Star Trek: That Which Survives - Logical Edition

Firstly, I must say that I am absolutely delighted someone else has finally decided to fanedit an Original Trek episode!

My own edit - which Dwight Fry kindly references in his IFDB entry - stemmed from a poster's comments regarding Spock's uncharacteristic behaviour in this episode. Thus, this edit is quite an appropriate choice; removing rather than explaining the odd behaviour of our First Officer.

The cuts are 100% seamless and flawless that if you hadn't seen the episode before, you would not know anything was missing. I was particularly impressed with the first cut our good editor made - the 'feel' (to quote our Chief Engineer! ) is totally different - and for the better - in the Enterprise scenes of the episode. With all the a***hole dialogue gone, our Vulcan hero is in tune with his usual professional self.

Interestingly - and perhaps magnified by this edit - Scotty too, is quite out-of-character here. Gone is the calm, efficient senior officer, and instead we have an emotional, loud character in his place, who even raises his voice to shouting level. This is not the same officer who, whilst clearly tense, acted cool and professional a few weeks earlier in The Tholian Web, or indeed The Paradise Syndrome, when Spock was in command. Another character, perhaps, diluted in this episode.

As another reviewer said, this is not an edit for a TOS 'virgin', rather for the expert fan who would appreciate a subtle alteration of the "third season syndrome".

I am delighted the editor chose to utilise the original effects. I, myself, would love to do so in my edits; indeed I prefer them. Unfortunately I can only edit in DVD quality, and the best prints on DVD only have the TOS-R option. The Blu Ray discs thankfully have both effects. My only wish, is that given the original effects were used, the editor would have kept the original (and for me more favourable) title music, as the newer version felt a bit out of place.

The new title cards are stunning, and look incredibly authentic.

Despite my above comments, this is truly a perfect edit of an imperfect episode.

This will certainly be my 'go to' version of the episode! Well done! Please, please keep the TOS edits coming!!

The third season of Trek had lower production values than the first two seasons because of budget cuts which constrained the type of stories which could be told. But the season also suffered from the new direction the new show runner gave it which placed action before plot and sometimes made the characters take dumb decision or act completely out of character to serve a poor script. One of the worst examples of this is in "That Which Survives" where Spock, like reviewer bionicbob pointed out, acts like a micromanaging a**hole because apparently that's what logic driven people do.

Dwight Fry removed the most offending moments, Spock's and others, and returned this episode to watchable status. If you've never seen an original Trek episode I don't think I can recommend this as a first watch because it's one of the weaker episodes but if you're a Trekkie (or Trekker if you're offended by "Trekkie", I'm personally fine with being called either) this is definitely a replacement for the original episode. The edits are completely invisible both visually and on the audio side - absolutely flawless. There are new title cards which are simple but very well executed and seem studio-produced and overall this is pretty much the level of quality I wish I would see in the fanedits I watch. This is a textbook example of quality editing,

The image quality is excellent in the bigger 6gb file but in the smaller smaller file there is slight artifacting in some places but it's a small sacrifice for the convenient file size. The editor chose to use the original special effects, it would have been nice to have a version with the redone special effects as I actually like them but I realize I might have an unpopular opinion about this.

Overall, fantastic work. This will replace the original in my collection.

The third season of classic STAR TREK has many solid entertaining episodes, but it also has some very odd and off-character episodes, compared to it's two previous seasons. But this is not unexpected since Roddenberry was no longer running the ship and new producer Freiberger was more interested in action over character, thus there are many episodes with moments where our heroes behaviour seems slightly off or exaggerated or even unrecognizable.

For me, the two biggest offenders of this is "Requiem for Methuselah" , in which Kirk makes it his mission to seduce another man's love, and "That Which Survives", where the writers do not seem to know that there is a difference between being logically unemotional and micro-managing @sshat.

But now I can take "That Which Survives" off my blacklist, as Dwight Fry has saved this episode for me.

With subtle cut work and editing, Dwight has cleanly removed the most offensive behavior of our Vulcan First Officer and turned him back into the professional and dedicated Starfleet Officer we all know and love.

If I did not know this episode so well, I would not know anything was cut. Technically all the work is excellent, especially in the audio department, as there was tricky dialogue to edit. I also want to say great work on the new opening title card!!! It looks perfectly natural and fits seamlessly with the other credits.

The video file is a nice size, as the picture, colour and sound quality are all top notch.

A very entertaining watch for this old Trekker.
Thumbs Up! :)