Picture a dozen teenagers meeting at the big picture house to see one of the most anticipated pictures ever. Try and imagine our disappointment when the end credits rolled: not that we wanted the show to go on, but more a case of "that was it?"; or as friend Mike said after he turned to me from the seat to my left: "I thought it would be better than that."
The next morning I shuffled to the living room, where siblings were watching "Wink of an Eye". Is this some sort of joke? An editorial on what I saw last night? You thought this episode was bad? Last night's event flick made "Wink of an Eye" look like a masterpiece?
The passage of time has been kind to ST:TMP.
I saw a reproduction of the poster for The Day The Earth Stood Still a couple of days ago and noticed Robert Wise's name. Nice set of bookends to have on your shelf, that. Twenty years apart is it?
ReplyDeleteA little less than two decades, indeed.
ReplyDeleteI'm going through a book titled "Return to Tomorrow". It was drawn from hours of interviews with key people on the production... the key thing is the interviews were done right after ST:TMP was released. Roddenberry felt they didn't recapture the great chemistry between the characters displayed so prevalently, and classically, in the television series.
A lot of blame was put on director Wise for not understanding that Mark of Quality. To me, the series is one of the great dramatic programs of all time: it had the magic storm.
Correction to my response above: "A little less than three decades."
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