Episode of the Week : A Taste of Armageddon

[HarryM]

Watched this one again tonight. Strong episode. One minor quibble, how did Fox beam down if the shields were up? (not the first time in Trek this will be a sticky part in a script). Very good performance by David Opatoshu as Anan 7, one of the better guest stars, he and Shatner have some great scenes together.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

One minor quibble, how did Fox beam down if the shields were up?

That has always bothered me. And sonic disrupters would not be able to harm the Enterprise up where there is no air to carry sound waves. Also the landing party going back to hide in the cell they escaped from; a very budget-conscious strategy. That set was available at no extra cost, yes, but they could have re-dressed it slightly and called it an empty apartment or something that the crew ducked into.

But I like the episode. And Kirk's hallway brawl with Anan's guards is one of the best fights in the series.

 

[Melakon]

And Kirk's hallway brawl with Anan's guards is one of the series' best fight scenes.

It's my favorite Shatner fight scene. He looks to be in good physical condition here, pretty trim. It's too bad there's not an unbroken master shot, because it looks like he does all the stunt work himself in about a 40 second take, including the part where he's dragged off.

 

[EnriqueH]

One minor quibble, how did Fox beam down if the shields were up?

That has always bothered me. And sonic disrupters would not be able to harm the Enterprise up where there is no air to carry sound waves. Also the landing party going back to hide in the cell they escaped from; a very budget-conscious strategy. That set was available at no extra cost, yes, but they could have re-dressed it slightly and called it an empty apartment or something that the crew ducked into.

Yeah, but come on!

Spock made the strategy sound so logical!

 

[Push The Button]

One minor quibble, how did Fox beam down if the shields were up?

That has always bothered me. And sonic disrupters would not be able to harm the Enterprise up where there is no air to carry sound waves. Also the landing party going back to hide in the cell they escaped from; a very budget-conscious strategy. That set was available at no extra cost, yes, but they could have re-dressed it slightly and called it an empty apartment or something that the crew ducked into.

But I like the episode. And Kirk's hallway brawl with Anan's guards is one of the best fights in the series.

I'm thinking that only Mea and the guards knew which "apartment" was being used to detain Kirk and the landing party, so once they were all taken out of play, no one else knew to look there.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

I'm thinking that only Mea and the guards knew which "apartment" was being used to detain Kirk and the landing party, so once they were all taken out of play, no one else knew to look there.

Well, we've just beamed down to the capital city, and within two minutes we're face to face with the President of the Planet. So the overall security savvy on Eminiar VII might very well be lacking.

 

[BillJ]

So the overall security savvy on Eminiar VII might very well be lacking.

With a society perfectly ordered for five-hundred years, that may not be out of the realm of possibility.

 

[Timo]

One minor quibble, how did Fox beam down if the shields were up?

Well, TOS is consistent that there's nothing wrong with this. It's beaming up that doesn't work with the shields raised.

Which makes sense. If photon torpedoes and phaser beams can get out from the ship during battle, why not transporter beams?

And sonic disrupters would not be able to harm the Enterprise up where there is no air to carry sound waves.

Who says the destruction would get from A to B in the form of sound waves? It's probably only "sonic" at the target.

However, a loudspeaker emitting "Decibels eighteen to the twelfth power" and aimed at the ship would probably not just pulverize the ship but also snuff out the local star, air or no air. That's not even biblical, that's biblical to the biblical power! Two quasars colliding on a soundstage would probably be much quieter...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[cgervasi]

However, a loudspeaker emitting "Decibels eighteen to the twelfth power" and aimed at the ship would probably not just pulverize the ship but also snuff out the local star, air or no air. That's not even biblical, that's biblical to the biblical power! Two quasars colliding on a soundstage would probably be much quieter...

For this to be meaningful, we'd have to know dB over what. 3dB is twice the power. 10dB is 10 times the power. 20dB is 100 times the power. We have to know the power of what.

Also, it's unheard-of to use exponential dB b/c the dB scale is exponential; that's it's whole purpose.

I'm not sure what they meant, but I think they failed to consult with someone knowledgeable about science when they wrote the line.

 

[cgervasi]

And sonic disrupters would not be able to harm the Enterprise up where there is no air to carry sound waves.

I thought they meant sonic frequencies (20Hz to 20,000Hz) but using some different medium of propagation, not vibrations of air but rather tachyons or something like that.

 

[telerites]

I'm in the minority here it looks. Not a terrible episode but nowhere near any of my favorites. I would have given it a 6.

 

[Push The Button]

However, a loudspeaker emitting "Decibels eighteen to the twelfth power" and aimed at the ship would probably not just pulverize the ship but also snuff out the local star, air or no air. That's not even biblical, that's biblical to the biblical power! Two quasars colliding on a soundstage would probably be much quieter...

For this to be meaningful, we'd have to know dB over what. 3dB is twice the power. 10dB is 10 times the power. 20dB is 100 times the power. We have to know the power of what.

Also, it's unheard-of to use exponential dB b/c the dB scale is exponential; that's it's whole purpose.

I'm not sure what they meant, but I think they failed to consult with someone knowledgeable about science when they wrote the line.

One to the fourth power..

 

[ZapBrannigan]

One to the fourth power..

I spent years thinking that line from "Court Martial" was nonsense. But it does make sense if Kirk meant "One unit of sound to the fourth power."

The numeral 1 to the fourth power is still just 1, but one "something" to the fourth power is really something.

 

[erastus25]

One to the fourth power..

I spent years thinking that line from "Court Martial" was nonsense. But it does make sense if Kirk meant "One unit of sound to the fourth power."

The numeral 1 to the fourth power is still just 1, but one "something" to the fourth power is really something.

Wow, that's a really good retcon.

 

[Timo]

I'm not sure it qualifies for a retcon. I mean, that's how people speak. Mere "on the order of to the fourth power" is an incomplete expression that generally calls for that "one" or something else like it to be inserted; physicists and electricians use expressions like that, without paying any thought to the possibility that some people might mistake the phrase for a rigorous mathematical statement.

Of course, Kirk could have used a different phrasing altogether, such as "we can increase that capacity to the fourth power", but that train had already sailed by the time he got there. And besides, he probably meant that the end result would be that the sensors could detect sounds at 4 dB level, a mighty achievement that indeed might reveal a heartbeat.

As for decibels always requiring some sort of an explicated comparison point on which to slap the equation, that's not how it works normally. Rather, acoustics uses an agreed-upon, universal and absolute baseline, regardless of the type of sound being measured, and since an acoustic effect on the Enterprise is being described in both cases, it's probably the same baseline (pressure wave of 20 micropascals).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[AtoZ]

While this episode doesn't excite me the way it does for many, I consider it a very good episode. The casting is marvelous, we get to see a very tough, militant side to Kirk, not to mention the courage and stubbornness (born of conviction) of Scotty.

I missed the deadline to vote, but I would have handed it an 8.

Interesting. I can easily hand out an 8 to an episode that I love, and just as easily hand out the same rating to an episode that is less fun for me, but easily a quality segment featuring the concept and moments that reflect the best of TOS. I suppose such is why TOS is great (something to me, far beyond very good).

Gems of varying luster, those 79 episodes, but gems nonetheless.

 

[Wingsley]

Wow, people have strong opinions about this particular episode!

I discovered this thread too late to vote, but I would say "Taste" ranks in the top ten eps in TOS.

"Taste" may suffer from restrictive budgets and some odd new forms of violence (sound pistols? Kirk single-handedly captures his captors while he is a prisoner?) but despite the alleged "clichés". (really?) we seem to miss the point that it worked. There's nothing wrong with "Taste" that wasn't wrong with the rest of TOS.

It's what was right about this ep that made it outstanding. It was a fairly bold commentary on the Cold War (with the casualty lists and disintegration machines a back-handed slap against the Vietnam War). It's amazing an allegory like that made it on the air in 1967.

Yes, the funny cardboard sets made it seems cheesy at times, but TOS remastered seemed to have reversed some of that by making the capital city more substantial in the outside images.

The already-quoted "I'm a barbarian" exchange between Kirk and Anan was one of the best of the series, hands down. Kirk's later "neat and painless" speech may now sound dated and cheesy on a level of style, but given the events of the last couple of decades, maybe it's time to acknowledge that what he had to say is still relevant today.

I'm probably in the minority in that I thoroughly enjoyed Gene Lyons' portrayal of regal and obnoxious Ambassador Fox. Granted, the use of an obnoxious Federation senior official as a plot device had been done once before in TOS (John Crawford's brilliant work as Ferris in "The Galileo Seven") but the writers and Lyons took the concept and made the Federation's diplomatic overtures look reasonable and even noble; he was there to save lives, and would take any risk to complete his mission. While Ferris simply exercised his right to berate Kirk, Fox was determined to lay everything on the line to save lives. Lyons was serious and funny, all at the same time, whereas William Schallert's Nilz Barris ("The Trouble with Tribbles") was a buffoon. I actually wished we could've seen subsequent stories featuring Fox.

As for General Order 24: the Prime Directive applies to not interfering with an alien culture. TOS alone mode it clear this directive does not exempt alien threats to Federation security. This ep made it clear: the Eminians lured the U.S.S. Valiant into an ambush 50 years before, and that Anan tried to destroy the orbiting (and not actively armed) Enterprise as it was quietly orbiting with no hostile intent. Kirk was not just threatening to nuke a planet for messing with him. He was dealing with a serious threat (with at least the loose implication that the lack of diplomatic relations with Eminiar VII and Vendikar was contributing to the loss of "thousands of lives" in this general area over the years.) In other words, Kirk laid down the law and said enough was enough. These aliens claimed to be warring, attacked two Federation starships, tried to murder an ambassador, killed one of the ambassador's aides, and were contributing to the region's instability. Even if Kirk was just bluffing (was he? I like to think he was... but we'll never know, will we? ) he was within his rights to invoke General Order 24. If Kirk and Scotty hadn't threatened to nuke in the first place, they would've been seen as a paper tiger. General Order 24, while indeed barbaric, showed their mighty starships had teeth.

 

[Timo]

This ep made it clear: the Eminians lured the U.S.S. Valiant into an ambush 50 years before, and that Anan tried to destroy the orbiting (and not actively armed) Enterprise as it was quietly orbiting with no hostile intent.

Hmm... We never got any proof that the Valiant was "lured", or that any of those other ship losses were the doing of the dueling dimwits. And it was the Vendikans who targeted the Enterprise first, even if with virtual weapons - it may have been their deliberate intent to force Anan's hand and thus disadvantage the Eminians, or then their desperate ploy to get outside powers to intervene.

Also, threatening the whole planet with orbital glassing is a curious opposite of what actually worked in the end: threatening the whole planet with a single sidearm!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Melakon]

Hmm... We never got any proof that the Valiant was "lured", or that any of those other ship losses were the doing of the dueling dimwits.

That the war is somehow responsible certainly seems implied when Sar (Anan's flunky) says "It's just as it happened 50 years ago."

 

[Marsden]

Wow, people have strong opinions about this particular episode!

I discovered this thread too late to vote, but I would say "Taste" ranks in the top ten eps in TOS.

"Taste" may suffer from restrictive budgets and some odd new forms of violence (sound pistols? Kirk single-handedly captures his captors while he is a prisoner?) but despite the alleged "clichés". (really?) we seem to miss the point that it worked. There's nothing wrong with "Taste" that wasn't wrong with the rest of TOS.

It's what was right about this ep that made it outstanding. It was a fairly bold commentary on the Cold War (with the casualty lists and disintegration machines a back-handed slap against the Vietnam War). It's amazing an allegory like that made it on the air in 1967.

Yes, the funny cardboard sets made it seems cheesy at times, but TOS remastered seemed to have reversed some of that by making the capital city more substantial in the outside images.

The already-quoted "I'm a barbarian" exchange between Kirk and Anan was one of the best of the series, hands down. Kirk's later "neat and painless" speech may now sound dated and cheesy on a level of style, but given the events of the last couple of decades, maybe it's time to acknowledge that what he had to say is still relevant today.

I'm probably in the minority in that I thoroughly enjoyed Gene Lyons' portrayal of regal and obnoxious Ambassador Fox. Granted, the use of an obnoxious Federation senior official as a plot device had been done once before in TOS (John Crawford's brilliant work as Ferris in "The Galileo Seven") but the writers and Lyons took the concept and made the Federation's diplomatic overtures look reasonable and even noble; he was there to save lives, and would take any risk to complete his mission. While Ferris simply exercised his right to berate Kirk, Fox was determined to lay everything on the line to save lives. Lyons was serious and funny, all at the same time, whereas William Schallert's Nilz Barris ("The Trouble with Tribbles") was a buffoon. I actually wished we could've seen subsequent stories featuring Fox.

As for General Order 24: the Prime Directive applies to not interfering with an alien culture. TOS alone mode it clear this directive does not exempt alien threats to Federation security. This ep made it clear: the Eminians lured the U.S.S. Valiant into an ambush 50 years before, and that Anan tried to destroy the orbiting (and not actively armed) Enterprise as it was quietly orbiting with no hostile intent. Kirk was not just threatening to nuke a planet for messing with him. He was dealing with a serious threat (with at least the loose implication that the lack of diplomatic relations with Eminiar VII and Vendikar was contributing to the loss of "thousands of lives" in this general area over the years.) In other words, Kirk laid down the law and said enough was enough. These aliens claimed to be warring, attacked two Federation starships, tried to murder an ambassador, killed one of the ambassador's aides, and were contributing to the region's instability. Even if Kirk was just bluffing (was he? I like to think he was... but we'll never know, will we? ) he was within his rights to invoke General Order 24. If Kirk and Scotty hadn't threatened to nuke in the first place, they would've been seen as a paper tiger. General Order 24, while indeed barbaric, showed their mighty starships had teeth.

Good post all around, and I like Fox, too. He had a job to do, and he meant to get it accomplished. Fortunately for him, the Federation had Starfleet give him Kirk as military assistance, I don't think it would have worked out for him with a less capable captain and crew.