Out of the three BBC banned episodes I'd say I liked The Empath the most! Miri had one screening back in 1970 and I've always liked that one anyway!
JB
JB
50th Anniversary Rewatch Thread
- Thread starter dahj
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I actually meant "Dr" Spock because Spock seemed to be acting like a medical doctor at the end of this episode. Is there no end to this man's talents?
You would have thought that Spock would have one or more PhDs but I suppose he went into Starfleet at a young age if he's about 24 in the Cage.
No, he is Super Spock. You really do get the feeling that if the need arose, he could replace Kirk in command, or Scotty in charge of engineering or McCoy in charge of Sickbay.I actually meant "Dr" Spock because Spock seemed to be acting like a medical doctor at the end of this episode. Is there no end to this man's talents?
Star Trek
"The Empath"
Originally aired December 6, 1968
Stardate 5121.5
What was going on the week the episode aired.
Gem never did anything for me, but I've since seen Kathryn Hays on other shows and she was very striking with long hair.
This episode we meet the Vians, a species who like to cosplay as Talosians.
I've always found this to be something of an overly melodramatic episode, right down to Shat silently overacting in slow motion. But it does have more of a Twilight Zone-ish feel to it than the next episode...and some more good Spock/McCoy moments.
But I feel there is a certain wisdom to the TNG version of the Prime Directive, up to a point. TOS version, if you can save everyone without revealing yourself, great. But if it comes down to just trying to rescue people, and your resources are too limited to save entire civilizations, then cherry-picking who you save is playing God and opens up all sorts of moral cans of worms. You underscored that yourself with the above-quoted comment about who Kirk was encouraging the Vians to let die.
In two weeks, we finally get to the second-produced episode of the season:
Dr. Shrinker must have been an intern then, because he sure is green....
"The Empath"
Originally aired December 6, 1968
Stardate 5121.5
H&I said:
What was going on the week the episode aired.
Gem never did anything for me, but I've since seen Kathryn Hays on other shows and she was very striking with long hair.
This episode we meet the Vians, a species who like to cosplay as Talosians.
I've always found this to be something of an overly melodramatic episode, right down to Shat silently overacting in slow motion. But it does have more of a Twilight Zone-ish feel to it than the next episode...and some more good Spock/McCoy moments.
I'd say that's a fair assessment.
Yeah, that was very out of nowhere.
Now that assumes that Kirk is somehow more responsible for the Vians' choice than the Vians are.And I know we're supposed to root for Gem, but if she fails, that means another civilization gets saved, right? And we don't get any info on those suckers that Kirk basically screwed out of survival with a passionate speech.
There's no indication prior to the Vians' exposition that Starfleet or the Federation knew anything about these civilizations. Supporting this is how our heroes are completely unfamiliar with Gem's race. How there could be multiple civilization-bearing planets in the star system and they wouldn't know is a good question, and a massive hole in the story.
But I feel there is a certain wisdom to the TNG version of the Prime Directive, up to a point. TOS version, if you can save everyone without revealing yourself, great. But if it comes down to just trying to rescue people, and your resources are too limited to save entire civilizations, then cherry-picking who you save is playing God and opens up all sorts of moral cans of worms. You underscored that yourself with the above-quoted comment about who Kirk was encouraging the Vians to let die.
She feels their pain. That's empathy.like the titular Empath not even being an actual empath.
In two weeks, we finally get to the second-produced episode of the season:
Dr. Shrinker must have been an intern then, because he sure is green....
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When I was younger, The Empath was not a favorite. I really did not understand it. Now, I think of it in a more favorable light. Katherine(sp?) Hays does a really good job of conveying emotions without speaking any lines. The relationship of Kirk, Spock and McCoy is highlighted here. I like when McCoy gives the hypo to Kirk and Spock. Their surprised look is amusing. All three are willing to sacrifice their life to save the others. That shows the nobility of the characters.
So there were multiple planets with life forms in the system. At least 3 plus the planet they were on all supported humanoid life.
Surely any survey team couldn't have missed that. I've got to think Gem and the other planet were pre-Warp. Perhaps the survey team saw that Lal's planet was advanced and assumed that they could organise some rescue effort better than a distant Federation.
Also Gem couldn't send thoughts or receive thoughts or talk. So their entire planet communicated through the art of dance?
Surely any survey team couldn't have missed that. I've got to think Gem and the other planet were pre-Warp. Perhaps the survey team saw that Lal's planet was advanced and assumed that they could organise some rescue effort better than a distant Federation.
Also Gem couldn't send thoughts or receive thoughts or talk. So their entire planet communicated through the art of dance?
Come on guys!!! Maybe they didn't want to be found! As we've seen in other stories, not every alien race wanted to join the Federation and may have been happy in a loose association of planets instead? And the Vian's powers were quite formidable to the Enterprise crew!
JB
JB
It's not what and how sci-fi empaths are traditionally depicted is what I was getting at.
For one pain seems to be the only thing her powers work for, and she doesn't so much feel it, as transfer it to herself to facilitate healing. The empathy in the non-sci-fi sense, of understanding someone's feelings and emotions (of camaraderie and self-sacrifice in this instance) she doesn't learn through her powers, but through conventional social cues.
IMO, feeling others' pain is only a part of what Gem's powers are. Yes, that means she's an empath, but she's also a whole lot more, in effect a healer by not just feeling but in fact assuming a person's pain. Now, maybe that's what the writer (Joyce Muskat) meant by "empath," but the way the term is used from TNG onwards in Star Trek, it's not the same thing in total.
That's what the dialog says in fact, but I always regarded it as gobbledygook, because their's no way that simply connecting nervous systems could transfer physical damage.
http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/63.htm
Even the second try at it is nonsense, because it would require more than a shared nervous system to repair damage at an accelerated rate in the subject. Oh, well.
That's what the dialog says in fact, but I always regarded it as gobbledygook, because their's no way that simply connecting nervous systems could transfer physical damage.
MCCOY: The wound is completely healed. It fits, Jim. She must be an empath. Her nervous system is so sensitive, highly responsive that she can actually feel our emotional and physical reactions. They become part of her.
[...]
MCCOY: Complete empathy. She must be a totally functional empath. Her nervous system actually connected to yours to counteract the worst of your symptoms and with her strength, she virtually sustained your body's physiological reactions.
[...]
MCCOY: Complete empathy. She must be a totally functional empath. Her nervous system actually connected to yours to counteract the worst of your symptoms and with her strength, she virtually sustained your body's physiological reactions.
http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/63.htm
Even the second try at it is nonsense, because it would require more than a shared nervous system to repair damage at an accelerated rate in the subject. Oh, well.
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FWIW, Raven of the Teen Titans could also heal people in a way that involved taking their pain (and temporarily their wounds) upon herself, and she was also called an empath. Maybe Wolfman and Perez were just cribbing from Trek, but both uses predate Counselor Troi.
Well, Beast Boy does kinda look like a young Spock, but I think the ears were added after their run
True. It would require black magic or whatever. At this point, TOS couldn't be more removed from anything scientific if it showed zombies and vampires dancing the Charleston!
I loved the line Kirk used to scold the Vians:
"You don't understand what it is to live. Love and compassion are dead in you. You're nothing but intellect." It was to the point and effective, and one of the more memorable lines from the series, at least for me.
At the end of the episode, it was interesting that Scotty told the story of the pearl, which is a parable from the Bible. Apparently, Scotty reads more than just tech journals. He was not up on Milton either, but he knew about that Bible passage.
"You don't understand what it is to live. Love and compassion are dead in you. You're nothing but intellect." It was to the point and effective, and one of the more memorable lines from the series, at least for me.
At the end of the episode, it was interesting that Scotty told the story of the pearl, which is a parable from the Bible. Apparently, Scotty reads more than just tech journals. He was not up on Milton either, but he knew about that Bible passage.
He can't measure up to Spock though.
Please tell me it's not Cash Markman's bogus "Star Trek was a secret hit" nonsense.
Except for its first few weeks Star Trek stayed stuck the middle of the ratings pack, and claims about its youth demographics have never been substantiated and writing on demographics in that period paint a very different picture.
There's no new episode this week, the show will return next week when we can look forward to some Klingons using Romulan design ships.
It really was ridiculous that the suits put Elaan on so far into the third season!!! The Klingon ship first makes it's classic appearance here in this episode and sort of upsets the balance of it's three showings in the series! The Romulans have the D-7 design in The Enterprise Incident and they are shown here first but are stated to be Klingon! Then we get a few seconds of one confronting the Enterprise in Day of The Dove before it is destroyed by the phasers and then six episodes later we get the 'sensor ghost' which is revealed to be our glorious Klingon Battlecruiser and we get quite a few shots of this beauty as it chases the Enterprise!
JB
Anyone happen to know what they showed 50 years ago this week instead of Star Trek?
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