Star Trek Continues, Episode 4 - "The White Iris"

[Vger23]

I supported their recent Kickstarter, and I'm glad I did.

I enjoyed this episode, a lot. Vic is wonderful as Kirk, as always, and I continue to be astonished at how well the Star Trek Continues folks capture the look and feel of the original. This episode was especially notable in that respect, for finding so many actresses who looked a lot like the originals and for recreating sets as disparate as Miramanee's tent and Edith's street.

I was amused at the way Spock dived into Kirk's head at one point, without either "my mind to your mind" or a by-your-leave. Yeah, after melding with the guy -- and saving his ass in several different ways -- with mind melds in "Spectre of the Gun," "The Paradise Syndrome," "Requiem for Methuselah," and "Turnabout Intruder," it probably IS true that the path into Kirk's mind is a well-worn one for Spock at this point. And he probably doesn't stand much on ceremony. I'd expect a little more asking permission, though, if only with a raised eyebrow from Spock and a nod from Kirk. (True, he didn't ask permission in "Requiem for Methuselah," but for one thing, he was goaded into that by McCoy, and for another thing, I always thought his actions at the end of that episode were a bit out of character, since Spock is usually portrayed as being scrupulously ethical.)

I especially enjoyed Kirk's interaction with his nameless daughter, near the end; it actually choked me up. Good job there.

With fan-made productions, I usually give it the "And the Children Shall Lead" test -- Is this episode better than "And the Children Shall Lead"? If so, it's a worthy addition to TOS. Admittedly, that's not a very high bar ... but I WANT to love these productions.

So yeah, it's a lovely episode in many ways, and I think they did a great job with it. I do have some problems with it, though, and most of those problems stem from the script.

Vic writes the stories and/or the scripts for most of these. I appreciate the fact that he's pouring absolutely ENORMOUS amounts of time and energy into these productions, so I understand that he wants to tell his stories. Certainly if anyone has earned the right to do Star Trek the way HE wants to do it, Vic has. And yet, I think the already great Star Trek Continues episodes could be even better with better scripts.

The central premise of this episode is that Kirk feels a lot of guilt about the deaths of so many of the women he's loved, to the point of his breaking down when the combination of a concussion and an experimental drug shake him up.

Kirk suffers an enormous amount of psychological trauma in Season 1 of TOS alone, and by the time we get to the post-Season 3 era where STC takes place, he's accumulated truly staggering amounts of psychological trauma. (I'm a licensed psychologist in the real world, so this is the sort of thing I can speak to, not that I think it takes any kind of training or expertise to speak to this issue, given how MUCH we've seen happen to Kirk over the course of those 79 episodes.) So yeah, Kirk IS overdue for a breakdown. I've been assuming that huge strides have been made in the treatment for psychological trauma by the 23rd century, or Kirk would have broken down before this.

What I don't really buy is the combination of the women in his past and guilt. I could buy the combination of the women in Kirk's past and despair or loneliness or feeling like he's some sort of Typhoid Mary in love -- fall in love with me and be instantly marked for death.

Or I could buy the combination of guilt and the deaths of all the crew who've perished under his command during the several years of the mission that have passed so far. Or guilt and Kirk's being unable to save his brother Sam from the parasites on Deneva. Admittedly, guilt -- like most emotions -- isn't always rational, but Kirk's feeling guilt about the women in his life just didn't work for me.

The resolution of the problem also didn't work for me. Kirk spends two minutes talking to each woman, and now he's all better? That felt rushed to me. I thought they could have spent a bit less time on the setting up of the problem and a bit more on the solving of it.

I thought that Kirk should have been relieved of command long before he was. Either McCoy or Spock -- or both -- should have realized that when the captain hallucinates on the Bridge, the time for him to be relieved has come.

Having McKennah save the day by saying that it was KIRK who needed closure felt kinda obvious and trite to me. I mean, it's nice to have another female character in TOS, and it's nice to see the ship's counselor have something actually useful to contribute. The part of me that's a licensed psychologist wants to love this. But if you're going to make SPOCK wrong, it should be about something a little less obvious. "Vic's fiancée wanted a chance to save the day" is an understandable motive, but I wanted an in-universe reason, as well.

I also spent a lot of time wondering why Spock didn't just meld with Kirk and root around in his mind looking for the password. We know that he can find information that the recipient of the meld has trouble accessing, himself, from the meld in "Dagger of the Mind." Heck, we even know that he can find information that the recipient doesn't want him to find, from the meld with Valeris in TUC, so it should be possible for Spock to retrieve the information, even though Kirk has "forgotten" it. And even if they wanted for that not to be possible, I was surprised that Spock didn't even suggest it.

I was glad that Spock apologized for having changed Kirk's memory without his permission in "Requiem for Methuselah." I thought it was a little odd, though, that Kirk didn't seem at all angry or concerned about it, acting like "Yeah, you changed my memory without my permission, but what's a little mind-altering between friends?" I mean, yeah, these guys are close, so I believe that Kirk would be willing to forgive Spock, but I'd think he'd be a little sterner or angrier about it first. That part seemed a bit rushed.

I was willing to overlook the use of the holodeck, even thought there IS no holodeck in TOS and even though it's portrayed as being cool new technology in the first episode of TNG. For one thing, there is a holodeck in TAS; for another thing, I think a fan-made production should get a lot of latitude on sets, and using the holodeck allowed them to recreate just a snippet of the original sets, rather than having to recreate the whole expensive thing.

I didn't like Spock's saying "Captain on the Bridge" at the end of the episode. They never said that in any of the 79 episodes. Nick Meyer added that to a few of the movies, because he wasn't a Star Trek fan and understood it as "the Navy in space," so he added some militaristic touches that were deliberately left out of TOS. But not only was "Captain on the Bridge" never said in episodes of TOS, it was also NOT said in the movies helmed by either Roddenberry or Nimoy, the people who had enough experience with TOS to know where the military line should be drawn.

(The writer's bible for the original series included this set of questions and answers. (Material in italics is quoted directly from the guide.)

Speaking of the starship U. S. S. Enterprise, is it a completely military arrangement?
Semi-military but without being heavily authoritarian. For example, we will not be aware of "officers" and "enlisted men" categories. And we will avoid saluting and other annoying medieval leftovers. On the other hand, we do keep a flavor of Naval usage and terminology to help encourage believability and identification by the audience. After all, our own Navy today still retains remnants of Nelson and Drake.)


All in all, it was a fun episode and a worthy addition to TOS. I do wish, though, that Vic would get some help with the scripts. Robert J. Sawyer had a cameo in this one, and he's about as real of a science fiction writer as I can think of -- maybe he'd be willing to write you a script. Dave Galanter just published a wonderful TOS novel; maybe he'd be willing to help out. Strong as STC is, I think it'd be even stronger with someone in the Dorothy Fontana role, someone who could polish the scripts and make sure they fit TOS.

Very nice review. I think that's a prefect way to "measure" these episodes...if they are better than the weakest of the actual TOS episodes, then they are worthy! And, every one of these STC episodes has been thus far. You can't really expect more from a fan production and, quite honestly, these productions are extremely professional and effective anyway.

It took me a long time to accept it, but maybe this really IS the future of Star Trek. If it is, and it is as good as this (and some of the good episodes of Phase II), I can live with that.

 

[Karzak]

You can't really expect more from a fan production

Yes, we can.

And we should. At least with regard to editing and "polishing" scripts. I don't care how great a writer you are, you still need an editor.

 

[Professor Moriarty]

Star Trek Continues' "The White Iris" is another wonderful outing from our STC brethren. The entire STC team deserves a hearty congratulations.

In a world of multiple TOS-era fan film productions, STC's successes motivate me and the entire ST NV/P2 team towards excellence. On behalf of the Star Trek New Voyages/Phase II team, thank you for providing new Star Trek adventures to the legion of Trek fans--and thank you for helping to encourage and inspire us on our team to always up our game.

It warms my heart to see this coming from a co-executive producer of Star Trek Phase II.

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

It warms my heart to see this coming from a co-executive producer of Star Trek Phase II.

Definitely!

 

[Warped9]

I supported their recent Kickstarter, and I'm glad I did.

I enjoyed this episode, a lot. Vic is wonderful as Kirk, as always, and I continue to be astonished at how well the Star Trek Continues folks capture the look and feel of the original. This episode was especially notable in that respect, for finding so many actresses who looked a lot like the originals and for recreating sets as disparate as Miramanee's tent and Edith's street.

I was amused at the way Spock dived into Kirk's head at one point, without either "my mind to your mind" or a by-your-leave. Yeah, after melding with the guy -- and saving his ass in several different ways -- with mind melds in "Spectre of the Gun," "The Paradise Syndrome," "Requiem for Methuselah," and "Turnabout Intruder," it probably IS true that the path into Kirk's mind is a well-worn one for Spock at this point. And he probably doesn't stand much on ceremony. I'd expect a little more asking permission, though, if only with a raised eyebrow from Spock and a nod from Kirk. (True, he didn't ask permission in "Requiem for Methuselah," but for one thing, he was goaded into that by McCoy, and for another thing, I always thought his actions at the end of that episode were a bit out of character, since Spock is usually portrayed as being scrupulously ethical.)

I especially enjoyed Kirk's interaction with his nameless daughter, near the end; it actually choked me up. Good job there.

With fan-made productions, I usually give it the "And the Children Shall Lead" test -- Is this episode better than "And the Children Shall Lead"? If so, it's a worthy addition to TOS. Admittedly, that's not a very high bar ... but I WANT to love these productions.

So yeah, it's a lovely episode in many ways, and I think they did a great job with it. I do have some problems with it, though, and most of those problems stem from the script.

Vic writes the stories and/or the scripts for most of these. I appreciate the fact that he's pouring absolutely ENORMOUS amounts of time and energy into these productions, so I understand that he wants to tell his stories. Certainly if anyone has earned the right to do Star Trek the way HE wants to do it, Vic has. And yet, I think the already great Star Trek Continues episodes could be even better with better scripts.

The central premise of this episode is that Kirk feels a lot of guilt about the deaths of so many of the women he's loved, to the point of his breaking down when the combination of a concussion and an experimental drug shake him up.

Kirk suffers an enormous amount of psychological trauma in Season 1 of TOS alone, and by the time we get to the post-Season 3 era where STC takes place, he's accumulated truly staggering amounts of psychological trauma. (I'm a licensed psychologist in the real world, so this is the sort of thing I can speak to, not that I think it takes any kind of training or expertise to speak to this issue, given how MUCH we've seen happen to Kirk over the course of those 79 episodes.) So yeah, Kirk IS overdue for a breakdown. I've been assuming that huge strides have been made in the treatment for psychological trauma by the 23rd century, or Kirk would have broken down before this.

What I don't really buy is the combination of the women in his past and guilt. I could buy the combination of the women in Kirk's past and despair or loneliness or feeling like he's some sort of Typhoid Mary in love -- fall in love with me and be instantly marked for death.

Or I could buy the combination of guilt and the deaths of all the crew who've perished under his command during the several years of the mission that have passed so far. Or guilt and Kirk's being unable to save his brother Sam from the parasites on Deneva. Admittedly, guilt -- like most emotions -- isn't always rational, but Kirk's feeling guilt about the women in his life just didn't work for me.

The resolution of the problem also didn't work for me. Kirk spends two minutes talking to each woman, and now he's all better? That felt rushed to me. I thought they could have spent a bit less time on the setting up of the problem and a bit more on the solving of it.

I thought that Kirk should have been relieved of command long before he was. Either McCoy or Spock -- or both -- should have realized that when the captain hallucinates on the Bridge, the time for him to be relieved has come. (People sometimes tell me that I expect laymen to have more psychological knowledge than the average person actually has, but 1) Both Spock and McCoy are far more knowledgeable about this sort of thing than the average person, and 2) Hallucinating on the Bridge is a pretty serious symptom; I think it doesn't take any special knowledge to realize that this is a sign of a serious problem.)

Having McKennah save the day by saying that it was KIRK who needed closure felt kinda obvious and trite to me. I mean, it's nice to have another female character in TOS, and it's nice to see the ship's counselor have something actually useful to contribute. The part of me that's a licensed psychologist wants to love this. But if you're going to make SPOCK wrong, it should be about something a little less obvious. "Vic's fiancée wanted a chance to save the day" is an understandable motive, but I wanted an in-universe reason, as well.

I also spent a lot of time wondering why Spock didn't just meld with Kirk and root around in his mind looking for the password. We know that he can find information that the recipient of the meld, himself, has trouble accessing from the meld in "Dagger of the Mind." Heck, we even know that he can find information that the recipient doesn't want him to find, from the meld with Valeris in TUC, so it should be possible for Spock to retrieve the information, even though Kirk has "forgotten" it. And even if they wanted for that not to be possible, I was surprised that Spock didn't even suggest it.

I was glad that Spock apologized for having changed Kirk's memory without his permission in "Requiem for Methuselah." I thought it was a little odd, though, that Kirk didn't seem at all angry or concerned about it, acting like "Yeah, you changed my memory without my permission, but what's a little mind-altering between friends?" I mean, yeah, these guys are close, so I believe that Kirk would be willing to forgive Spock, but I'd think he'd be a little sterner or angrier about it first. That part seemed a bit rushed.

I was willing to overlook the use of the holodeck, even thought there IS no holodeck in TOS and even though it's portrayed as being cool new technology in the first episode of TNG. For one thing, there is a holodeck in TAS; for another thing, I think a fan-made production should get a lot of latitude on sets, and using the holodeck allowed them to recreate just a snippet of the original sets, rather than having to recreate the whole expensive thing.

I didn't like Spock's saying "Captain on the Bridge" at the end of the episode. They never said that in any of the 79 episodes, though the main reason why I object is because it makes TOS seem more militaristic than it should. Nick Meyer added the "Captain on the Bridge" thing to a few of the movies, because he wasn't a Star Trek fan and understood it as "the Navy in space," so he added some militaristic touches that were deliberately left out of TOS. But not only was "Captain on the Bridge" never said in episodes of TOS, it was also NOT said in the movies helmed by either Roddenberry or Nimoy, the people who had enough experience with TOS to know where the military line should be drawn.

(The writer's bible for the original series included this set of questions and answers. (Material in italics is quoted directly from the guide.)

Speaking of the starship U. S. S. Enterprise, is it a completely military arrangement?
Semi-military but without being heavily authoritarian. For example, we will not be aware of "officers" and "enlisted men" categories. And we will avoid saluting and other annoying medieval leftovers. On the other hand, we do keep a flavor of Naval usage and terminology to help encourage believability and identification by the audience. After all, our own Navy today still retains remnants of Nelson and Drake.)


All in all, it was a fun episode and a worthy addition to TOS. I do wish, though, that Vic would get some help with the scripts. Robert J. Sawyer had a cameo in this one, and he's about as real of a science fiction writer as I can think of -- maybe he'd be willing to write you a script. Dave Galanter just published a wonderful TOS novel; maybe he'd be willing to help out. Strong as STC is, I think it'd be even stronger with someone in the Dorothy Fontana role, someone who could polish the scripts and make sure they fit TOS.

You raise many excellent points here and I agree with all of them. Well said.

They have an out for a holodeck in TOS because the idea was conceived during the original series run, but they never got around to using it. Then we saw it in TAS which lends weight to it already being there even though STC doesn't really ackowledge TAS. I say this because while the STC group likes TAS their position is that many of the things seen in TAS would have been impossible to do as live-action on TOS. Arex and M'Ress are prime examples (and I know Arex has appeared in NV/PII). It would involve retconning things back into the TOS universe that didn't exist even as ideas during 1966-69, but then they are vaguely (as well as directly) referring to things from other productions that didn't exist during TOS. And they are also using some f/x in ways that would have been challenging for TOS if not impossible and sometimes look a bit too much like TOS-R.

Something like STC does offer you the opportunity to do things that should and could have been done in TOS yet based on the conceit of additional time and money being available (which it wasn't). But it is a fine line not to cross into including things that simply couldn't have been done even with all the time and money '60's era television production would never allow. And that includes f/x that are so obviously contemporary style cgi.

 

[QuinnTV]

Re: Star Trek Continues: White Iris

Why not fight CBS or get CBS to put on a new show?

How do you propose to "fight" CBS? They own and control the franchise. You gonna rock-paper-scissors (-Spock) them for it?

There are so many affiliate networks these days that if CBS wants to continue to be the cop show, reality show network then perhaps we could get it on a networks that works like syfy. (forget about who owns what at this point it doesn't matter).

Yes, it does matter. For example, Syfy is owned by NBC. If CBS determines that Trek is at a point where it's profitable to put it on television, they would, most likely, put it on one of their own channels, not NBC, not Disney. So, begging for it airing just anywhere isn't going to work.

It would not surprise me the least that CBS was behind the fourth episode getting pulled from youtube because they do NOT want Trek's popularity.

This is quite a definitive statement. How do you know this?

They'll take your money yes, but that doesn't mean they take fans seriously and I think we need to give the network reasons to do so. They would rather continue to put out shows like, "How to win a million dollars by being a d-bag" rather than allowing star trek back on TV.

Heads up: First and foremost, television is a business. Source: I've worked in it for a long time. The whole point of it is for the networks to make money, so, yes they will take your money. Happily. Every show that you're sick on on TV - it makes money. If it didn't, something else that did generate profit would be on. In my opinion, CBS feels the programming it currently airs would make it more money than Trek. I'm sure you feel differently, but these decisions are not make arbitrarily. The networks have rather extensive research departments and ratings metrics to back up their decision making.

I think that fans own Trek

No, they don't. Copyright data can back this up.

 

[Vger23]

You can't really expect more from a fan production

Yes, we can.

And we should. At least with regard to editing and "polishing" scripts. I don't care how great a writer you are, you still need an editor.

Well you can expect whatever you want I suppose. But, just like anything else when pretentious folks pride themselves on having "high standards"...you're just going to walk through life experiencing disappointment after disappointment.

Glad that's not me.

 

[Ssosmcin]

I have been a Star Trek fan nearly as long as I have been alive. I remember watching the show as some of the earliest memories of my life. My parents sat me down in front of the TV to distract me while they would cook dinner when I was about 3. The "distraction" was a colorful and energetic show called Star Trek back in the late 1970s in reruns. I have been a devoted, loving fan ever since.

Are we brothers?

 

[Peach Wookiee]

YT still doesn't have it back up on the official channel.

 

[Zaminhon]

Yeah, I'm interested to know what's going on since CBS gave the green light several days ago.

 

[Barbreader]

Could be You Tube doesn't care, and won't get to it for a year. If STC wants it up soon, they might have to load it again.

 

[Karzak]

That does seem to be the pattern with YouTube on these matters. They take their sweet time and don't really make much of an effort on their end when these kinds of snafus occur.

 

[JE Smith]

Only we (Star Trek fans) would smell a scandal where there is none.

Not quite true. Doctor Who fans would too.

LOL!!! So true. [Spoken as a hard-core WHO fan.]

 

[Wingsley]

Just my 2¢...

Interesting and intimate character moments in this new STC story. Each of the actors (including "Smith"... or was that "Jones"?) seems to really shine. They bring their characters to life better than any other TOS-derived fan production. And the sets are top-notch.

Having said that...

The story lost me when Kirk just gets up and reports for duty almost instantly. Even Sulu couldn't do that with a Cordrazine injection. TOS got away with this trick twice, and reviving a dying goateed Spock in "Mirror, Mirror" was already stretching things. "The White Iris" was a neat idea, but there are too many jump-the-shark moments.

It's great to see the STC crew on their game, but this story was pretty weak. How does Kirk's heart heal so miraculously by simply using a holodeck to say good-bye to his lost loves? At least they didn't need the Eyemorg brainwashing machine to do open-heart surgery on him. Not up to par after "Fairest of Them All".

 

[Warped9]

I've now watched "The White Iris" three times and some of my criticisms persist.

This is written more like a TNG episode. I think the script could have used another rewrite as I find some of the dialog clunky. The way some of the characters are wriiten doesn't ring true at times. The whole way the medical issue is dealt with and the subsequent resolution to it was unconvincing. Despite Kirk's stubborness McCoy and Spock had more than sufficient grounds to relieve Kirk long before his breakdown on the bridge which I still find poorly handled and out of character.

It's not horrible and in many respects light years ahead of what other fan productions are doing, but it's definitely STC's weakest effort and it could have been distinctly better.

Another telling distinction (for me) is that STC's previous episodes interested me sufficiently to watch them again much like actual TOS episodes. But TWI doesn't instill the same level of interest for repeated viewings.

 

[DCR]

I really don't think there's a way they could have gotten away without the TNG comparisons on this episode. Visiting the Counselor and then resolving the issue on the Holodeck is just too much of a TNG-style resolution to be missed. It's not that it's necessarily bad, but it is an influence I've found in every episode.

 

[Warped9]

It strikes me Kirk was supposedly experiencing some sort of anxiety attack or something with hallucinations brought on by the combination of head trauma and the experimental drug. And then the resolution is essentially talking it over with himself? Because that's what he was doing since those he was seeing weren't really there.

Yeah, it was very TNG and after all is said and done I didn't find it particularly interesting as executed. There's a valid enough story idea to be told here, but I don't find it as is convincing or effective.

 

[JE Smith]

Warped9, you make a great point about this having the vibe of a TNG episode. I hadn't considered that, but I agree with you 100%.

 

[Karzak]

To be fair, he wasn't the first, nor the only person to make that comparison:

It was the best Riker episode of Star Trek:The Next Generation I've seen since it went off the air.

To sum up:

Riker is dying from a literal broken heart over suddenly remembering the loss of key women in his life.
After dealing with this as best as he can, he finally seeks out the advice of Councilor Troy who advises him on a course of action.
He then goes to the one place he can always find answers: The Holodeck to recreate the surroundings he last encountered each woman in.
Feeling better, he runs to the bridge to assist in an emergency only to run into...the Malcorian child that he unknowingly fathered with Lanel.

Touching, but and hear this and recognize the truth: A STORY COMPLEATLY OUT OF CHARICTER FOR JAMES T. KIRK.

But a story totally suited for Riker.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

To be fair, he wasn't the first, nor the only person to make that comparison:

It was the best Riker episode of Star Trek:The Next Generation I've seen since it went off the air.

To sum up:

Riker is dying from a literal broken heart over suddenly remembering the loss of key women in his life.
After dealing with this as best as he can, he finally seeks out the advice of Councilor Troy who advises him on a course of action.
He then goes to the one place he can always find answers: The Holodeck to recreate the surroundings he last encountered each woman in.
Feeling better, he runs to the bridge to assist in an emergency only to run into...the Malcorian child that he unknowingly fathered with Lanel.

Touching, but and hear this and recognize the truth: A STORY COMPLEATLY OUT OF CHARICTER FOR JAMES T. KIRK.

But a story totally suited for Riker.

And the TNG vibe has also been noted in other critiques of "Continues" and their episodes. Like PII/NV, "Continues" often feels like a TNG-episode in TOS drag.