Episode of the Week : Shore Leave

[scotpens]

^^ Sulu's next line is: "It fires lead pellets propelled by expanding gases from a chemical explosion." That always struck me as bad writing. Why would Sulu have to explain the basic principle of firearms to Kirk? There are plenty of people today who practice archery as a hobby. Do they need to explain to the rest of us how a bow and arrow works?

 

[Mytran]

Coz its the FUTURE!!!!! and everyone uses lasers now :-)

 

[Mario de Monti]

^^ Sulu's next line is: "It fires lead pellets propelled by expanding gases from a chemical explosion." That always struck me as bad writing. Why would Sulu have to explain the basic principle of firearms to Kirk?

Maybe that´s what jogged Kirk´s memory when he battled the Gorn two episodes later

 

[Marsden]

^^ Sulu's next line is: "It fires lead pellets propelled by expanding gases from a chemical explosion." That always struck me as bad writing. Why would Sulu have to explain the basic principle of firearms to Kirk? There are plenty of people today who practice archery as a hobby. Do they need to explain to the rest of us how a bow and arrow works?

I think it's not bad writing but the writer writing as if Sulu is assuming Capt. Kirk wouldn't know how it works.
Kirk's response of: I'll hang on to it. The fresh air seems to have made you trigger-happy. and his general attitude while saying says to me he knows very well how it works and feels the explanation is unecessary and unwanted.

That for me makes me think it isn't bad writing but a writer thinking that a character made a bad decision, explaining something where no explanation is needed or requested.

Sulu even stiffened up as he said this as he might have been thinking, "I just made Kirk run all the way here and everyone knows from Corbomite Manuver he hates breaking a sweat, I'm in trouble, better explain myself quick."

 

[CrazyMatt]

8. Amazing this one turned out as well as it did given it was being significantly re-written as it was being shot.

 

[ToddPence]

Ready for an insane theory?

The Dr. McCoy we see for the balance of the series following this episode is NOT Doctor McCoy. He's a human simulacrum created by the Shore Leave planet.

Think about it. We witness the good doctor killed in this episode in a pretty definitive fashion. He is disemboweled by the black knight's lance, and he lies on the ground for a while spilling his guts out while his brain is deprived of oxygen. Like Jacob Marley, McCoy is as "dead as a doornail".

Yet at the end of the episode, he shows up none the worse for wear, sporting no signs of his fatally traumatic wound.

From what we know about the planet and its capabilities, it can do some pretty amazing things. But there is no indication that it can bring the dead back to life, especially someone who suffered the kind of death McCoy did. That would seemingly be beyond the capabilities of the most god-like of beings, and as highly advanced as the technology of the Keeper is, it doesn't seem to be on that level.

But here's what we know the Shore Leave planet CAN do:

It can apparently read the minds of visitors. It can within a matter of seconds construct lifelike simulacrum based on those thoughts, which act and behave exactly as those who hold that person in their memories expect them to, and who are indistinguishable from actual human beings.

So the question must be posed . . . is the McCoy who goes back aboard the ship at the end of the episode the real McCoy??

And I guess this question also applies to that Angela Martine or Teller or whatever her name is . . .

 

[Melakon]

^ Interesting theory, but it doesn't explain how McCoy comes down with xenopolycythemia, a rare blood disease, in "For the World is Hollow..."

Alternatively, since everything on the planet is made from some sort of artificial construction resembling cellulose, perhaps the Black Knight's lance simply crumpled on contact, and McCoy was knocked unconscious from the shock, or temporarily in some form of stasis resembling death. It's still rather surprising that for an amusement park, there aren't built-in safety protocols.

 

[Mytran]

If the replacement McCoy is in fact a perfect replica of the original, is there any difference to be had anyway?

 

[ZapBrannigan]

If the replacement McCoy is in fact a perfect replica of the original, is there any difference to be had anyway?

For him there would be.

But I think Melakon's general idea is good: the Black Knight injected McCoy with something that simulates death, much like the Vulcan death grip. And there are (unobtrusive) safety protocols on the S-L planet.

Still: wicked post, ToddPence.

 

[ToddPence]

And the bullets on the plane that shot Angela? Did they also "crumple on contact"? And were they full of the same substance?

 

[ZapBrannigan]

And the bullets on the plane that shot Angela? Did they also "crumple on contact"? And were they full of the same substance?

Angela wasn't hit in the strafing run. She fainted. I wasn't sure about that for a long time, but it's clear she just passed out from fear and exertion. There is no blood or anything like that.

 

[T'Girl]

I though she was knocked unconscious when she ran head long into a tree?

(I've seen people do that)

 

[Timo]

Anything up to decapitation is bloodless in television of the time, though. TOS has several bullet deaths without bullet wounds, including e.g. Chekov in "Spectre of the Gun" and Gill in "Patterns of Force" - the latter from a submachine gun leadfest!

I wouldn't put it past the abilities of the planet to put back together any and all of the Humpty Dumpties with death wish who ever visit the place - including those who prefer to have their brain flattened by a steamroller, then sliced and scrambled by a combine harvester, and finally eaten by a coyote. At some level of technology, such things will become possible. And we never really run into a demonstration of limitations in the abilities of the planet.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[T'Girl]

as if Sulu is assuming Capt. Kirk wouldn't know how it works.

It's pretty obvious that Kirk is fairly familiar with pistols of that kind. He's later capable of firing a pistol he's never handled before, at a man on a charging horse at a distance of about sixty feet and hitting his target with only three (?) shots.

Pretty good shooting really.

 

[Timo]

And in "A Piece of the Action", he (pretends he) knows how to use an early Thompson submachine gun, a feat beyond most mortals (it's an extremely clumsy and complex weapon, more difficult to fire than a Ford Model A is to drive).

We know Kirk knows his way around the Wild West era of the United States, with Lincoln and Earp and the lot. But he seems to know next to nothing about the 20th century, which is where the submachine gun and the Police Special come from. So we really have to postulate that he has the same hobby as Sulu, that is, collecting (and training on) old weapons including ancient firearms. And lo and behold, this is exactly what we see manifest on the wall of his mountain cabin in ST:GEN...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[alchemist]

And the bullets on the plane that shot Angela? Did they also "crumple on contact"? And were they full of the same substance?

Angela wasn't hit in the strafing run. She fainted. I wasn't sure about that for a long time, but it's clear she just passed out from fear and exertion. There is no blood or anything like that.

As scripted and filmed--but deleted--she was "killed" by the bullets and then later repaired, similarly as Dr. McCoy.

 

[Sir Rhosis]

^^^alchemist is right, and lots of other little bits being changed at the last minute as well.

http://www.orionpressfanzines.com/articles/shore_leave.htm

Sir Rhosis

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Anything up to decapitation is bloodless in television of the time, though. TOS has several bullet deaths without bullet wounds, including e.g. Chekov in "Spectre of the Gun" and Gill in "Patterns of Force" - the latter from a submachine gun leadfest!

I'm pretty sure the machine gun missed. Gill then bit his lip and, knowing that his protege had betrayed him, died of a broken heart. That, or what you said.

 

[Marsden]

If the replacement McCoy is in fact a perfect replica of the original, is there any difference to be had anyway?

It doesn't matter anyway, because Dr McCoy was already murdered the first time he went through the transporter and it created a duplicate of him.

It's pretty obvious that Kirk is fairly familiar with pistols of that kind. He's later capable of firing a pistol he's never handled before, at a man on a charging horse at a distance of about sixty feet and hitting his target with only three (?) shots.

Pretty good shooting really.

That's what I was saying, Kirk knew, but Sulu thought he needed to explain. Kirk is a qualified expert with all weapons from Capellan bows and arrows on up. If he was on Taurus II, he'd be expert with the giant spears.

 

[plynch]

Argh, you beat me to the transporter death & re-creation scenario!