In this episode of Masterpiece Science-Fiction Theater we look at the narrative trends over the first 7 episodes of Star Trek.
Listen for the analysis, but you can see some of the tabulations below:
Narrative Structure
Antagonist Type
| Monster Episode: a non-human, mysterious antagonist puts the ship and/or crew in danger
|
Where No Man… (1)
The Man Trap (5) Charlie X (6) The Corbomite Maneuver (2) The Enemy Within (4) |
71% |
| Action/Adventure: a human(oid) antagonist or a force drives the conflict; the ship and crew overcome a series of obstacles to achieve a goal | The Naked Time (7)
Mudd’s Women (3) |
29% |
Narrative Type
| Boiling the Frog Plot: introduce a threat and ratchet up its danger over several acts | Where No Man…
The Man Trap Charlie X |
43% |
| Dodgeball Plot: continuous pile on of multiple conflicts and narrative threads | The Corbomite Maneuver
Mudd’s Women The Enemy Within The Naked Time |
57% |
World Building
Michael Okuda: Whenever you have an invented universe, the most important thing is your look, your style. Even if you have a huge budget, you can’t really build a Starship enterprise, you cannot really build Star Fleet Command. What you can do is suggest it and let the audience’s mind fill it in. So you do you do that? It turns out, you pick a style, you pick a particular color planet, a particular way of shooting things, a particular way of shooting visual effects, a particular way of telling stories, and that becomes your style. And once you define that, if you defined it well, if you believe in it, if your stories believe in it, the audience will by into it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHOpSrDwZNM
5 planets–all desolate and deserted or near-deserted:
WNM: Delta Vega
Mudd’s Women: Rigel 12
Enemy Within: Alpha 177
Man Trap: M-113
Naked Time: Psi 2000
Charlie X: Thasus
TNG Season 1 comparison: Encounter; Lonely Among Us (Antica and Selay): 2 of first 6 are exclusively about admission to the federation. 9 of 25 episodes (36%) are either have either the A plot or the B plot be about the Enterprise settling a political dispute between different worlds or between the Federation and an alien group (and I’m not counting the Ferengi, Klingon or Romulan episodes)
Final Analysis
| Masterpiece (5 points) | Corbomite Maneuver
The Naked Time |
10 |
| Classic (4 points) | Where No Man
Enemy Within Man Trap Charlie X |
16 |
| Average Outing (3 points)
|
2 | |
| Dime Store Paperback (2 points)
|
Mudd’s Women | |
| Hackish Drivil (1 point) | ||
| Total Score | 28 |
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