TOS-R: That Which Survives

[Dan M]

My daughters and I watch this remastered episode today.  I pulled it up on the DVR early in the morning. and as soon as Kirk and Spock came onscreen, they both got very excited.

My 2 1/2 year old said "I wuv this show".  My nearly 5 year old could name a few of the characters and was telling her younger sisters who they were when they came onscreen, occasionally asking me for help.  How cool is that?

This isn't a particularly favorite episode of mine.  It's probably one of the ones I've seen the least, so I wasn't exactly sure where the syndication cuts were (though one was obvious because a line referenced something never shown) and which effects had been updated.   The ship effects were beautiful, as usual.  I'm pretty sure the electrical field in the tube  where Scotty does his work was all-new.  It just looked too good and clean to be original.  Losira's disappearance effect was not touched, I think.

The dialogue was interesting.  I liked the rare instance of dialogue referencing a previous episode, when Sulu mentions the Horta.  Kirk has a great line to Sulu when Hikaru talks about a meteor that impacted in Siberia, something along the lines of "Mister Sulu, if I wanted a lecture on Russian history, I'd have brought Ensign Chekov along."

The Spock dialogue, on the other hand, just felt wrong.  Throughout the episode, he's chastising Sulu's female replacement and Scotty on avoiding emotionalism and imprecision in their speech.  It was just a little too much.  I'm sure if we looked at other episodes, we'd see that Spock often let that stuff slide.  Not this episode.  Every time, he had to comment.  It just felt a little forced.

Overall, a mildly fun episode, but not the best of Trek, by any stretch.  For a season three episode, it's OK.

Trivia: this episode contains one of the few moments where it's visible that James Doohan is missing his right middle finger.  For just a moment, there's a closeup of him manipulating a tool with his right hand.

[Rico]

Cool.  Glad your kids are liking them too.  I thought this was an interesting episode.  A bit above some of the third season entries.  Mine will get recorded late tonight on my TIVO.  I'll check it out tomorrow.