paid any attention to it before, but the thing that stuck out to me at the end of the episode is the Enterprise leaving orbit alone. I thought “why are they leaving the Exeter behind?” Maybe they’re calling in a Franz Joseph-style tug for a tow.
God Bless Don Knotts.
I havent laughed that hard in awhile.
The Yangs keep coming and coming.
Jeff, I think you like that Yangs part a little too much.
Are they going to remaster the Viewmaster reels too?
As some of you may recall, Viewmaster selected “The Omega Glory” for 3-D treatment. They had to do their own 3-D shot of the Enterprise and Exeter in orbit using AMT models. Take a look:
http://members.aol.com/graemecree/trekmisc/viewmastertrek/screen02.htm
Hodgkin, you magnificient bastard, I read your law of parallel planetary development !
I’m pretty sure that Enterprise used in the Viewmaster set was the 3′ miniature, while the Exeter seen in the background was an AMT model.
#6 steve623 – As best as I could tell the U.S.S. Exeter read like this:
NCC-1672
Perhaps others may have a better view than I did. But clearly this registry doesn’t follow 1975’s Star Fleet Technical Manual which gives NCC-1706. No surprise really as this was made up years beyond the actual episode.
I also thought we could see the Enterprise towing the Exeter back with them. However it is probably best to leave a “Plague Ship” where it is until StarFleet can properly clean it or destroy it. Rather than taking it to some port risking any sort of potential accident. Just a thought. It is a nice orbit breaking shot at the end nonetheless.
PS I’ve been away for some time due to some personal circumstances. I noticed you asked about me steve623 in previous threads. I want to thank you for that.
#12: NCC-1672 is considered canon. It’s in the official Star Trek Encyclopedia and on startrek.com. NCC-1706 is from Franz Joseph. Franz Joseph is NOT canon.
#13 I’m aware of that. However, as many threads on this site have pointed out, canon is precisely what occurred within the episode itself. Since the Exeter registry was not seen no canon was set until this remastered episode aired today.
Example: Prove Captain Robert April was the first Captain of the Enterprise. I’ll save you time – – you can’t. Startrek.com, as what we may consider the “ultimate” source, cannot set canon on their own. Despite “official” publications from Paramount.
Boy, hope this doesn’t open the ‘Can-o-Worms’ again. This was my understanding as described to me by both Anthony and Matt many moons ago in a previous thread.
“Prove Captain Robert April was the first Captain of the Enterprise.”
Since TAS is now considered canon, isn’t he though?
Canon Shmanon. :-P I remember seeing this episode as a kid; it starts of great and lands with a thud at the end. A ghost plague ship was so intriguing a set up…
Awesome!!!!! Love this episode!!!!! Although the print seemed heavily oversaturated with color in many scenes. Almost like when Ted Turner colored classic black and white movies.
#15 Who gave the Green-light to TAS being Canon? It has been “Cherry-Picked” over the past few years (Enterprise and even Trek Remastered) but as a whole it has been shunned. Probably because Gene Roddenberry himself nixed-it.
Personally I loved TAS and would have no problem with it and if anyone asks me who the first Captain was I would respond, “Robert April”.
Finally even Startrek.com’s stance on TAS (and thus the Exeter’s Registration):
http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/features/specials/article/66895.html
“Often viewed as the poor relation in the Star Trek canon, The Animated Series — for the sake of argument — certainly has its own place within the Trek-sphere. Sure, there are some points of reference that come up within the show that are hard to square with the standard approach to canon (i.e. whatever appears on screen being the most reliable way to track Star Trek’s historical points). But if you apply that standard equally, you have lots of plot holes and historical gaps to fill as well in the live-action series and movies. (Early TOS references to the “United Earth Space Probe Agency,” anyone? Or, “Spock’s Brain”?)”
Actually, the first captain of the Enterprise was Benedict Arnold:
http://seafarer.netfirms.com/2-enter.htm
#10 – Now Viewmaster there’s a name I’ve not heard… since before you were born. This is a odd topic I actually know a lot about, I had an uncle that worked for GAF and he showed me a lot about this process and what was done on various reels. Not just Trek but others as well.
Often a 3D camera was used, meaning a camera that would take two shots just slightly offset from each other, just like our eyes, and when the film is developed and inserted into reels or printed on a card and used with a Steroptican, you see the illusion of 3D. This most of us already knew.
Here’s the REST of the story. More often that not, when a stereo camera COULD NOT be taken to a set (as was the cast in Trek reels) they would take an actual single frame of footage, blow it up, duplicate it SEVERAL times and then painstakingly cut out the foreground elements and background elements, and then line them up on a device that was about twelve inches deep, similar to a 3D animation stand, and put the foreground elements (typically characters) on the front stands, and background elements in background part of the stand. The unit had about six different slots for creating various levels of depth.
Then once they had it lined up, they would take a stereo image of that! This would then become the 3D master shot which created a VERY false sense of depth. Now real world shots would still be done with a stereo camera, but set pieces would almost always be made with cut outs.
If you actually look at these reels these days, you can SEE how silly they and how flat the characters look, since they are in fact, just cut out frames, blown up, and given the illusion of 3D in all of about 12 inches.
I haven’t seen the model shots in years, and why they didn’t use this technique on the original model shots is beyond me, but for almost every movie or TV show that was turned into a Viewmaster reel, this is how it was done.
Now you can add that little bit of knowledge to your brain, and push out someone’s phone number or address.. hope they weren’t important!
Okay who played the first Captain of the Enterprise on TV?
If you don’t know, look here to find out: http://tinyurl.com/2ocksk
Captain Tracy needed more phaser packs.
23 — yeah, he was probably thinking “Dammit, I should only have shot 389 Yangs instead of 390….”
He burned them down by the thousands.
But you know what? They kept coming.
Ron Tracey violated the Prime Di-rective.
Has anyone else noticed how layed back TOS series is as far as nomenclature for and between the various Skippers/Captains? Jim, Matt, Ron, all these guys were on a first name/nick name basis. Such was the uniqueness of starship command in Kirks era. There weren’t thousands of starships running to and fro like bees, but rather starship command was an accomplishment in and of itself, and if one obtained that particular feather in ones cap, the galaxy knew of you.
#22 Captain Pike – Good One! Based on this DeKelley was the first doctor and we now know why Nancy Crater is that one woman from his past!
01/02/61 “Listen to the Nightingale”
Norwegian songbird Julie Lang wants to take her troupe to New Orleans for an engagement, but she has no money. Grey finally agrees to take the troupe aboard the Enterprise, for an IOU against their New Orleans receipts. Along the way, a future crewman of another famous ship called Enterprise, steals her jewelry.
guests:
DeForest Kelley
Jeanne Bal
I still don’t see Tracy whipping Kirk so good, being older as he is. I also hate how they recycled Amok Time’s fight music twice on such lesser scenes.
All this could have been avoided buy leaving a repeating warning signal playing on the Exeter bridge. Or a call to Starfleet by their crew.
Poor, poor, writing.
#28:
sounds like “Conscience of the King!”
Kirk’s half-hearted acting as if giving Spock chest compressions (when their is obviously no-one there below the frame, cracks me up.
#31 Diabolik – Totally agree “Conscience of the King”.
#32 – – They do seem poorly done. Remember because of the location of Spock’s heart he’s possibly compressing side-to-side.
We always pick out errors – – such as Sirah falling, after Spock’s Neck Pinch, with her navel fully exposed (a NBC “no-no”). When Cloud William moves to her – – her hand is now covering it up.
But what about consistency? Captain Kirk’s right uniform arm picks up blood from Lt. Galloway when he helps lay the Lt. down. This stain (though it changes size and shade slightly) remains with him throughout the episode. Recall by Union Rules “all clothing must be cleaned each day and ready for the next shoot”. So Nice Touch.
#11–yup. The 3′ studio model of the Enterprise, not an AMT model, represents the ship in the foreground of the Viewmaster shot. Though the poster is correct that the shot is a poor substitute for the original in any case.
Back when I was a kid I always hated some older guy being able to administer an ass-whuppin’ to the heroic James Kirk so easily. Now, it’s one of my favorite things about the episode!
Tracy just has white hair…so did Peter Graves, that doesn’t mean he’s old. And yes, he delivered one ass whipping that Jim Kirk would not soon forget. As McCoy’s wonderful line from this episode states, evil usually wins unless good is very very careful.
Good stuff.
I anticpated with some dread the airing of this episode, but I was surprised that it wasn’t as bad as I remembered. Corny, yes. One thing that came to mind during the viewing about the age of the Omegans–I read in one of the books, I believe, that it came out that the Preservers were responsible for many of the “parallel earths”–part of their cultural protection/relocation program. Interestingly, since the war referred to in the episode occurred over a thousand years ago, it would tend to make one think that “our earth” is a copy, and not the original.
Michael Hall – July 1, 2007
“#11–yup. The 3′ studio model of the Enterprise, not an AMT model, represents the ship in the foreground of the Viewmaster shot. Though the poster is correct that the shot is a poor substitute for the original in any case.”
Yes. All one neds to do is look at the dish on the 1701 to see that is unlike the one AMT created for the model kit–known throughout the decades for being less than accurate!
Regarding the ships, from other sources, it appears Sawyers/GAF did not have access to FX shots from the series, so they arranged a model shoot of the 3-footer and a AMT custom specifically for the reels. Another example of this can be found in the reels based on the 1966 “Batman” TV series; instead of using the production’s animated fight words (or Onomatopoeic words), GAF created see-through words based on that used in the series.
I don’t know about you, but I always appreciated ANY chance to see shots of the Enterprise, and the red and blue hues created a strange, otherworldly feel to the shot!
#27 Josh — re: Starship commanders
Totally agree. They tried to have it both ways in TNG — thousands of starships, but everyone knew Picard because the E-D was the “flagship” (whatever that meant to them). But you’re right — in TOS, others in Starfleet knew Kirk because he was one of an elite group, and they all knew each other at least by name. And even Kor knew who he was and what ship he commanded, once he heard the last name.
Just saw the SFX on this ep…
The editing from 51 minutes to 42 nicked some of the limited special effects — like in the teaser when the viewscreen magnified on the Exeter.
It’s amazing how little SFX a lot of episodes had in the first place. The longest was “The Doomsday Machine” at about 17 minutes. “The Omega Glory” has to clock in at 1 minute. (I know, they had a budget to meet back in the ’60s…) Too bad CBS-D can’t expand the effects (and the length of time) to flesh out the stories a bit.
Oh, well… I will wait for the DVD’s.
Morgan Woodward was great in both of his Trek appearances. Josh T…great ear for hearing that pronuniciation of “di-rective.” Maybe they sent Captain Tracey off for a dose of the neural neutralyzer after this episode, as administered by Dr. Simon Van Gelder.
Morgan Woodward did an episode of the X-Files…I wonder if he’s done anything since.
#40 re Woodward recently.
The last credit listed for him on IMDB is an episode of Millennium in 1997. He has a very, very long list of credits, mostly in episodic TV. And there are some fun facts on his “trivia” page — he holds the record for most guest-star roles on both Gunsmoke (19!) and Wagon Train (11!). Pretty cool, actually.
I was in error. CBS-D did do all the SFX for “The Omega Glory”.
They did a bad job on the screen magnification of the Exeter. You could barely see it in orbit around Omega 4.
I was in error. CBS-D did do all the SFX for “The Omega Glory”.
They did a bad job on the screen magnification of the Exeter. You could barely see it in orbit around Omega 4.
I’ve now seen enough of TOS-R to pronounce the remastering effort a failure. Overall, their efforts are OK, but they STILL–after all this time–can’t produce a starship that doesn’t look like something I drew with Paint Shop Pro. Face it folks, after all this time, there’s no excuse for not getting the nacelle caps/Bussard Collectors right… they still look cartoonish, like something out of TAS.
All of the great things they’ve done… the surface of Vulcan… the much more realistic-looking planets as seen from orbit… fixing Sulu’s chronometer.. are overshadowed by them not getting the most importatnt effect right.
If STARSHIP EXETER can produce a believable looking starship, why can’t these guys?????
Dialog I wish they’d had:
KIRK:
The rights enumerated in the Constitution must be given to everyone! Or they mean nothing!
CLOUD WILLIAM:
I do not fully understand, one named Kirk. What if some people prefer to live in a monarchy? Should it be possible to amend the Constitution? If the Constitution can be amended, how are its principles to be preserved? How shall we prevent the media from being used to twist public opinion? Shall infants and the insane be allowed to vote? How many voting stations are sufficient? How long should voting stations be open? How shall voting rights be ensured in an illiterate society? How shall we prevent electoral fraud? How can we prevent gerrymandering? How do we deal with voters who are illiterate, uneducated, unwilling to be educated, biased, prejudiced…hey, wait, come back here, I have some more questions…!
I think the Komms had weapons of mass destruction.
#45 stephen–
OK, I’m laughing out loud. Great way to end the thread!
We both moaned with sounds of pleasure. I was depraved from soppy orgasms, but I inebriated myself up and tried to blame him off me. Feeling a yo course through her body, she withdrew from the bout and feeding a celebrities upskirt videos shishing nearby, she ran and exposed the exact soul, searing tenth his videos and generating his gooey stalk into her mouth. Then I went off. Great twinkles of glint inundated out of my paint cannon. I don’t naked celeb wallpapers what some of my pizzas say. Well officials do accentuate chestful and tiptoe the sunshsine of secretive and widespread showerheads don’t they? She cupped her buttocks, running her schoolmates over the skin, before visiting her britney spears pussy pictures paris between her oclock performers and to her anus. Talk about stuning fantasies. All I dame is to rotate within a hopeless thisbloids of her.