/r/tos
/r/TOS is for all topics relating to Star Trek: The Original Series (plus TAS and the original films).
/r/TOS is for all topics relating to Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Animated Series, and films starring the original cast.
For a list of all TOS and TAS episodes and films, plus links to their discussion threads, click here.
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/r/tos
My wife and I almost done with our full watchthrough of TOS -- she'd never seen it before except for a few scattered episodes, and I've watched my favorites a hundred times over but failed to retread dozens of others over the years.
One of the episodes I haven't rewatched is "Turnabout Intruder." I don't remember what I thought about it the first time I saw it in the 1980s, but in the ensuing years all I heard and read about it was that it was terribly sexist and bad. I assumed it would be SO BAD that I didn't want to finish our lengthy journey on it, and decided to save "All Our Yesterdays" -- a "good" episode -- for our last, and to watch "Turnabout Intruder" tonight.
Well, heck, people. Turnabout Intruder was a GOOD EPISODE. Certainly in terms of investment and entertainment; it kept my interest the whole hour long, which is better than some of my less favorite Trek episodes. My biggest complaint is actually that it whiffed the ending -- too abrupt. I would have loved it if
Spock had had to meld with Kirk and Lester at the same time to help replace their identities in their bodies, or they'd had to return to Camus II and use the machine that had caused the transfer in the first place. "The transfer is weakening!" felt like a pretty soft mechanism of action for the big denoument.
The episode had ended on the bridge, as so many have, with Kirk thanking Spock, Bones, and Scotty for having his back at the risk of their careers. They're about to do so repeatedly in ST III and ST IV, but this was a big and early instance of it and it would've been a more satisfying ending.
That being said, the stinging critique of "terrible sexism" didn't ring true for me watching this. I won't say there was NO sexism (I'll acknowledge those moments next) but the biggest one I'd heard was that the episode implied that the reason Janice Lester failed to retain command of the Enterprise was that she was a woman, and women are too irrational to run starships. That did not come off to me at all. The reason Janice Lester couldn't retain control of the Enterprise wasn't because she was a woman so much as because she was absolutely batshit fucking crazy. She did not seem of sound mind; she did not come off as a competent, intelligent woman who just couldn't hold it together because of her ovaries or something. She couldn't hold it together beause Janice Lester WAS NOT OKAY. For that reason, I reject the overall interpretation of this episode as sexist.
The most egregious instance of sexism for me was when Mr. Scott claimed he'd seen Captain Kirk
"feverish, sick, drunk, delirious, terrified, overjoyed, boiling mad, but... never... red-faced with hysteria."
Hysteria, of course, being something only an overemotional woman experiences. It was indeed a terrible choice of word. I think "never this irrational!" "never this unpredictable!" would have worked better. Both indicate a disordered mind, but are not necessarily gendered.
Also, I was terribly disappointed to learn that society's tendency to prefer giving power to anything or anyone besides a woman (evident as recently as the 2016 and 2024 elections) seems to have persisted to the 2260s. Though it explains why even in a place a egalitarian as Rodenberry's vision of the future, women still got treated differently and people preferred aliens to women as first officers. /s
Other than that, it was frankly quite an enjoyable episode! Shatner's microexpressions and gait changes playing a woman were actually pretty superb, and even Sandra Smith (Janice Lester) pulled out some pretty good squinty-eyed Kirk expressions from her role (great trivia question, BTW: who besides William Shatner has portrayed Captain Kirk? You'll get "Chris Pine" and maybe "Paul Westley" but only a real fan will remember to say "Sandra Smith!").
It was hard for me watching the final shot of the Enterprise knowing it was in fact the final shot of the show... but tomorrow we have "All Our Yesterdays" to finish off with. And then: six movies.
Morrow: I'm sorry Mr Scott there will be no refit
The Doomsday Machine is similar to the Borg in its destructive power or could it take out a cube?
Written by Steven W. Carabatsos; Directed by Herschel Daugherty
Brief summary: "The Deneva colony is attacked by flying parasites that cause mass insanity while the crew of Enterprise search for a way to stop them."
Memory Alpha link: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Operation_--_Annihilate!_(episode)
If the outside were scaled to the inside
This hangs in the hallway to the office in our house and displays, from left to right: time, temperature, and three day weather forecast overtop a personal calendar. Four status bars which show the current power being used in the house, the current temperature outside, the current humidity outside, and the amount of power we've used for the day. The Enterprise is animated and speeds up or slows down based on how much power is being used.
In the middle: the temperature inside the house and what the thermostat is set to, the travel times to work from the house and vice versa, a list of all the devices registered in the house with the ones currently on blinking and the others dimmed out. It's flanked with visual abstractions from the show - with an indicator of outdoor air quality in the bottom right under "TRANSPORTER CONDITIONS".
You can see it in action here, I hope you like it! https://youtu.be/AoOkJNP34kc?si=LoCmmQUI5RBcQ3Mm