TOS: A Taste of Armageddon

[Robovski]

Or you take a more sophisticated interpretation "impressed" to just mean what had left a large impression on him of Gill's work.

But it was probably the simplification of story on tv and ready costumes and sets - this is literally a cheap episode as stated by you.

[Morgaine]

Spock's remarks on the efficiency of the Nazi state are as dated as Spock's remarks on the inherent emotional fragility of women.

... come to think of it they really did have Spock say a lot of nonsense back in the day. Perhaps it's down to a Vulcan education unconcerned with all the correct details of Earth history and human behaviour.
I'm sure Spock was also taught that Earth's greatest surgeon was Dr. Nick Riviera.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

Or you take a more sophisticated interpretation "impressed" to just mean what had left a large impression on him of Gill's work.

But it was probably the simplification of story on tv and ready costumes and sets - this is literally a cheap episode as stated by you.

I don't think the line warrants that charitable interpretation. He didn't just say that Gill's work left a good impression on him, he said he was impressed with Gill's approach as opposed to the "dates and events" approach. It's the latter portion that I have a problem with, since simply listing dates and events is not an approach that any real historian would take.

I don't love to find fault with the things Spock says, but every once in a while he does make a dubious assertion. It happens, and it certainly isn't limited to Spock or to TOS. As you say, the reality is that they were simplifying matters for the audience, and the writers weren't historians themselves either.

Wouldn't earth's greatest surgeon be Dr. Spock?

[CharlesPhipps]

I get the impression Gill wasn't meant to be David Irving even though that's an easy comparison to make. It's obviously not an area of expertise which Kirk would associate with him.

It's just where his career ended, so to speak.

Besides, cut the historians of the future some slack, there was a nuclear war.

[Beastro]

I have to wonder what they would have done, if some unsporting Kirk-like person had hacked into their computer and simulated them destroying each other and destroying all the computers. Would the computers logic-fail to death (I mean, that happened enough in Trek its possible!)? Would they all have commited suicide? Or would that have lead to exactly the same position as Kirk put them in?

That brought to mind something I didn't consider, that people would hack the game and make the casualties on the other side massive, if not extinction level.

Brings to mind this from Star Control and the Thraddash mentality, that even when their weapons were neutered and they faced extinction if they didn't stop killing one another, one side still found a way to wipe the other out: https://youtu.be/9WsEh7oti3U?t=4m17s

As for the rest of what's being argued in this thread, Star Trek has never been good when it touches on real human history, since no matter how they stumble with it, they stumble and it both rips you out of your suspension of disbelief as it dates the episode with the sneering 60s era misanthropy and leaves a bitter taste of being insulted from watching it.

I've encountered that a lot lately myself watching the old Outer Limits, where I can forgive (and often appreciate) the often cheap and terrible special effects the show had, but cannot stand the episodes that just beat the drum of "Stupid, ignorant, fearful, small humans! How dare you be proud and confident of ANYTHING you do!"

[CharlesPhipps]

I'm going to ask for a review of Patterns of Force personally as it is one of my favorite Trek episodes. There's so many great little moments like the fourth wall breaking of Nimoy going, "You want us to dress as Nazis?"