Space Seed

Just love this episode Ricardo Montalban is a great villian for Kirk I liked the scenes between Khan and Kirk it was like mutual respect even though Khan is a bad guy anyway what are your thoughts on this episode?

 

It's a good episode except for the fact that Kirk and company are such doofuses as to give an unknown entity access to their technical specifications. Doh.

P.S. Punctuation is your friend.

 

The plot is kinda so-so, but Montalban pulls off Khan so beautifully. He is one of the only villians that really pose a serious threat to Kirk. If you watch his performance Montalban has these pauses before he speaks and you can almost see the wheels turning in his head...and you get the feeling the best dialogue in the series is not being spoken but actually going on his head.

Wow, Khan. In less qualified hands, the role would've been comical.

 

I think you need to stop writing run-on sentences it sounds like you're all excited and out of breath really man punctuation is your friend.

That being said....

Two words.

Marla. McGivers.

MMMm.

Okay, three words.

 

I like the episode.

Marla McGivers was hot, but hard-headed....

A good start of a trilogy, I think:

*Space Seed
*Greg Cox's 'To Reign in Hell'
*TWOK

 

I know I'll be in the minority here (at least I usually am when the subject of this episode comes up), but I dislike this episode so so so sooooooo much. Khan is a ridiculous character (edit: On second thought, I'll modify this to say that the premise of Khan's character is actually quite interesting, but the way the character is written is just silly). Montalban does well, considering what he's given to work with - he's got enough charisma that he halfway pulls it off - but what he's given to work with is a cartoon character. No amount of charisma is enough to make up for that.

And I hate how the crew of the Enterprise act like a bunch of star-struck nincompoops. Particularly Kirk.

And I truly loathe Marla McGivers. In fact, I think you'll find most female TOS fans (not all but most), as well as quite a few male TOS fans, really dislike how the character goes all gooey over an alpha male, forgetting her training, forgetting her duty, forgetting her crewmates, forgetting everything except that Khan makes her feel hot all over. High school girls - the weak and shallow ones - might act like that, but for an adult and an officer, her conduct was inexcusable. You can't even excuse McGivers, although some have tried, on the basis of standards being different in the 1960s. Mildred Gillars, sometimes known as "Axis Sally," served 10 years in prison for broadcasting propaganda for the Nazis - she claimed she'd done it because she fallen for some guy, too - and her trial was in 1949. And she was a civilian. So yes, some standards were different in the 1960s, but at least as of 1949, treason was still treason, and what McGivers did was treason. Kirk acted like a nincompoop over that, too.

 

This episode is very overrated. It also never placed in any top ten episode polls prior to the release of Wrath of Khan.

Montalban did a very good job. His character was interesting. However, the plot has many holes (giving Khan access to the ship's database, a very weak female officer, a laughable fight between Khan and Kirk in the engine room, Kirk's decision to leave them on a planet, etc.) which really make it one of the weakest episodes of the first season.

 

Sorry that you didn't like the episode JustKate. I maybe in the rubbish category of liking this episode.

 

You gotta love Khan's speach during the engine room fight about how he has superior strength and intellect and is the superior man. And before the echo fades, Kirk beats Khan's ass. Didn't like how McGiver was such an easy pushover; even after she learned Khan's background. And as soon as Kirk and co discovered who Khan was they should have had security all over him. Hell, the tribbles had more security and they don't even have teeth.
(Hmm, a genetically engineered tribble. Make a nice weapon. Beam one down to an enemy planet and a week later everything's dead.)

 

I don't like how Marla McGivers went all love struck over Khan why did she?

 

Part of the problem with doing a love story in a one hour TV episode is that you have to show things developing at an accelerated pace. Is it impossible? I'd say "no," but it has to be done cleverly. Perhaps if we'd gotten some idea that a reasonable period of time had passed during the episode rather than several hours to a few days.

That said there are women and men who seem to be able to fall head-over-heels for someone rather quickly. I don't understand the psychological makeup of such people, but it is known to happen. And these people can also be willingly blind to the actions and behaviour of the object of their affection. It happens often enough that they make excuses and rationalizations for the one they "love."

In McGivers' case she developed a quick obsession along with her fascination with Khan. If she knew her history (as she was supposed to as ship's historian) then she evidently rationalized and romanticized whatever she knew of Khan. I've seen this happen too as an acquaintance of mine rationalizes Joseph Stalin and Soviet Russia as victims of deliberate exaggeration, lies and propaganda. And, in fairness, many nations whitewash and revise their own histories to look better to others and to their own future generations. But let's not get too far off topic.

Mix in intense physical attraction and you've got a potent mix of McGivers having the hots for Khan. We see snippets of all of this in the episode, but it's perhaps one of the few weak spots of the writing that it isn't really spelled out clearly what's going on. The closest we get is McCoy's comments to Kirk in the briefing room about "McGivers' fascination with the past" and the glimpse of artifacts in her quarters. And she does admit to Kirk that she believes men of the past to be bolder and more colourful. Translation: she thinks men of the past are larger-than-life and more romantic than contemporary 23rd century men. She's seeing them as many see historical figures, through the lens of historical events and not unfiltered day-to-day reality. Finally we see her unnerved a bit by her own physical attraction, which Khan picks up on and sets out to exploit.

McGiver's isn't in love with Khan, not really. She's in heat for him and it gets the better of her. It's all there in subtext, but no one in the episode actually spells it out for viewers.

 

I also got the impression that Marla was already kind of a lost soul, who didn't really fit in aboard the Enterprise, even before Khan showed up. Kirk can't even remember her name at the beginning of the episode, and she doesn't appear to have any close friends among the crew.

So, yeah, she's hardly the pride of Starfleet. One of my goals writing "To Reign in Hell" was to rehabilitate Marla and transform her into a stronger and more admirable character than she was in "Space Seed," if only to explain why Khan was so obsessed with her memory years later.

 

I don't think you can really blame the crew for giving him the tech manuals. Even if he was genetically engineered, who could have believed he'd actually be able to fully understand them in so short a time and then do what he did? Khan was probably one-of-a-kind, even among augments.

Yes, McGivers was weak - and her conversion was rushed (due to time constraints) - but at least they made an effort to establish that she wasn't exactly Grade A Starfleet material.

Star Trek always had laughable fight scenes, so it's not a criticism that can be laid solely at this episode's feet.

I don't think Kirk marooning them on the planet was a big deal. Who can fathom the legal intricacies of the 23rd Century justice system?

 

I understand the criticisms of character development and storytelling being rushed and implausible, but I still enjoy this episode immensely. It's one of my favourites. As Rodenberry said about the second Star Trek movie, Montalban's performance is so engaging that it's easy to get so caught up enjoying it that you can easily overlook flaws in how the characters were written. Marla's attraction to Khan makes a lot of sense even without her having a lost soul back story. As even the male crew members had to admit, the dude had loads of charisma.

I also really appreciate this episode on a technical level. I love the shot of Marla's hands going up Khan's back leading to us seeing them kiss and the shot of Kirk suffocating that we see through a window. Can those who have problems with the story and characters at least agree that it's a very wonderfully shot episode? The only exception I make is the fight between Khan and Kirk, which I think is one of the best examples of how laughable the show's use of stunt doubles often was. That baton Kirk hits Khan with was pathetic too. It was clearly plastic and he was clearly 'play hitting' Khan, like a wrestler hitting someone in the back with a folding chair.

 

This episode BEGS for a prequel. How did this "Eugenics War" happen and why does it hold such a powerful sway over the minds of the Federation even centuries afterwards? In the 24th C, it was enough to cause Starfleet to boot anyone out who had been augmented, even if it happened when they were children, through no fault of their own. Very un-Fed-like of them.

 

Well, that may be overstating things.

What I mean is, there isn't canon evidence that Starfleet would boot someone for being genetically engineered, or even that they would refuse to admit such a person.
I know what you're thinking: Spyone is dead wrong on this. The evidence is in the DS9 episode Dr. Bashir, I Presume.

Here's the thing: what was done to Julian Bashir was illegal. If it became known that it had been done, his parents would have been arrested. Because of this, Julian lied about it, to protect his parents.
Now, we have seen many times before that Starfleet regards lying to Starfleet as very serious indeed. You can sometimes minimize your punishment if you get in front of it: confess before you are found out, but you are in trouble.

Doctor Bashir's career and medical license were in jeopardy because he had lied to Starfleet.
The plea agreement was similarly straightforward: Julian's father pled "guilty to illegal genetic engineering", taking the full blame on himself, and Julian got to remain in Starfleet and a Doctor. So they don't appear to have any automatic rule against the geneticly engineered serving (otherwise Julian's dad would have to have given them something substantial to bend the rules for his son), they just have rules against lying about it.
And laws against doing it in the first place.

 

It is interesting that a lot off women object to the characterization of McGivers in Space Seed as weak and anti-feminist, but look how often the reverse is presented. The idea of men being seduced by women into acts they would not normally commit is a very common theme. Was their an immense criticism of the storyline of Baltar betraying the entire planet just because he was hot for Six?

 

Wasn't it genetic engineering itself that was illegal, and not just illegal genetic engineering? Bashir lied about something that would have barred him from serving in Star Fleet anyway. Which also makes you wonder why Data was allowed in Star Fleet and what that said about people believing he was a life form or not.

 

Never thought much of this episode before TWOK. It was okay. Never a favorite.

 

One of the things that makes Space Seed a important episode is that it inserts a lot of history into canon. Specific dates on the eugenics war, number of supermen, number of nations taken over, how the supermen were defeated, what happen to the survivors.

That said, I now find myself growing fatigued.