What was the last TV show you watched?

[Stearmen]

The "Star Trek" was "Errand of Mercy," which introduced the Klingons. We've all seen it so many times that there isn't much to say, except that the episodes MeTV is showing on Saturday nights are more than likely the remastered ones with improved special effects. There are effects that I do not remember ever seeing before, details to phaser firings and to the surfaces of planets as the Enterprise orbits them. Good work. I can hardly wait for "Doomsday Machine"!

Ayelborne: Yes, please leave us. The mere presence of beings like yourselves is intensely painful to us.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I won't watch those "remastered" Star Trek episodes. Replacing the opticals/effects shots/matte paintings is an affront to all the craftsmen who killed themselves getting the show on the air every week back in the sixties. It's more George Lucas CGI tinkering, and disrespects what was cutting-edge TV in its time. You know, there wouldn't have been hundreds of hours of later Trek without the original show as it originally aired, and if young people coming to the show now find it a clunky antique with bad effects, they should get over themselves. (Hey, next let's replace those obviously fake matte paintings in Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz, they pull me right out of the story!)

But then, I watched the show from its very first broadcast in 1966, so I must admit to a far more personal and passionate connection to it than most people, even the "average" serious Trek fan. This is something that's been an essential part of my being for fifty years: messing with Trek's visuals feels like a personal attack!

 

[Touchofevil]

All caught up with The Walking Dead.

 

[Benzadmiral]

I won't watch those "remastered" Star Trek episodes. Replacing the opticals/effects shots/matte paintings is an affront to all the craftsmen who killed themselves getting the show on the air every week back in the sixties. It's more George Lucas CGI tinkering, and disrespects what was cutting-edge TV in its time. You know, there wouldn't have been hundreds of hours of later Trek without the original show as it originally aired, and if young people coming to the show now find it a clunky antique with bad effects, they should get over themselves. (Hey, next let's replace those obviously fake matte paintings in Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz, they pull me right out of the story!)

But then, I watched the show from its very first broadcast in 1966, so I must admit to a far more personal and passionate connection to it than most people, even the "average" serious Trek fan. This is something that's been an essential part of my being for fifty years: messing with Trek's visuals feels like a personal attack!

Like you, I've been a fan of "Trek" since its first season. But I like the updated effects. These, I feel, are the kind of effects Roddenberry & Co. would have gone for had they possessed the technology, and budget, in 1966-1968. I see nothing wrong with showing the light reflection on the underside of the ship's hull as it fires the phasers, or of seeing the Klingon target ship actually disintegrate into fragments in space. This tinkering does not replace or update the sets, or the look of the characters, or the Trek world; it's merely showing us stuff that GR and his team would have shown, if they'd had the chance. See here:

Even more visual excitement, I think, added in a way that does not distract from the original characters or their conflicts, but underlines them where possible.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I think we have to agree to disagree on this issue. I just can't watch these "enhanced" episodes without getting depressed or enraged. I fully admit it's MY problem, and I understand that this was a smart business move on the part of CBS to "freshen" the series.

But OTOH, my own son, who I thoroughly inculcated into Trek from an early age, won't watch TOS anymore - but it's not the effects work, it's the "overdone" color, music, hammy acting, and sledgehammer symbolism that he can't handle. Replacing the effects shots doesn't modernize any of that.

 

[Benzadmiral]

I think we have to agree to disagree on this issue. I just can't watch these "enhanced" episodes without getting depressed or enraged. I fully admit it's MY problem, and I understand that this was a smart business move on the part of CBS to "freshen" the series.

But OTOH, my own son, who I thoroughly inculcated into Trek from an early age, won't watch TOS anymore - but it's not the effects work, it's the "overdone" color, music, hammy acting, and sledgehammer symbolism that he can't handle. Replacing the effects shots doesn't modernize any of that.

Show him an episode of "Tom Corbett, Space Cadet" -- there are episodes on YouTube -- or "Space Patrol" or "Rocky Jones," any of the 1950s brand of TV science fiction. I think he'll agree the original Star Trek holds up just fine by comparison.

 

[Fading Fast]

I think we have to agree to disagree on this issue. I just can't watch these "enhanced" episodes without getting depressed or enraged. I fully admit it's MY problem, and I understand that this was a smart business move on the part of CBS to "freshen" the series.

But OTOH, my own son, who I thoroughly inculcated into Trek from an early age, won't watch TOS anymore - but it's not the effects work, it's the "overdone" color, music, hammy acting, and sledgehammer symbolism that he can't handle. Replacing the effects shots doesn't modernize any of that.

Okay, after following your and Benzadmiral's conversation, I watched "Errand of Mercy" in its remastered state. I didn't know they had remastered these and added in special effects. I first watched these shows in the early '70s on re-runs and have seen all of them many times, but not for many years. I was mildly put-off by the "enhanced" effects, I think, for two reasons.

One, they disturbed my established memory of these familiar shows - like going home after years of absence and seeing the main street in your town has changed. And two, they felt grafted on to me / not organic to or consistent with the rest of the feel of the show - but perhaps that is really just another way saying my first complaint over.

On an artistic level, it feels like colorization to a B&W movie: the original was done the way it was at its time for many reason - technical, time and money limitations, for example - but the final product of those limitations is the original real deal. This felt like someone dropped a new engine in an old car. You can do it, but you know longer have an original old car.

I don't enjoy colorization, but as long as it doesn't destroy the original B&W version, I have nothing against it if others enjoy it. I feel the same with these "Star Trek" episodes. As long as the original versions exist - and they do on Amazon Prime - then I have nothing against an attempt to "enhance" them as long as it is honestly acknowledged that the original has been altered.

 

[Zombie_61]

I think we have to agree to disagree on this issue. I just can't watch these "enhanced" episodes without getting depressed or enraged. I fully admit it's MY problem, and I understand that this was a smart business move on the part of CBS to "freshen" the series...

You probably already know this, but the show was remastered because of the change to digital broadcasting and high-definition televisions; those "new" technologies would have made the defects in the original effects even more noticeable.

The thing that I dislike about the remastered episodes is that the team that created them also altered them. They initially announced they were going to faithfully duplicate those effects sequences as they were initially presented, but started out making minor changes right from the beginning and eventually changed some of those sequences rather drastically, even including elements that weren't in the original effects sequences. The end result is that they've modified the episodes rather than preserve their history. And the changes they made, while perhaps being technologically better, didn't improve the stories one bit. And in some sequences they threw physics right out of the window by having the Enterprise maneuvering through space like a leaf on the wind, completely discounting the way a ship of it's size and mass would move in the real world (even taking the show's fictional propulsion technology into consideration).

I've come to accept the remastered episodes for what they are, but still question whether or not they're an "improvement".

 

[Stearmen]

Glad I'm not a Treky!

 

[Feraud]

It's been one bad decision after another on this season of Walking Dead. This week the group's only doctor was killed because she left the safety of Alexandria to prove her worth.
This season has been one of sloppy writing whose only purpose is to force a showdown with the new Bad Guy. I'm stuck watching because my wife and son still enjoy the show. Such are the compromises one makes for family.

 

[LizzieMaine]

There's one of those weird little channels high up on the cable TV numbers that's started showing reruns of "All In The Family." I haven't watched this show on a regular basis in probably thirty-five years, but it's on around the time I get home from work and I've gotten into the habit of watching it before going to bed -- and it holds up a lot better than you might think. The episodes they're showing now are from the middle of the run -- after the initial shrillness had a chance to wear off and after the concept shifted from politics to character growth. Archie Bunker truly was one of the most textured comic characterizations of 20th century television.

 

[Zombie_61]

Glad I'm not a Treky!

But...we have pie!

 

[Stearmen]

But...we have pie!

That one went right over my head?

 

[Zombie_61]

That one went right over my head?

Just a dumb joke, the implication being that Trekkies, or Trekkers, or whatever Star Trek fans are called these days, have pie. So if you were one of us, we'd share some of our pie with you.

We now return to our regularly scheduled thread, already in progress.

 

[Fading Fast]

Just a dumb joke, the implication being that Trekkies, or Trekkers, or whatever Star Trek fans are called these days, have pie. So if you were one of us, we'd share some of our pie with you.

We now return to our regularly scheduled thread, already in progress.

I still don't understand it. Once again, my small-brain-syndrome rears its ugly head.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Interestingly, while attending a recent party caucus, I was offered cookies by representatives of the candidate I don't support. All memes have a basis in reality.

 

[Worf]

It's been one bad decision after another on this season of Walking Dead. This week the group's only doctor was killed because she left the safety of Alexandria to prove her worth.
This season has been one of sloppy writing whose only purpose is to force a showdown with the new Bad Guy. I'm stuck watching because my wife and son still enjoy the show. Such are the compromises one makes for family.

Couldn't agree more. They're really about to lose me. After that whole Glenn fiasco and that "fake death" I was ready to quit this charade. This one didn't piss me off as much as that one did but I did get into a heated argument with one of my band mates about the doc's actions being tantamount to suicide, which it was. Fat, slow, out of shape, no survival skills and little medical skills yet you want to all of a sudden "prove yourself". You want to prove yourself to me? Be able to run 1/4 mile at least without croakin' that'll prove sumthin! Sheeya whatta joke!

"The first rule of Zombieland is Cardio"!

Worf

 

[Feraud]

Couldn't agree more. They're really about to lose me. After that whole Glenn fiasco and that "fake death" I was ready to quit this charade. This one didn't piss me off as much as that one did but I did get into a heated argument with one of my band mates about the doc's actions being tantamount to suicide, which it was. Fat, slow, out of shape, no survival skills and little medical skills yet you want to all of a sudden "prove yourself". You want to prove yourself to me? Be able to run 1/4 mile at least without croakin' that'll prove sumthin! Sheeya whatta joke!

"The first rule of Zombieland is Cardio"!

Worf

Ugh, don't get me started! Glenn's fake death really annoyed me as did his second Deus Ex Machina moment the night of the "Big Zombie Roundup" inside Alexandria..

That business with the doctor was incredibly badly written. After all that has happened this season (The Wolves, the mega zombie herd, the failed hit on Negan) Darly and Rosita put up a weak resistance to the only doctor on the compound going on a goods run? Whatever legal terms AMC has with Kirkman to not surpass the graphic novel has seriously hindered the writing on this show. It's has become obvious to me the show has little more to say than what we've already seen. Maybe I am wrong.. it wouldn't be the first time!

We're enjoying 11/22/63 on Hulu. My wife loved the book and says the show isn't as good. Isn't that usually the situation with book to film adaptations?

 

[Vera Godfrey]

hockey

 

[Stearmen]

Daniel Boone. I still have 18 more episodes to wade through! Not sure if I will make it and they are piling up two more per day.