Production Order Group Viewing 2018

Now, if both colony ships fell into that infamous wormhole near Earth...<slap myself in the face>

 

That gels with my pet theory that a number of early colony colony ships from Earth with poorly balanced warp engines actually managed to hurl themselves back in time several centuries or even millennia. Due to the limits of communication in those days they would have colonised their target worlds without realising the true date, which meant that by the TOS era there were numerous thriving civilisations on different world, all with human looking "aliens"

 

“Time warp factor…oh hell, not again. How far back did we go this time?”

This is a really clever idea that makes all kinds of sense. An entire line of Treklit could be based on this.

 

Some (if not many) of these colony/exploration ships were launched prior to the invention of warp drive, so, either the previous FTL technology suffered with the same space-time imbalances, or something else is involved:
1. We see ion and magnetic storms, etc. reacting badly with warp drives, impulse drives, transporters and subspace comms, etc. In the three years of TOS, we see more of these occurrences then with say, black stars, in which the Enterprise only encounters one. On the other hand, we see the Enterprise going out of its way to study ion storms; a much higher chance of occurrence. Could early impulse or FTL drives actually attract ion storm effects something like a lightning bolt is attracted by a lightning rod? ZAP, and the ship is thrown randomly through space-time.
2. Again, the infamous unstable wormhole bouncing around near our solar system depositing ships throughout space-time. What a discovery it would make! <slap myself in the face>
3. Unknown alien space entity playing god. Such as, Trelane?
4. Something, else.

 

Were there six? I only remember three.

 

Yep, pew-pew, pew-pew, pew-pew; six. Go to 4:58 into video. 6 torpedoes in both original and RX versions.

 

I'm seeing three volleys. Is each volley a single torpedo or a number of torpedoes?

 

The Paradise Syndrome

I'm sentimental about this episode. I was always so drawn in by Miramanee and her relationship with Kirk. I think when I saw this as an adolescent, I was lonely and wished I had a Miramanee. She's really great. Warm and kind and caring and fun and pretty. Sigh. Miramanee.

ANOTHER duplicate Earth?!? "What are the odds on such duplication?" Pretty good on this show.

That is a cool looking obelisk. Did they erect that for the show or was it an existing structure?

So apparently we're not alerting the natives to our presence not because of the Prime Directive but because they are too primitive to understand. But we are going to galavant around their obelisk where there is every possibility of running into some of them.

What are the odds that in calling the ship Kirk would hit upon the EXACT tones necessary to open the obelisk? Kirk opening the communicator and the communicator chirping, Kirk saying "Kirk to Enterprise" opens it. I mean if you asked Spock the odds of coming upon the exact correct tones to open the obelisk purely by random chance, he would laugh at you. Yes, he would abandon all Vulcan discipline and laugh in your face. It's enough to make me wonder if a higher intelligence was at work.

If every minute counts so much in whether or not they can stop the asteroid, then why did they beam down to the planet at all? Kirk and his last minute escapades again.

Hmm, I'm watching a TOS-R episode. I always thought deflectors were shields as we hear the phrase "deflector shields" sometimes, but here the deflector is shown as a beam.

Kirk showing up is Salish's worst nightmare. He takes his job, takes his girl. And he's right! Kirk's not a god!

Miramanee doesn't really want Salish anyway.

One of the themes of this show is Kirk's loneliness. If he hadn't lost his memory he would resist getting involved with these people. But now he is so happy, all loneliness gone, nothing but peace. And oh, Kirk and Miramanee are so sweet together. This is what I longed for as a teenager/young adult. Sigh. Miramanee.

Oh, McCoy's being a dick. Spock must be in command again.

"Behold the god who bleeds!" One of those iconic lines that stayed with me as a kid.

It's Kirk Fu! A flying drop kick! A double fisted hammer strike! Salish cannot deal with Kirk Fu even though Kirk has amnesia.

Nice to see McCoy show concern for Spock eventually.

I just noticed for the first time in Spock's quarters on the shelf by the bed one of those bell ringing things we saw on Vulcan in Amok Time. A momento from his Pon Farr? "I went to Vulcan for a wife and all I got was this lousy bell thing."

These people didn't have lamps?

I always liked Spock's Vulcan Harp. Very cool.

I like the Preservers explanation. I get the realities of making a tv show. There's a limited budget. Plus, humans are watching, so we need for viewers to be able to relate to the characters. It would be tough for viewers to relate to aliens looking like giant squids. But I always wondered why there were so many human looking aliens. I'm glad they wrote an explanation for that.

The obelisk didn't open when Spock called the Enterprise to have Chapel beamed down. Maybe Kirk's voice had the right pitch?

The storm cleared up all by itself. What was everyone so upset about?

There don't seem to be all that many natives. If this tribe is all there is on the planet, then they could all be beamed up to the Enterprise if it came to it. Or how about beaming Miramanee to the ship and have her treated in sickbay? Or are we using a let-them-die Picard-era interpretation of the Prime Directive?

Actually, they ignore Miramanee while they watch Spock mind meld with Kirk.

I'm surprised the Enterprise exhausted all power and burned out the warp drive and couldn't make a scratch in the asteroid.

The obelisk's deflector is WAY more powerful than the Enterprise.

Miramanee dies.

I know, we can't have Kirk with a wife, but

Good episode. Maybe I like it more than other people, but it always had a place in my heart.

I'm sitting here thinking about the aftermath of this for that tribe. This guy comes out of the temple, shares wondrous knowledge, magically saves a boy's life but is unable to open the temple in our time of need. So we stone him, but before he dies, others like him come. Shortly thereafter, the temple works again! They were gods! But the chief's daughter is dead, killed by enraged villagers led by Salish. What happens to Salish? Does he return to being Medicine Chief? Is he punished/banished/killed for leading the assault against Kirok and Miramanee leading to her death? Does the obelisk automatically handle the bad weather and earthquakes now or next time there's a bad storm, will someone still need to enter the temple? And if so, did the Enterprise crew share how to do that?

Alien Watch! Am I to understand that these people are actually bona fide 100% human Native Americans? Ok, no new aliens this week.

Season 1
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).
(The Guardian of Forever)
Flying pancakes

Season 2
Sylvia and Korob
The Companion
The remarkably human looking (though tall) Cappellans.
Native Pollux IV-ians (Apollo and his gang)
Full-blooded Vulcans
The remarkably human looking citizens of Argelius II (WitF)
Redjac
The People of Vaal (Gamma Triangulians)
Crew of the ISS Enterprise
The remarkably human-looking** (except for maybe a dot on their forehead) Halkans
Tribbles (not at all human looking)
The remarkably human-looking citizens of...892-VI. Is that what they call this planet? (The Roman one.)
Tall guys, short guys, Andorians, Tellurites, purple lady, Orion made up like an Andorian. (JtB)
The remarkably human-looking people of Neural. (APLW)
The awesome Mugato!
Shahna, Lars, Tamoon, Kloog, Thrallmaster Galt, and the Providers
The Cloud from the Tycho system.
The BIG FREAKIN' AMEBA!!!!!
The remarkably human-looking Iotians. (Gangsters)
Kelvans! Who really look like big, cool squids but choose to look remarkably human.
Sargon and the gang of not-quite-omnipotent aliens.
Remarkably human looking Zeons of Zeon and Ekosians of Ekos. (PoF)
The remarkably human looking Yangs and Coms of Omega IV.
Isis! Who looks remarkably like a cat until she wants to look remarkably human.

Season 3
The decidedly non-human looking Melkotians.
The remarkably human-looking Elasians and not so human looking Troyians.

*Alien Watch sublist: omnipotent aliens!
**By request

 

The newer RX visual effect for each volley is clearly two red torpedoes each. The original visual effect for each volley was less refined but in super slow mode (I played it at 25% speed, try it, it's cool), there's two expanding silver blobs in fast succession per volley. I don't think a full spread would be an odd number like 3 ? Nah, a full spread of torpedoes is six torpedoes. Pew-Pew is one quick volley of two torpedoes. There was three volleys. My ears and eyes confirm it: "pew-pew" per each volley.

 

And a pregnant wife at that!

 

PARADISE SYNDROME

The first episode of Season 3 was a planetside themed story, the next was a decent bottle show and now we’re filming on location! I have a really good feeling about this season…

As for the episode itself; the setup is good, the final act suitably dramatic, but the middle section (where Kirk makes a happy life for himself) is somewhat unengaging. Part of the problem is that we hear Kirk’s thoughts through the medium of voiceover, not once but THREE TIMES, each speech more exposition laden than the last. This is the episode’s biggest weakness – it hasn’t got the runtime to show us Kirk’s feelings and motivations, so it must tell us outright.
Show not tell, guys!

Exactly - they have THIRTY MINUTES. I guess Kirk really is smitten by the Tahiti syndrome!

So yet again the “big 3” beam down alone. With all the similarities to Earth this planet is a biological miracle – where’s the army of scientists?
This flaw is repeated in the final act as well, where McCoy must call for extra medical help to be beamed down, wasting precious moments on a decision that they should have anticipated.
Still, it means that Nurse Chapel gets to make an appearance, for the second week in a row. A shame she didn’t have more to do, such as saving the life of the dying Miramanee

Other thoughts:

• Kirk triggering the obelisk by accident was a little cheesy, but at least he avoided the trope of losing his memory by bumping his head!
• That obelisk prop is huge! Really good effort from the set designers
• I can’t be certain, but I think the lovely music in this episode is an original score.
• The Engine Room has one of those big power unit thingies back again. Perhaps needed to help sustain the Warp 9 speeds that Spock is demanding.
• This season is getting really heavy on the Vulcan super powers; third week in a row where the mind meld is called upon to be used.

Something I didn’t realise until this rewatch is that the asteroid is on an extended orbit around the planet getting closer and closer each time, made clear from the line “Our skies have darkened 3 times since the harvest”
And speaking of the asteroid, its current maximum distance from the planet is several hours at Warp 9 (or 2 months sublight). That’s quite an orbit! It also means that for the second episode in a row, we see that warp speed when used near a star yields very sluggish speeds compared to deep space. I don’t know what to do with so much continuity!

However, Spock maintains his professionalism throughout, almost to the detriment of the mission; did he really need to give McCoy a lesson in astral mechanics at that exact moment? He’s McCoy’s senior officer, after all – just order him to beam up!

As alluded to earlier, I find it very hard to believe that McCoy couldn’t heal Miramanee’s internal injuries, especially when she:

1. avoided injury by hiding from the rocks under the obelisk
2. was well enough to be moved to the hut
3. was talking and smiling and kissing for quite some time afterwards.

Beam her to Sickbay, damnit! You can always return her to the planet later.

All this could have been avoided if Miramanee had died at the obelisk, although then it would have robbed this episode of a rather touching ending.

 

I had a thought about Elaan of Troyius. Kirk kisses Elaan who was played by France Nuyen who is of Vietnamese ancestry. So in production order, that's the first interracial kiss on TOS, not that wimpy fake kiss in Plato's Stepchildren.

 

It was designed by Matt Jefferies, and he had it built from scratch. The base was built on site, and the finished tower was delivered to the location on a flatbed truck. I love that Obelisk too. I was bored in high school, and it was among the sci-fi things I doodled a thousand times. I can still draw it in detail from memory.

Yes, by Gerald Fried. The original soundtrack is in the 15-CD La La Land set, and also available as an individual download album. The Royal Philharmonic version is on Label X, which is out of print but currently a very cheap download album on iTunes.

http://startreksoundtracks.com/tos/labelx-vol1.html

 

Correct. Contrary to myth, not only was "Plato's Stepchildren" not TV's first interracial kiss, it wasn't even Star Trek's first interracial kiss. And it wasn't even Star Trek's second interracial kiss, because Nichelle kissed Majel Barrett on the bridge in "What are Little Girls Made Of." And that wasn't even TV's first interracial kiss. And in my estimation, as staged, "Plato's" wasn't even a real kiss. Apart from those four facts, it's legendary.

 

How do I not remember Nichelle kissing Majel? That's the kind of thing I would remember because...uh...excuse me I need a cold shower now.

 

When they learn that Roger Corby is alive, Kirk and Chapel head for the elevator. Uhura gets in a congratulatory kiss:
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x07hd/whatarelittlegirlsmadeofhd055.jpg

And that is Star Trek's first interracial kiss.

 

Holy crap, I never noticed that.

 

Isn’t the Uhura-Chapel thing just a kiss on the cheek?

 

The Yangs and Kohms thing is really presented as an alternate parallel of earth story like Patterns of Force and Bread And Circuses but it's a shame that it couldn't have been added to the script about a joint mission that was lost in space as well as time and that these people were the descendants of that venture! The fact that the Kohms and Yang's ages prove that sadly without that explanation these guys definitely weren't from the earth that we know!!!
JB

 

Still counts. And as an expression of affection, it's way more of a kiss than Kirk gave Uhura in "Plato's."