Here it is again for the cage when the talosians were reading the ships computers they saw earth history from the 60’s POV. Why not show a quick glimpse of 9/11, The Iraqi War, slavery, adding more weight to the keeper’s words about humans being too violent and dangerous a species. OVERALL with a few “you could’ve done better moments” like ship size conveyed in Where No Man…I give this project a 75% rating.

What revisionists fail to realize is that there is a large part of the move/tv fan culture is wholly in favor of restored original content; Criterion led the way and saw much success during the laserdisc era, thanks to wonderful release of original material with as many extras as possible.

Thanks to historic acts of idiocy from (among others) Ted Turner (colorizing Black and White films), George Lucas (Star Wars Trilogy: The Special Editions) and recently Francis Coppola (The Outsiders), original visions were “good enough” long after Lucas & Coppola moved on to other projects–until technological innovation acts as a new toy for a desperate child. It appears certain “artists” and corporations have no sense of respecting history, unless it bleeds another dollar out, and as a result, generations of fans–in this case Star Trek–the original series fans may not come like dopey-eyed legions to retailers, spending hundreds on the questionable Remastered release, while the original version-the one which captured the love and respect of millions over the course of 40+ years–remains something to be forgotten.

Good job, CBS….and thanks for following everything-old-is-worthless Lucas.

As for “This Side of Paradise,” we’re agreed (of course) that it’s a wonderful episode, but you’re wrong on just about every other count, starting with the strained comparison to Invasion of the Body Snatchers–given that the Cold War parable about our familiars becoming soulless automatons bears no relation at all to the events in the Trek episode, as the effect of the spores was to make the infected more compassionate and caring, not less. And the theme of the episode was hardly a repudiation of “tuning in and dropping out,” since the spores offered peace and good health, not transcendence, and Elias Sandoval was hardly anything resembling a Timothy Leary figure. (Omicron Ceti III was a well-ordered, functioning place, not a drugged-out commune with stoners lying about and dirty dishes piling up in the sink.) What the show questioned, as clearly stated at the conclusion on the Enterprise bridge, was the religious and social utopian notion of paradise as an appropriate condition for human beings, and what makes its exploration of that theme so honest and enduring was Spock’s final reflection on his experience–brilliantly acted by Nimoy–which so poignantly spoke of the price of paradise lost.