Neagley is pissing me off. In the early episodes of Reacher, she wore a distinctly Canadian field jacket, redressed with a US flag. Several years later and they haven't corrected it.
The "year one" wigs amused me. I can't be the only one taking issue with a black hole you can get near enough to slap it on it's ass. Hey, a Catian!
I am too lazy to think or look up the times where ships were close to black holes, but I'd bet in all of Trek there's probably precedent for the concept. Assuming this was unique to this episode, the notion that there was a corresponding "white hole" may provide a fig leaf of an explanation. Curious: isn't a Caitian just a "memberberry?"
Close enough to jump into it from the saucer section like it's the neighborhood swimmin hole? I'm drawing a blank. Sure.
Since the only way Uhura could have traveled through and met herself is if she'd traveled through the center of the black hole, I'm going to assume this was not a normal black hole.
Yeah, that's about the biggest nitpick for this one. Should've just been a wormhole like that VGR episode with the Romulan.
When Uhura entered the event horizon you could see that it was a mini black hole. I'm thinking it was created or used by the same alien species that used the artificial quantum singularity on the Romulan ship. They also used a black hole to give birth.
One thing that bothers me is this: So my oldest daughter and her BF, who have never really watched Trek before, watch and really enjoy SNW. Because of where it will leave off, it's natural fir them to move from SNW right into TOS. But for them, they will suddenly get a much shallower rendition of some characters (Uhura, Chapel, M'Benga, Scotty). I really liked the portrayal of TOS Uhura in this episode, which is thankfully a far cry cry from the one who whimpered "Captain, I'm frightened" in City on the Edge Of Forever. I know, that's the difference 60 years can make. But it would have been SO NICE to see a modern TOS show that dug into all those characters in a way the 60's version never did or could. And now we won't get that.
I'm on the fence about a Year One. On one hand, I don't like the idea of maybe stepping on the characters from the original series in order to produce a remake. On the other hand, your point, which is that I would love to see a much deeper study of Uhura, Scotty, Chapel, M'Benga, and so many others. I love these characters, I've loved them since I was a child, I'd love to see their roles expanded in a TOS environment.
Out of 79 TOS eps, Maybe half are worth revisiting, with only about a dozen as canonical hard points that can still be tweaked. They could give us 40 episodes that follow the important beats and fill in the blanks. Seriously-go through the episode list and so much of TOS does nothing to build the universe or the individuals.
Part of that just being episodic TV back in the day. Look at Gunsmoke! That show was on the air nearly a quarter of a century and aside from the actors aging, and cast changes, you don't really know where in the timeline they are.
Never say never. I would say that at some point again, rebooting TOS with Kirk, Spock, McCoy and all will become too irresistible. I don't have anything against Paul Wesley's Kirk, but I don't really have anything for him either. Same with Ethan Peck's Spock, etc. That is to say, I would have been fine with a Year One with the SNW actors, but if or more likely when they do reboot TOS next time, I think they can easily do just as well or better with whoever they cast.
I'm back on my soapbox: I don't see how you can just run over the same ground as TOS without saying outright "TOS is not canon and neither is TAS" and they aren't going to do that. Therefore the solution is to jump forward to pick up after V'ger. There's a decade, or close to it, of untold stories there with the TOS cast. Weasley would actually be the appropriate age for that time frame too (many of the others would be stretching some to "play older" - particularly Scotty) You can't really fix the thin storytelling on the supporting cast in TOS but you have a wide-open window to tell those stories still.
I do like the idea of exploring the movie era. Hell, I'm still irritated by the fact we never got a Captain Sulu series.
Sulu really was the way to do more TOS with actual TOS DNA in it. Everyone could have guest starred; it was win-win all the way. But, the killer Bs despised TOS, so...*fart noise*..
Eh, if you set it after V'ger, you open up another can of worms, since TWoK was intended to be a soft reboot of the franchise, kinda erasing TMP. However, you can easily plug a whole lotta shit in the gap between TAS and TMP. You not only can get tales of the Enterprise exploring, but you can also deal with how Kirk handles his promotion to admiral. Thus leading you into TMP and then TWoK. Then maybe jump ahead to the time between VI and Generations.
How much of it needs to be remembered for how it affects the universe though? Cut out the worst and irrelevant/non continuity affecting and you'll have maybe 40 adventures to rewrite/do justice to. All you really need is the premise of the original... These are my choices if I had to cut TOS down to 40ish episodes to retell.-38, actually. 14 of which have some connecablity to modern continuity. Bolded are eps that have ties to the current continuity or are otherwise canonical hardpoints. Others just didn't flat out suck or suffer from being textbook tropes in Trek costumes and are otherwise inconsequential. Some comments on how the surviving episodes could be remade to be relevant to today. The Man Trap - Redo as a body horror Where No Man Has Gone Before - Mudd’s Women - Could work as human trafficking allegory What Are Little Girls Made Of? - AI/replicants. Chapel episode Miri - Lord of the Flies/lost colony." Dagger of the Mind - The Corbomite Maneuver - The Menagerie, - Forget the court martial retrospective, let's steal the Enterprise! Concludes Pike, obviously. The Conscience of the King - Balance of Terror - one of the best, deserves to be meatier The Squire of Gothos - He's established in this continuity, may as well have a fun episode. Space Seed - This is where we can write La'an out of the series as she leaves with Kahn. Her DNA gets activated or whatever... Tomorrow Is Yesterday - Soft point due to the slingshot maneuver A Taste of Armageddon - Errand of Mercy - Klingon episode! The City on the Edge of Forever - Kind of already covered in Tomorrow x 3 about how history has to happen (and half a dozen other times franchise wide). Worthy of revisiting. Operation: Annihilate! - We get a Sam cameo, maybe he gets more to do than die Season Two Amok Time - This one wouldn't need much tweaking, but could T'Pring not be a gold digga? Mirror, Mirror - MU is well established in universe. Go nuts with this one. The Apple The Doomsday Machine Metamorphosis - Journey to Babel - Needs a nod to Burnham. Maybe as the cause to Spock and Sarek's estrangement? Friday’s Child The Deadly Years The Trouble With Tribbles - Don't hate me, but I'm CGI'ing in Sisko and co. The Gamesters of Triskelion Patterns of Force - It was a toss up between this and "Bread and Circuses" as they both examine soft dictatorships. THis may be more germaine in the post Trump era. Assignment: Earth - Guest starring Wil Wheaton and Isa Briones. Make it a space shuttle test in 1977 though. Season Three Spock’s Brain - This one is for the writers to have fun with. The Enterprise Incident Day of the Dove - More Klingons! The Tholian Web - Of course, the Defiant is now in the ENT era MU. Kirk has to hide from them and the Gorn Whom Gods Destroy - They kinda just did this on SNW, but... Let That Be Your Last Battlefield - Because who doesn't need another Israel/Palestine analogy? The Cloud Minders - social stratification. 'nuff said The Savage Curtain - with different avatars... All Our Yesterdays - Spock robbed of logic is always fun The Culled: Not necessarily bad, just unnecessary. SNW homaged a few of these. Charlie X - to the cornfield with ya! The Naked Time - tits, or gtfo The Enemy Within - inside you there are two wolves.. Shore Leave The Galileo Seven Arena Court Martial The Return of the Archons This Side of Paradise The Devil in the Dark The Alternative Factor S2 Who Mourns for Adonais p Catspaw The Changeling I, Mudd Obsession Wolf in the Fold A Piece of the Action The Immunity Syndrome A Private Little War Return to Tomorrow The Ultimate Computer Bread and Circuses The Omega Glory By Any Other Name- S3 The Paradise Syndrome - Oh, god... no! And The Children Shall Lead - Miri was better Is There in Truth No Beauty? - Holodecks and botox, so, no. Spectre of the Gun - only if it's just as minimalistic and original Twilight Zoney For the World is Hollow… Plato’s Stepchildren - the big kiss aside, it had already been established Kirk fucked green chicks. Wink of an Eye The Empath Elaan of Troyius The Mark of Gideon That Which Survives The Light of Zetar Requiem for Methuselah The Way to Eden - So they'd run into whatever version of space hippies old starship captains waggle a finger at, 2030 version? Turnabout Intruder The Paradise Syndrome
Good lorb, we should just put you in charge of the next Trek series. You've clearly put thought into this!
Probably too much... but it's accumulated. Thing is that most TOS is simple formula stories and tropes, and occasionally they repeat-or rhyme... Most of those culled stories could've been any other genre and do little (if anyting) to build the Trek universe. Granted, the audience has shown itself not loving seasonal arcs, but there is a clamoring for internal continuity. Even the bolded episodes I chose don't necessarily contribute to the world so much as they define the characters. TOS only tells us "This is Spock's betrothed. Her name is T'Pring and she's banging the pool boy", SNW made her real and with some sense of agency. Although why she'd set up a divorce by death match leaves a bit to be explained... Requiem for Methuselah-Bah, enough with the Lanthanites... The Ultimate Computer-Lower Decks addressed this with some finality.
