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Which season of TOS had the best aliens?

What season had the best aliens?

  • Season One

    Votes: 9 56.3%

  • Season Two

    Votes: 1 6.3%

  • Season Three

    Votes: 6 37.5%
  • Total voters
    16
JonnyQuest037

JonnyQuest037

Vice Admiral
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A digression about Balok and the Talosians over in the "Trying to Pinpoint the Third Season Difference" thread made me think that this might be an interesting topic to discuss: Which season of TOS had the best, more creative or cool looking, or just plain the most alien, aliens?

(We'll exempt TAS from this discussion, since they weren't working under the same restrictions that TOS was. Likewise, we'll exempt the Romulans, since they were no different in appearance than Vulcans. We'll also eliminate humanoid aliens like Koloth, or aliens affecting a human appearance, like the Organians.)

Give reasons for your answers, and please provide pictures if possible.

I'll give a quick rundown off the top of my head to start (I'm sure I'm forgetting some here & there):

Season One - The Talosians, the Orions, the Salt Vampire, Ruk, the Gorn, the Metrons, the Horta, the Klingons, the neural parasites on Deneva.

Season Two - The Companion, the Tribbles, Sylvia and Korob, the Vampire Cloud, the Providers, the Mugato, the Andorians, the Tellarites.

Season Three - The Melkot, the Tholians, the Vians, Yarnek the Excalbian, Ambassador Kollos, the Zetarians, the Beta XII-A entity (Day of the Dove), the Cheron.

What do you say, folks?

EDIT: To clarify, an alien or alien race should only be counted towards the season they were INTRODUCED in. So for instance, the Klingons would count towards Season One, and only Season One. Andorians would only count towards Season Two, and so on. It's about which season came up with the most original, creative, and impressive designs for an alien race. Sorry if that wasn't clear. :)
 
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Looking over this list, I think I have to give it to the first season. They got the most creative with their resources, with some clever ideas like using older women as the Talosians, young Clint Howard as the real Balok, and Ted Cassidy as Ruk, and some great creature suits like the Gorn, the Horta, and the Salt Vampire. Plus, they didn't fall into the "energy cloud" trap that both of the subsequent seasons did. And the Fu Manchu/Mongol look for the Klingons is terrific.
 
The Tholians, plus the Klingons, Romulans and Vians in S3 sealed it for my vote.

thetholianweb120.jpg
 
Spock's Barber said:
The Tholians, plus the Klingons, Romulans and Vians in S3 sealed it for my vote.
Click to expand...
But neither the Klingons nor the Romulans originated in S3.

Perhaps I should clarify: Aliens should count towards the seasons they originated in. This thread is about the aliens that each season created from scratch. And that's also why I'm not counting the Romulans for S1. They, by definition, looked exactly the same as the Vulcans, who'd already been established in the person of Mr. Spock.
 
JonnyQuest037 said:
But neither the Klingons nor the Romulans originated in S3.

Perhaps I should clarify: Aliens should count towards the seasons they originated in. This thread is about the aliens that each season created from scratch. And that's also why I'm not counting the Romulans for S1. They, by definition, looked exactly the same as the Vulcans, who'd already been established in the person of Mr. Spock.
Click to expand...

Oh, okay. Then I’ll stick with S3...the Tholians and the Vians. :)
 
You know what? What the hell, let's count the Romulans. I was originally thinking they shouldn't count because the basic makeup & look had already been created for Mr. Spock, a regular series character, but they still had to create the costumes and helmets for the Romulan crew in "Balance of Terror," and that counts for something.

I guess that allows in all the Vulcan costuming we saw in "Amok Time," too.
 
The aliens in season one were pretty weird to be honest, compared to the other series of the show! Season three had it's share of unsettling encounters but I think season one tops it for me by a long margin! :techman:
JB
 
Spock's Barber said:
The Tholians, plus the Klingons, Romulans and Vians in S3 sealed it for my vote.

thetholianweb120.jpg
Click to expand...

^^this

TOS never sold an alien that looked nonhumanoid better than the Tholians (who still had the Trek panache of allegory). And without mind trickery (the Talosians were good as a one-off but as with Kromaggs there's no way to sustain them as a credible antagonist for too long.)

And season 3 finally introduced a Klingon ship. Season 3 was pushing the envelope as much as it could.

Season 1 had some great beginnings, though most were humanoid or glowing balls of light telling us how good humans will become, or were Trelane's mommy and daddy - what is this, "Lost in Space" all of a sudden?!) The Klingons are timeless and the Romulans were the perfect venue for the great trope of cat vs mouse as well as exploring racism amongst allies in a terrific way.

Season 2 threw in a few new goodies (the Kelvins being Octopodiformes using human bodies to stuff themselves inside yet look thinner than Twiggy, don't ask how they got the bodies or how long they can keep reanimating human shells for >5x their average lifespan, it takes more than Osteo Bi-Flex and Metamucil to do that... (and sarky disposition aside, "By Any Other Name" won me over as a kid and various set pieces still hold up shockingly well now. How they turn humans into those styrofoam cubes is fairly creepy and well-described and TOS was even bold in letting the female be crushed to death, which must have been a huge shock in 1967.)
 
If we are looking at alien looking aliens, I think season 3.
With the Melekots, Medusans, and Tholians (oh my!) plus the Excaliban.
Season 1 had the Horta and Brain Spawn, Season 2 had whatever Sylvia and Korob were.
There were a lot of other aliens but they were the humanoid type.
 
Yeah, a lot of aliens in the first season were a little too humanoid. We keep leaving out the Thasians, and they were very alien, but they took human form to communicate. There was a bit of that, so the Horta and the aliens who decimated Deneva, are the most alien in fir first season. I loved the third season aliens because they were well and truly alien: the Melkotian was a floating weird head, the Excalbian was living rock withheavy foreclaws, the Tholians were so alien the TV fritzed when they came on, and the Medusans were so ugly we couldn't fathom it. Still, as much as I love the Vians, they were cousins of the Talosians.
 
S3 with a slight nod over S1 for me.

Tholians, Medusans, Vians, Zetar Lights, Excalbians, Gorgon, The * Spiral, The Melkotians...lots there to chew on. Plus plenty of mischief from Romulans and Klingons.

TOS did aliens better than any other series in my opinion.
 
Probably season one, but not by much over seasons two and three.
 
Season One, followed by Season Three. The aliens were alien, while in Season Two they were mostly the planet of the hats and a rip off of Flat Cats.
 
Season two aliens. Planet of hats loitering on one side and the Giant Space Amoeba and the Planet Killer vastly outweighing them on the other!
 
Cutie McWhiskers said:
[...]How they turn humans into those styrofoam cubes is fairly creepy and well-described and TOS was even bold in letting the female be crushed to death, which must have been a huge shock in 1967.)
Click to expand...
People keep saying this but those people don't remember how many women characters got shot and killed in westerns and cop shows in that era. Heck, The High Chaparral killed off the lead character's wife in its premier episode five months before the abstract death of Yeoman-Cubed-N-Crushed.

This is part of why Star Trek gets ever more mythologized: it's become increasingly distanced from context of the media landcape that bore it. Right, @Harvey?
 
Right? She wasn't even Star Trek's first female death or even female crew death. Lt. Galway beat her to the tomb.
 
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