TheGodBen Revisits Star Trek

[Poltargyst]

I thought Spock broke up with her because he didn't have a Death Wish.

Ba dum bum

 

[Drone]

The Return of the Archons (*½)

Let's start out with the thing I most liked about this episode: it was seriously fucking weird. There's a perfect, ordered, pleasant town that suddenly goes nuts and starts rioting when the clock strikes 6. (Note: An alien civilisation using our 12-hour clock? Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planetary Development in effect.) Monks with booming voices and magic staffs seek out nonconformists and execute them. Characters speak complete gibberish, “not of the body” and so on. We also learn in this episode that Spock sleeps with his eyes open and that Kirk sleeps standing up. This is all delightfully bizarre.

Sadly, the story feels half-baked. As an example, take the resistance movement that Kirk and co accidentally stumble upon. They oppose the despotic rule of Landru, but when given an opportunity to help Kirk stop it they freak out and start hugging each other in fear. Another example, what is red hour and the festival? That seemed really important at the start of the episode, but it's never explained what it is for. Nor is it explained exactly how often it happens. Another strange point is that the people of this planet are on several occasions referred to as humans. Indeed, at the end of the episode Kirk declares that they are going to restore the planet's culture to a normal human form. But they're not human and the episode seems to be confused about that fact.

The biggest problem with the episode for me is how small scale everything feels. This entire civilisation is reduced to a small town. I guess this is a problem with many episodes of Star Trek, but most of them don't involve the captain upending an entire planet's system of government. Was it right for Kirk to destroy Landru? I don't know, maybe. But it would have been nice if he had made that decision after developing a wider perspective of this society. Captain Redshirt: 8

I interpret Festival as being indicative that Landru understood that the repression that he enforced on the citizenry would take a psychological or physiological toll if not balanced off occasionally, by sanctioned yet still controlled, periods where everyone could get their freak on. I don't think there's any explicit support for it in the episode, but I would suspect that the practice wasn't scheduled more than once a month or two. This would give time to clean up the mess, the women to get abortions, and the devastating memories of the assorted debauchery to fade a bit. As far as the scale of the production, I found it interesting in that it gave me the sense of a frontier, though somewhat less primitive and skeletal construct as we saw in Spectre of the Gun. Of course, in that case the environs were set up as they were as a test for the landing party, and more significantly, the Federation, drawn from our own history. The constricted, simplistic culture we saw in Archons, was the computer's modus operandi of keeping the culture minimized and under strict supervision to maintain its compliance and render it, more or less, in a continual condition of stasis.

​

If his son wasn't conceived yet then if Christopher went blabbing about abductions by future space men, he might end up committed and as a result no future son to save the day.

One might consider the possibility that the danger Spock cites, might not come from Christopher but from his son. After being inculcated from a young age with his father's tale, then ultimately see the old man being broken down or locked up, the son's mission in life becomes taking vengeance on the military industrial complex, and far from becoming a seminal explorer, turns into a psychotic leader of a globally threatening organization, leading to widespread disaster and catastrophe, along the lines of a Col. Green, let's say. Reminiscent of Earth's fate after the meddling of the Martians in The Outer Limits' Controlled Experiment.

A strange concept for a war, yes, but it shows how pointless war can be when it's based on old beliefs. I would say an average episode for me.

It sort of puts in mind of The Last Enemy from Space 1999. While the conflict is real in that case, we never know the reason why the two planets have "always been at war", other than accepting the rather facile, surface implication that it's simply a battle of the sexes writ large.

Space Seed (****½)

I said in an early review that the thing that sets Kirk apart from the other captains is his charisma. That's also why Khan is such a memorable villain, and why he's the perfect foil for Kirk. Kirk is a larger than life personality, almost superhuman in his ability to solve difficult problems and kiss pretty girls along the way. But Khan is literally superhuman, and he doesn't simply kiss pretty girls, he convinces them bow before him. Next to Khan, Kirk looks like a normal, fragile human. That's what makes him so memorable. That and his chest. Sorry Kirk, you may be able to out-strategize Khan, you may be able to beat him in a physical brawl, but Khan wins the swimsuit round.

If Khan is the highlight of the episode then the lowlight is Lt McGivers. Her relationship with Khan is questionable in many ways. Is it down to good old fashioned 60s sexism, or is she simply an example of a psychological condition such as hybristophilia? The idea that women are secretly attracted to bad boys and want to be dominated by them is a common and offensive trope, but it is true that a small number of women do suffer from such harmful desires, and it is possible that McGivers has this condition too. But if that's the case, if this is a dangerous personality flaw, then she should be encouraged to overcome it, not offered the chance to join Khan on Ceti Alpha V.

Beyond all that, this is another great episode in terms of universe-building. We learn of Earth's history with augments and the Eugenics Wars, and we get to see an early human interplanetary spacecraft. But what elevates this episode further is the presence of one of television's all time great characters. Not Kirk nor Spock. Not Khan and not Khan's chest. Not Shatner and Montalbán's stunt doubles. No, it's the inanimate carbon rod that's capable of taking down a man five times stronger than the average human. In rod, truly, do we trust.

I saw McGivers as an example of an academic, perhaps lacking in real life experiences of the heart, but more importantly, someone whose perception of her discipline is imbued with the tint of romantic identification and meaning. I think it's plausible to suggest that other historians over time, have felt the same emotional pull of the subject of their studies, a response not necessarily restricted to members of one sex exclusively. In McGivers' case, being in such close proximity to undoubtedly one of the most charismatic figures in Earth's history going back centuries, was such a powerful lure to a facet so central to her interest in her life's work, that she found herself unable to resist surrendering to becoming part of the historical narrative herself.

Not really a explanation that simply fits in with that 60's cultural template, but perhaps sharing some similarity with the psychological condition you reference, but with the latter being by no means a complete and satisfying rationale.

As for the Rod, while it might look flimsy, no doubt it was meant to have some heft to it, so with Kirk being well aware of just the location that would knock the breath out an adversary with a well struck blow that he certainly was capable of delivering, he proceeded to execute the maneuver and then basically knock Khan senseless. I think it was a reasonable depiction of a plausible scenario, Khan's super chest notwithstanding.

This Side of Paradise (***½)

What's the purpose of moving all these people down to the planet? Are the plants intelligent in some way, and do they need humans on the planet to serve some goal? It's never explained. It would have been interesting if the episode had delved a little deeper into the sci-fi here, but I guess they wanted to keep things simple so it can work as a drug analogy? I'm not sure.

What the episode lacks in plot it makes up for in character development. Under the influence of the spores, Spock's self control collapses and he lets his emotions rule him. He falls in love, climbs a tree, and probably engaged in some hot finger rubbing action. But then the spores lose their control over him and he chooses to break up with the woman he loves so that he can become a model Vulcan again. How sad. We also learn more about Kirk's love in this episode. The prospect of being torn away from his ship, whom he loves like a woman, is strong enough to free him from the spores. We also learn about McCoy's love of mint juleps.

The best moment of the episode isn't actually in the episode, it's in the trailer. I know it's childish, but it made me laugh all the same.

As for the crew leaving en masse, there are several reasons. First, and most elementally, they no longer feel any connection to their previous duties or certainly doing anything that will take them away from the source of the dissipation of all their cares, so why stay aboard Enterprise and its antiseptic environment? What purpose would that serve? Meanwhile, being down in the idyllic setting of Omicron Ceti III, would allow everyone to frolic to their heart's content with so many like minded companions. Undoubtedly, there would be the numerous orgies al fresco, naughty versions of hide and go seek, and ribald takes on Button, button, who's got the button. Of course, if vineyard cultivation were possible, we'd see scenes of naked grape stomping, a la a slightly earlier depiction of such in Seconds.

The trailer is indeed ridiculously silly, to the extent that it looks like an amateur production. I'm not much interested in trailers generally, but would be curious to know if this slapdash style was a regular feature in these representations of the TOS productions?
[

 

[TheGodBen]

As for the Rod, while it might look flimsy, no doubt it was meant to have some heft to it, so with Kirk being well aware of just the location that would knock the breath out an adversary with a well struck blow that he certainly was capable of delivering, he proceeded to execute the maneuver and then basically knock Khan senseless. I think it was a reasonable depiction of a plausible scenario, Khan's super chest notwithstanding.

Oh, I don't mind Khan being taken out by the rod at all, it's just funny seeing him brag about how strong he is just before his defeat to a small plastic thing. It's quite the contrast to the reboot Khan, a guy who can effortlessly throw people across rooms and crush skulls.

Undoubtedly, there would be the numerous orgies al fresco, naughty versions of hide and go seek, and ribald takes on Button, button, who's got the button. Of course, if vineyard cultivation were possible, we'd see scenes of naked grape stomping, a la a slightly earlier depiction of such in Seconds.

Gene, is that you?


The Devil in the Dark (**)

The inhabitants of the mining colony on Caveset VI are being harassed and murdered by Pizza the Hutt's cousin. The Enterprise is dispatched the help because the Federation needs the vital unobtanium from this planet to power several nicer planets. It turns out that the uneducated and reactionary miners didn't realise that they weren't being murdered by a mindless monster, they were being murdered by a sentient rock thing. It seems that the miners had been killing the rock's children and the rock was acting in self defence. Thankfully, Spock figures everything out, and all the murdering and baby slaughtering is forgiven. The rock monster gets a well-paying job with the mining company, and even its children get to work as miners, just like in the 19th century. What an idyllic future.

This episode's heart is in the right place, it's a traditional Trek tale of meeting a new form of life and learning to coexist with it. Sadly, for all its noble intentions, it's just a little dull. Most of the episode is set in caves as our heroes and some redshirts search for the supposed monster. The story is highly predictable too, but maybe I felt that way because I had already seen every other Star Trek series before watching TOS and thus knew all the tropes. Maybe this episode was fresher when it originally aired in the 60s.

The ending is also a bit cheesy. Spock mind-melds with the rock and shrieks out in empathy with its pain. It was silly when Deanna Troi did it, Spock doesn't get a free pass just because he did it first. And don't even get me started on McCoy's ministrations to the wounded creature. Slathering its wound with concrete makes as much sense as slathering a human's wounds with minced beef.

Captain Redshirt: 9

 

[Nyotarules]

The like the novels that involve the Horta, Devil in the sky- DS9 and Devils Bargain - TOS. For me the real devil is the humans lol

 

[ItIsGreen]

The like the novels that involve the Horta, Devil in the sky- DS9 and Devils Bargain - TOS. For me the real devil is the humans lol

Such original titles... The title of the episode refers to the miners being killed by what they perceive to be a dangerous monster. Surely after the Horta is found to be intelligent and peaceful the 'devil' reference is irrelevant. But oh no, we have to put 'Devil' in the title so people know it's about the Horta. Bleurgh, lazy.

 

[Drone]

Oh, I don't mind Khan being taken out by the rod at all, it's just funny seeing him brag about how strong he is just before his defeat to a small plastic thing. It's quite the contrast to the reboot Khan, a guy who can effortlessly throw people across rooms and crush skulls.

Gene, is that you?

Your description of NuKhan's abilities makes me even happier that I abstained from viewing the opus. That characterization seems a bit excessive. As for my identity, no I'm not nor am I channeling his spirit, but I wonder if that's how he would have portrayed life there if he had collaborated on a follow up with Russ Meyer, say.

The Devil in the Dark

(**)

The inhabitants of the mining colony on Caveset VI are being harassed and murdered by Pizza the Hutt's cousin. The Enterprise is dispatched the help because the Federation needs the vital unobtanium from this planet to power several nicer planets. It turns out that the uneducated and reactionary miners didn't realise that they weren't being murdered by a mindless monster, they were being murdered by a sentient rock thing. It seems that the miners had been killing the rock's children and the rock was acting in self defence. Thankfully, Spock figures everything out, and all the murdering and baby slaughtering is forgiven. The rock monster gets a well-paying job with the mining company, and even its children get to work as miners, just like in the 19th century. What an idyllic future.

This episode's heart is in the right place, it's a traditional Trek tale of meeting a new form of life and learning to coexist with it. Sadly, for all its noble intentions, it's just a little dull. Most of the episode is set in caves as our heroes and some redshirts search for the supposed monster. The story is highly predictable too, but maybe I felt that way because I had already seen every other Star Trek series before watching TOS and thus knew all the tropes. Maybe this episode was fresher when it originally aired in the 60s.

The ending is also a bit cheesy. Spock mind-melds with the rock and shrieks out in empathy with its pain. It was silly when Deanna Troi did it, Spock doesn't get a free pass just because he did it first. And don't even get me started on McCoy's ministrations to the wounded creature. Slathering its wound with concrete makes as much sense as slathering a human's wounds with minced beef.

Captain Redshirt: 9

I think you could alternately attribute the miner's reactionary attitude to the fact that they're all undoubtedly union members, if your of the mind to go down that road!! Also, don't be so quick to dismiss the Doc's handiwork. After all he was working on a silicon based life form, and who's to say that concrete isn't as soothing to them as Ben Gay is for us, or going even further, as curative as Tiger Balm. Worked pretty well for Kramer!!!!

 

[Seven of Five]

The Devil in the Dark (**)

I'll have to disagree with you here, Devil in the Dark is one of my favourites of the season. But your review makes me smile as I wait before I go off to work on this cold, dark, wet morning.

 

[scotpens]

. . . Also, don't be so quick to dismiss the Doc's handiwork. After all he was working on a silicon based life form, and who's to say that concrete isn't as soothing to them as Ben Gay is for us, or going even further, as curative as Tiger Balm. Worked pretty well for Kramer!!!!

I figure the concrete worked like artificial skin for burn victims.

 

[Drone]

Kudos for taking the contrary rejoinder a bit more seriously, with a pretty plausible explanation!

 

[TheGodBen]

Your description of NuKhan's abilities makes me even happier that I abstained from viewing the opus. That characterization seems a bit excessive.

It was a travesty. Not a single shot of Khan's chest in the whole movie. Forget about him being white, what were they thinking casting a spindly guy in such a buff role?


Errand of Mercy (***½)

And then there were Klingons. Growing up with the spin-offs, I had my fill of Klingons long before I watched TOS. It seemed to me that Klingons came in two varieties, the honourable Klingons and the stupid Klingons. The honourable Klingons were those like Worf and Martok, they were reasonably smart and did things according to a warrior code. They also had a tendency to debate honour to the point where the word lost all its meaning. The stupid Klingons were violent savages who just attacked and killed things for the hell of it. I'm not sure if it was the Klingons who were stupid in those cases or the writers who wrote them.

I suppose the TOS Klingons make a third type of Klingon. They don't shout and growl constantly, but they also don't drone on and on about honour and Kahless and all that crap. Kor is grandfather of the Klingon race, and I can kinda see a lineage there, but he's still quite different from the Klingons I'm used to. I liked Kor, he's rootless, underhanded, but personable, and his conversations with Kirk were the stand-out moments of the episode. But he was, perhaps, not alien enough. I don't mean his appearance, but his attitude seemed closer to that of a human than I would have liked. It must be all that augment blood in him. Or maybe it was to make the anti-war message more appropriate.

Ah yes, the Organians. What is it with all these gods interfering with mortal affairs? At least the Organians don't have as a high opinion of themselves as the Metrons, and only interfere because humans and Klingons kept annoying them while they were trying to farm. I'm not sure how I feel about the ending. It was funny seeing Kirk get so twisted up that he argued in favour of humanity's right to wage war, but I don't like the fact that peace was imposed by powerful outsiders. Once again, wouldn't it have been better for Kirk and the Federation to choose to avoid war rather than to have it decided for them?

The God Things: 5

 

[Seven of Five]

Kor is awesome.

That is all.

 

[HGN2001]

Those "Next Week" trailers in the first season didn't originally start with the "Next Voyage" shot of the Enterprise, but instead just ran with plain lettering:

Harry

 

[Harvey]

Those "Next Week" trailers in the first season didn't originally start with the "Next Voyage" shot of the Enterprise, but instead just ran with plain lettering:

Harry

Until season three, I believe, when they adopted the "next voyage" text.

 

[TheGodBen]

I'm not a fan of the "Next Voyage" text. Why is there a line over the A in STAR TREK? Is it meant to be an accent? Is it supposed to be pronounced "Staaar Trek"?

Sorry, I shouldn't let my brain take command of the keyboard like that.


The City on the Edge of Forever (****)

Well, this episode is a classic, isn't it? It's widely regarded as the best episode of TOS, is in the running for the best episode of the whole franchise, and is even in the frame when discussing the best episodes of television of all time. It has a great premise, one that's surprisingly cynical for Star Trek. A good woman with noble ideals must die because she lives in the wrong time, and her pursuit of peace would ultimately allow evil men to dominate. Compared to the rather simplistic anti-war messages in the previous episode and Arena, this episode has a nuance to its morality that Trek often lacks. The accidental vaporisation of a homeless man is also quite dark, an entire life extinguished and history didn't care. So why not the full five stars? I'd like to give my answer in the form of beatbox saxophone:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

That was, of course, the beatbox saxophone version of Haddaway's '90s classic “What is Love”, aka Baby Don't Hurt Me (No More). Many of you might be confused. It's a recurring joke from my DS9 reviews about one of my pet peeves that infests the entire Trek franchise: the romance of the week plot. I have trouble caring about a romance between two characters that develops over the course of a few days before they are inevitably torn apart by the necessities of episodic television. Thankfully, the tragic ending in this tale doesn't rely on the romance angle, it's sad enough that Keeler had to die, but that extra layer of loss that Kirk felt doesn't move me in the way that it perhaps was meant to.

It's a well told story regardless. We get to see McCoy as a crazy man, and as a sane man who thinks that he's crazy. There's also some fun in seeing Kirk and Spock trying to fit in to a time period they barely understand. There's almost too much material to fit in a single hour, and some of the jumps in the story feel rushed, such as Spock stealing Edith's tools. But it's worthy of much of the praise it receives, even if it doesn't quite reach those highs for me.

James T Flirt: 5½
Inform the Men: 0

 

[Seven of Five]

Romance of the week! Our favourite Star Trek sub genre.

I don't think the ROTW aspect holds this episode back as the way Edith dies at the end is iconic.

I love this episode. It's been my favourite TOS episode for years. I doìn't know how many times I've seen it, but I always get caught up in it again. Edith is a great character, and the chemistry between her and Kirk is palpable. The tragedy of the situation always gets me at the end - Kirk's face when he stops McCoy from saving Edith is so sad.

 

[Marsden]

I always think it's strange how much ridicule Mr. Spock got on seeing Capt. Kirk alive at the end of Amok Time but none for how happy he is to see Dr. McCoy in this one. Watch him, it's quick but he's pretty damn happy.

 

[Drone]

Has anything ever been made of Keeler's accent, which I don't think Collins took pains to Americanize? The thought occurs to me, as being eventually such an anti-war and peace advocate, that maybe she wasn't exactly the prescient idealist she appeared to be, but rather was effectively a plant, actually or not, of Oswald Mosely, who was a Fabian long before evolving towards his fascist ideology. Puts a different spin on the implications of the story, even if it can't be shown to have an active foundation.

 

[TheGodBen]

I always think it's strange how much ridicule Mr. Spock got on seeing Capt. Kirk alive at the end of Amok Time but none for how happy he is to see Dr. McCoy in this one. Watch him, it's quick but he's pretty damn happy.

I imagine that Keeler's death put a damper on things. They probably didn't feel like joking around.

but rather was effectively a plant, actually or not, of Oswald Mosely

So you're saying that Kirk dated a Nazi?! That's almost as bad as the time Archer dated that slug, or Janeway dated one of those Fair Haven stereotypes.


Operation -- Annihilate! (*½)

That was a bit of a dud to end the season on. The plot meandered from one idea to the next without fully committing to one or managing to draw them all together to make a greater whole. We start out with the idea that mass insanity is travelling across the galaxy in a straight line. We learn that this insanity is caused by a form of parasite that take control of people using pain and get them to build space ships so they can hop from planet to planet. Why are the parasites travelling in a line? That's never explained, it's just an excuse for the Enterprise to go to Deneva. That happens to be the planet where Kirk's moustachioed twin lives. He dies, as does his wife, and Kirk's nephew is trapped in a painful coma. Better than dying off-screen in a fire, I suppose. Not that it really matters, other than a few references to his nephew throughout the episode, Sam Kirk's family don't matter much beyond the first act.

The focus then switches to Spock, who is attacked by the parasite and temporarily driven mad before using his Vulcan mental powers to regain control. He manages to capture a parasite and learns that it is actually a single cell, and the parasite intruders make up a single living organism. This doesn't matter and doesn't help the crew to discover a solution, it's just thrown out there as a neat science-fictiony titbit. The actual solution to the parasite infestation is light. Kirk figures this out after seeing a bulb turn on, which is unusual as light bulbs usually turn on after the eureka moment, not before. So they shine a really bright light on one of the parasites, killing it. Then they shine a really bright light on Spock, curing him but causing him to lose his sight.

KIRK: Bones, it wasn't your fault.​

Like hell it wasn't! McCoy and Spock refused to wait even two minutes for the lab results on the dead parasite before using Spock as a living test subject. This element of the story is completely unnecessary and I can only imagine it exists to fill air time, because Spock being blind goes absolutely nowhere. It turns out that he has an inner eyelid that managed to protect his sight, so he returns to duty with no consequences. The planet it saved by satellites, and the Enterprise heads off to its next adventure...

Captain Redshirt: 10


I guess I have some graphs to make now, then I'll be back with my thoughts on season 1 before pushing ahead to the next episode.

 

[Seven of Five]

I like this episode too. Not like the couple of episodes that preceeded it, but enough to enjoy it. Whilst Kirk mourning for a family he never mentioned before of after this episode is questionable, it was interesting seeing him work the problem from a more personal angle.

I think Spock struggling to fight the parasite was fun to watch too.

GodBen graphs? There is a God.

 

[Harvey]

I like this episode too. Not like the couple of episodes that preceeded it, but enough to enjoy it. Whilst Kirk mourning for a family he never mentioned before of after this episode is questionable, it was interesting seeing him work the problem from a more personal angle.

Sam Kirk and his family are actually mentioned once before, in "What Are Little Girls Made Of?"

After this episode, though, they're never mentioned again (at least, on screen; I'm sure they show up in the novels).