Production Order Group Viewing 2018

Absolute power corrupts absolutely! Look at the idiots who get elected every year in most of the world!
JB

 

Bem

Welcome to Season 2 and the episode with the shortest title in the series. Shortest in all of Star Trek?

Hmmm, written by David Gerrold. There are no tribbles in this episode, right?

BEM: This one has already set controls, Mister Scotty.

Ha ha. Mr. Scotty.

Kirk chews out Bem for landing them in the water, but Scotty checked the coordinates before they beamed down.

Holy cow, Bem can separate himself into parts. How do his parts float around though?

Lizard guys! Could they be related to Sord, the lizard guy from The Jihad? They're not the same race since Sord is obviously familiar with modern technology and these guys aren't.

What the heck is a non-network sensory stasis? Is that the entity they are tracking?

Not to restart the 1960's risque clothing debate, but when Uhura is standing by the command chair talking to Scotty, her skirt is SHORT.

And Uhura really stands up to Scotty and wins the debate despite his higher rank.

By sabotaging the landing party's efforts and then turning around and blaming Kirk for their getting captured, Bem is really annoying me.

With all of her sparkling light plus being female, the "ruling intelligence" reminds me of the Companion. Could she be another one?

KIRK: You have endangered all of us by your actions, and you have forced us to interfere with the natives of a planet that deserves prime directive protection.

Given that Kirk is supposed to sacrifice his ship, his life and the lives of his crew rather than interfere in the development of a native race, I wonder what Kirk's duty is here. Bem runs off and gets captured by the natives. Does it cause greater contamination to mount a rescue or should Kirk actually leave Bem there? Kirk decides to try to mount a quiet rescue.

ENTITY: Go in peace. Yes. Go in peace. You have learned much. Be proud.

What exactly did they learn? Not to interfere in the development of native races? They already have a Prime Directive. To use punishment only as a last resort? They already use neural neutralizer chairs rather than harsh punishments.

I can't say this was really one of my favorite episodes in part because I wanted to beat the crap out of Bem. I think I am sensitive to situations where someone screws up and then points the finger at someone else. But the Entity/Companion/Goddess was interesting and wise and compassionate and all.

So often in Star Trek beings presented as gods are meant to be overthrown so that the people can live free, but there's no sense of that in this episode. Kirk is content to let the entity continue to watch over her children. Maybe because she was compassionate about it and wasn't being a tyrant and wasn't interfering in their natural development?

Alien Watch! A new one and some that look like ones we've seen before.

Season One
The Glommer
Arex*
Retlaw Plant
Agmar and his Phylosian posse
Swoopers
Yellow winged bird guy (Aleek)
Spock's teddy bear with fangs (sehlat)
Green cat thing that sounds like Godzilla (le-matya)
300 million year old alien on viewscreen log
Green energy Redjac wannabe
The Vendorian
Lt. M'Ress
Remarkably human-looking Taureans.
The planet-eating, Majel Roddenberry-voiced cloud from another galaxy.
Alien miners of Arcadia
Rigelian hypnoid
Giant rock creatures
Remarkably human-looking (when they want to be except for that rebel Lucien guy) Megans
Assorted heretofore unseen aliens on the Delta Triangle's ruling council
The Kzinti (whom no one will mistake for Mensa candidates)
Aquans, both stogy elders and rebellious kids.
Sur-snake of Argo
The scardy Bug Guy
The Vedalian
The...remarkably human-looking alien (?) Lara
The not-a-Gorn lizard guy.
Translucent gossamer mice!
Glowing halo fish!
The red beastie in the lake on Lactra Seven
The dinosaur beastie that fell on McCoy on Lactra Seven
The flying purple people eating dragons on Lactra Seven that look suspiciously like other flying purple people eating dragons we've seen.
The telepathic slugs of Lactra Seven.
Assorted aliens captured by the slugs of Lactra Seven.

Season Two
Bem the Annoying, a Pandronian.
The lizard people of Delta Theta Three who are not Gorns nor are they of Sord's people.
The lizard people's Entity/Companion/Goddess

*by request

 

BEM

In the original series; yes. Overall, I think the ENT episode "E²" wins that prize.

Like Stephen Kandel before him it seems that once David Gerrold produced the contractually obligated TOS sequel, he is free to try something else. So, how did he do?
Well for a start (and rather unusually) there’s several plot elements present which reoccur in TNG:

• Kirk states that the Enterprise’s mission is to plant observation equipment on the planet to monitor the societal development of the population. This is basically an automated version of the “duck blind” station from Who Watches The Watchers
• The whole second half of the story (a powerful alien masquerading as a god to protect its “children”) is exactly the same scenario as in the less well received episode Justice.
• And since skimpy clothes are worn by the locals in both episodes, that could be considered a connecting feature as well!

Conceptually, ambassador Bem is an interesting character to explore. As a colony creature Bem is arguably one of the least humanoid aliens the crew have met and yet looks at home amongst other aliens encountered in TOS, right down to the jumpsuit! However, I think this is a good way lulling us into a false sense of security, instead using other methods to hint that there’s more than meets the eye. For example, Bem’s odd way of speaking (like referring to himself as “this one”) and sentence structure is a subtle clue that he’s not quite the same as “normal” aliens, whose speech patterns always match those of the crew.
The full extent of his gestalt alien mindset is later revealed with his attitudes to self worth, morality and the punishment he risks upon failure; being permanently disassembled!

By comparison to Bem, the aliens on the planet are properly alien in appearance - real lizard people.
In fact, the episode makes good use of the animated medium to in various ways from depicting alien landscapes to a person separating himself into fully autonomous pieces. The way Bem divides his body up to penetrate otherwise impossibly dense undergrowth is quite clever too, but beyond the visuals the story itself is a little unfocused.

For instance: what was Bem’s plan exactly?

He wants to see if Kirk lives up to his reputation as the “best captain in the fleet”. To do this he engineers a situation where Kirk must rescue him while non-violently dealing with the locals, whilst without any of their technology. Given that Kirk’s reputation is as a starship captain (something very technologically based) I’m not sure how that logically follows, but it doesn’t matter anyway because Bem swiftly relents when confronted and hands over their gear.

When a hitherto unknown energy being ruins their escape attempt he immediately judges Kirk a failure and runs off. Later, when Bem is recaptured and Kirk has opened communications with the energy being, the ambassador realises that he was hasty in his judgement. Bem declares that this error requires his death and also has apparently never encountered the concept of learning from your mistakes. With all that was at stake, why would Bem rush to judgement?

In conclusion; if we are take Bem as a representative of all Pandronians then they are naïve perfectionists who employ capital punishment for every minor offence!
Hmm, another similarity to Justice.
However, are these people really someone that could get along with all the other imperfect beings of the Federation?

The energy being says this AFTER the crew (and Bem) have all agreed to leave this planet alone without doing any serious cultural damage, so it's probably just happy to see them gone. Kirk was right to get that annoying ambassador off the planet and back to Pandro as soon as possible!


OTHER THOUGHTS:

• Curiously, Kirk uses the term “aborigine” to refer to the native population of the planet. While this is technically correct it’s also somewhat redundant since there are no other outsider population groups present in order to justify that distinction.
  Is it because they are dressed in skins and using spears? If so that’s…problematic
• Do all ambassadors have unrestricted access to the whole ship? IMO there have been too many incidents with the transporter to allow just anyone to start messing with it!
• Case in point – Bem set the beam down co-ordinates which results in Kirk and Spock materialising over water! The real mystery is how Scotty failed to notice this when he checked the console.
• Still oblivious to his own hypocrisy, Kirk’s reason for objecting to Bem joining the landing party is that it’s too risky for someone of his status.
  Then again he may have been making an excuse to keep him out of the way - Kirk has never been very happy having officials on board (going all the way back to Galileo 7)
• Okay, so Bem is a “colony creature”, but is he also made of helium? His disconnected body parts just float in the air without the need for any support!
• Whilst in a cage, Kirk lampshades the fact that they are captured yet again for the umpteenth time. David Gerrold’s book has a section on how inappropriate it is for the captain to lead landing parties which is probably why this commentary is included. However, I guess Gerrold still had to follow the show format and make him do it anyway.
  At least Kirk didn’t pretend to be ill this time…
• Kirk’s middle name is Tiberius! Only took nearly five seasons of the show for him to mention it. As if to make up for that, the name is mentioned a full four times
• Once the Enterprise detects Kirk & Spock, Scotty orders that the rescue party be armed with phaser rifles. I got very excited as we haven’t seen them since WNMHGB and couldn’t wait to see the updated design!
  However, when they beam down they just have regular phasers
• Spock’s plan to connect the communicators in series in order to boost their power…involves simply stacking them together. Couldn't Kirk could have done that himself?
• Why is the god surprised or angered that Kirk stayed behind to find Bem? That’s exactly what Kirk said he was going to do!
• This episode is a reminder of why the Prime Directive exists, although through more of an info-dump than being woven subtly into the plot. Amusingly, Bem even outright refuses to abide by it

 

Every guest has unrestricted access to the whole ship.

 

Not to mention the ship's entire database! That's just good manners

 

BEM's helium body is a total cheat on Filmation's part. They just slid the different cels apart instead of making each autonomous piece have some ability to move.

As @Harvey's article here (link) indicates, this script started at as a TOS 3rd season pitch and never got beyond it. Ironically Gerrold's creature costume suggestions for those outlines is much more alien than what TAS did.

 

Reading the "Official Guide To TAS" it says that Gerrold's original live action concept was to have two little people stacked on top of each other to represent the "complete" Bem, but who could easily split apart into separate halves when needed.

 

Well, that's not reflected in the drawings he handed in with his TOS pitches, which suggests a single small person in the main suit with detachable and mobile extremities.

 

Bem's parts do more than just levitate or float, they move under his control, so, there is some sort of telekinesis in play, too.

 

I double checked the book and was slightly off base - what it actually says is

However, I've not seen the sketches you mention, so perhaps he had different ideas on how to render Bem in live action?

More accurately, they move under their own control - as a colony creature there is no distinct "he", each part is a unique lifeform

 

https://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.ne...Blaster.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20150715152956

 

It’s also possible he misremembers. I can’t speak to sketches which are absent from the record.

 

A little similar to the character that Mark Lenard played in that episode of Buck Rogers!
JB

 

I know the episode is from Buck's second season and I shouldn't expect too much, but even when I first viewed that one I couldn't fathom why such an unusual concept for a character should have such an overtly human appearance!
Maybe it's best left in the realm of animation.

 

Albatross

What's the title mean? Is McCoy feeling like a bringer of bad luck?

McCoy's in legal trouble! I hope they still have Cogley's number.

What a timely episode. I'm sitting here watching a show about a plague while coronavirus is on the loose.

Spock: "Plague, Dramia Two. Of unknown origin, characterised by pigmentation changes in skin of victim, debilitation, death. Certain species known to have natural immunity, notably Vulcan." Well, of course Spock's super Vulcan physiology makes him immune.

Kirk: "We are beyond subspace communications with Starfleet." Huh. I didn't know that was possible. I wonder how far away that is.

Demos: "I have been tricked. " You're the one who trespassed on the Enterprise, dude. Kirk is pretty crafty this episode.

Why does it take so long at warp 6 to get to Dramia II? Isn't Dramia II in the same solar system as Dramia?

Coronavirus on my mind (sung to the tune of "Georgia on my mind"): What sort of precautions did Kirk and Spock take against the plague when they beam down to Dramia II, a known plague planet? They're not practicing social distancing. Do they have their life support belts on and activated as protection?

Kirk: "Meet Kol-Tai, Mister Scott. A friend of Doctor McCoy's. " Scotty gets this cheesy smile.

Kirk makes sure to lean his face in close to Kol-Tai, then...

Spock: "Captain, you're blue." There's those crack Starfleet medical protocols we've gotten used to since The Naked Time.

I apologize in advance for this:

We get a shot of Uhura turning blue, and what flashes into my mind is

"I've seen shit that will turn you white."
--Winston Zeddmore, Ghostbusters

Sorry, sorry. Back to the review...

Spock: "You must release Doctor McCoy temporarily. He is needed to find an antidote."
Dramian: "No."

Spock should bust out some Cogley here...

"Rights, sir, human rights. The Bible, the Code of Hammurabi and of Justinian, Magna Carta, the Constitution of the United States, Fundamental Declarations of the Martian colonies, the Statutes of Alpha Three. Sir, these documents all speak of rights. Rights of the accused to a trial by his peers, to be represented by counsel, the rights of cross-examination, but most importantly, the right to be confronted by the witnesses against him, a right to which your prisoner has been denied. I ask that my motion be granted, and more than that, sir, I demand it. I demand it! "

Dramian: "Your treachery is transparent, Vulcan. " Apparently he hasn't heard that Vulcans never lie. Or he has heard that Spock does.

Why is Kirk having to man the transporter? 430 people on board and they are now all so bedridden that Kirk has to drag himself to the transporter?

I'm not a doctor, but if Kol-Tai has Saurian virus antibodies in his blood from 19 years ago, shouldn't he be immune to this plague now?

Does Saurian virus come from the same place as Saurian brandy?

Are any of the lizard people we've seen this series Saurians?

Final scene, Scotty has Captain's stripes. Congratulations to Scotty on his promotion.

If only Spock and McCoy could appear here now and spend 20 minutes whipping up a coronavirus cure.

An entertaining little yarn reminiscent of other episodes where the crew have to work to free a crewmate in trouble with an alien culture's laws, like Justice and numerous others.

Alien Watch! Drama-queen-ians

Season One
The Glommer
Arex*
Retlaw Plant
Agmar and his Phylosian posse
Swoopers
Yellow winged bird guy (Aleek)
Spock's teddy bear with fangs (sehlat)
Green cat thing that sounds like Godzilla (le-matya)
300 million year old alien on viewscreen log
Green energy Redjac wannabe
The Vendorian
Lt. M'Ress
Remarkably human-looking Taureans.
The planet-eating, Majel Roddenberry-voiced cloud from another galaxy.
Alien miners of Arcadia
Rigelian hypnoid
Giant rock creatures
Remarkably human-looking (when they want to be except for that rebel Lucien guy) Megans
Assorted heretofore unseen aliens on the Delta Triangle's ruling council
The Kzinti (whom no one will mistake for Mensa candidates)
Aquans, both stogy elders and rebellious kids.
Sur-snake of Argo
The scardy Bug Guy
The Vedalian
The...remarkably human-looking alien (?) Lara
The not-a-Gorn lizard guy.
Translucent gossamer mice!
Glowing halo fish!
The red beastie in the lake on Lactra Seven
The dinosaur beastie that fell on McCoy on Lactra Seven
The flying purple people eating dragons on Lactra Seven that look suspiciously like other flying purple people eating dragons we've seen.
The telepathic slugs of Lactra Seven.
Assorted aliens captured by the slugs of Lactra Seven.

Season Two
Bem the Annoying, a Pandronian.
The lizard people of Delta Theta Three who are not Gorns nor are they of Sord's people.
The lizard people's Entity/Companion/Goddess
Dramians of the planet Dramia in the Dramian star system

*by request

 

Except all he could do was detach his head and set it on a rock. Lol

 

ALBATROSS

The word can also be used as a metaphor for a burden to be carried by someone as penance - presumably referring to McCoy's apparent careless actions 19 years ago.

This episode begins…at the end of a mission!
The opening captain’s log wraps up the events of a story that we didn’t see and there’s even the familiar TAS finale music playing.
These fresh approaches to starting an episode (Devil In The Dark and Tomorrow Is Yesterday were also creative in barely featuring the Enterprise at all) are rare and I really appreciate them.

It’s likewise welcome to have a McCoy-centred story, another rarity in the series. I think the last one was FTWIHAIHTS but this tale takes several cues from Friday’s Child, delving into events from McCoy’s past for inspiration. In both episodes he spent some time on an alien planet, acquiring a lot of first hand information about the culture.
Curiously, both Capellans and Dramians tower over the average human - what is it about McCoy and tall aliens in his past?

The mystery this week is what caused the plague on Dramia’s neighbouring planet, the aptly named “Dramia-II”. It’s a little unclear as to where Dramia-II is in the same solar system or not (especially given the short travel time) but given the ferocity of the “aurora” I think it’s safe to conclude that Dramia-II would have to be several light years away for it still to be an unknown phenomenon.
McCoy finds a cure (of course) and the audience are given a nice classroom lesson on how some diseases provide immunity against others – which in this case, is also an outright cure! Not quite what Edward Jenner had in mind, but woven into the plot fairly well.

However, the events which initiate the need for this cure are careless to the point of grossly incompetent, beginning with beaming down onto a plague planet without even a simple forcefield belt.Then there’s this space aurora floating around near Dramia-II which scans as safe but actually induces a horrific death in anyone it comes into contact with. It’s scary, but not as scary as the casual disregard everyone shows both for this unknown phenomenon and basic disease isolation procedures. For instance, when plague breaks out on the Enterprise Kirk orders a quarantine for Kol-Tai WHILE STANDING NEXT TO HIM.
Later, Spock recklessly leaves the ship and walks around without unprotected on the surface of Dramia. He might well be immune but how does that rule him out being a carrier (he could not return to the ship in Miri).

Having said all that, the voice acting, dialogue, pacing and visuals in this episode are all really good. I just wish the writer had treated the subject matter more responsibly as it would only have taken minimal tweaks to the script (and the judicious application of forcefield belts!). Terms like "inoculation" and "quarantine" are used but never shown to be practised.
The subject matter on TAS may be simplified for children but it should never be misleading like this.


OTHER THOUGHTS:

• The Dramians’ body design is excellent – and their additional height adds an extra level of menace when McCoy first learns about the arrest warrant.
• Despite advanced paperless technology being available, the Dramians provide Kirk with McCoy’s arrest warrant in a nifty purple scroll
• So…the Federation approved the arrest warrant, then allowed McCoy to go to Dramia and work hard on their problem KNOWING he was going to get arrested afterwards???
  That’s dark
• Hoping to exonerate McCoy, Kirk goes to the hall of justice! Is Superman at home?
• In would normally be a diplomatic nightmare due to Kirk utilising the facilities of the Enterprise to subvert a member world’s justice system - they’re out of Starfleet communication range. How convenient!
• The bit of subterfuge when Kirk plans to lure Demos on board is nice in concept and has good dialogue but is horribly executed: Demos WATCHES the shuttlebay doors open and STILL decides it’s a good idea to fly inside. What a maroon!
• Scotty’s disgusted reaction when he first meets Kol-Tai is a little extreme – did he mistake their guest for another space hippy?
• Kirk turning pastel blue is more hilarious than menacing – couldn’t a different shade have been used? The shade of green is better.
• When disease breaks out on board, the crew are helpless without McCoy. What about Doctors M’Benga and Sanchez – are they both out of commission already?
• Spock takes command! This means he needs to start being an insufferable dick, right?

THE HUMOUROUS ENDING
Perhaps because the episode starts with an “ending” the writer decided to insert a double length portion of Spock/McCoy dialogue at the end?
This is IMO the worst way to close out a somewhat problematic episode and the dialogue is not even related to anything from the plot - is it really down to McCoy alone to personally dispense vitamin rations to the crew? Are there really no other medical professionals on board other than him and Chapel??? And who mentioned Hippocrates?
Oh, is the episode still running short? No problem, just keep looping that “comedy” music and insert various reaction shots. Oh, and have Kirk awkward cover his mouth. Yeah, that’s classic Trek gold right there!


Next week – another disease story!

 

There’s a Hall of Justice in San Francisco, which often inspires me to go all Ted Knight as I drive past: “Meanwhile, at the Hall of Justice, Wonder Woman is drinking a smoothie. “ etc.

 

That's me showing my British ignorance of such terms!
But I'm glad I'm not the only one it sounds super-hero-like to

 

It sounds like planets Dramia and Dramia Two are not in the same star system. The "Dramian star system" might not be the name of the star system's star, either. I can see naming a first colonized planet in another near star system as Dramia Two; sort of like naming a planet Earth Two in many other science fiction stories. Just a thought. YMMV .