Wierdest Episode - The Paradise Syndrome

I'm currently on Star Trek Season 3, and on the Episode The Paradise Syndrome. Whoa, what's up with this episode. Everyone seams to have fogotten their character. especially Shatner, and Doohan. The filming even seems wierd. Were they trying something different that didn't carry over, or was this just a sign of the quality of the series decline? This is the only episode I found I haven't liked thus far. Has anyone else experienced the wierdness of this episode?

 

That's the one with the spores, right? I think they were supposed to behave out of character...

 

No, it's the one with the native americans on an alien planet, and Kirk gets mindwarped into thinking he's a god. The one you are thinking about is Shore Leave. I love that episode.

 

This must be the 'name the wrong episode' thread "This Side of Paradise" is the one with the spores.

 

I knew that. I was just testing you.

 

Not every actor put their heart into every episode. You can see it from time to time. Sometimes it is due to an illness (like a very noticeable nasal tone).

I don't recall Nimoy or Doohan being out of character or lacking... certainly Shatner was having a ball with it--getting to enact a totally different persona (Kiroc) and winning over yet another beauty (Miramanee). Before the accident, he's feeling a bit of a longing for the simple life... while gazing upon the peaceful Indian settlement.

It's a very different kind of episode... the only time we see Kirk completely mind altered and spending most of his time away from the entire crew and ship. I've never seen anybody rank it in their top 10. It's not one of my favorites, but it does have a useful place in the TOS canon.

 

I always thought the most interesting aspect of this episode was the great lengths it goes to to try and paint Salish as this horrible bad guy when all through the episode he is the only one that is actually right about something: Kirk isn't a god. Plus the fact that his father didn't bother to tell him the secret that is supposed to be the whole point of his existence, not to mention his woman just straight dissing him for another man, I actually felt sorry for him.

 

Not even close to the weirdest episode -

Whom Gods Destroy
The Empath
Mudd's Androids (whatever that one's called)
Two Lazaruses (?)
Spock's Brain

all much much weirder...

 

I love the off-format episodes of most series that I watch. "The Paradise Syndrome" and "The Empath" being two of them from TOS.

Jan

 

I wondered if the Preservers went to the trouble to building a asteroid deflecting thing and putting it on the planet why didn't they just put them on a safer planet?

 

Don't forget "The Way to Eden." Space hippies!

FYI, the Lazarus episode is "The Alternative Factor."

 

Well, we have reason to think that the device did more than deflect (Kirk only used a fraction of the controls available). And we have to wonder why the Earthlings were abducted in the first place.

My bet is that we're seeing a setup similar to those of "The 37s" or "North Star": shady aliens found it economically smart to kidnap some dumb natives to do labor for them, in this case mine asteroids that had been brought down to the surface by a powerful tractor beam manipulator. They chose the right planet, but they chose the wrong people: some of their slaves rebelled and evicted/killed the enslavers, as in "The 37s" and "North Star". Or then the police came and the slavers had to flee.

End result: Earthlings stranded on a planet ideal for illegal mining but unsuitable for sustained life unless one constantly monitors the tractor beam device. The criminals were evicted or killed at a stage of operations where hundreds of asteroids had already been deflected towards the mining camp, and the device was locked on the wrong mode for that...

Timo Saloniemi

 

Yeah The Empath & The Alternative Factor (two Lazarus) are at the very bottom of my Star Trek fave's list.

 

I wouldn't have minded "The Empath" so much if the actress didn't remind me of Paul McCartney.

Plus, her acting style is a bit, "Hey, look at me! I'm acting sad!"

Joe, reactor

 

She mimed the part. With no lines, it had to be tough.

 

hey, I really quite like "The Empath", but the non-sets, the slo-mo Kirk "dying", the heady themes, the torture... it is deeply weird.

TPS is painful, though. Shatner's ham is not delicious this time.

 

Oh come come now...Shat's Ham is always tasty (lol)!....Granted this time it's a bit well done, but who doesn't like some well done ham when it's nice & crispy huh....? That's right NO ONE...! Unless you're muslim or a jew then OK maybe you wouldn't like it....but you gots to love the ole' ham-a-roonio routine!

 

I had trouble believing McCoy couldn't save Miramanee. Other than that, I think this ep was one of the best of Season 3.

 

Shatner's hams are among his best features, some opine.

 

I always found The Empath and Alternative Factor just too off-kilter to even watch them.
And The Children Shall Sue is just plain awful. Can't watch that either.