Moving on to
Let That Be Your Last Battlefield **½
This one has a lot of potential. It's got a strong guest cast (Gorshin in particular does a lot with his speeches), some very creative cinematography and a very strong message that, while obvious, is still potent.
Sadly, the budget crunch hurt this episode. It's talky as hell with tons of pontification from Bele, Lokai and Kirk. I don't mind the shuttlecraft stock footage, that's a sign of the times, but the invisible ship is a step too far. An obvious money saver that did nothing to enhance or support the story.
Some shots are really great, particularly the transporter room shots and the slow dolly shots of the crew during the self destruct sequence. The use of that sequence, down to most of the dialog, is more evidence that Harve Bennet watched well past Space Seed when doing his research. It's ridiculously convoluted and I wondered why Bele didn't make a move to stop it. But the tight close ups are both creative and off-putting (Scotty's teeth...). The zooming in and out of the alert was cheesy but we've discussed that one elsewhere. The "ajar door" during Lokai's rec room speech was also weird (when does THAT ever happen?) and the bad ADR with really awful dialog didn't help: Chekov isn't even in the room but he gets to have poorly dubbed lines slathered in. Still, Jud Taylor tried to add some style to it, which was appreciated.
The crew, having seen all variety of aliens, is strangely perplexed at seeing a being with "black and white cookie" skin color, to the point that seeing a second one is worth demanding of an explanation from Spock instead of assuming Lokai's people are just colored this way.
Still, Bele's casual declaration of Lokai's inferiority because of where his white side - while obvious - is actually a perfect example of the stupidity of prejudice.
The climax is also powerful, regardless of the budget removing all but two crewmen from the corridors, allowing these two to run unhindered through the ship and the lame "jogging" Bele does (he's exhausted pretty quickly). The downbeat ending sticks with you. This is not a cheerful episode at all.
With more time and a couple of extra bucks to make a ship for Bele (even a glowing orb), make the makeup less garish and another rewrite, this could have been a justifiable classic.
One more reason this one is notable: it was Bob Justman's final episode of the series. With him goes the last creative voice from OG staff and also, weirdly enough, the third season end credits theme. It reverts to the second season music going forward. Yes, I know Roddenberry was officially still there, but he really wasn't. From here on it was Fred Freiberger and Arthur Singer doing the story editing alone.
Let That Be Your Last Battlefield **½
This one has a lot of potential. It's got a strong guest cast (Gorshin in particular does a lot with his speeches), some very creative cinematography and a very strong message that, while obvious, is still potent.
Sadly, the budget crunch hurt this episode. It's talky as hell with tons of pontification from Bele, Lokai and Kirk. I don't mind the shuttlecraft stock footage, that's a sign of the times, but the invisible ship is a step too far. An obvious money saver that did nothing to enhance or support the story.
Some shots are really great, particularly the transporter room shots and the slow dolly shots of the crew during the self destruct sequence. The use of that sequence, down to most of the dialog, is more evidence that Harve Bennet watched well past Space Seed when doing his research. It's ridiculously convoluted and I wondered why Bele didn't make a move to stop it. But the tight close ups are both creative and off-putting (Scotty's teeth...). The zooming in and out of the alert was cheesy but we've discussed that one elsewhere. The "ajar door" during Lokai's rec room speech was also weird (when does THAT ever happen?) and the bad ADR with really awful dialog didn't help: Chekov isn't even in the room but he gets to have poorly dubbed lines slathered in. Still, Jud Taylor tried to add some style to it, which was appreciated.
The crew, having seen all variety of aliens, is strangely perplexed at seeing a being with "black and white cookie" skin color, to the point that seeing a second one is worth demanding of an explanation from Spock instead of assuming Lokai's people are just colored this way.
Still, Bele's casual declaration of Lokai's inferiority because of where his white side - while obvious - is actually a perfect example of the stupidity of prejudice.
The climax is also powerful, regardless of the budget removing all but two crewmen from the corridors, allowing these two to run unhindered through the ship and the lame "jogging" Bele does (he's exhausted pretty quickly). The downbeat ending sticks with you. This is not a cheerful episode at all.
With more time and a couple of extra bucks to make a ship for Bele (even a glowing orb), make the makeup less garish and another rewrite, this could have been a justifiable classic.
One more reason this one is notable: it was Bob Justman's final episode of the series. With him goes the last creative voice from OG staff and also, weirdly enough, the third season end credits theme. It reverts to the second season music going forward. Yes, I know Roddenberry was officially still there, but he really wasn't. From here on it was Fred Freiberger and Arthur Singer doing the story editing alone.
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) - anyhoo, I always thought their makeup would have been more convincing if they either had a more blended border, or if it was more irregular like cow/pinto pony patches. "I am white with black patches, he is black with white patches!" I know the script didn't want to be that subtle, though.
