WNMHGB Question

[Scott Kellogg]

Dr. Dehner was on the same path Mitchell was.
If Kirk hadn't had a chance to talk to her and remind her of her psychological experience and training, she wouldn't have seen it in time. And even then, she didn't want to hear it and told Kirk to leave while he still could.

It was only Mitchell's torturing Kirk and gloating as he prepared to kill him that made her realize that Mitchell had become an evil "god."

 

[Swedish Borg]

It's worth noting that Mitchell wasn't new to trying manipulate a situation to his advantage. Remember that he aimed a "little blonde lab assistant" at Lt. Kirk while in Lt. Kirk's class at the academy. It was already in his psyche to use less than ethically means to achieve an end.

I think that even before the transformation Mitchell was already a bit of an asshole, manipulative, scheming, and insensitive.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

I've kind of assumed based on the evidence that Dehner was on the same curve Mitchell was, but started from an earlier place and with a slower rate of acceleration. TL;DR I think she would have gotten there in time.

I guess it depends on whether you believe power corrupts, or whether you believe that that's overly-simplistic, or whether you believe Dehner might have been the exception that would have proven the rule.

Dehner was on a slower rate of acceleration, as you put it, and the story perfectly set up her own failings (leading to a similar fate as Mitchell) when she (in the briefing room scene) argued in favor of a "better" kind of human being (and note the stares from the others after she's said that). Even if she did not know it, she was already an advocate for becoming something "above" the normal human, as if normal humans were flawed, which is--in part--the belief of eugenicists.

Later, as Kirk tries to reason with her, she's instantly dismissive of him:

KIRK: You must help me Before it goes too far.
DEHNER: What he's doing is right for him and me.
KIRK: And for humanity? You're still human.
DEHNER: No, I--
KIRK: At least partly, you are, or you wouldn't be here talking to me.
DEHNER: Earth is really unimportant. Before long, we'll be where it would have taken mankind millions of years of learning to reach.
KIRK: What will Mitchell learn in getting there? Will he know what to do with his power? Will he acquire the wisdom?
DEHNER: Please go back while you still can.
KIRK: Did you hear him joke about compassion? Above all else, a god needs compassion. Mitchell! Elizabeth.
DEHNER: What do you know about gods?

So, she did not turn as fast as Mitchell, but she was well on her way to believing in the idea of "improving" and considering herself a god, hence that last line, "What do you know about gods?" As if she attained some personal insight on / "graduation" to that level. No different than Mitchell.

 

[DonIago]

Had Dehner survived the situation and been capable of remaining on the Enterprise, I wonder what she would have made of Khan, one of the original "better" kinds of human beings. Would she have seen her failings in him, or would she have failed to associate the two, or would she have felt that he was a "second chance" to come up with better humans?

For someone with a PhD in psychiatry, she didn't exactly seem to do a great job of appreciating the events of large parts of this episode.

The franchise has at least been pretty consistent in espousing the belief that beings granted absolute power without getting to it on their own terms (and sometimes even when they do get there on their own terms) are incapable of handling it responsibly.

 

[Extrocomp]

Is it possible that the powers Gary Mitchell inherited were somehow linked to an alien intelligence or life force of some sort, and not just “absolute power corrupting absolutely?”

There are a couple of examples in the episode that seem to imply that Mitchell isn’t completely in command of his own actions. Two instances that really stand out:

• In sickbay, he says to Kirk “I don’t understand it all yet....but if I keep growing, getting stronger...” It almost implies he is being influenced to find a particular kind of world to “use.”

• After he fights against the force field on Delta Vega, the glow in his eyes vanishes, and he says “Jim!?” In sort of a stunned voice, like he was only peripherally aware of what he was just doing.

Any thoughts or opinions on this?

From Memory Alpha:

In the novel Q-Squared, it was revealed that the galactic barrier had trapped the essence of Q after a confrontation with Trelane had scattered him across both time and space. Q failed in an attempt to escape the barrier by attaching himself to an SS Valiant crew member but succeeded, two hundred years later, by attaching himself to Mitchell and Dehner.

Greg Cox's Star Trek: The Next Generation - Q Continuum novels state that the galactic barrier was in fact created by the Q Continuum 500,000 years ago as a method of preventing the powerful being known only as "0" from returning to the Milky Way Galaxy, from which he was banished for his destruction of the Tkon Empire. These novels also explain that the telepathic powers that occur as a side effect of exposure to the barrier in telepaths are caused by the power of the Q that exist in the barrier, while those who develop a god complex are 'infected' by the presence of 0, who constantly attempts to affect beings on the other side to give himself access to the galaxy once again.

According to the novel The Higher Frontier, humans are not a naturally psychic race, as they lack a paracortex or similar structure in their brains. Instead, every human esper is bonded with a Spectre, a non-corporeal entity that provides its host with psychic ability. The galactic barrier awakened and supercharged Mitchell and Dehner's Spectres, driving them insane in the process. Had they not been killed, Mitchell and Dehner would have died soon anyway, due to the Spectres burning out their bodies.

 

[flandry84]

Mitchell came across as an ass ever before his transformation.I’m glad he wasn’t a regular on the show.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

..but it's funny to think that the barrier makes 3 distinct appearances in TOS, a series not exactly focused on or known for continuity or "returning elements."

Can we please let this "TOS wasn't very good at continuity" myth die already? TOS had better continuity than most shows of its era.

- There's the offhand mention of Christopher Pike as the Captain directly preceding Kirk in command of the Enterprise in "Mirror, Mirror."

- There's the Organian Peace Treaty, mentioned in "The Trouble With Tribbles," "A Private Little War," and "Day of the Dove," that called back to "Errand of Mercy," the first episode with the Klingons.

- There's the fact that Spock mentions that his father was an ambassador in "This Side of Paradise," and when we meet Spock's father Sarek in "Journey to Babel" the next season, he's an ambassador who just came out of retirement. (Yeah, both episodes are by the same writer, but it still counts.)

- There's George Samuel Kirk, briefly mentioned in "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" before appearing in "Operation - Annihilate!", and he's played by William Shatner in a half second appearance as his corpse.

- There's the fact that Lee Kuan was mentioned twice as a despot from Earth's history.

- There's two separate mentions of the Axanar Peace Mission, in first and third season episodes.

- There's Sulu's mention of "Janus VI, the silicon creatures" in the third season episode "That Which Survives," a callback to the first season episode "The Devil in the Dark."

- There's Bruce Hyde's character name in "The Conscience of the King" was changed from "Lieutenant Robert Daiken" to "Kevin Riley," the character he played in "The Naked Time," when he was cast in a second guest part.

- There's a similar effort to call Barbara Baldavin her previous character's name of "Angela" when she reappears in "Shore Leave," although unfortunately they'd already shot a scene where Kirk calls her character "Teller" by the time they made the change.

- There's the 1967 memos from DC Fontana and Bob Justman published in The Making of Star Trek (pages 163-165 of my 1975 paperback edition) where they discuss the various starship names they'd established in a year and a half's worth of shows, including the ones mentioned as destroyed, in an effort to be consistent with the names in the future.

- And as you note, there's WNMHGB's Galactic Barrier being mentioned and shown in "By Any Other Name" and "Is There In Truth No Beauty?", shows from the second and third seasons respectively.

None of these are the actions of a show that doesn't care about continuity and consistency. On the contrary, these examples show that the makers of TOS cared about this stuff, because they realized that continuity references like this added to the believability of the Star Trek Universe. Yes, they made mistakes and they changed their minds about certain stuff (the United Earth Space Probe Agency, anyone?), but they got continuity right way more than they got it wrong. And keep in mind that this was ALL in an age before VCRs, when the only way to rewatch an episode was to wait for it be rerun or hope that the series went into syndication.

So can we please stop pretending that continuity in the ST Universe somehow didn't exist until TNG premiered in 1987? This bit of "accepted wisdom" is just flat-out WRONG.

Gary was a bit of a jerk even before the power got to him. I wonder if this influenced the kind of entity he later became.

The fact that Mitchell aimed the "little blonde lab technician" at Kirk shows that he always had control freak tendencies and was a bit of a prankster. Those qualities just came out in a more malevolent way after his encounter with the Barrier.

And I still can't get over how Kirk managed to ultimately kill Gary...simply by dropping a ROCK on him?

This ambiguity helped form the basis for John Byrne's sequel story, Strange New Worlds.

It's actually pretty inconsistent. The grey only really seems to disappear during the fight. I'd chalk this up to a production/continuity error rather than the grey being a manifestation.

Mitchell's hair gets increasingly grey over the course of the episode as his power increases.

 

[J.T.B.]

Can we please let this "TOS wasn't very good at continuity" myth die already? TOS had better continuity than most shows of its era.

Yes they really did make an effort and thanks for pointing it out. I always think of Mannix, whose Korean war experience changed from infantry enlisted man to infantry officer to navy pilot in various episodes.

Also, Eminiar 7 and an event from "A Taste of Armageddon" called back in "By Any Other Name."

 

[Qonundrum]

Had Dehner survived the situation and been capable of remaining on the Enterprise, I wonder what she would have made of Khan, one of the original "better" kinds of human beings. Would she have seen her failings in him, or would she have failed to associate the two, or would she have felt that he was a "second chance" to come up with better humans?

Now that's a cool idea.

For someone with a PhD in psychiatry, she didn't exactly seem to do a great job of appreciating the events of large parts of this episode.

The episode would have otherwise been a lot more boring. As with captains and historians, Starfleet is full of potentially imperfect humans.

The franchise has at least been pretty consistent in espousing the belief that beings granted absolute power without getting to it on their own terms (and sometimes even when they do get there on their own terms) are incapable of handling it responsibly.

Apart - arguably - from Riker in "Hide & Q"; who was being benevolent, except for the huge crime of using first-name basis on the Captain. The idea of lulling him with the power so he can run around doing good deeds is an interesting one, but where and how and when might Riker turn evil... If at all... wasn't really told. But the inkling of first-name basis isn't enough to make such a conclusion and neither is seeing Riker nigh on throw a tantrum over having to keep his powers locked up to appease Captain Darrin Stephens there; we only know Q as being a trickster and the H&Q episode is playing it so sternly that he's serious that it now begs the question of if the audience would buy into it at the end, especially when Riker's actions were anything but the sort of savagery Q was constantly complaining humans as being. (Was Q winding up Riker to try to pull a savage act? Again, the episode leaves almost too much to the imagination, though he was definitely goading Worf - not sure why as Picard wouldn't let anything come of that... but I digress.) Riker's wind-up or possible change to evil, as an idea, was still more compelling than Anakin's journey-to-evil despite being condensed to ~10% of the time that the prequels took and Riker didn't even cross the finish line*... I like to blame the sand. That stuff gets everywhere...

* Boo!! But, if nothing else, at least Thomas had, a shame "Second Chances" didn't feature Q but it's for the best... his becoming Maquis was strong enough.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Mitchell's hair gets increasingly grey over the course of the episode as his power increases.

I was referring specifically to the grey level as his eyes fade. And by the end fight, there's almost no grey at all in the long shots.

 

[Vger23]

Can we please let this "TOS wasn't very good at continuity" myth die already? TOS had better continuity than most shows of its era.

I think you might be misunderstanding what I was trying to say, which is that in relative terms....when looking at the totality of the franchise, TOS was the least serialized / continuity-obsessed of the series.

I think they did a great job, too. It's far and away my favorite Star Trek series.

 

[Scott Kellogg]

Apart - arguably - from Riker in "Hide & Q"; who was being benevolent,

It's been at least 30 years since I saw that one, but I was kind of under the impression it was in keeping with the 1st season of TNG with the message: "Well, we're Perfect Now." A lot of 1st season felt like they were Roddenberry's response to fan criticism of TOS that the characters didn't do everything perfectly right.

They kind of forgot that human beings have flaws.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

And by the end fight, there's almost no grey at all in the long shots.

Possibly due to inconsistent gray levels in Gary Lockwood's hair vs. the stuntman.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Possibly due to inconsistent gray levels in Gary Lockwood's hair vs. the stuntman.

Actually in one of the stills I linked some posts back, you can see it's Lockwood himself without the grey

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Also, Eminiar 7 and an event from "A Taste of Armageddon" called back in "By Any Other Name."

I knew there would be at least one example that slipped my mind.

I was referring specifically to the grey level as his eyes fade. And by the end fight, there's almost no grey at all in the long shots.

Okay, gotcha.

I think you might be misunderstanding what I was trying to say, which is that in relative terms....when looking at the totality of the franchise, TOS was the least serialized / continuity-obsessed of the series.

I guess. Apologies for misrepresenting the POV in your comment.

 

[Vger23]

It's been at least 30 years since I saw that one, but I was kind of under the impression it was in keeping with the 1st season of TNG with the message: "Well, we're Perfect Now." A lot of 1st season felt like they were Roddenberry's response to fan criticism of TOS that the characters didn't do everything perfectly right.

They kind of forgot that human beings have flaws.

It was Roddenberry's response to his own ego and the manufactured image of a guy who was a visionary and created something super-prophetic and special.

 

[Swedish Borg]

It was Roddenberry's response to his own ego and the manufactured image of a guy who was a visionary and created something super-prophetic and special.

...we're no longer afraid of death...
...children no longer mourn their parents...
..no money...

 

[FormerLurker]

...children no longer mourn their parents...

Having now lost both of mine, and how I feel about it, I think this is a terrible idea.

 

[flandry84]

Amen friend.

 

[J.T.B.]

I think you might be misunderstanding what I was trying to say, which is that in relative terms....when looking at the totality of the franchise, TOS was the least serialized / continuity-obsessed of the series.

I'd put it on a sliding scale. The OS continuity effort is still impressive because all there was to refer to were scripts, production documents and people's memories. When TNG came along a number of Star Trek reference books were quite easy to find, and of course in the internet age, forget about it.