Production Order Group Viewing 2018

[Mytran]

Yeah. I've said this recently so sorry to be repetitive, but I find it absurd that a material witness in a case would be in a position to dismiss charges, or have anything at all to do with the prosecution and/or disposal of that case. That wouldn't fly in any credible justice system today, that part of the story is just not believable to me.

Actually, rephrasing it made it much clearer what your point was, so I for one appreciate it

I suppose it was meant to go along with the very special position that Starship captains in TOS were said to hold, along the lines of "lord and master of all he surveys".
Plus the fact that they are out there on the frontier and less than accurate record keeping (as we later see when there is apparently no mention in the computer banks of Khan being in the Ceti Alpha system)

 

[J.T.B.]

I think you’re right; I find that he did something like this only once. In Master and Commander he landed prisoners taken from an American prize off Majorca.

OK, that sounds familiar. Not that Jack always cared too much for following rules. He kept taking his whole ship away from its assigned duties to visit his girlfriend, for instance.

I suppose it was meant to go along with the very special position that Starship captains in TOS were said to hold, along the lines of "lord and master of all he surveys".

Yeah, that might have been the intent. The great authority and powers granted captains in the days of sail, when it could take a month or more to get a letter to your boss and just as long to get the reply, doesn't really seem that necessary in TOS. Aside from an inconvenient three week delay in "The Enterprise Incident," they never seem to have much trouble getting a commodore or admiral on the radio.

 

[Mytran]

Yeah, that might have been the intent. The great authority and powers granted captains in the days of sail, when it could take a month or more to get a letter to your boss and just as long to get the reply, doesn't really seem that necessary in TOS. Aside from an inconvenient three week delay in "The Enterprise Incident," they never seem to have much trouble getting a commodore or admiral on the radio.

Not to mention the fact that they are never very far away from a Starbase (in this episode too). In TOS, the real hurdle appears to be not in communication times, but on the limited number of ships available for dispatch as any given moment...which actually makes perfect sense given the vast hugeness of space!

 

[Commishsleer]

Actually, rephrasing it made it much clearer what your point was, so I for one appreciate it

I suppose it was meant to go along with the very special position that Starship captains in TOS were said to hold, along the lines of "lord and master of all he surveys".
Plus the fact that they are out there on the frontier and less than accurate record keeping (as we later see when there is apparently no mention in the computer banks of Khan being in the Ceti Alpha system)

And Kirk had much greater powers it seemed than just dumping 50 odd people on a planet. He ordered Scotty to wipe out an entire planet holding them hostage and Scotty while worried didn't seem to thing it would bring about a court martial. Even McCoy didn't complain it was against the rules.

As for the Space Seed incident I believe Kirk made a show of "dropping all charges" because he knew (gut instinct) that Khan was going to want that option or he wouldn't have offered it.

You could look at it as Kirk is relocating people to a colony planet. They've all agreed to go. Kirk's just cutting out the 20 year sentence bit on a rehabilitation planet they'd all have to serve first. That's the dropping of the charges bit.

Kirk's report may say something like - found these people, they caused a bit of trouble but in the end they were happy to be relocated to a colony planet which they wanted to keep secret. If they really didn't want to go and say appealed to Spock or one of the other officers saying they'd rather face charges than be marooned then I'm sure that Kirk would have done that. Kirk let them off easy - actually not in the end but that wasn;t Kirk's fault.

And Kirk may drop all charges of Khan's attack but that doesn;'t mean that Starfleet is not going to have their own charges. I mean if a "friend"came into my house and tried to kill me or hold me hostage even if I drop all charges after I'm rescued the police aren't going to let the perpetrator go. They need to protect the community not just me,

 

[Marsden]

I said this earlier but I think Kirk was really protecting the Federation putting Khan and his Ubermen on an out of the way place. Anywhere they were incarcerated was in clear and present danger of being conquered by Khan, period. Garth took over Elba 2, just think how much worse it would have been with Khan and 70+ followers. Keeping them out there saved lives, until USS Unreliable showed up to let him loose.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I always thought we were supposed to believe that, without the Enterprise's interference and with possibly only a slight change in course and/or a little more time relatively speaking, the Botany Bay would have deposited the Supermen on Ceti Alpha V anyway. Kirk was giving Khan and his people a reprieve for their crimes and them the opportunity to fulfill the destiny they were sent into space for. They were the "Space Seed" sent out to be planted somewhere in the galaxy; maybe Ceti Apha V was thought to be a potentially viable destination in the 20th century.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

I always thought we were supposed to believe that, without the Enterprise's interference and with possibly only a slight change in course and/or a little more time relatively speaking, the Botany Bay would have deposited the Supermen on Ceti Alpha V anyway. Kirk was giving Khan and his people a reprieve for their crimes and them the opportunity to fulfill the destiny they were sent into space for. They were the "Space Seed" sent out to be planted somewhere in the galaxy; maybe Ceti Apha V was thought to be a potentially viable destination in the 20th century.

That's the first I've heard of that theory. The episode makes it seem that Kirk picked Ceti Alpha V with no reference to Khan's original flight plan. The Botany Bay seems to have taken off from Earth in a wild attempt to flee justice, and it ran out of fuel on its way to nowhere.

In the 1990s, we didn't know enough about the interstellar landscape to plan an intentional colonization mission to an Earthlike plant, to say nothing of figuring it out while you're on the run from your Nuremberg trials. The Bay's whole mission, in this interpretation, was a crazy act of desperation.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

That's the first I've heard of that theory. The episode makes it seem that Kirk picked Ceti Alpha V with no reference to Khan's original flight plan. The Botany Bay seems to have taken off from Earth in a wild attempt to flee justice, and it ran out of fuel on its way to nowhere.

In the 1990s, we didn't know enough about the interstellar landscape to plan an intentional colonization mission to an Earthlike plant, to say nothing of figuring it out while you're on the run from your Nuremberg trials. The Bay's whole mission, in this interpretation, was a crazy act of desperation.

We also didn't know enough in the 1990s to launch an interstellar sleeper ship. Or at least that's what they want us to think....

 

[johnnybear]

I find it truly fascinating that the Botany Bay could get so far into outer space and a long way from Federation territory with just sub-light speed and even when the engines packed up and it was drifting too! That or Federation space isn't as big as we think it is at least in the TOS time frame!
JB

 

[Mytran]

Good point @johnnybear - how big IS the Federation, based on the episodes we've seen so far? The furthest they've explicitly been from Earth is in Squire Of Gothos, 900 light years from Earth. If we extend to to sphere with a radius of 1,000 light years (they did nip out of the top of the galaxy in WNMHGB) then that's an internal volume of 4 billion cubic light years - plenty of room to explore!

As for Khan, if he accelerated up to half the speed of light before his fuel ran out, he'd be 100 or more light years from Earth and thus be in a volume of space that contained 4 million cubic light years - plenty of space to get lost in!

Even more interestingly, if Khan travelled at 67.48% of lightspeed for 271 years, time dilation would mean that only 200 years passed on board the Botany Bay. Just sayin'.....

 

[alchemist]

That's the first I've heard of that theory. The episode makes it seem that Kirk picked Ceti Alpha V with no reference to Khan's original flight plan. The Botany Bay seems to have taken off from Earth in a wild attempt to flee justice, and it ran out of fuel on its way to nowhere.

In the 1990s, we didn't know enough about the interstellar landscape to plan an intentional colonization mission to an Earthlike plant, to say nothing of figuring it out while you're on the run from your Nuremberg trials. The Bay's whole mission, in this interpretation, was a crazy act of desperation.

The below interchange was cut as the print was being finished. It occurred towards the beginning of Act II, right after the captain's log voiceover. The excerpt is from the second revised final draft script, December 13, 1966.

SPINELLI
As near as I can work out their heading,
they must have tried for the Alpha Centuri star system.

KIRK
Makes sense. Closest to earth,
has several habitable planets.

SPINELLI
Their vessel must have gone off course when the port
control jets took meteor damage. Other hits deflected
them even more off course.

 

[alchemist]

I find it truly fascinating that the Botany Bay could get so far into outer space and a long way from Federation territory with just sub-light speed and even when the engines packed up and it was drifting too! That or Federation space isn't as big as we think it is at least in the TOS time frame!
JB

Here's an interesting excerpt from an earlier draft of the script (December 8, 1966). Scott is referring to the controls of the Botany Bay, of course.

SCOTT
Completely automated. Hasn't been a human hand at
those controls for over a hundred years.

KIRK
What power, Scotty?

SCOTT
Atomic, for the most part. But they've added an ion particle
drive which is pretty advanced for her time. One of the first ones, I'd say.

KIRK
Then it could approach light speed?

SCOTT
Close to it.

 

[Shawnster]

I do like the idea Botany Bay encountered a space warp of some kind. Something that threw it way past where it could get on its own. There seem to be plenty of those.

 

[johnnybear]

Or a space storm that could also have moved it further on into outer space?
JB

 

[ZapBrannigan]

The below interchange was cut as the print was being finished. It occurred towards the beginning of Act II, right after the captain's log voiceover. The excerpt is from the second revised final draft script, December 13, 1966.

SPINELLI
As near as I can work out their heading,
they must have tried for the Alpha Centuri star system.

KIRK
Makes sense. Closest to earth,
has several habitable planets.

SPINELLI
Their vessel must have gone off course when the port
control jets took meteor damage. Other hits deflected
them even more off course.

The "missing scenes" seem to suggest that TOS re-writes would systematically cut out most or all of the spacecraft techno-speak that the original author would put in.

 

[Commishsleer]

The "missing scenes" seem to suggest that TOS re-writes would systematically cut out most or all of the spacecraft techno-speak that the original author would put in.

I don't think these scenes were too techy and would have explained how a non-FTL ship could make it far enough out into space not be noticed before 200 years. Saying that space is really really big - maybe the Botany Bay could have been somewhere between us and Alpha Centauri and not found for 200 years?

 

[Poltargyst]

Errand of Mercy

Klingons? Wow, who are they?

Cool Klingon ship. I seem to be watching a remastered version. I forget, do we see the Klingon ship with the original FX?

Is Enterprise more powerful than a Klingon ship? The Enterprise took hits but continues undamaged. The Klingon ship took hits and is helpless.

Putting Sulu in command. Where's Scotty?

"Mr. Spock and I will be alright." Famous last words.

Aren't they breaking the Prime Directive beaming down right in front of everyone wearing their uniforms? They don't seem to have any problem at all telling these primitive people all about the Federation and the Klingons.

Interesting Kirk refers to himself as a soldier. Is Enterprise a war ship?

Is this episode meant to be a critique of Western powers conquering "primitive" cultures in order to "save" them?

All the pronunciations of Klingon. Soft g, hard g. And Sulu's got a pronunciation all his own.

"If you had listened to me..." There wasn't time for the Organian council to do anything in the few minutes Kirk had been talking to them.

M-m-m-my Barona. Where are The Knack now?

John Colicos rocks this part.

Kirk is well known to Kor. Kirk has built up a reputation over this season.

There are too many variables for Spock to calculate the odds so precisely unless he's become omniscient.

"Never tell me the odds!"--Han Solo

This Klingon Kirk threatened doesn't seem to think it's a good day to die.

These Organians are able to immobilize the entire Federation and Klingon Empire? Whoa!

Haha, Kirk's revving up to launch into another moralistic speech, and he gets completely faced.

Spock: "...pure energy..." I'm thinking of an 80's pop song including Spock saying "pure energy." Of course there was the band T'Pau with their hit "Heart and Soul" but that's not the song I'm thinking of.

"A shame, Captain. It would have been glorious." Great line, great delivery. Classic.

I like these Klingons. I think they would make good recurring villains. I hope we'll see them again.

So am I to understand that as of the end of this episode, the Federation is entirely unable to use force? So from now on, for the rest of the series, our heroes are going to have to find completely pacifist ways of solving problems? That's an interesting directions for the show to take. We'll have to see how that works out.

New aliens! Klingons! And a new entry to the Omnipotent Aliens club!

Talosians
That big ugly Rigellian guy Pike fought in illusion
Vina as an Orion girl in illusion
Glimpse of other aliens captured by Talosians
Ron Howard's brother
That dog from Enemy Within
Salt monster
That hand plant...Gertrude
Spock (duh)
Charlie's parents (Thasians)*
Romulans!
(Ruk)
Miri's planet kids (bonk bonk)
Giant ape creatures of Taurus II
Shore Leave Caretaker guy
Trelaine and his folks*
Gorn
Metrons*
The Lazerii
The remarkably human-looking aliens of Beta 3. (RotA)
The remarkably human-looking aliens of Emineminar VII (AToA)
The Triffids of Omicron Ceti III (TSoP)
The refreshingly non-human-looking Horta
Organians*
Klingons! (Remarkably human looking).

*Alien Watch sublist: omnipotent aliens!

 

[The Old Mixer]

I seem to be watching a remastered version. I forget, do we see the Klingon ship with the original FX?

Nope. It was beyond visual range combat. No onscreen Klingon ships until Season 3, other than depicting them as distant blobs of light.

 

[Pauln6]

I love Kor! His theatrical delivery is fantastic. He's a villain with personality and flair. I like how the Organians are just chilling, minding their own business. I'm troubled by their ability to hot things up all the way to the opposing sides' homeworlds without breaking a sweat, since I'm not a fan of uber powerful beings. The Vorlons and Shadows are about my limit.

I agree that the Klingon guard seemed a bit of a wuss. The Klingons should really have some 'lesser ' subject races in these inferior roles.

I wish the mind sifter had been used more often (I mean subsequently not in this episode). It's a terrifyingly torture device that could have been a spectre overshadowing every encounter.

 

[johnnybear]

These Klingons lack beards apart from Kor and the senior one played by Vic Lundin! Maybe they are younger Klingons or could be a conquered race absorbed into their military!
JB