Star Trek is better than everything

[Brónach 1,301]

I don't know what to expect from SNW

[Disco Stu 15,495]

What a fantastic matte painting.  The Klingon warbird might be my personal favorite ship design in Trek, certainly top 3.

 

[rough cut 1,714]

So I’m pushing on with TNG. I just recently finished “the best of” Season 5 and 6. So six seasons in, it’s still a great show. I’m having a lot of fun revisiting a show that I watched as a kid in the 90’s!

I’d remove the following from my aggregated best of-list though:

 

Season 5; Episode 2 - Darmok

This seems to be a fan favorite, showing up on a lot of different best of-lists. And sure, why not? It’s a bit of a mystery. It’s ending is aiming to be profound and deep, about understanding and building bridges. But I didn’t find the mystery too compelling, nor the insights too enlightening. Maybe I’m asking too much of a TNG episode but I didn’t find it as entertaining as the other episodes on the list.

 

Season 5 and 6; Episodes 26 and 1 - Time’s Arrow

I get why this would show up on a best of-list. It’s a Star Trek take on Back To The Future and Data is always great to watch when he’s (un-) comfortably out of place. I just don’t like the cringe historical cameo that show up - Mark Twain - and that they try to integrate him into the story, but it ultimately has no impact on the history of said character. Maybe it had been better to have met H.G. Wells and have inspired him to write War Of The Worlds. But I guess the script writers couldn’t do that since then the crew would’ve violated the prime directive.

 

Season 5; Episode 5 - Disaster

This one, I’m unsure of what to do with. I must have watched it with only one eye open because I cannot remember much about it. I initially flagged it to be removed - I think it was the kids I didn’t like - but for some reason, I’m reluctant to remove it. It is described as “Star Trek meets Poseidon Adventure” - a TNG episode realized as a disaster movie. And that can’t be bad, can it? Question is, is it good enough to stay on the aggregated best of-list or should it be booted?

[Naïve Old Fart 9,488]

I've just finished watching "Spock's Brain".

Star Trek? Better than everything?

Really? REALLY?????!!!!!!!!!!!

[Tallguy 3,359]

1 hour ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

I've just finished watching "Spock's Brain".

Star Trek? Better than everything?

Really? REALLY?????!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Pretty much. Now if you had said "The Alternative Factor..."

[Naïve Old Fart 9,488]

Of, course, I could be wrong.

I've just watched "The Enterprise Incident".

Golly! There is much that I wouldn't do with, for, or, even, too, the Romulan commander  Sexy, with a capital SEX.

[Tallguy 3,359]

RIP Joanne Linville. Her daughter played the same part in Star Trek Continues. So much alike it was eerie.

[Andy 4,070]

3 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

I've just finished watching "Spock's Brain".

Star Trek? Better than everything?

Really? REALLY?????!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I actually like Spock's Brain.  I think it's a fun episode.

 

 

 

19 minutes ago, Tallguy said:

RIP Joanne Linville. Her daughter played the same part in Star Trek Continues. So much alike it was eerie.

 

Aw that's sad.  That casting was incredible.  Star Trek Continues wasn't perfect, but it was perfectly entertaining.  Love that "show".

[Holko 9,491]

7 hours ago, Andy said:

I actually like Spock's Brain.  I think it's a fun episode.

I didn't get what all the hubbub was about, either, the one time I saw all of TOS. There were a lot weaker ones.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,488]

I know, @Holko.

I'm part-way through watching the one with the meteor and the native Americans.

next up "And The Children Shall Lead".

Oh...joy 

[Andy 4,070]

You did not just trash The Paradise Syndrome did you?

One of the best from Season 3!

 

And the Children Shall Lead, I’ll grant you, isn’t very good.  Doesn’t Craig Huxley, the Blaster Beam inventor Star as one of the kids?

[Naïve Old Fart 9,488]

I haven't trashed The Paradise Syndrome, @Andy. In point of fact, I haven't finished watching it. I've enjoyed what I have seen.

By changing the course of the asteroid, are they violating the Prime Directive?

[Andy 4,070]

Oh wow!  Your first time through?  Awesome!  Enjoy!  I have such fond memories of discovering Star Trek as a teen.   And know that I’m just playfully chiding you on Paradise Syndrome.  There really is no good reason given for them being identical to Native Americans, other than to just dig out studio costumes off the rack.  It is admittedly a bit silly in that respect. 
 

I think the Prime Directive sort of changed between Gene Coon in TOS and Gene Roddenberry in TNG.  (TNG being much more strict. No interference whatsoever) Letting the civilization die would not allow the civilization to grow normally, so it seems that interference to preserve the culture is allowed in TOS.  I personally don’t get too hung up on Federation rules and specifics. Or canon continuity, for that matter.   If it’s a good thought provoking adventure, I’m willing to let things like that slide. 
 

The episode has one of my favorite Trek scores of all time.  The re-recorded suite is delightful. 

 

There’s also a good/great episode of Star Trek Continues that follows up and examines some fallout from this episode. 
 

Edit:  There is a REALLY cool episode of Strange New Worlds (Ep2 Children of the Comet) that deals with a very similar asteroid threat to a civilization and Pike and Crew are challenged in their endeavor to divert its course.  High recommend!

[Pellaeon 593]

Yeah, the Prime Directive according to TOS is simply, “…no identification of self or mission; no interference with the social development of said planet; no references to space, or the fact that there are other worlds, or more advanced civilizations” (Bread and Circuses).

 

1970s Star Trek fandom extrapolated that the first part of this is, “When contacting a planet making normal progress towards a technological civilization, an officer of Starfleet will make…” This seems to be a reasonable way to explain all the times Kirk intervened (killed a god or machine) in order to [i]restore[/i] normal progress. Either way, there’s nothing to contradict “The Paradise Syndrome.”

 

The LUG TNG RPG formulates the Prime Directive thus: “No officer of Starfleet shall interfere in the natural evolution of a sapient species, nor shall any officer permit a Federation citizen to interfere in the natural course of development of a sapient species.” Is that more in-line with how it works in TNG?

 

 

Anyway, yeah, TOS Season 3 is chock-full of cringey and/or forgettable episodes, with some great exceptions. Tholian Web, Day of the Dove, Enterprise Incident, Requiem for Methuselah, All Our Yesterdays, Spectre of the Gun are probably the must-haves for me, plus guilty pleasures Cloud Minders and World Is Hollow as guilty pleasures.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,488]

"LUG TNG RPG"?

wha'?

[Jay 37,249]

https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Trek_Role_Playing_Game_(LUG)

[Andy 4,070]

2 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

"LUG TNG RPG"?

wha'?

I wasn’t familiar either, so thanks for the assist from Jay. 
 

I do think Season 3 is the weakest overall, but it does have some amazing high points as Pellaeon mentioned.   Sometimes I actually think Season 1 might be the overall winner. 

[Tallguy 3,359]

I have to admit that thanks to Lower Decks I can't hear show abbreviations (TOS, VOY) without laughing a little. 

[Andy 4,070]

I’ve just begun watching Discovery.  I’m 5 episodes in and enjoying it so far.   I’m really looking forward to the Pike episodes of Season 2, but so far I’m entertained. 

[Tallguy 3,359]

Good to hear, @Andy.

 

My 12 year old son is loving Strange New Worlds and wanted to watch Discovery. I just couldn't bring myself to go back to season 1. So I summed it up for him (and wow, it sounded even dumber that way) and we started with season 2.

 

That said, there is some truly terrific stuff with Michael and Sarek. And now that I think of it there is a good Harry Mudd episode.

 

But the show got a much better idea of itself in season 2 and more so in 3. I still need to watch 4. (I got distracted by Lower Decks.)

 

We have two more episodes of Strange New Worlds and I don't think I'm going to be able to handle it ending.

[Tom Guernsey 2,277]

Love the riff on the Search for Spock artwork… guess I’ll have to get Paramount+ now…

[Pellaeon 593]

 

But wait, just listen… It’s an audio drama! And it’s by Nicholas Meyer!

[Tallguy 3,359]

In honor of the 10th anniversary of La-La Land's amazing Star Trek: The Original Series Collection I'm listening to a disc every day.

 

Day 3, Disc 3. The Big Fred Steiner Disc.

 

There's a lot of Star Trek music that people know better. None of this music ever gets hummed in movies and comedy routines. But this is a big whack of Star Trek music right here. This is music that would be used and repurposed in all three seasons. He captured lighting in a bottle.

 

I always think he was a little cheeky in that for his early episodes he would open and close the episode with a quote of Alexander Courage and then use his own themes and motifs. In later episodes he dispensed with the Courage quotes. I think Balance of Terror might be the only time that he used the Star Trek fanfare.

 

This disc is Charlie X (just about the definitive Star Trek score), Mudd's Women, The Corbomite Maneuver, Balance of Terror, and What are Little Girls Made Of? One hour and eight minutes of the best Star Trek TV music ever.

 

Oh, and this is the disc with Steiner's arrangement of the Opening and Closing Credits. IMHO the best one. (Yes, it's the one without the vocals.)

[Tom Guernsey 2,277]

On 06/12/2022 at 6:08 PM, Tallguy said:

In honor of the 10th anniversary of La-La Land's amazing Star Trek: The Original Series Collection I'm listening to a disc every day.

 

Day 3, Disc 3. The Big Fred Steiner Disc.

 

There's a lot of Star Trek music that people know better. None of this music ever gets hummed in movies and comedy routines. But this is a big whack of Star Trek music right here. This is music that would be used and repurposed in all three seasons. He captured lighting in a bottle.

 

I always think he was a little cheeky in that for his early episodes he would open and close the episode with a quote of Alexander Courage and then use his own themes and motifs. In later episodes he dispensed with the Courage quotes. I think Balance of Terror might be the only time that he used the Star Trek fanfare.

 

This disc is Charlie X (just about the definitive Star Trek score), Mudd's Women, The Corbomite Maneuver, Balance of Terror, and What are Little Girls Made Of? One hour and eight minutes of the best Star Trek TV music ever.

 

Oh, and this is the disc with Steiner's arrangement of the Opening and Closing Credits. IMHO the best one. (Yes, it's the one without the vocals.)

I really must listen to some of these again. I went to the entire set when I got it and there’s a handful of favourites and classic individual scores that I listen to from time to time, including the ones you mention, but there’s so much else I should listen to again. So hard when there’s so much music!

 

Funny that you say you prefer the main theme without the vocals, I’m very much an inclined to agree. The 60s bongo and vocal arrangement sounds, how shall I put it, somewhat humorous to modern ears. I know years of parody will do that to a theme, but nobody ever parodies Jerry’s theme!

 

I wouldn’t put down the Giacchino arrangement from the Kelvin timeline movies as especially brilliant (it’s pretty over orchestrated and blocky as so much of his epic material is prone to be), but it certainly makes it sound much less dated considerably more heroic with a nice “reaching for the stars” vibe. I guess Courage arranged it in a way that was of its period and it’s obviously very creative, but if you mixed a more grandiose version of the opening fanfare with a sweeping orchestral version of his theme, I think it would set quite a different tone that would seem a lot more timeless.

[Tallguy 3,359]

13 minutes ago, Tom Guernsey said:

I know years of parody will do that to a theme, but nobody ever parodies Jerry’s theme!

 

Well... David Newman, right?

 

14 minutes ago, Tom Guernsey said:

I wouldn’t put down the Giacchino arrangement from the Kelvin timeline movies as especially brilliant

 

When I woke up on September 8th, 2016 (the 50th anniversary) this was the first track I played. While it certainly is a little tongue in cheek it's still pretty terrific. (This was because I didn't have the end credits to Discovery Season 1 yet. Arguably one of the best renditions of the Courage theme.)

[Tallguy 3,359]

Star Trek day 4, Disc 4
The Enemy Within (Sol Kaplan)
The Conscience of the King (Joseph Mullendore)
Shore Leave (Gerald Fried)

 

The Enemy Within is one of only two Sol Kaplan scores and they're both my favorites. I wish he had gotten to do more. Doomsday Machine is the more well known of the pair. But I think I like Enemy better. Doomsday may be more even but the highs in Enemy are SO high. That volin solo in Help Me!

 

The Conscience of the King is Mullendore's only full score. He did a fair amount of library music (more on that in a bit) for the first season. He is the only composer (including Courage!) to use the Star Trek theme inside an episode rather than just the fanfare. It sounds a little bit more old fashioned than the rest of the first season (not including the Shakespear stuff) but there are some outstanding bits. For myself there are several moments from this score that I know better from other episodes. Balance of Terror comes to mind. I'm surprised he didn't do more. He was good.

 

I skipped Beyond Antares. Sorry, Nichelle. RIP.

 

Shore Leave was one of the scores that we got from GNP Crescendo back in the 1990's. Its OK. I run hot and cold on Fried. It has some high points. The opening is lovely. But it also has a lot of bits that remind you that Fried wrote music for Gilligan's Island. (And what kind of hack would write for that show? ) I definitely like his action music and his sentimental sounds more than his comedy. The GNP disc left off the best part of Fried's score (2nd Ruth - one of them, there's a lot of tracks called 2nd Ruth). But it also left off Mullendore's library track Impension which is just cool.

[karelm 2,901]

Looking forward to some fine weekend reading!

[Tallguy 3,359]

10 hours ago, karelm said:

Looking forward to some fine weekend reading!

 

To quote the philosopher Takei: Ohhhh my.

[karelm 2,901]

2 hours ago, Tallguy said:

 

To quote the philosopher Takei: Ohhhh my.

To quote the thespian Shatner: KaaaaaahhhhhhhhhNNN!!!!

[Tallguy 3,359]

Day 5 Disc 5

City on the Edge of Forever (Fred Steiner)
Library Music (Joseph Mulendore)
Lot of other stuff

 

Short day. First up is City. For a partial score it's a winner. It's got your hustle bustle big city, it's got your suspense, and of course it's got your tragic emotion. And "Goodnight, Sweetheart"!

 

Mulendore's library cues were used a lot in the first season. As I noted yesterday, he based them all on the Star Trek theme. And he makes versatile use of it in all cases! He also wrote a fair amount of "Hardee har har yuck yuck yuck" humorous music that got used a fair bit.

 

Then there are the library cues from Steiner. A lot comes from Charlie X. This is the kind of stuff that was the revelation in this box set. Between the Mullendore tracks and all of the re-recorded library cues these are the tracks that even the most passionate Trekkies didn't even know that they wanted! And in a regular "episode by episode" approach we would never have gotten.

 

I skimmed through all of the sound FX and the source music. Nice stuff. Good to have.

[karelm 2,901]

5 hours ago, Tallguy said:

Day 5 Disc 5

City on the Edge of Forever (Fred Steiner)
Library Music (Joseph Mulendore)
Lot of other stuff

 

Short day. First up is City. For a partial score it's a winner. It's got your hustle bustle big city, it's got your suspense, and of course it's got your tragic emotion. And "Goodnight, Sweetheart"!

 

Mulendore's library cues were used a lot in the first season. As I noted yesterday, he based them all on the Star Trek theme. And he makes versatile use of it in all cases! He also wrote a fair amount of "Hardee har har yuck yuck yuck" humorous music that got used a fair bit.

 

Then there are the library cues from Steiner. A lot comes from Charlie X. This is the kind of stuff that was the revelation in this box set. Between the Mullendore tracks and all of the re-recorded library cues these are the tracks that even the most passionate Trekkies didn't even know that they wanted! And in a regular "episode by episode" approach we would never have gotten.

 

I skimmed through all of the sound FX and the source music. Nice stuff. Good to have.

One thing that was shocking to me was just how small the orchestras were used in those OST episodes.  City, only had a 13 piece orchestra which was par for the course for those episodes.  Each score's episode feels so large scale, that's really amazing how they stretched it out week after week.  In contrast, Lost, one of big orchestral TV scores of the 2000's used 30 or so orchestra per episode.  Orville uses 60-80 piece orchestra (the size orchestra of most 1970's-2000's big budget theatrical orchestras)!

 

[Tallguy 3,359]

Day 6 Disc 6

 

Catspaw and Friday's Child (Gerald Fried)

 

Starting out with the season 2 opening and closing titles. While I prefer Steiner's cello version from season 1, this is pretty much the definitive version. And it sound great here.

 

Catspaw has some cool stuff, but it's a terrible episode and there's only so much Fried can do with it. I do love his Captain Kirk motif used here, in Friday's Child, and famously in Amok Time. I think because of Amok Time the theme is usually more associated with Spock.

 

Fried wrote some terrific melodies and action pieces. But he could get into some stuff that just went plink plink ploonk. Some of it made narrative sense but other times it feels like he's treading water waiting for something to happen. Catspaw has a lot of this.

 

Friday's Child is some grade A Star Trek. It takes all of the strengths of Catspaw and applies them to a great episode. It's also got some of my favorite Enterprise music in the whole series. I know the ending better from being tracked in at the end of Amok Time. This one gives even Sol Kaplan's fanfare a run for its money!

[Andy 4,070]

I absolutely love that box set.  I like to randomly pick a disc and re-re-re discover things that make me smile.

[karelm 2,901]

1 hour ago, Andy said:

I absolutely love that box set.  I like to randomly pick a disc and re-re-re discover things that make me smile.

It's of consistently shockingly high quality...I think that was common back then.  Like the soundtracks to Twilight Zone and Outer Limits are all so damn good and always low budget.  

[Tallguy 3,359]

1 hour ago, karelm said:

It's of consistently shockingly high quality...I think that was common back then.

 

I thought you meant "back then" in 2012! But yeah, there's a lot of stuff that we would think was "big budget scores" that was cheap and disposable television back then!

 

I am always amazed (and frankly thankful) that this music even exists. Because it wasn't supposed to! We look at all of the music that is lost from carelessness. This music was legally supposed to be destroyed at the end of every season. And here we have all of it!

[karelm 2,901]

11 hours ago, Tallguy said:

 

I thought you meant "back then" in 2012! But yeah, there's a lot of stuff that we would think was "big budget scores" that was cheap and disposable television back then!

 

I am always amazed (and frankly thankful) that this music even exists. Because it wasn't supposed to! We look at all of the music that is lost from carelessness. This music was legally supposed to be destroyed at the end of every season. And here we have all of it!

It was even worse a generation earlier.  All of Miklos Rozsa's MGM scores were just thrown away after recorded.  Anything we hear from re-recordings or suites are reconstructed.  Just imagine how many great scores were just thrown away.

[Tallguy 3,359]

Day 7

 

Amok Time (Gerald Fried)
The Doomsday Machine (Sol Kaplan)

 

 

Well, this is the 800 lb gorilla of Star Trek.

 

It blows my mind that the first ever actual Star Trek series music released to the public was The Cage and Where No Man Has Gone Before in 1985. And then it absolutely floors me that no more music was released until 1992! And it was these two scores.

 

We did not have the original recording of the Star Trek theme until AFTER The Undiscovered Country. Crazy!

 

Both are brilliant scores.

 

Parts of Amok Time have passed into parody but wow is it good. As much as I love the music for Spock written by Goldsmith, Horner, Eidelman, and Giacchino, it is this cold, lonely, sad, geometric theme played on a bass guitar that is as good as it gets. And the other music in this score is great too!

 

It's interesting where Fried chooses to use his Captain Kirk theme here. It's such an action and jeopardy kind of theme it's odd to hear it used as just "Hey, here's Captain Kirk."

 

The Doomsday Machine is the biggest space battle we ever got in Star Trek. Certainly, that had a score written for it. But Kaplan also writes music for the devastated Constellation (and her captain) which is haunting and epic. Goodbye, Mr. Decker is a standout.

 

I am absolutely certain that John Williams saw this episode and lifted Jaws. (KIDDING! SOOOOO KIDDING!)

[Tallguy 3,359]

Day 8
Fred Steiner's Second Season Music

Fred Steiner:
Who Mourns for Adonais
Mirror, Mirror
By Any Other Name
The Omega Glory

 

Library music from
Who Mourns for Adonais; Mirror, Mirror; By Any Other Name; Charlie X; The Corbomite Maneuver

    

 

To be honest this is mostly music that I don't revisit a lot. I should. It's really good. It's just that so much of it is Steiner re-using first season Steiner music. It's still great, it's just annoying.

I listen to Who Mourns rather a lot. It's got the most new music, I LIKE the music that it re-uses, and it's amazing. I should listen to Mirror, Mirror more than I do. Once you get past "Hey, it's Balance of Terror, extended!" it has some really good music. Meet Marlena is a standout.

By Any Other Name has the cool Kelvin zappy music. But then: Hey! That's What Are Little Girls Made Of! I'm looking forward to Season 3 when Steiner wrote more new music.

 

I do have to say, I still love Star Spangled Enterprise.

As I mentioned before (and will again) the library music was the gift this box gave us that we never knew we wanted.

[Andy 4,070]

I got used to the re-recordings of Mirror Mirror and By Any Other Name on the Varese discs, which I played to death, so it’s a real treat to have the originals… like listening to them for the first (millionth) time. 
 

Steiner’s stuff is just bulletproof. 

[Faleel 5,326]

Fried and Duning I think are the ones that are the most identifiable.

 

Courage can sometimes be a bit anonymous.

 

Steiner is kinda in between.

[Tallguy 3,359]

10 hours ago, Andy said:

I got used to the re-recordings of Mirror Mirror and By Any Other Name on the Varese discs, which I played to death, so it’s a real treat to have the originals… like listening to them for the first (millionth) time. 
 

Steiner’s stuff is just bulletproof. 

 

I had all four of those LPs (!). The Varese and the LabelX. I wish there was more history as to how those came about and why it happened when it did. It seems that there should be a very interesting story of how the stars aligned. I suppose being both the 20th anniversary of Star Trek and Trek having another newfound surge in popularity that also got us The Next Generation helped.

 

And to be honest I didn't listen to them all that much. I know why I didn't listen to the Label X records. I didn't do well with ginormous suites. But I think it was also a case of not realizing that listening to Charlie X (not my favorite episode) also meant listening to a whole lot of other Star Trek. Doomsday Machine and Corbomite Maneuver had obvious and recognizable hooks. And to this day I have a hard time with The Empath and Is There in Truth.

 

The one thing I played a LOT (and on Label X no less) was The Enemy Within. Wowzers.

[Tallguy 3,359]

Day 9

Duning's Day!

 

George Duning:
Metamorphosis
Return to Tomorrow
Patterns of Force

 

with Special Guest Star Gerald Fried:
The Apple
Wolf in the Fold

 

      

 

 

The meat of this disc is Metamorphosis and Return to Tomorrow. And they have a lot in common. I usually listen to them separately. I have to say that if I didn't know where Metamorphosis ended I might have a hard time noticing. To say Duning had a style would be a vast understatement.

They're both gorgeous with a wide range of action and emotion that can get covered up by Duning's ever present pretty theme(s). And they're very pretty. In the liner notes Duning calls is "heart music". I'll complain about The Empath and Is There in Truth No Beauty when we get to it. But some of his action and danger cues were solid enough to end up in other episodes in the season.

Duning wrote arguably my two favorite cues for the original series in these episodes. You've Got It and Kirk's Philosophy. Both are used for the "Risk is our business!" speech.

He also wrote some top notch Enterprise music which would get tracked into other episodes. It's so great to have all of the library versions of these cues.

And he wrote a LOT of Nazi music. Ok, it's just under seven minutes.

Then Gerald Fried wrote some drum stuff and some belly dancing stuff. All of it was unused. But we have ALL of it here. Have I mentioned this box is a miracle?

We're over half way through! Which for some of you might be a relief.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,488]

23 minutes ago, Tallguy said:

 

 

Jeez! And people thought Doctor Who was cheap! 

[Tallguy 3,359]

1 hour ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Jeez! And people thought Doctor Who was cheap! 

 

It doesn't show in the picture but that set it pretty huge. Certainly for television and for a set that would only be used for a single episode.

 

Star Trek was one of the most expensive TV shows on the air at the time.

 

The only Doctor Who set I can think of that was big was the Tomb of the Cybermen, right?

[Andy 4,070]

7 hours ago, Tallguy said:

 

I had all four of those LPs (!). The Varese and the LabelX. I wish there was more history as to how those came about and why it happened when it did. It seems that there should be a very interesting story of how the stars aligned. I suppose being both the 20th anniversary of Star Trek and Trek having another newfound surge in popularity that also got us The Next Generation helped.

 

And to be honest I didn't listen to them all that much. I know why I didn't listen to the Label X records. I didn't do well with ginormous suites. But I think it was also a case of not realizing that listening to Charlie X (not my favorite episode) also meant listening to a whole lot of other Star Trek. Doomsday Machine and Corbomite Maneuver had obvious and recognizable hooks. And to this day I have a hard time with The Empath and Is There in Truth.

 

The one thing I played a LOT (and on Label X no less) was The Enemy Within. Wowzers.

They were probably some of the first CDs I ever bought.   They seemed to compliment each other so well, with no repeated material between them.  Varese was Steiner heavy, Project X more Duning and others.   They almost seemed coordinated with two volumes each, and no Courage suites.  I just loved them.  I think the Paradise Syndrome suite flows better than the original recording. 
 

Charlie X, The Empath… I love them all. 

[karelm 2,901]

7 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Jeez! And people thought Doctor Who was cheap! 

Is Doctor Who any good?  My brother adored both series but said '60's Doctor Who was his favorite though I just couldn't get into it because of its cheesiness.  I'm generally fine with that stuff once I get into the mythos of a series.  For instance, I don't mind the horrible science and sfx of Twilight Zone or Outer Limits because the stories, themes, music are so compelling that you just accept it.  Same with ST TOS because the show is just great overall with some episodes being exceptional.  Yes, there are the weird hippy or phoned in episodes here and there but very few series are as rich and compelling.  How does Dr Who stack?  Also got very confused by the multiple iterations.  It's just a very hard show to get in to if you never got into it.  It's sort of like how do you get in to marvel comics?  It's decades of stories and not easy for someone new to get in to.  Just don't know how to start or if it's even worth it.

[Tallguy 3,359]

2 hours ago, karelm said:

Is Doctor Who any good?  My brother adored both series but said '60's Doctor Who was his favorite though I just couldn't get into it because of its cheesiness.  I'm generally fine with that stuff once I get into the mythos of a series.  For instance, I don't mind the horrible science and sfx of Twilight Zone or Outer Limits because the stories, themes, music are so compelling that you just accept it.  Same with ST TOS because the show is just great overall with some episodes being exceptional.  Yes, there are the weird hippy or phoned in episodes here and there but very few series are as rich and compelling.  How does Dr Who stack?  Also got very confused by the multiple iterations.  It's just a very hard show to get in to if you never got into it.  It's sort of like how do you get in to marvel comics?  It's decades of stories and not easy for someone new to get in to.  Just don't know how to start or if it's even worth it.

 

If you don't mind "old" tv with realllly zero budget go with Tom Baker. An incredibly compelling lead who is still by many considered the best Doctor. 

 

If you need something more modern go with Matt Smith. Anytime they change actors is a good jumping on spot, really. 

 

He's a time traveler from another planet. He has a time machine that looks like a 1960s British phone box. Is there more to know? Lots. Do you need to know it? Nope. 

[Andy 4,070]

Trek The Halls!

 

 

[Naïve Old Fart 9,488]

@Tallguy, the Skaro set for "Evil Of The Daleks" was large.

[A24 4,323]

The title of this thread needs to be changed. Misinformation is against the new rules!