My review of this one as posted in the Trek Rewatch thread:
Plato's Stepchildren ***
Unpopular opinion: I like this one. Yeah, yeah, there's tons of humiliation and a few sketchy performance choices, but it's never, ever dull, has wonderful guest stars and a great (and final) full score by Alexander Courage. How fitting that the composer who wrote the first Star Trek score gets to do the final full series score.
The lack of dullness helped, the music was indeed wonderful, and I'll always go to bat for the high-concept psi ability to directly control another's mind for the creepy factor and what
can be done with it.
The first new person we meet is Alexander, wonderfully played with great skill and dignity by Michael Dunn. You like him immediately and feel for him every damned time he's abused. Kirk takes an immediate shine to him and the chemistry between Dunn and Shatner is strong. I love every interaction they have as Kirk treats Alexander with more respect than he's ever gotten in his life.
^^this, x1000^42
If absolutely nothing else, their scenes are
the core of Trek.
The sequence where Parmen is tossing stuff around with his mind in his fever, throwing psychic punches and then strangling Alexander is really exciting and very well done. In fact, all of the levitation bits are very convincing with truly invisible (if a little wobbly) wires.
The lighting, camera setups, everything - only once did I see a wire (on blu-ray), and the wobblies weren't excessive. Especially for this point of time in season 3.
The cast really sells the idea of being controlled by psychic forces. Shatner literally throws himself into it, but even De Kelley does a great job. Dunn throws himself over an ottoman, no little stunt double here, and he just owns this episode.
Seconded. Dunn steals the show, but none of the actors went over the top and broke suspension of disbelief. It arguably would have been worse if the actors broke the 4th wall.
Shatner gets flack for the second act humiliation scene but I bought it. He screams beautifully and his "horse like" imitation could have been any alien animal.
That stuff would be brutal for any actor, and Trek's was loaded with well-trained and accomplished actors. I was mesmerized by the scene by how well they sold Parmen's influence. Lesser acting would have truly trashed any chance for the story. The actors really did carry this, and had to. The novelization, and - yeah - some novelizations do better than what's produced, doesn't fare as well. James Blish's novelization isn't bad (I liked how he got around the Way to Eden singing scene, even though it was still a loss as the lyrics were in primo Trek fashion), but the TV version still sells it best.
Nimoy gets to sing a bit and then shows us an incredibly well performed (and written) scene of Spock dealing with the fallout of his emotional abuse. It's an awful sequence to sit through and Parmen's capper of "how can you let this go on?" hits hard because it really gets just this side of unbearable before we go to commercial.
The post-abuse scene is powerful, but - bingo - Parmen's quip of "How can you let this go on?" is gaslighting at its near-worst.
Then "the women!" are brought into it. I wish their dialog was better written, but this is what we've got. This is probably the weakest point of the episode for me.
Chapel and Uhura deserved better.
As is the budget constraint of having this colony of 38 telekinetics. Image, if they were larger, what they would do with all 430 of the crew.
The "kiss" is BS (compare Kirk and Uhura to Spock and Chapel) but fans love to run with it.
I'll re-watch that scene to see. The myth of "First interracial kiss" starts in this episode. The behind the scenes elevate it, but the UK has examples prior to Trek's: ("Emergency - Ward 10" in 1964) and ("Othello", 1955, per Wikipedia reference). Just started watching the latter on YT. Am glad the film print wasn't junked.
Honestly the one point I really don't like is Kirk, newly powered, shoves Alexander back and forth in the tug of war with Parmen. I would rather Kirk have tossed something at him and then stopped Alexander from cutting Parmen. However, Kirk makes it up to him in a beautifully sweet ending as he fulfills his promise to take Alexander away from Parmen and the others.
GREAT point!
Liam Sullivan and Barbara Babcock excel as Parmen and Philana. The sets are impressively decorated and shot and the music is perfect. This episode also has three important Alexander's: Alexander the character, Alexander Courage and director David Alexander.
A Trek without any Alexander is all for the worse.
I get why people don't like it. There's not really much plot. It's a lot of torture and humiliation in service of the old chestnut "power corrupts" - one Star Trek did as far back as the second pilot and a few times since. Yet, I got into the characters, the performances and the production. I found it fast paced and often exciting.
Yup - the plot is paper thin, it's the character interactions of the concept being sold to the audience that make or break it.
Compared to other 60s shows I've rewatched, TOS holds up really nicely.
It's never boring and it doesn't look or sound cheap.
The same great use of thoughtfully-applied color lighting helps immensely. 1960s shows were always vibrant with lively hues, but TOS did take it the next step. What would otherwise be too "busy" for other shows somehow lands just right. It's iconic.
But, as I said, it's an unpopular opinion and my reviews are full of them.
I should start looking up yours!
But I do need to find some more American shows to watch. Thankfully Captain Kirk and Steve Austin will keep my busy for a while.
