I never saw Julie Newmar in anything else...Thanks - I'll check Netflix and see if any of those are available.
An example:
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPzvv2v2keI[/yt]
'Friday's Child' question...
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An example:
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPzvv2v2keI[/yt]
When I first saw this episode I was dealing with my two small children running around in the living room which made hearing the conversations difficult at times. Because of this I thought they were saying "Bob" instead of Maab. To this day I will smirk and call him Bob.
And Mudd's Women.
Maybe I'm going against the grain here, but I always enjoyed "Friday's Child". So the Enterprise and the Klingons are in competition to woo a planet of tent-dwelling half-gypsy, half-hillbilly aliens into taking sides in their competition for resources. As Kirk might say: "Sounds like fun!"
It worked for me. I actually prefer this ep over "A Private Little War", even though the Vietnam-War-era plot is superior. I prefer the hillbillies of Capella because I know so many.
The notion of using communicators as weapons was always entertaining to me as well.
The light tone of the episode made it so enjoyable. "Fool me twice shame on me" "I know dis saying. It was inwented in Russia!" The idea that Scott takes the old boat out for a cruise-to-nowhere seemed appropriate for the era anyway, no?
Anyway, the "Introduction to Navigation: Star Fleet Command" booklet included in "Star Trek Maps" (Bantam, 1980) contained a very interesting entry on the Capella star system:
It worked for me. I actually prefer this ep over "A Private Little War", even though the Vietnam-War-era plot is superior. I prefer the hillbillies of Capella because I know so many.
The notion of using communicators as weapons was always entertaining to me as well.
The light tone of the episode made it so enjoyable. "Fool me twice shame on me" "I know dis saying. It was inwented in Russia!" The idea that Scott takes the old boat out for a cruise-to-nowhere seemed appropriate for the era anyway, no?
Anyway, the "Introduction to Navigation: Star Fleet Command" booklet included in "Star Trek Maps" (Bantam, 1980) contained a very interesting entry on the Capella star system:
Wow, holy blow the dust off the memories! I remember the James Blish adaptation of Friday's Child referred to the planet as Ceres! It must be a carry-over from an earlier version of the script.
I like this one, too. The thing with Star Trek is there are only 79 episodes. I find that if one starts picking them apart on the basis of details, there will only be about three episodes that "pass muster". In that case, it'd be odd for one to consider ones' self a fan to begin with!
I only wish we could have heard Eleen say "Your noses are weak." It woulda been one of the classic lines of all Trek.
Thank you, Sir Rhosis! 
Interesting that Blish had that detail about the inhabitants being Earth descendants, though. That would probably have been a Trek first, having an Earth colony that actually survived!
Interesting that Blish had that detail about the inhabitants being Earth descendants, though. That would probably have been a Trek first, having an Earth colony that actually survived!
But this is contradicted by McCoy's line that says Capellans are not human - there are some internal differences.
As for the episode itself: I liked it. Probably my favorite bit was where McCoy gets all Capellanly passive-aggressive and says "What Kras says is unimportant and we do not hear his words."
As for the episode itself: I liked it. Probably my favorite bit was where McCoy gets all Capellanly passive-aggressive and says "What Kras says is unimportant and we do not hear his words."
As for the episode itself: I liked it. Probably my favorite bit was where McCoy gets all Capellanly passive-aggressive and says "What Kras says is unimportant and we do not hear his words."
That was good. I liked how Maab kept referring to their topaline as "our rocks". Clearly it was totally valueless to them, much as we might refer to chunks of concrete or something.
I like the idea of the Capellans being descendants of a "failed" Earth colony. Maybe they were escaped "Augment" renegades, or, like the Neo-Transcendentalist Bringloidi of the failed S.S. Mariposa expedition (TNG's "Up the Long Ladder"), their ship had trouble and the colonists had to bail out on this planet without the benefit of their technology.
I actually like to think of the Capellans as a combination of these ideas. Maybe, like Khan, the sleeper ship S.S. Capella arrived at Alpha Aurigae IV with a full payload of hibernating eugenic supermen, but their ship crashed ("Planet of the Apes"-style) and they were forced to live primitively without any technology. With their leadership all having perished in the crash, the aimless colonists fought each other until the rudderless settlement was in chaos and near starvation. (Even an Augment has to eat.) The result was a new generation of filthy, under-educated children whose factional parents formed the Ten Tribes of Capella. Because the colony was made of Earth's descendants who found and settled the world with the use of a space vessel, and because the colonists were self-described outlaws that Earth did not have the inclination to reclaim, the Capellans occupied a weird grey area of simultaneously being both covered by and exempt from Earth's laws in general and the Federation Prime Directive in particular. In essence, the Federation would be in the awkward position of treating Capella as both an "orphan" world and an "alien" society to be dealt with diplomatically.
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As for the notion that some of the scenes were jarring in the episode, this never bothered me. It was plainly understood from the ep's teaser that the Capellans were violent and unpredictable. After the verbal confrontation between Aka'ar and Ma'ab, it seemed to be a standard TOS plot flow for the Klingon ship to start making mischief and for the tribal settlement to explode with violence. The plot thickens...
One thing that isn't made clear is whether Capella is in Federation space or not. It's never firmly established (from what I could figure out, anyway) where Capella is in the TOS Universe. There are three possibilities:
It's understandable that people will look at an uber-60s ep like "Friday's Child", with its way-out costumes and its "oooochie-wooochie-coooochie-coo" and roll their eyes. You could do that with the better-written "A Private Little War", as well. (I regard "Friday's Child", "The Trouble with Tribbles" and "A Private Little War" as a kind of loose Federation-Klingon intrigue anthology. They're like companion stories.) Kras, Krell and Arne Darvin seem to personify the proxy-conflict nature of these stories, all the merry while the Enterprise either evades the mysterious Klingon ship, or the Klingon ship evades the Enterprise, or "you have six hours to get your ship out of Federation territory" and let's not bother showing the Klingon ship anyway because it was not in the budget.
The biggest issues I had with "Friday's Child" weren't the costumes or the jarring violence or the missing Klingon ship (later "fixed" by "remastering"). It was the notion that the Federation ordered the Enterprise to this planet to disrupt the lives of the primitive inhabitants for a mining treaty. Clearly that mineral (and getting the best of the Klingons) was more important than the Prime Directive. (Of course, this can be explained/retconned away, see above.)
I actually like to think of the Capellans as a combination of these ideas. Maybe, like Khan, the sleeper ship S.S. Capella arrived at Alpha Aurigae IV with a full payload of hibernating eugenic supermen, but their ship crashed ("Planet of the Apes"-style) and they were forced to live primitively without any technology. With their leadership all having perished in the crash, the aimless colonists fought each other until the rudderless settlement was in chaos and near starvation. (Even an Augment has to eat.) The result was a new generation of filthy, under-educated children whose factional parents formed the Ten Tribes of Capella. Because the colony was made of Earth's descendants who found and settled the world with the use of a space vessel, and because the colonists were self-described outlaws that Earth did not have the inclination to reclaim, the Capellans occupied a weird grey area of simultaneously being both covered by and exempt from Earth's laws in general and the Federation Prime Directive in particular. In essence, the Federation would be in the awkward position of treating Capella as both an "orphan" world and an "alien" society to be dealt with diplomatically.
-----------------------------------------------
As for the notion that some of the scenes were jarring in the episode, this never bothered me. It was plainly understood from the ep's teaser that the Capellans were violent and unpredictable. After the verbal confrontation between Aka'ar and Ma'ab, it seemed to be a standard TOS plot flow for the Klingon ship to start making mischief and for the tribal settlement to explode with violence. The plot thickens...
One thing that isn't made clear is whether Capella is in Federation space or not. It's never firmly established (from what I could figure out, anyway) where Capella is in the TOS Universe. There are three possibilities:
- The Capellan star system is in Federation space, but occupies a strange status as a failed colony/non-alligned world.
- The Capellan star system is in the disputed area between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, along with Arcanis, Organia, Donatu and Sherman's Planet. This would make Capella ripe for the picking.
- The Capellan star system is a distant world, removed from both the Federation and Klingon sphere of influence, and the only reason either side would bother with it is the discovery of the valuable topaline mineral.
It's understandable that people will look at an uber-60s ep like "Friday's Child", with its way-out costumes and its "oooochie-wooochie-coooochie-coo" and roll their eyes. You could do that with the better-written "A Private Little War", as well. (I regard "Friday's Child", "The Trouble with Tribbles" and "A Private Little War" as a kind of loose Federation-Klingon intrigue anthology. They're like companion stories.) Kras, Krell and Arne Darvin seem to personify the proxy-conflict nature of these stories, all the merry while the Enterprise either evades the mysterious Klingon ship, or the Klingon ship evades the Enterprise, or "you have six hours to get your ship out of Federation territory" and let's not bother showing the Klingon ship anyway because it was not in the budget.
The biggest issues I had with "Friday's Child" weren't the costumes or the jarring violence or the missing Klingon ship (later "fixed" by "remastering"). It was the notion that the Federation ordered the Enterprise to this planet to disrupt the lives of the primitive inhabitants for a mining treaty. Clearly that mineral (and getting the best of the Klingons) was more important than the Prime Directive. (Of course, this can be explained/retconned away, see above.)
Interesting ideas, Wingsley, and well-stated!
I wasn't so much 'bothered' by the jarring scenes, more that I simply noticed them. It had a feeling to me of having gone to the bathroom or kitchen and missed something. Akaar was established as the leader, had his introduction scene, meaningful dialogue, close-ups, father of the plot-important baby, the whole nine yards. After, he was only mentioned, and that mention being that he was dead.
I always did wonder about those episodes where the Enterprise was ordered to do some mission, consequences be damned. It does sort of imply some bigger, never-discussed federation agenda or goal, which I find fascinating!
I wasn't so much 'bothered' by the jarring scenes, more that I simply noticed them. It had a feeling to me of having gone to the bathroom or kitchen and missed something. Akaar was established as the leader, had his introduction scene, meaningful dialogue, close-ups, father of the plot-important baby, the whole nine yards. After, he was only mentioned, and that mention being that he was dead.
I always did wonder about those episodes where the Enterprise was ordered to do some mission, consequences be damned. It does sort of imply some bigger, never-discussed federation agenda or goal, which I find fascinating!
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