Why is TOS the most sucessful ST series in terms of Horror based stories
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Star Trek
Klein_Returns — 9 years ago(October 05, 2016 06:40 PM)
Why is TOS the most successful ST series in terms of Horror based stories??? Stories like The Man Trap, The Corbomite Manuever, Catspaw, The Changeling, The Devil in the Dark, The Return of the Archons, Operation Annihilate, The Doomsday Machine, Obsession, Dagger of the Mind, The Immunity Syndrome, Spectre of the Gun, That Which Survives, Wolf in the Fold, The Tholian Web, The Lights of Zetar, and even And The Children Shall Lead all have very good and interesting executed Horror elements which none of the following ST series matched (TNG came closest with episodes like Conspiracy and Schisms, but never matched the horror feel of most of the TOS episodes i mentioned).
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ZAROVE — 9 years ago(October 06, 2016 01:45 AM)
Later Trek too itself too seriosuly and became too PC and too dedicated to being "real" Sci Fi. The idea of a race of Robots as a reccurring villain on VOyager was shot down once, for example, because it was "too 50's Sci Fi". Monsters also harken back to 50's Sci Fi and B Movie plots so they tended to avoid them. I dont' think Monsters or horror nessisarily are capy, but this is how the Berman and Braga regime saw them, at least. Now, they seem to have lightened up in "Enterprise", but even then it was not very good. Then again,
Enterprise
was not very good. -
chris109 — 9 years ago(October 06, 2016 05:30 AM)
Cause this chick isn't even a two-bagger. Imagine waking up next to her. You'd run out screaming after chewing off your arm cause you had it under her.
http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/7/7a/M_113_Creature.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20061220174649&path-prefix=en -
grizzledgeezer — 9 years ago(October 06, 2016 09:16 AM)
Your definition of "horror" seems broad. But then, horror movies no longer scare me.
During the filming of "Man Trap", members of the press were invited to see that
Star Trek
was not your conventional "alien-monster shlock". Unfortunately, they arrived during a scene when Spock announced "The monster attacked me." -
narnia4 — 9 years ago(October 06, 2016 12:53 PM)
To me, the other Trek shows tended to be less atmospheric and more bland, and the stories themselves tended to be less colorful and exciting. Most of the Trek shows were shot like television and don't have a lot of flair. Just compare the way TNG was shot to something like, say, The X-Files.
I don't think anyone would claim that cinematography was the greatest strength of the TNG era shows, but the (often) sterile direction and cinematography are one of my least favorite things about the era. TOS had a vibrancy the other shows lacked, and Gerald Finnerman deserves a lot of credit for that. TOS reminds me of The Adventures of Robin Hood, or of course Forbidden Planet.
Another factor is that there weren't just a lot of stories told with horror elements. At times Trek could pull off a horror atmosphere when dealing with the Borg or something, but it wasn't that common. -
ltarex — 9 years ago(October 10, 2016 01:54 AM)
The first two seasons of TNG were great in cinematography, Edward R. Brown did a fine job, much similar in style to Finnerman. But then, Berman thought it's too noirish and too artsy and fired Brown, replacing him with Marvin Rush, whose job was to make the show's look bland and flat.
"A voice from behind me reminds me. Spread out your wings you are an angel." -
Klein_Returns — 9 years ago(October 11, 2016 06:46 PM)
So your saying The Man Trap (salt vampire), The Corbomite Manuever (evil looking alien and the fear of the unknown), Catspaw (obvious halloween episode), The Changeling (evil replacement/duplicate), The Devil in the Dark (creature who can dissolve men to a crisp), The Return of the Archons (which is the inspiration for the Purge movies), Operation Annihilate (monsters who take people over), The Doomsday Machine (abominable ugly device and Commodore Decker's initial reactions, Obsession (vampire cloud with feeds off of blood), Dagger of the Mind (mad scientist with megalomania uses his creation to terrorize people), The Immunity Syndrome (giant creature), Spectre of the Gun(the surreal nightmare-ish atmosphere of the west), That Which Survives(losira was basically a succubus), Wolf in the Fold, The Tholian Web (the scenes of the dead crew on the Defiant), The Lights of Zetar(alien possession), and even And The Children Shall Lead (Gorgon)are Horror based stories???
