TOS: The Alternative Factor

[Aotrs Commander]

Though... I wonder if the "giant space goat" was a reference to DBS. Perhaps Chuck's kids are Dragon Ball fans? LOL.

Far more likely to be a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference for the Golgafrincham's apocraphal space goat.

[Yukaphile]

Oh I see.

[CmdrKing]

I know for a fact i’ve Seen this episode, season 1 TOS is the only one I’ve seen start to finish.

Aside from the bit where Lazarus and anti-Lazarus fight in shadows I forgot all of it. The head wound, the ship, the galaxy breaking under the strain, “but what if Lazarus”, it’s ALL lost to time.

Really that’s how you know it’s not The Worst, it fails even at being memorable in its suck.

[LordUltimus]

SF Debris claiming the Spore Drive is somehow better than this parallel universe stuff in "The Alternative Factor" is just plain wrong, though. Yes, it's not "scientifically accurate," but he's a comic book fan. What does it matter as long as the episode is fun? Which this is.

Pretty sure he was kidding.

[Makeshift Python]

Am I the only one who loved this episode? Jeez. Give me this over ALL of STD and the new reboots.

As someone who wasn’t all that charmed with the two Abrams directed films, even I would rather watch those than “The Alternative Factor”. Heck, I rather watch “Spock’s Brain” because at least that had some campy charm. This one was just plain dull all around. Bad directing, writing, acting, f/x, use of tracked music. It’s such an anomaly of an episode considering it’s from the first season. Had it been lumped in with the third season it probably wouldn’t stand out so much.

And DISCOVERY is obviously better than “The Alternative Factor”. I know some fans have such a strange hate boner for that flawed show, but come on.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

There's a couple things I do like about this one. We get a few scenes showing life on the ship and seeing some non-regulars and more of the Enterprise than just the bridge, all of which happened less frequently as the series went along. There was some story potential for mystery and replayability, with the crew and the audience trying to figure out what's going on. It feels like there are some subtle hints in there that might have been fun to decode.

Unfortunately there isn't actually anything deeper going on in the episode, it's just an incoherent mess. In terms of plot, it's a dire episode.

The real problem for me is that it's also one of the few TOS episodes that isn't charming and fun to watch with its typical bright, colorful cinematography and bold performances. For me, even poor TOS episodes are usually more fun to watch than poor episodes of the other series. But in The Alternative Factor there's an off-putting vibe to the whole episode, and I'm not sure exactly why that is. Part of it is probably the poor acting, lack of chemistry between the leads, and constant continuity errors (not to mention the headache-inducing fight scenes).

[CrypticMirror]

I quite like the campy stuff, I'm always up for some good campy fun. As for the beard, I can find worse beards in any one of a half dozen hipster pubs at any time of day.

[Makeshift Python]

I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a distractingly bad fake beard like that anywhere else. You’d think the producers would have had the sense to NOT use it. Wouldn’t have helped the guest actor, it would have just had us even more focused on his disjointed performance.

[Darth Wedgius]

This is my least favorite episode of TOS. I re-watched it a couple months back and, while I never really enjoyed it that much, I think I looked at it with a more critical eye this time. I don't hate it, I just enjoy it very, very little.

Spock's Brain had a ridiculous premise and some of the acting was... less than stellar. But for me it ends up in a so-bad-it's-good area,and it had a genuinely funny moment (of the kind meant to be funny). This one had better acting (IMHO), but this one had so many holes in it it's less ship than net. The anti-matter blows up the universe thing I could accept from Lost In Space, but at some point someone should have remembered that this ship's engines run on the stuff. Sane!Lazarus should have explained to the crew what was happening. What was Lazarus doing switching back and forth without going through the flying saucer? If one Lazarus going in automatically pulls the other one in, why did Sane!Lazarus keep going in, since we saw crazy Lazarus being pulled in?

The destroy-the-universe thing bothers me for a different reason. How many galaxies are out there? How many planets? How many opportunities to destroy the universe? Any Federation citizen who can do the math wouldn't bother saving up for retirement. My favorite TOS novel, The Wounded Sky, suffers from this flaw (though that might have just threatened a large number of galaxies and not the whole universe), so it's one of those it-just-bugs-me things and doesn't ruin the work for me. But here it was just the paste frosting on the cardboard cake.

[Yukaphile]

"The Alternative Factor," again, feels like something out of a comic book in terms of sci-fi weirdness, so give me this over STD any day. That STD is widely hated shouldn't be marked as a sign of "success" even if you have fun trashing on it. SF Debris said similar in "Spock's Brain." Besides, it really upsets me that SF Debris has been too fair to STD. STD deserves to be flayed alive, and the upcoming STG along with it.