History YMMV / StarTrekTheOriginalSeries

* HoYay: Spock had so much of this with Captain Kirk that entire [[WebVideo/TheShipsCloset web shows]] and essays have been devoted to it, and it spawned SlashFic as a genre. But his SlapSlapKiss with Dr. [=McCoy=] shouldn't be ignored...
** It should be noted that the creator has said that Kirk and Spock's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirk/Spock#Origins_and_creators.27_responses "affection was sufficient" for "physical love" "had that been the style of the 23rd Century"]].
** See the trope page itself for many, ''many'' more examples.

** A consistent opinion in seventies fandom especially was that Kirk is a masochist, both in his fighting style and relationships. Mr "I need my pain" doesn't exactly prove them wrong, but that's still more for emotions than anything else. Shatner wasn't averse to the idea, talking about all the times Kirk got captured and hurt. In his 1979 interview-biography "[[https://bit.ly/3QQV7a7 Shatner: Where No Man]]", authors Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath showed him a draft manuscript in which Kirk is with an alien woman much stronger than he is, and consenting to her advances even while angry with her and the situation. Shatner notes that in the story, Kirk "wasn't there out of desire. He was paying something off, sacrificing himself for Spock, or for the world." He thought if Kirk perceives himself as "ennobling himself, and not there by force," he would "relax and enjoy it". (Presumably while figuring out how to escape.)

* AlternativeJokeInterpretation: At the end of one episode, Spock, who'd gone blind, gets his sight back and Kirk notes that being TheStoic, he probably didn't have any emotional response. Spock replies, that on the contrary, he ''did'' react emotionally -- because the first thing he saw was [=McCoy's=] face looking over him. Is he calling [=McCoy=] ugly (which is how [=McCoy=] interpreted it), is he saying that [=McCoy=] was being too nurturing looking over him all the time, or is he saying that (given [[VitriolicBestBuds their dynamic]]), he finds [=McCoy=] annoying in general?

** In "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E27TheAlternativeFactor The Alternative Factor]]", that constant "winking" effect with the overlays of a nebula and two ghostly figures struggling against each other. It was probably trying to be arty, but it comes across as pretentious, confusing, and just plain boring. All the scenes that get cut for syndication, and they couldn't reduce any of this useless {{Padding}}?

** Despite the reality of it was very likely Creator/GeneRoddenberry’s fetish (he liked "naturally beautiful" women with long hair), early episodes like "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E6MuddsWomen Mudd's Women]]" and "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E4TheNakedTime The Naked Time]]" have men be treated like assholes for thinking they can tell women what to do regarding make-up.

** A glimpse from a dissonant episode, but David Greven's book ''Gender and Sexuality in Star Trek'' gives Creator/WilliamShatner credit for playing Janice in Kirk seducing her assistant, for lack of a better term, straight, fondling his shoulder and whispering in his ear like Kirk's done to so many women.
** Kirk having a mid-life crisis that starts at the actually rather young age of thirty four, which continues until he dies, is a big mood for Gen Z and millenials who feel like if they haven’t achieved success at thirty then there must be no hope. Trek would also do this plot again, Julian Bashir worrying about turning thirty, and Sylvia Tilly anxious in her late twenties about feeling aimless.

* VindicatedByReruns: NBC greenlit a third season [[ScrewedByTheNetwork under unfavorable conditions]] that led to severe SeasonalRot and cancellation. But this also gave enough episodes for syndication, and continuous reruns helped expand an already dedicated fandom to the point the franchise was revived. Without NBC's involvement, as the eventual CashCowFranchise [[ChannelHop was now in the hands of Paramount.]]

** The effects in "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E2WhoMournsForAdonais Who Mourns for Adonais?]]" are pretty good even before the digital remastering. Subtle but effective: swaying trees and bird song make the studio set look like it really is outside. We really do believe from the arranged shots that Apollo is growing. However, even modern SFX can't keep a giant green hand in space from looking a little silly.

* ClicheStorm: You would be hard-pressed to find even a single story in TOS that feels even remotely fresh or original, [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny to a modern audience at least]]. TOS itself has a number of clichés it repeats rather often, such as some or all crew members being taken prisoner, a seductive female villain, or Kirk getting into fistfights.[[note]]David Gerrold in ''The World of Star Trek'' presents a parody script treatment that piles them all on. It's called ''Green Priestesses of the Cosmic Computer.''[[/note]] The transporter in particular is notoriously unreliable, since it's difficult to create drama when the characters we care about are a simple communicator call away from being whisked out of any danger (a close second is to have the transporter working fine, but the landing party has been deprived of their communicators, having the same effect of making just beaming them up impossible)[[note]]which is why one of David Gerrold's first suggestions as a story editor on Star*Next was to integrate the communicators into the uniform badges[[/note]].

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny:
** ''Fwoof''. The show catches it ''bad'' these days. Not only has everyone who followed in its footsteps borrowed from it to some degree, but they've ''all'' tried to improve upon a lot of the problems the show had due to a limited budget, technological barriers of the time and the fact that the cast and crew were inventing a lot of tropes as they went. Not to mention the ValuesDissonance of a show made in the 60s (such as the palpable sexism, Gene-inspired or otherwise, present in many episodes). Fans who got into Trek with the newer installments can have trouble watching TOS nowadays.
** One particular, historic example, though, is the Kirk/Uhura kiss from "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E10PlatosStepchildren Plato's Stepchildren]]". The humble Tropers of this website can, in truth, probably not over-emphasize how big a deal this was at the time. Not only did the cast and crew have to fight ''tooth and nail'' to make it happen at all, but another facet of context that has to be remembered is that [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia miscegenation laws]] had only been declared unconstitutional across the United States a mere ''sixteen months'' prior to the episode's first airing. It was still refused an airing in much of the country and made general news headlines. It's quite possible every interracial romantic moment on American TV in the following ''half-century'' owes a nod to ''TOS'' for being among the first to kick down that door at all. And yet today, the scene comes across as pedestrian and even kind of unfortunate in ways, due to what those involved had to do to get the studio executives to sign off on it at all.
** Also, generally speaking, it is somewhere between "terribly difficult" and "outright impossible" for almost anyone born in the [=1980s=] or beyond (which is to say, the vast majority of this website's userbase) to truly comprehend ''how important'' the racial diversity of the cast was when the show was new and first airing. In the [=21st=] century, it can come across ''badly'' as tokenism, but having Uhura, for example, in a role that was not ''explicitly'' a "black role", or having Sulu as an Asian who was just... a dude, and not a walking stereotype, simply was not how racial casting was ''done'' for entertainment, both at the time and in the previous hundred years or more. Creator/NichelleNichols discusses the phenomenon and what it meant for her (and meeting a [[UsefulNotes/MartinLutherKingJr certain major early Trekkie]]) [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSq_UIuxba8 here]].
** Viewers (including many who would call themselves fans of the original series) who complain about ''Discovery'' "shoving political correctness and SJW down our throats" by having a black female protagonist, an Asian female captain, etc., perhaps aren't aware that with slightly different language, the exact same complaints were made about the original series.

** "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E1AmokTime Amok Time]]": T'Pring—nasty, manipulative villainess or justifiably angry Woman Scorned? Spock has been ignoring her and their marriage for roughly twenty standard years, basically humiliating her in front the entire planet. In the meantime she's found a man who loves her and treats her right and doesn't want to risk his life.

* GrowingTheBeard: [[AvertedTrope Averted]] by the series proper, the only ''Franchise/StarTrek'' series with a strong start. Among the movies, definitely ''[[Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan The Wrath of Khan]]''--see also SurprisinglyImprovedSequel or EvenBetterSequel, depending on your view of the first.

** Captain James T. Kirk. It's deconstructed in the films, but in the original TV series Kirk is pretty straightforwardly presented as a RatedMForManly IdealHero, who can always TakeTheThirdOption when confronted with a problem, and overall earns the respect (or [[BoldlyComing love]]) of practically everyone he encounters, even [[DidYouJustFlipOffCthulhu gods]] and his [[WorthyOpponent enemies]]. Shatner always tried to play him, as well, as a man fully in touch with his emotions, as future societies would have dispensed with limiting ideas like MenDontCry.

*** There's better movement and compositing, with lighting that effects the ships.

** In "The Trouble With Tribbles", when Korax [[BerserkButton angers Scotty]] by saying that the ''Enterprise'' was "a garbage scow", he adds "Half the quadrant knows it. That's why they're learning to speak Klingonese." Creator/JamesDoohan helped develop the fundamentals of the Klingon language for ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'', before becoming a complete language for ''Film/StarTrekIIITheSearchForSpock''.

* AngstWhatAngst: In "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E29OperationAnnihilate Operation: Annihilate!]], the jocular tone of the epilogue is somewhat jarring, considering the deaths of Kirk's brother and sister-in-law are not even mentioned. (A more sombre scene that would have immediately preceded it and wrapped up that subplot was filmed but cut for time.)

** Chekov's gag of insisting that several inventions and cultural achievements are actually Russian. Fomenko's New Chronology is a historical conspiracy that claims more or less that, to the point of claiming the Tsars were descended from Jesus and the Mesoamerican civilizations were really Russian. While less audacious, Putin's administration also emphasizes the Russianness of various historical figures born in former Russian territory, which has apeared in justification of the invasion of Ukraine.

* VindicatedByHistory: Maybe "vindicated" is too strong of a word, but disgust towards "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E23TheOmegaGlory The Omega Glory]]" has decreased, especially in a post 9/11 world. The {{Eagleland}} analogues, the Yangs, are portrayed as savage brutes. Brutes who recite their "holy words" of freedom and democracy with no meaning in the words and even then they can't even ''pronounce'' the words right. Viewed from a certain angle, it's less of "Yay, America!" and more of "A group that was once great but has lost its way and fallen into brutality". (The original script specified that they were descendants of a LostColony and were trying to hold onto what traditions they remembered.)

** In "[[{{Recap/StarTrekS2E13Obsession}} Obsession]]", the MonsterOfTheWeek is literally [[{{Literature/Twilight}} a sparkly vampire]].

** Evil Kirk's assault of [[BrotherChuck Rand]] during "[[{{Recap/StarTrekS1E5TheEnemyWithin}} The Enemy Within]]" is pretty awful in light of the fact that Creator/GraceLeeWhitney was later sexually assaulted by one of the ''[[Franchise/StarTrek Trek]]'' producers, possibly Roddenberry.

** Having a woman officer stationed on the bridge, in an important position on a spacegoing vessel, was ''extremely'' radical for the time. Even when she primarily served as TheChick, casting a ''[[HumansAreWhite black]]'' woman in the role was a huge deal in the 1960s. (A black woman who sat at ''rear center stage'', right behind the Captain's seat where viewers could not possibly miss seeing her. Holy diversity, Batman!) Even in the episodes, it's clear she can take apart and fix the communications equipment as well as operate it. In "[[{{Recap/StarTrekS2E2WhoMournsForAdonais}} Who Mourns for Adonais?]]" she rewired the entire communications system and connected the bypass circuit. Spock praised her work and could think of "no one better equipped" to handle the necessary repairs (this being the same Spock who routinely kicked Montgomery Scott out of his own engine room to work the problem personally). On at least one occasion, Uhura takes over other bridge stations; in "Balance of Terror", she fills in for the navigator when he leaves the bridge, and presumably was qualified to do so. Also, Uhura was technically fifth in command of the ''Enterprise'' (and did take command for at least one episode of the animated series) meaning that out of the ''entire crew'' only Kirk, Spock, Scotty, or Sulu could override her decisions (although in one episode MauveShirt [=DeSalle=] takes command ahead of her).

** [[Advertising/TheMostInterestingManInTheWorld I don't always play Redshirts, but when I do, I survive the whole episode.]] (Johnathan Goldsmith appears in "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E10TheCorbomiteManeuver The Corbomite Maneuver]]").

* UnfortunateImplications: The article on "[[http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/columns/freshly-rememberd-kirk-drift/ Kirk Drift]]" discusses how truly awful it is that Kirk is considered a slut who'll stick his dick into anything, when for the most part he was using what he had to get out of coercive situations.

** In "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E2WhoMournsForAdonais Who Mourns for Adonais?]]", Kirk and Bones regret the upcoming loss of a skilled female officer given what seems like her impending marriage to Scotty, with no thought to the possibility that a married woman would keep her job. Granted, this is textbook thinking for the mid-20th century, but it still feels weird. Making it weirder is that the previous season's episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E14BalanceOfTerror Balance of Terror]]" featured two crew members getting married with no explicit mention of the woman quitting her job, and indeed an implication that the two would continue to serve, even on the same ship! It also ends with everyone feeling sorry for him because he's "lonely" and didn't ask for much, when in reality, he acted out if he didn’t get his way; quasi-raping Palomas, threatening the Enterprise, choking Kirk and injuring Scotty several times. At least "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E10PlatosStepchildren Plato's Stepchildren", another plot of gods being abusive, let the characters feel the trauma without minimising it.

* ClicheStorm: You would be hard-pressed to find even a single story in TOS that feels even remotely fresh or original, [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny to a modern audience at least]]. TOS itself has a number of clichés it repeats rather often, such as some or all crew members being taken prisoner, a seductive female villain, or Kirk getting into fistfights.[[note]]David Gerrold in ''The World of Star Trek'' presents a parody script treatment that piles them all on. It's called ''Green Priestesses of the Cosmic Computer.''[[/note]] The transporter in particular is notoriously unreliable, since it's difficult to create drama when the characters we care about are a simple communicator call away from being whisked out of any danger (a close second is to have the transporter working fine, but the landing party has been deprived of their communicators, having the same effect of making just beaming them up impossible[[note]]which is why one of David Gerrold's first suggestions as a story editor on Star*Next was to integrate the communicators into the uniform badges[[/note]].

* ClicheStorm: You would be hard-pressed to find even a single story in TOS that feels even remotely fresh or original, to a modern audience at least. TOS itself has a number of clichés it repeats rather often, such as some or all crew members being taken prisoner, a seductive female villain, or Kirk getting into fistfights.[[note]]David Gerrold in ''The World of Star Trek'' presents a parody script treatment that piles them all on. It's called ''Green Priestesses of the Cosmic Computer.''[[/note]] The transporter in particular is notoriously unreliable, since it's difficult to create drama when the characters we care about are a simple communicator call away from being whisked out of any danger (a close second is to have the transporter working fine, but the landing party has been deprived of their communicators, having the same effect of making just beaming them up impossible[[note]]which is why one of David Gerrold's first suggestions as a story editor on Star*Next was to integrate the communicators into the uniform badges[[/note]].

** In "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E24ThisSideOfParadise This Side of Paradise]]", Kirk says of Spock "[[HoYay Aroused, his]] [[IsThatWhatTheyreCallingItNow great physical strength]] could kill". This little gem also becomes HilariousInHindsight once you watch "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E1AmokTime Amok Time]]" and realize that Kirk's wording was actually pretty accurate.