Watching Star Trek: TOS for the first time...so many questions

masterjedi322

masterjedi322

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I've always been a fan of Star Trek having seen the TOS-era movies, loved TNG, enjoyed DS9, stomached VOY, and somewhat liked ENT, but I never actually watched the TOS in its entirety.

Lucky for me, Netflix has the entire series available, so I've started watching it...and I'm very confused.


  • Is the relationship between Captain Pike and Captain Kirk ever explained? The pilot basically has a different crew (except for Spock), and then Kirk and his team show up, and I didn't catch an explanation of what happened. I've seen the new JJ Trek movies, which shows how Kirk took over for Pike, but I must have missed this in the TV episode...or did I?
  • Why does Uhura's uniform color keep changing? Most episodes she's in red, but I've seen her pop up in green here and there.
  • What's the obsession with pretty women who make the crew lose their minds? I'm not even ten episodes in, and this seems to be recurring theme.
  • Where's Chekov?

Sean
 
Captain Pike was from the pilot that did not sell. It actually never aired in it's entirety. The cast was recast and that's where it really starts. the unaired pilot was later used in an episode that was basically a flashback.

Uhura's uniform just changes because, well just because. Just fashion and costume directors. No real in universe reason.

As for the pretty woman thing--that's just the way tv was in the 60s.

Chekov did not come around until (I think) the third season. The execs wanted someone young who had the look of the current heart throbs The Monkees.
 
There never really was much of a relationship between Kirk and Pike other than being respected colleges. Pike was the captain created for the original pilot. When it didn't sell and needed re-tweaking, Jeffery Hunter (Christopher Pike) was unavailable. So a new captain was created (Captain Kirk). During the first season there was a shortage of completed scripts to create enough episodes to complete the season. So someone came up with the idea of using the original pilot. Then they just had to write a wrap-around story and half of the thing was already filmed. So the original pilot became the back story of the crew of the Enterprise 13 years prior. In that episode (The Menagerie), Kirk only says that he met Pike when he took command from him.

Put JJTrek out of your head for TOS. In TOS Kirk rose realistically through the ranks and didn't have much of a relationship with Pike.

I do recall that... but can't remember exactly when it happened. I do know that early on, the show was not as colorful... but more and more color was added to justify filming and broadcasting it in color.

That was just society in the '60s. Women were objectified. The show was written by a lot of veterans that served in a much less integrated military... so I'm sure that they drew upon those experiences when writing about a crew on a ship.

Chekov was second season. Roddenberry wanted to add a Russian, the suits wanted someone young people could relate to. And thus Chekov was born.
 
The Pike thing will be explained somewhat in Episodes 11 and 12, titled The Menagerie Parts 1 and 2. As I recall, though, Kirk didn't have much of a relationship with Pike. It was Spock who served under him.

I thought Chekov showed up in the 2nd season, actually.

Also, TOS Kirk is RADICALLY different from JJ Kirk. JJ Kirk is a caricature of the TOS/movies version, and is usually only based on snippets from that.
 
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If you really want to get deep into read "These Are The Voyages: Season One" for an exhaustive episode by episode production breakdown.
 
The first few episodes of season one are a bit rough but it picks up and starts to explain itself better as the series goes on. Enjoy!
 
To further expand on what the others have said vis a vis Kirk & Pike, the Enterprise was not a new ship in TOS, Pike was captain before Kirk and before even Pike was a Capt. April. In addition to not being a new ship the Enterprise was one of 12 Constitution class starships and was the only of the original 12 to have successfully completed its 5 year mission or at least to be still around by the time TOS ends; I don't recall if it was ever established if they made more Constitutions just that there 12 originally.
 
Like any show it took a while to get their footing. They called it the United Space Ship Enterprise for a while, it took a while to figure out what the Federation was.
They also aired the pilot episode several airdates in, adding to the confusion of what Sulu's job is, what uniforms everybody wears.....

Why the heck is that shuttle craft not rescuing those stranded guys......
 
dbuck said:
Like any show it took a while to get their footing. They called it the United Space Ship Enterprise for a while, it took a while to figure out what the Federation was.
They also aired the pilot episode several airdates in, adding to the confusion of what Sulu's job is, what uniforms everybody wears.....

Why the heck is that shuttle craft not rescuing those stranded guys......
Click to expand...

Because they didn't have a shuttle built until the Galileo 7 episode! And that was funded by AMT in return for the model kit rights. And the optical effects were so far behind production schedules, that's why you see so many reused shots of the ship, they had hardly any.
 
Michael Bergeron said:
But you have to watch the animated series for that nugget of knowledge. ;)
Click to expand...

Which, by the way, is well worth it, even if it's a bit...hmm...more simplistic than the show. It's half the length, and the animation isn't terrific, but it's still a fun show and captures the overall "feel" of TOS pretty well.
 
Solo4114 said:
Which, by the way, is well worth it, even if it's a bit...hmm...more simplistic than the show. It's half the length, and the animation isn't terrific, but it's still a fun show and captures the overall "feel" of TOS pretty well.
Click to expand...

Dang right it's worth it. Pretty much the only thing that makes it different from the original series is that it's animated. All the actors (sans Koenig) are there, the original series writers are there, it even has Gene's name on the bloody title. And it's cool seeing a character like April shed some light on the Enterprise's history. So far he's the only confirmed Captain of an Enterprise (or heck, any starship) who is married!
 
IIRC Uhura's uniform colour changed from gold/olive-green (depends on your eyes/TV/lighting) for command (which it ought to have been) simply because the red looked much more flattering on Nichelle Nichols.
And, yes, there are a lot of little things that stick out early on as being slightly different to eventual continuity. (United Earth Space Probe Agency, Vulcanians, etc) but that's because they were making it up as they went. These days you wouldn't even start filming the pilot without the series 'bible' establishing important details (like command/political structures) for the writers to reference.
 
Solo4114 said:
Which, by the way, is well worth it, even if it's a bit...hmm...more simplistic than the show. It's half the length, and the animation isn't terrific, but it's still a fun show and captures the overall "feel" of TOS pretty well.
Click to expand...

It takes a little getting used to but I agree. Despite it's poor production value it's actually a pretty good show.
 
In regards to Chekov showing up in season 2, it gets even more confusing with continuity when you fast forward to the movies and Wrath of Khan. Khan tells Chekov that he "never forgets a face", but Khan actually never met Chekov in the episode "Space Seed" as he had not yet been cast for the show.
 
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