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What was the last TV show you watched?

Messages
12,017
Location
East of Los Angeles
The Trek supporting cast did NOT appear in every episode: this is true of Sulu (51 of 79), Uhura (69), Scotty (63), and Chekov (36)...
Sulu was helmsman in the first episode in regular production, "Corbomite Maneuver," and showed up at the helm (with his eccentric hobbies like fencing, botany, and collecting .38 revolvers) frequently during Season One. Chekov wasn't added to the cast until Season Two.
I was aware not all of the "regular" cast members were in every episode, and I knew Walter Koenig (Chekov) was added in Season Two. But in my mind Sulu was almost always at the helm. I guess that's the difference between "weekly" viewing and "binge" viewing--you notice things like this that you wouldn't have otherwise.
 

Benzadmiral

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,815
Location
The Swamp
Star Trek's "Space Seed," the episode that provided the springboard for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. It's still exciting and dramatic, and now it resonates with us in a different way. We know (though the characters don't) how the 15-year-old conflict between Kirk and Khan will play out, in a mental contest rather than physical, strategic rather than tactical. The ending is one of ST's best, a thoughtful moment rather than a lighthearted one, where Spock points out how interesting it would be to return to the planet where they've left Khan and his supermen and see what crop has sprung from the seed they have planted. Kirk: "It would indeed, Mr. Spock. . . ."

In James Blish's adaptation, he ends it a little differently (no idea if this was in Gene L. Coon's first-draft script): Kirk says, "I only hope that in a hundred years, that crop won't have sprung right out of the ground and come out looking for us." Very effective on the page; I don't know if it would have worked on screen. But it's even more eerily prophetic of the film than the TV scene.
 

Benzadmiral

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,815
Location
The Swamp
"Skin of Evil," a late first-season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Online reviews complain about this one, but I've always found it creepy and rather effective. The notion of an antagonist with no redeeming qualities whatever is striking. I noticed anew that it had been co-written by Joseph Stefano, the mastermind behind the original Outer Limits. In fact this feels much like an OL story: there's a monster, the "bear," as Stefano called it, Armus the skin of evil, and a dark tone that would have been perfect in OL's black-and-white. Picard handles the entity very differently than Capt. Kirk would have, too.



SPOILER:










It's the episode, too, in which Lt. Tasha Yar is killed by the entity. She doesn't just vanish from the story; the last scene is a touching memorial in the holodeck, in which her prerecorded image addresses each of her friends. As I understand it, Denise Crosby, the actress, didn't think she was being given enough to do on the show and wanted out. Definitely a mistake on her part.
 

Benzadmiral

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,815
Location
The Swamp
This morning, the H & I channel ran a Man from U.N.C.L.E. episode, "The Brain Killer Affair," with Elsa Lanchester (in a modified version of her Bride of Frankenstein hairdo) as an effective villain. It's very early, perhaps the third episode filmed, and shows that Sam Rolfe and his production team were still trying to decide how Bondian they wanted the series to be. No less than five actors, and the director, would later be connected with Star Trek -- it's fun to pick them out. Plus it's one of the stories that were set up to have a sequel: Elsa's mad doctor survives a fall down an elevator shaft, and plans to revenge herself on Napoleon Solo. Alas, it never happened.
 

MisterCairo

I'll Lock Up
Messages
7,005
Location
Gads Hill, Ontario
Episodes two through five inclusive of series two Broadchurch. Man, the Brits can make a good mystery!

The other night at my brother's I introduced him to the first three episodes of series one of Ripper Street, and a bloody good time was had!
 
Messages
12,734
Location
Northern California
Episodes two through five inclusive of series two Broadchurch. Man, the Brits can make a good mystery!

The other night at my brother's I introduced him to the first three episodes of series one of Ripper Street, and a bloody good time was had!
We have watched quite a bit of Ripper Street here at The House of ToE.
It is entertaining.
:D
 

Stand By

One Too Many
Messages
1,741
Location
Canada
Just finished the 4-part "Quatermass" from 1979, released on Blu-Ray by Network Distributing.
I saw this back when I was 12 on ITV when I was growing up in England and I enjoyed it then - but had never seen it since, so I wasn't sure when I got it, but took a chance. Network got hold of the original masters on 35mm and remastered them and, my God, what a sensational job they did with them. It was filmed in 1978 but it looks and sounds like it was made last year.
And the whole premise is still eery and quite chilling and very well done - as the societal decay and breakdown still feels very real and close-at-hand/plausible. It cost a then-whopping 1.25 million Pounds and the production is all there. It also comes with the edited film version "Quatermass Conclusion" which was intended for theatres. Superb sci-fi.
 
Messages
17,215
Location
New York City
30 for 30 "No Mas"
A chronicle of Roberto Duran's loss to Sugar Ray Leonard.
:D

One of the streaming services I subscribe to - Netflix or Amazon (forget which) - has been promoting that one recently and I've wanted to see it - what did you think of it?

In their day, that was one heck of a rivalry - until the "no mas" moment
 

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