TheGodBen Revisits Star Trek

Sorry, I didn't mean to be away so long. I'll try not to disappear and bump this thread up half a decade later again.

 

Naughty boy.

Glad to see you back reviewing anyway.

 

Patterns of Force (**)

A highly respected human historian finds himself on an alien world that’s divided and warlike, and he thinks to himself “You know what these violent and divisive people need? Nazism.” But only the good parts of Nazism, such as... I’m coming up blank.

That’s my problem with this idea, you can’t just remove the bad parts of Nazism because Nazism is intrinsically bad. The basis of the Nazi philosophy itself is evil, if you remove that then there’s nothing left. Racism, violence and oppression aren’t things that can be stripped out of Nazism, it was at the core of the Nazi mindset. They believed Germany to be the victims of a great global conspiracy, and that anyone who opposed them was part of that conspiracy, knowingly or not, and had to be destroyed for Germany to be successful.

Nazism also wasn’t a top-down thing that came out of nowhere, it was a movement that came to power by feeding people’s fears and violently intimidating its opposition. Did John Gill replicate these aspects to bring the Nazis to power on Ekos? He seems to have replicated the cult of personality part, which is already morally questionable for a character we’re supposed to believe was a decent man.

Maybe I’m not giving the episode enough credit, maybe the point is to show that authoritarianism of any sort, though attractive to some people, always trends towards evil. That’s why we need to stick with wholesome Federation values like democracy and apple pie even though they can been chaotic and frustrating at times. Especially apple pie. But the specific references to Nazism undercut all that because it feels so shallow. It’s like as if there was a WW2 movie being filmed next door so they came up with an episode as an excuse to use the uniforms. Which I’m 90% sure is what actually happened.

 

Planet of hats episodes invariably suck.

Of course, there was no WW2 movie being filmed next door, but there didn't need to be...Western Costume was just down the street.

 

The Ultimate Computer (***)

So there’s this scientist guy who has developed a super-computer that’s capable of replacing almost the entire crew of a starship. Obviously, this makes Kirk concerned, the rise of automation means that 400 of his crew could be out of a job, and he feels very deeply for each of them.

Nah, I’m just kidding. Kirk’s sole concern is the potential loss of his job. You see, there’s a certain amount of prestige that comes with being a starship captain and it’s very important that he be able to maintain that for the sake of his self worth. Everyone else are just menial labourers whose primary purpose is to be killed so we know that the situation is dangerous, or to look good in a miniskirt and make lovey eyes at Kirk. They won’t mind losing their jobs, so that’s fine. But Kirk? Why, losing his job would be a tragedy.

Okay, snark aside, the episode does deal with an important topic, one that we’re still struggling to grapple with today. The psychological impact of people losing their jobs to machines is a very real threat to society, and it’s one that gets a bit overshadowed in the real world because we’re still struggling to find a solution to the economic effects the rise of automation are going to bring. This episode’s main flaw is that it sidesteps the issue by having the computer go insane for seemingly no reason and it needs to be talked into killing itself. This error means that computer automation is no longer going to be pursued. It’s off the table forever now. Nobody is going to lose their job. There’s no need to worry about that. Everything is going to be fine. Forever.

And they all lived happily ever after. Except the hundreds of people killed by the computer.

 

One of the series' pet topics was "machines cannot run stuff by themselves." Kirk in perticular hated tech being in charge. War waged by machines? Nope. A computer God making people live in peace? F that. Another computer god making blond, tan, white people live in peace? That's gotta go. Even if M5 didn't freak out, Kirk would have found a reason to talk it to death. The "Kirk vs Machine" plot became one of those Trek cliches right up there with the parallel Earth stories. Not coincidentally, the majority of these were on Coon's watch. I know a lot of folks love how he came in an "humanized" the characters (meh - he added jokes), he also brought a sameness to the series. I get the backlot galaxy was unavoidable, but "Return of the Archons" and "The Apple" were practically the same premise with the climax (and music) "Who Mourns for Adonias?" tossed in to defeat Vaal. Kirk yammered Landru, M5 and Nomad to death. As enjoyable as these episodes are on their own (and many of them ARE quite good or at least fun), there was a reason why the series grew repetitive. With the carbon copy plots and turn to outright comedy in the mid and late second season, I can see why the third brought it back to the more straight and grim feel of the early first season.

 

Welcome back, @TheGodBen!

Well, it wasn't for no reason.

Daystrom was, to understate things, emotionally troubled. We have only his version of events, but either he was just being paranoid or he had been continually ridiculed for his successes early in life. From that perceived ridicule he had a chip on his shoulder, and he pushed himself hard to make a breakthrough. Working hard without healthy socialization probably compounded his mental issues.

So, when Daystrom mirrored his own mind in the computer, the computer suffered from the same mental illnesses that he suffered from. When the computer had control of the starship, it apparently acted out the kinds of fantasies that he'd had when he thought about getting even ("Four toys to be crushed as we choose").

By the way, this episode has one of my favorite Kirk speeches [http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/53.htm, fixes mine]:

KIRK: Genius doesn't work on an assembly line basis. Did Einstein, Kazanga, or Sitar of Vulcan produce new and revolutionary theories on a regular schedule? You can't simply say, "Today I will be brilliant." No matter how long it took, he came out with multitronics, the M-5.​

Pretty much all of the conversations between Kirk and McCoy in TUC are a standout.

 

The Ultimate Computer is my favorite episode of that part of the season. So much goodness. It’s a great return to the insecure Kirk, it has a compelling story, a very strong guest star turn, great war games sequences and a wonderful performance by Shatner. He ably shows Kirk’s anxiety, his determination and his horror at the impending destruction of Excalibur. His anguished scream of “Daystrum!!!” is classic Shatner in the best sense.

Amazing episode.

 

Howdy! Or rather, Welcome Back! But I think I joined up after you left.

Looking forward to reviews that aren't of an era deemed "my ___". (TOS I grew up with but DS9 became "my Trek". I grew up on Tom Baker Doctor Who but Hartnell, Colin Baker, and Peter Capaldi became "my Doctor"s). Any or all that might change two or fourteen times by next week. And criticizing old shows, I was doing that to shows made before I was born, before I was born. So there.

That's why I don't drink.

To me, it felt like proto-TNG. With some charming 1950s trappings about finding sexual mates but with a neat zoo motif.

His wife convinced him sci-fi was beneath him.

He also died in 1969, at the age of 42.

He had ears but was otherwise very shouty. These production-based inconsistencies would slowly be ironed out as early TOS had some of the mannerisms still presented. Until DSC, Spock's relative goofiness in the pilot, early season 1, and the occasional season 3 episode had no canonical explanation. The show was finding its own way, as well as appeasing the censors - who felt Spock looked like the devil incarnate, only sans tail. Stripping emotions instead of acting shouty and grinny was a big step toward improvement.

DSC gives her one, but in all fairness it's just as uninteresting and uninspiring. As if it's an in-joke to your very point. Number One is just a placeholder in this story, as is everyone save for Pike and even Spock. But given some dialogue and a chance, I felt Majel could pull it off. She carries a lot of TAS as well.

According to Memory Alpha website, the character Number One was removed not because the character was female but because of two things:
a) they did not believe Majel could do a strong role
b) they also wanted to get rid of Spock, and a compromise was made between Gene and those he sold the show to.

Possibly due in part to budget constraints; the show was - by far - the most expensive made to date. (Which is one partial reason why a second pilot was commissioned; they threw a ton of money at this "wagon train in space" notion.)

It is also a pilot; the goal is to sell and greenlight a bunch of ideas into a series. Too little can harm. Too much is worse for something like this.

TOS, despite Gene wanting more real science, had a lot of supernatural stuff in it. Par for the course for sci-fi/fantasy for sure. Brains sending brainy thoughts to several star systems away isn't just high concept, it's high fantasy.

And yet it works.

The overall plot, acting and production do sell it nicely.

And the Talosians not being evil as such, made even less "not being evil as such" in "The Menagerie" sells one of Trek's best points.

Yeah, stuff we didn't think about as kids... rewatching as adults, there's a lot that's cringeworthy and not illegitimately so.

Thankfully not all episodes are so "1950s", but the audience and who the makers were trying to bring in... an adult audience... to that era it was, to an extent, "the norm" and "the vast majority".

DS9's premiere did feel a lot like TOS and I always thought that was a general feel. I never picked up any conscious influence to a specific episode, but I think you nailed it. It's still not a trope unique to Trek, but6 "Cage" may have been an influence.

And a number of them aren't as bad with the sexist stuff. Some sadly are. I'd love to namedrop some episodes that clash between good ideas with crass sexism but you'll see them in due course. TOS is a mixed bag, but there are still some strengths that transcend what's dated. It is a study in the id, ego, and superego in ways.

 

Re: “The Ultimate Computer.”

The spectre of total automation is still with us. Perhaps its most prominent present day example is the prospect of autonomous cars. And, lo and behold, someone has already died and/or been hurt by this technology.

Some of us could empathize with Kirk in that we like, we enjoy driving. It’s one of those things where we also feel in control. The prospect of losing that experience can feel threatening.

And that is certainly ever more true today than it was in 1968.

 

You're right, I was wrong to say that it went nuts for no reason, probably a consequence of writing the review a few weeks after I watched the episode. My issue was more that the computer going nuts allowed the episode to sidestep the issue of automation replacing human jobs, once M5 goes haywire it's just taken as a given that automation is no longer a threat to Kirk's job and the drama shifts to stopping M5. I just found that shift unsatisfying. They never resolve the original conflict, they just sweep it under the rug.


The Omega Glory (0)

Was Gene Roddenberry a visionary? Sure. Was he a good script-writer? Sadly, I lean towards saying no. Now there’s a caveat there in that he may have done a number of uncredited rewrites on good episodes that would bring up his average, but there is a certain flavour to the episodes he is actually credited as writing, and for the most part it’s not a nice flavour. The Omega Glory is the worst of the bunch, and it’s in the running for being one of my least favourite episodes in all of Star Trek.

It’s not just that it’s very stupid, the structure of the episode itself is terrible. There’s no flow to the drama, there’s no driving force or build up to a dramatic climax. The episode just bumps from one idea to another, never settling on one of them long enough to say anything interesting, before the final act swerves straight into crazytown. All of this is padded out with comically repetitive brawling. The climax at the end is supposed to be a big fight between Kirk and Tracey, but I’ve already watched them fight each other like four times already. Why should I care that they’re at it again?

The worst thing about this episode is that it doesn’t even have the “so bad it’s good” factor that some of the other bad episodes have. This episode is boring as well as stupid. It’s a lethal combination.

And then there’s the “America! Fuck yeah!” of it all. Yes, Star Trek is an American franchise and it reflects American values and culture in all their contradictory glory. But for the most part the franchise has had an internationalist veneer. It talks up humanity, not nations. The Omega Glory doesn’t have that pretence, it’s an episode about Americans in space. I can’t comment on how Americans feel about that, but as a non-American it’s one of the few times in Star Trek where I don’t feel included.

Which I guess is okay, because why would I want to be included in such a boring mess of an episode?

 

I see what you mean. I think that's right.

 

“The Omega Glory” heralds the best of American principles which, at their core’ really aren’t much different from the principles other nations and other people can aspire to. It certainly doesn’t herald capitalism which is something apart from political/social ideals. As a Canadian living right next door to the U.S. I didn’t feel excluded by what the episode was espousing.

The Federation reflects accepted American principles not only in spirit but in practice, which is something America itself doesn’t actually do whole cloth and consistently. I always accepted that Kirk was really espousing Federation principles channeled through the words of the American Constitution.

The real problem, I think, with this episode is its heavy handedness, similar to the heavy handedness displayed in “Patterns Of Force.”

Also, I think it still resonates that people can forget and corrupt the meaning of what they supposedly stand for. In example I offer you the current Republican party.

 

The idea that everyone has rights or nobody does is when I get misty-eyed watching "The Omega Glory."

On the other hand, the Preamble, American flag, and Star-Spangled Banner are cringe-worthy to this American. Having such specific American trappings would have made more sense at least, if it had been a Planet of the Apes type reveal, and it was truly an alternate Earth, not just one with parallel humanoid evolution. Similar remarks apply to "Miri" (the Earth globe in the teaser, WTF ). Really when you get down to it, "Bread and Circuses" also belongs in this barrel, but, you know, Star Trek isn't actually hard science fiction.

I'm still unclear on what's omega here.

 

As an American, I can comment that "pretense" should be spelled with an S.

 

I like "The Omega Glory" for the most part for a couple of definite reasons:

1) the mystery is compelling. What a great set up. I always love it when the original series Enterprise runs into a sister ship, whether it's the Exeter, Constellation, the attack group or the Defiant. Sure, it's just footage of the same model or an AMT kit, but it makes the fleet real.

2) I love cinema fights. There are a few actors who had amazingly good movies and didn't alway sneed a double to convey skill and power: George Lazenby was the best at fighting in the Bond films until Daniel Craig. Richard Basehart, Van Williams, Robert Conrad and James Darren were all really good in their weekly brawls and I love a good and well choreographed fight. And I love Star Trek fights where Shatner does his own stunts, as he did here. He did every fight without a stunt man (as did Woodward) and even though Morgan Woodward said Shatner had a stunt guy in an interview, the evidence is on screen: nope. First, Trek was nortoriously bad at hiding stunt artists. And you was always easy to see when Shatner was doubled. The hair abd build was always way off. Also, Shatner had a very distinctive and theatrical fighting style. He knew exactly how to look good and his punches and body moves were always fluid and slick. In later series, all of the fights looks the same (very mechanical with a lot of pauses between blows). Shatner's work in this is great and Morgan Woodward is super energetic in the fights.

3) Morgan Woodward is amazing here and I like him in this better than "Dagger of the Mind."

4) Nobody, and I mean nobody, reads the constitution like Shatner. A damned Canadian and he put so much power and passion into the delivery. He can read it every July 4th...

Cons:
1) that mystery just fizzes because it wasn't the point of the episode. Just look at the title: it was all about Roddenberry getting us to the flag. Old Glory on Omega. For that reason, the story is weak. It's all about the third act reveal.

2) I can't think of a rational reason why the flag and constituion are there. Paralell Earth is one thing, but this exact duplication, down to the typography, is too much. It's a total fantasy. Had this been an alternate universe they slipped into, fine. But it's just some other planet. Some mention of an Earth colony would have helped a litte.

Really, though, I like this one. I watch it more than most people and I find it a beezy hour.

 

Wasn't The Omega Glory considered for the first episode aired? That may have killed the series right there.