Execute the “Conscience of the King” Preview

The Remastered "Conscience of the King" airs this weekend…preview courtesy of STARTREK.COM   (Also note the updated station/air time guide)

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Oh, the honor…

Actually, I haven’t seen this episode in a long time, so I look forward to it…is there a lot to update?

Wanna bet the scene where McCoy tries to get Spock to have a drink with him gets cut for syndication?

that scene always gets cut.
I hope they are able to do some rotoscoping on that awful Planet Q “outdoor” set, which is one of the worst and least convinving they ever had.

Oh I just rememebred – there’s another ship in the episode that’s mentioned and Kirk talks to the captain, but you never see it in the original version of the show. The Astral Queen or something like that. Maybe we’ll get to see it this time, like the Antares in “Charlie X”.

Looks like the starfield visible through the observation deck portholes is moving. I’m pretty sure those stars weren’t moving before.

Those stars don’t move in the original. Now the question is, will we see the hanger deck from those windows. Are the stars moving in the correct direction?

Clip of the original shot on the observation deck..

http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/TOS/episode/68686.html

Click on star light, star bright.

She certainly knows how to wrap her lips around the word “throbbing”, doesn’t she?

Doesn’t look like the changed the Planet Q city OR added the shuttlebay. Nice job on the stars outside the observation deck, however.

Ah. Great psychological cat and mouse game between Kodos & Kirk. A slight shift in the mood of the series after this episode’s final appearances of Riley & Rand.

I wonder what CBS-D will add to the shuttle observation deck, if anything.

I like how they sell the episode as a tragic love story. oh. by the way..there is a mention of khotus..or something. better ask riley!

“Conscience of the King” may not be one of Trek’s most exciting episodes (and certain important details, like the tense relationship between Kirk and
Spock, feel considerably off), but it happens to be one of its best-written–and Arnold Moss as the conscience-stricken mass murderer Kodos may very well have turned in TOS’ all-time best guest star performance.

I always cringe when Lenore(sp?) cries at the end. It’s like nails on a chalkboard to me.

nice commercial. This was a good episode.

Although the mighty Khotus is conscience stricken. One regret he dosent have is when he killed off a character from enterprise. Khotus knew deep in his heart that this may restore star trek canon. and that he would one day beg forgiveness for the crimes he was proud of. So ordered .

Signed khotus, Governor of Tarsus Four!

ahhhhh finally…..a solid favorite of mine

One of my all time favorite episodes with great acting and memorable lines.
“Because I’m the captain”! Kirk telling Spock on how he knew that the actors of the play will be coming aboard the Enterprise.
And this is last that we see of Yeoman Janice Rand (Grace Lee Whitney) on the show. I love the scene in which Yeoman see Lenore on the bridge with Kirk.

Even though she is only on for a few seconds in the episode, The look that she gives Lenore is simply classic!

It would be nice if they could add a shot of the view of the observation deck from the shuttlebay floor with some CGI Kirk and Lenore before they cut to the shot we’re used to of Kirk and Lenore walking along the deck. Its not necessary but it would be nice to establish that is where they are supposed to be. Would be nice for new Trek fans who haven’t pored over the blueprints like some of us have.

Uhura’s song is the highlight of this episode for me. Beautiful song, beautiful woman, beautiful voice. Enchanting.

Riley: Got milk?

Kodos was such a tragic figure, haunted by his error in judgement and morality choice. The guilt he carried contaminated Lenore and the insanity in her life was another price he had to pay. The phaser shot was a mercy in the end.

is it possible that these promos might not contain all the updated effects? Im sure there are different teams cutting the commercials. Sometimes CBS-D is working on pretty tight deadlines.

Doesn’t look like there will be any “The Menagerie” style remastering of the backdrop seen through the windows. Too bad. The original is just awful.

Perhaps they’ll include a quickie shot of the overloading phaser exploding outside the Enterprise. If I remember correctly, that hatch does lead to outer space and not some below-decks laundry room right? In all seriousness, I think the blurb accompanying the preview window says it all: This preview for the remastered version of “The Conscience of the King” shows the improved image quality apparent in all the restored episodes.

Nothing but image enhancement, and a couple of new ship shots, for this episode I wager.

Hopefully, they changed the recycled city backdrop from “The Menagerie”.

Loooking forward to this episode.

“Worlds may change, galaxies disintegrate, but a woman always remains a woman.”

I see it now on the trailer. The city backdrop was not changed. Probably too much to rotoscope.

2 & 3 — I only saw that scene for the first time a couple of months ago on Nick at Nite. Thank God somebody doesn’t butcher old TV shows. (“Care for a drop of the true, Spock?”)

For me, this episode looks like something recycled from another genre. Not that that’s necessarily bad, but it doesn’t quite make the transition without pain. Mostly, it highlights once again how crappy security does its job on a starship. Mysterious killer finds no trouble stealing a phaser, getting into the captain’s cabin, and sneaking into engineering. Hello! Who’s minding the gate, guys??

The other glaring problem is Lenore. She’s just too much of a dingbat, even for Kirk. “She’s an exciting creature,” says McCoy. Of course, he’s been drinking at that point.

There are nice character moments, but not really a great story here. Just a rehash from some western, cop show, or whatever. (I know, it’s supposed to be Shakespeare and the Stars, but that doesn’t quite work, either.)

IMHO

“…it highlights once again how crappy security does its job on a starship. Mysterious killer finds no trouble stealing a phaser, getting into the captain’s cabin, and sneaking into engineering. Hello! Who’s minding the gate, guys??”

The sad part is, lame security is at work in a whole butt load of episodes… McCoy wacking the transporter room dude… Khan’s goons bowling their way into the engine room… on and on.

However – those, and many other things (including the terribly fake special effects) – never, ever got in the way of my pure, TOTAL ENJOYMENT of TOS!! Long live TOS, bay-bay

Okay, is it just me? Am I crazy? This is the one episode of Trek that puts me to sleep. It’s just boring. I don’t think remastered effects are going to make it any better. Anyone else really dislike this episode?

#30:

It’s not you. This one pretty much sucks.

I hated this episode as a kid. Now, at 52, it’s slightly more palatable…..

This episode debuts a really great score! One of the best that’s reused on later episodes.

#32: Maybe I’ll give it another chance and I’ll think differently this time. Funny thing was that I had all the episodes recorded on tape from their syndicated airings in the early 80s (stayed up until midnight on Saturdays every week for a year and half to catch them all…I was 12-13 y.o.)…all except this episode. All I knew was that I was missing one, and then I finally saw it (probably 15 years later). It was almost like the lost episode for me…and after seeing it I wished it would have stayed lost.

Good, solid episode! Good acting! Time for a Shakespeare festival! (Well, I missed the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival this year.) :-)

Rich, I understand your feelings completely! Here’s an interesting intellectual exercise that seems to help me in some situations.
When you sit down to watch this episode, just picture the mindset of William Shatner at the time of filming. Here you are, a talented T.V. actor with a considerable resume under your belt. You’re now the star of this hot new sci-fi show with some episodes good, some not so good. Here comes this week’s script and, even though you have a Shakespearean background, you think it’s a piece of s**t!
Knowing that the show must go on, you forge ahead with the commitment to put the best dramatic “spin” you can on said storyline. Imagine being in Shatner’s shoes, knowing the success of the show rests squarely on your shoulders, and you’re being forced to perform crapola? It makes it entertaining to watch the episode in that context, to look for even a glimmer of disgust hiding behind the actor’s eyes….but, of course, they’re usually too professional to let even a hint of that show through…..the one exception to that was Doohan in ST:III, when they were stealing the Enterprise and he says to Kirk, “I’d be grateful Admiral if you’d give the word”. Just by tone of voice you could hear Jimmy’s disgust and disrespect for Shatner, the person. If you didn’t spot it the first time, go back and watch it again. It’s interesting when you spot it!

#36: Great suggestion Harry…perhaps I can find a few nuggets of discord in this ep…if of course I can stay awake.

What was with Kirk and some of these Flightly/ Ditzy women?

It’s either that or the Janice Lester/ Carol Marcus type. One would think Kirk was commitment-Phobic!

Assuming the ship is moving forward, the star movement is correct if the room is on the port side of the ship. We see the hangar deck observation windows behind Kirk in the preview and it’s totally dark so the lights are out on the hangar deck. If we could see anything we’d be seeing the forward and starboard area of the hangar through the windows. Since they have the hangar deck modeled it would have been neat to see it rotoscoped behind Kirk but that would have been a lot of work to do credibly.

I’m with Harry and you guys as well. I know that a lot of Trek fans like this one, but as a kid not so much. I know it sounds immature, but all the yapping, yapping, yapping, Lenore is cute but I always felt that Kirk was just foolin’ around, know what I mean? Nothing here for my 8 year old mind to wrap around. OK, maybe the phaser overload,but that was about it.

Ironically, I realized as I got older it provided some of the best background info on Kirk that was mentioned in TOS. But alas, too late. Me brain hath labeled it dullsville.

Of course when I say star movement is “correct” I mean correct for Star Trek. In dialog, Star Trek usually portrays travel time between stars in terms of days or at least many hours. If that were visualized realistically, we should never see star movement. Logically, if it takes even one hour to get from one star to the next closest star, you’re not going to pass any other stars during that whole hour. Most of the starfield would be so distant in comparison to your movement, the effect of parallax on most constellations would be pretty unnoticeable.

The static stars in the original were actually more realistic!

#36

Harry, you’re hearing things! The line Doohan delivers in III is affectionate & nostalgic. I’m hard-pressed to detect any malice toward Shatner in the way he gives the line. Doohan was just as much a professional as Shatman.

Here is a piece of Trek trivia regarding the fate of communications officer Hoshi Sato from “Enterprise” courtesy of Wikipedia:

“She eventually marries a man named Takashi Kimura, and retires from Starfleet with the rank of Lieutenant commander. Sato and her husband die in 2246 when the colony where they live, Tarsus IV, is stricken by a food shortage, and Governor Kodos orders the deaths of half of the colony’s population. Hoshi and her husband are among those executed.”

-Just thought I’d share this.

Has anyone else noticed the unfortunate reason why Barbara (Lenore) Anderson’s face is photographed in soft-focus and half-shadow during several scenes of this episode? It was not for dramatic effect, although, fortunately, it can be interpreted that way. I wonder if they will attempt to correct the problem in re-mastering, although it would be fairly difficult. I only noticed this after watching the episode on DVD and it will almost certainly be even more noticeable in HD.

#13 Yeah, I always cringed when “shining brightness” came around. Got to the point where I would brace myself as it came around (I watched a LOT of Trek in the 70’s). For whatever reason, it just makes me shrug now. The scene with “…are you like that, Captain?” now, that is a riot that I was completely oblivious to in third grade. Heh.

The episode has grown on me. It has a strong story, some well-liked recurring characters, that early first season ambition and a phaser on overload! I truly adore “Beyond Antares;” I get cozy when that’s coming up. Not only Nichelle’s lovely rendition, but I love the whole tease with the milk. Just why was there no one in Engineering but Riley?

I’m okay with leaving the diorama, but if the shuttle observation scene is just stars and no shuttlebay action that’ll be a disappointment.

Given the camera angle – looking straight, not downwards – you probably wouldn’t see the actual shuttlebay floor, just the opposing wall. And from the preview, it looks like they didn’t even add the wall.

“Conscience” wasn’t one of my favorites back in the 1970s, but it’s really grown on me.

Great, another Season 1 remastered ep that is NOT
available on iTunes because NO eps have been added
in the past SIX MONTHS …. meanwhile everyone who
paid $57 for the ‘season pass’ is stuck with just 11 eps.
WAITING FOR SIX MONTHS. Are we going to
wait another six months before we contact our lawyers?

#41

Okey, I agree with you. And although most avid trek watchers are smarter then the average bear, and may know this, is much more pleasing to the eye to have moving stars. There just needs to be something to let the audiance know “hey the ship is going somewhere” A static starfield gives the impression that the ship is not moving at all, no matter how sicentificly correct it is.

#47 Ditto.

Save your money for when the DVD comes out ( itunes TOS fans)

Three words: “DOUBLE RED ALERT” !

Engon whats wrong with Lenores face?