Star Trek TOS Re-Watch

[Bynar0110]

Miri by Adrian Spies

Hundreds of light years from Earth, the Enterprise detects an Earth-style SOS from an unnamed planet. The first of the alternate just-like-Earth planets we'll run across. They beam a landing party down. Why is Rand there? She doesn't even have a tricorder!

They find a busted tricycle and then are attacked by a disfigured humanoid who claims it's his. He dies shortly after, like he aged centuries in a few minutes.

We meet Miri, who is scared at first because the "grups" (grownups) hurt people and eventually died off. Kirk calls her pretty, but it didn't come off as creepy to me, but more like he's flattering her in order to calm her down and get her on their side (which I myself have done with kids).

They get Miri to take them to a medical lab. The party is all starting to get lesions, except Spock. The disease seems to be a side effect of a life-extension experiment. It will take down the children too, once they reach puberty, which has been dramatically slowed. Miri and the other kids are over 300 years old.

From there, it's a race against time trying to find a cure, made tougher by the kids stealing the communicators, thus cutting McCoy and Spock off from the ship's computer.

Miri gets jealous of Janice and kidnaps her. Kirk shows her how the disease is hitting her too and she takes him to the other kids. They beat him up. He points out they're acting like grups and that their food is running out. He eventually gets them to give him back Rand and the communicators.

Meanwhile, McCoy does the Mad Scientist thing and injects himself with the vaccine they've come up with. It knocks him out cold BUT it works.

The episode has plot holes and sexism and why-does-this-planet-look-like-Earth, but... Kim Darby. She just shines (and not just from the lighting effect). She's magnetic in her every scene. She's a very understandable and even likeable character, and I put that down in large part to Darby's performance. She carried me through the episode.

I read on memory beta that Miris world is Earth from a parallel timeline that somehow ended up in the prime timeline.

 

[Commander Troi]

I read on memory beta that Miris world is Earth from a parallel timeline that somehow ended up in the prime timeline.

Maybe, but there's nothing in the episode itself.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

The Conscience of the King by Barry Trivers.... This is a damn good episode, very taut, with some humor, and outstanding performances.

Yep. I would also mention that the color cinematography is gorgeous in this episode, especially on the bridge.

And the music by Joseph Mullendore is a big favorite of mine. The love theme, the Shakespeare motif, and "Phaser Overload" are great. For me, that stuff is never getting old.

 

[ReddishAlert]

The Conscience of the King by Barry Trivers

A tight little thriller. I think this may have been my first exposure to Shakespeare.

A terrific cold open sets the stage, opening on a performance of the Scottish Play. Kirk has been lured to the planet by Dr. Leighton, who believes the head of an acting troupe is the notorious Kodos the Executioner, who both Kirk and Leighton survived. Kirk starts investigating, beginning with a cocktail party at Leighton's home. There he meets (The Beauteous) Lenore, daughter of the lead actor, and starts charming her. As they walk outside, they find Leighton dead.

Kirk arranges to have the troupe stranded and to "rescue" them, pretending to Lenore he had nothing to do with it. He finds out that Lieutenant Riley is another survivor and reassigns him to engineering (to keep him safe?).

Spock has noticed that Kirk is acting weird and asks McCoy about it. Banter ensues.

Kirk takes Lenore on a tour of the ship and tries to get information from her. I was kind of amazed they got this line past the censors: "And this ship. All this power, surging and throbbing, yet under control. Are you like that, Captain?"

Meanwhile, Spock starts his own investigation and later tells McCoy what he found. Spock: "There were nine eye witnesses who survived the massacre, who'd actually seen Kodos with their own eyes. Jim Kirk was one of them. With the exception of Riley and Captain Kirk, every other eye witness is dead. And my library computer shows that wherever they were, on Earth, on a colony, or aboard ship, the Karidian Company of Players was somewhere near when they died."

Riley is bored and lonely in engineering and calls the rec room on the intercom for company. Uhura sings the lovely "Beyond Antares" while Someone poisons Riley's drink with a cleaning spray bottle. If he hadn't been on the com, he probably would have died.

Spock and McCoy confront Kirk. Kirk is very touchy, but eventually admits what's going on.

KIRK: You sound certain. I wish I could be. Before I accuse a man of that, I've got to be. I saw him once, twenty years ago. Men change. Memory changes. Look at him now, he's an actor. He can change his appearance. No. Logic is not enough. I've got to feel my way, make absolutely sure.

Spock hears a phaser overloading in Kirk's quarters. They search for it, with Kirk eventually finding it and disposing of it.

Kirk goes to talk to Karidian. This is an amazing scene; both actors are absolutely gripping. Kirk has Karidian read a speech of Kodos', but he barely has to look at the paper Kirk wrote it on. Karidian argues Kodos' side without admitting anything.

Interesting (to me) that both Karidian and Lenore accuse Kirk of being, "Mechanised, electronicised, and not very human." They both seem to have a very dire attitude towards modern life.

Riley overhears McCoy saying Karidian could be Kodos and leaves sickbay, grabbing a phaser on his way to the theater (the ship has a theater?) where the troupe is doing Hamlet. Kirk manages to talk Riley into handing over the phaser and sends him back to sickbay.

During a scene break backstage, Karidian tells Lenore he heard a voice out of the past (Riley). Lenore lets her father know everything will be fine... as soon as she kills Riley and Kirk like she killed the other eyewitnesses. Karidian thought she didn't know and was untouched by what he did. As the scene goes on, I could see Lenore's madness gradually showing through, which is ironic considering Lenore is dressed as Ophelia.

Lenore grabs a security guard's phaser and tries to kill Kirk, but Karidian steps in front of him. Lenore loses it completely at her father's death. Barbara Anderson gave a standout performance here.

We close learning that Lenore will receive the best of care and remembers nothing, thinking her father is still alive.

This is a damn good episode, very taut, with some humor, and outstanding performances.

Really excellent write up of one of my all time favorite Trek episodes of any series.

 

[Henoch]

Riley overhears McCoy saying Karidian could be Kodos and leaves sickbay, grabbing a phaser on his way to the theater (the ship has a theater?) where the troupe is doing Hamlet.

The theater is just the ship's gymnasium where the troupe set up a simple stage that is mostly just a row of lights on the floor, a few fake stage walls and benches borrowed from the chapel. Note the gym's "pull up bars" on the back wall that proves that it is just the gymnasium. In both grade school and high school; we set up a stage on one wall and put out chairs on the gym/basketball court floor.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

The theater is just the ship's gymnasium where the troupe set up a simple stage that is mostly just a row of lights on the floor, a few fake stage walls and benches borrowed from the chapel. Note the gym's "pull up bars" on the back wall that proves that it is just the gymnasium. In both grade school and high school; we set up a stage on one wall and put out chairs on the gym/basketball court floor.

The gym and theater were both re-dresses of the Engine Room, as you probably know.

 

[Henoch]

Set redress, yes. In-universe, two separate rooms. One with pipes behind the screen and control panels on the wall. One with no pipes but a sparring area, and pull-up bars, etc. on the wall. Now, where is the gymnasium? That's another topic...

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

I was kind of amazed they got this line past the censors: "And this ship. All this power, surging and throbbing, yet under control. Are you like that, Captain?"

Emotionally speaking.

 

[scotpens]

Now, where is the gymnasium? That's another topic...

Next to the bowling alley, of course!

 

[Warped9]

I don’t think there really was a bowling alley. I think Riley made it up in his scrambled head.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

I don’t think there really was a bowling alley. I think Riley made it up in his scrambled head.

Hear, hear. Riley was written in that scene as the funny drunk. It was a gag. At most, I say the Franz Joseph bowling alley is in a convertible space with portable fittings. The room can be configured on the fly for various activities, the way a high school swimming pool might have a slide-out floor for dances and such.

BTW, the White House has a one-lane bowling alley in the basement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_basement

 

[fireproof78]

Are you for or against bowling alleys?

 

[Commishsleer]

I'd go with the multiple use bowling alley. There's 400+ people aboard. They;ve got to have some amusement for 5 years. The Enterprise can go 3 months without landfall. They could even go virtual bowling like in my local amusement centre which doesn't take up that much room.But I think a multi-use room for bowling, volleyball, tennis, dancing, etc. would be needed on a ship with so many people.

 

[Noname Given]

Set redress, yes. In-universe, two separate rooms. One with pipes behind the screen and control panels on the wall. One with no pipes but a sparring area, and pull-up bars, etc. on the wall. Now, where is the gymnasium? That's another topic...

I see a swimming pool and bowling alley on the Franz Joseph blueprints as well. I've always wondered where they are.

 

[Mytran]

There was a reference to a swimming pool in one of the Phase 2 story outlines, although of course that was written AFTER the FJ deck plans had been published

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

A flat deck floor plate can be flipped over/marked with the necessary lines for any sport. Remove/add some pieces for bowling lanes. Remove the whole cover and fill the inside for a pool/ice rink. Sports arenas alter their appearance all the time for various sports and concerts; a ship rec room could do the same.

 

[Henoch]

The water (plus any swimmers ) would slosh out of a pool every three episodes, or so. Probably no pool.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Safety protocols might forbid pool operations unless safely docked at a port or in orbit.

 

[fireproof78]

I mean, if they're at yellow or red alert personnel are usually moving to their stations, or preparing to do so. So doubtful someone is using the pool when going in to action.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

The water (plus any swimmers ) would slosh out of a pool every three episodes, or so. Probably no pool.

I've been kicking that idea around too but didn't say anything.

Related: there's a fantastic pool scene in the sci-fi movie Passengers with Jennifer Lawrence.