The Devil in the Dark

[Jessica_Alba]

"The Devil in the Dark" in a lot of ways reminded me of The Next Generation's "Home Soil" and "The Quality of Life."

Respect all life forms. I really liked the message behind that in all 3 of these episodes.

 

[UnknownSample]

Warped9 said:
This was classic SF in the best literary tradition rather than just run-of-the-mill hoary sci-fi. Everything in it just works.

Exactly. And I'm glad there's someone here besides me who knows and cares about literary SF, as opposed to what TV usually produces.

 

[Kryton]

Shatmandu said:

Orac Zen said:
Basically, it's an episode that presents Star Trek in a nutshell. One of my favourites across all series.

My thoughts exactly. The later series tried to tell similar stories but generally got bogged down in technohorseshit.

Joe, who must curse

I would suggest that TNG's "Home Soil" was a variation on the theme...you ugly bag of mostly water.

 

[Warped9]

UnknownSample said:

Warped9 said:
This was classic SF in the best literary tradition rather than just run-of-the-mill hoary sci-fi. Everything in it just works.

Exactly. And I'm glad there's someone here besides me who knows and cares about literary SF, as opposed to what TV usually produces.

And this is something I believe often distinguishes TOS from other genre stuff on tv. It often felt rooted in the sensibilities of better literary SF. If I were behind a new SF series I'd emulate a similar approach.

 

[TiberiusK]

It's a little scary that the folks in charge of Trek XI continue to emphasis action, adventure, and character development without delving into what Trek is at its best, as illustrated by this episode.

 

[Outpost4]

^ We don't know that yet. Nobody knows what the script is about except in the broadest terms.

Still, your point is well taken. You can have both action/adventure and a meaningful message. Look at The Corbomite Maneuver. Devil In The Dark is more suspense but that's another classic film style.

God forgive me, but I almost hope the producers for ST:XI use ST:V for their model rather than, say, ST:VIII. At least ST:V had a soul. It was hard to see at times as the movie's execution was often inept beyond belief but it did have a theme bigger than Kirk Saves The Galaxy.


(you know, I should start a thread about this over in Future Trek - that would get blood boiling)

 

[TiberiusK]

Outpost4 said:
^ We don't know that yet. Nobody knows what the script is about except in the broadest terms.

Still, your point is well taken. You can have both action/adventure and a meaningful message. Look at The Corbomite Maneuver. Devil In The Dark is more suspense but that's another classic film style.

God forgive me, but I almost hope the producers for ST:XI use ST:V for their model rather than, say, ST:VIII. At least ST:V had a soul. It was hard to see at times as the movie's execution was often inept beyond belief but it did have a theme bigger than Kirk Saves The Galaxy.


(you know, I should start a thread about this over in Future Trek - that would get blood boiling)

I completely agree. I'm optimistic considering that Abrams is so good with characters.

Did Transformers have a soul? I haven't seen it.

 

[Winterwind]

For me, this episode is great because it's the first episode I can remember seeing as a kid in the 70s.

After that, I found myself liking it for Shatner's work considering his father died during the filming.

 

[Warped9]

TiberiusK said:

Outpost4 said:
^ We don't know that yet. Nobody knows what the script is about except in the broadest terms.

Still, your point is well taken. You can have both action/adventure and a meaningful message. Look at The Corbomite Maneuver. Devil In The Dark is more suspense but that's another classic film style.

God forgive me, but I almost hope the producers for ST:XI use ST:V for their model rather than, say, ST:VIII. At least ST:V had a soul. It was hard to see at times as the movie's execution was often inept beyond belief but it did have a theme bigger than Kirk Saves The Galaxy.


(you know, I should start a thread about this over in Future Trek - that would get blood boiling)

I completely agree. I'm optimistic considering that Abrams is so good with characters.

Did Transformers have a soul? I haven't seen it.

But will he be any good with anything else?

 

[TiberiusK]

Warped9 said:

TiberiusK said:

Outpost4 said:
^ We don't know that yet. Nobody knows what the script is about except in the broadest terms.

Still, your point is well taken. You can have both action/adventure and a meaningful message. Look at The Corbomite Maneuver. Devil In The Dark is more suspense but that's another classic film style.

God forgive me, but I almost hope the producers for ST:XI use ST:V for their model rather than, say, ST:VIII. At least ST:V had a soul. It was hard to see at times as the movie's execution was often inept beyond belief but it did have a theme bigger than Kirk Saves The Galaxy.


(you know, I should start a thread about this over in Future Trek - that would get blood boiling)

I completely agree. I'm optimistic considering that Abrams is so good with characters.

Did Transformers have a soul? I haven't seen it.

But will he be any good with anything else?

I haven't been watching LOST lately but I was really impressed with the first two seasons, especially the contrast of faith (Locke) and science (the Doc). So many episodes of LOST were morality plays.

 

[UnknownSample]

The trouble with ST as literary SF is that a very gradual process began with season two, where it began to be less SF, and more "TV". Then eventually, Star Trek came to be more about itself... its own characters and internal history. It ceased to be a vehicle for presenting challenging SF to a mass audience, and ceased to be about what was happening that was strange and wondrous out there... and it came to be about what was going on between characters on the ship... in Next Gen, I'm talking about, obviously.

The ST films could have used Trek as a vehicle for telling great, adult SF stories with real science-fiction premises, about how new technology or contact with the unknown can affect human beings, say... instead, they were excuses for stale retreads of classic Spock-McCoy banter, etc..

 

[Joker]

TiberiusK said:
I haven't been watching LOST lately but I was really impressed with the first two seasons, especially the contrast of faith (Locke) and science (the Doc). So many episodes of LOST were morality plays.

Sorry, but LOST was, and continues to be, absolutely fucking abysmal. The "morality plays" between science and religion were on the same level as Barney and the Teletubbies.

 

[UnknownSample]

And I'm sort of inbetween those two opinions on Lost. Sort of lukewarm. I'm not very reassured about JJA doing his own Star Trek. At least he doesn't lack a sense of gravity.

 

[The Squire of Gothos]

Nothing to add except that I think I'll watch this again tonight

 

[Therin of Andor]

UnknownSample said:
And I'm sort of inbetween those two opinions on Lost. Sort of lukewarm. I'm not very reassured about JJA doing his own Star Trek. At least he doesn't lack a sense of gravity.

One of the strengths of "Lost" is, when they start doing flashbacks of someone's life story, I just want to return to the island story, but the flashbacks start becoming so intriguing, so quickly. I've found almost every flashback story compelling TV. The island stuff is sometimes very soap operish, but the flashbacks have a Rod Serling "Twilight Zone" quality.

 

[UnknownSample]

Well, I think season one Trek also has a Twilight Zone quality, so a good sign, maybe?

 

[The Squire of Gothos]

A touch of the Twilight Zone perhaps, except it all works out nicely for them in the end.

The music during Spock's mind meld worked well for the scene, as does a lot of the series' music.

 

[Kryton]

Trek music was its own additional cast member on TOS...something the sequel series never really embraced.

 

[NathanielM]

This was a GREAT episode.

I liked the story. Gene Coon did a great job on it.

 

[The Squire of Gothos]

Another thought, this episode seemed to make the deaths more grim than others, probably because of the nature of the redshirts'/miners' deaths.

Not just a quick disintegration or other quick death, but the horror of the beast upon them, even for just a second. Especially palpable is the death of Schmitter (sp?) and his worry over being left alone on guard and his desperate hope that the Enterprise will arrive on time to save him.