"Obsession" Full Reaction! - Star Trek: The Original Series Season 2
Added 2024-04-26 18:00:05 +0000 UTCFollow along with me using your own copy of the episode!
Comments
Good points!
bunnytails
2024-05-05 15:36:20 +0000 UTCOh, thanks for the insight on the colors! I'll have to go back and see the part you are referencing. I was a big fan of "oil paint by number" when I was a kid. :)
bunnytails
2024-05-05 15:35:28 +0000 UTCOkay, so I get a pass for being a little confused about the technicalities I guess! hehe
bunnytails
2024-05-05 15:33:53 +0000 UTCOK Episode. Good character development and over-all fun, but too many 'Whys', Co-Inky-dinks, and absolutely meaningless technobabble to drive the plot.
Mark Gosine
2024-05-05 13:35:49 +0000 UTCNever much liked this episode. I think they have a lot of heavy concepts for a substantial part of their audience: the pre-teen, sixties generation. Seeing those bodies of the crewmen after they died horribly and ignominiously is pretty scary. Say what you want about Star Trek The Next Generation, (psst, bad acting...) they almost never put stuff on that would likely upset children and psychologically frail adults like me. The episode is a sign of future episodes to come that ruined Shatner's acting reputation forever.
William Terry
2024-05-01 14:05:35 +0000 UTCI am never tired of it! But being tired is another story :P
bunnytails
2024-04-30 17:27:34 +0000 UTC...sigh, never mind... Red Shirt Count 10
Carlos Stevens
2024-04-27 06:38:58 +0000 UTCoh dear god... the red shirt count is going up today... last I remember...8...
Carlos Stevens
2024-04-27 06:37:10 +0000 UTCAnother great reaction!!!😍😍😍you must be getting tired of the intro , it’s the first time u didn’t do your little dance😄😄😄😄
Perry Campbell
2024-04-27 06:36:54 +0000 UTCThis is a very weird episode, IMO. "Moby Dick" type episodes are actually somewhat common in OG Trek AND TNG. We've had a "Kirk's Revenge" episode at least a few times now. But what's unusual is that there's usually some twist about the "monster". In Devil in the Dark, the rock monster was able to be reasoned with and the heroes decided to spare its life. In this episode, the cloud monster was killed and everyone celebrated its death. It's very unusual in Trek for conflicts to ultimately be solved with violence. I also thought it was too soon after the last episode for Spock and McCoy to consider (again) removing Kirk from Command.
SuicuneSol
2024-04-26 21:47:49 +0000 UTCAnd to further complicate red shirt matters, Rizzo, played by Jerry Ayres, (and who dies) already died as O'Herlihy, the first casualty of the Gorns in "Arena" ...
Skyman's Follies
2024-04-26 20:24:02 +0000 UTCAn interesting inconsistency in this episode... Eddie Paskey played Mr. Leslie, a regular background character, in many many TOS episode. In "The Obsession", he was one of the first red shirts to die at the beginning of the story. Yet, Mr. Leslie will continue to appear in many many more episodes, just as he had in previous episodes. His "death" in "The Obsession" is never mentioned again, totally ignored and forgotten. Fortunate for Paskey, who undoubtedly enjoyed getting a regular paycheck as a TOS extra!
J. Scott Phillips
2024-04-26 20:11:10 +0000 UTCAn emotional and well-paced episode directed by Star Trek's "thoughtful" director, Ralph Senensky. Kind of felt like Shatner might've had a cold during this episode - seemed something was going on with his voice beyond the call to play grumpy. Finale calls for a return of the Doomsday Machine's "jaws" theme to highlight a similar (and maybe not quite as fun) nail-biting "beam us up now!" sequence. Great guest star shot by Stephen Brooks as ensign David Garrovick (love the little scene with him and Chappel) and just a lot of nice exchanges between the characters. Senensky did not direct a lot of episodes (maybe 7 or so) but I believe he was recalled by most of the cast as one of their favorite recurring directors for his insight into their characters. Lastly, shout out to Gerald Finnerman, Star Trek's director of photography. It was he, the son of a great film cinematographer, who suggested Star Trek's "painting with colors" technique. It's done well before this episode and certainly after, but check out the scene in the conference room where they're first discussing the creature. Note the blue wash behind Kirk, Spock and McCoy then suddenly and beautifully contrasted with the green background against Garrovick's red shirt. Little touches like this, I feel, made TOS look so unique.
Skyman's Follies
2024-04-26 19:59:00 +0000 UTCOne of my favorite episodes. Not sure I would put this in my top 10, but it's VERY close. Star Trek is known for what is referred to as 'techno babble' -- meaning a whole bunch of scientific sounding language and terms being tossed around which they try to use to explain things and you just have to nod and say 'okay, whatever you say!' cause it's never going to make any sense. :) This is one of the earliest and strongest references for it. Great personal interactions here, very good acting, plot is a bit stretched thin to cover all the holes but it works in the end. There's a popular meme based on this episode -- when Spock comes into sickbay and asks McCoy 'I need your advice' McCoy thinks to himself 'finally, my time has come!' LOL The idea of a gaseous, not really there creature is a fun one that gets explored in future episodes. Your right about the vent in the Ensign's room -- it was just his own personal vent, much like how a heating/AC system works in a apartment building. Because it was open without his knowledge, it let the creature get into the cabin. While we've already shown that the popular belief that many redshirts died and in every episode is not correct, it's episodes like this one that helped fuel that belief in the first place. Redshirts don't die in many episodes, but when they DO die they die in a large amount, so people see these episodes and think they must have always have a high death count. Finally, I never noticed that bomb crater in the planet in the closing shot before, from the destruction of the anti matter. I wonder if that was just added to the enhanced edition.
Greg Polander
2024-04-26 19:11:59 +0000 UTC
