Agency of Female Characters

IMO, it's the work of yeomen (who appear to combine various Logistics functions) who can include men (Pike and Kirk IIRC specifically called out having had male yeomen in the past) but for various (out of universe) reasons are mostly female on the Enterprise.

 

I suppose not everybody who hands Kirk a padd on the bridge is necessarily a yeoman (Marlena for example), but some of them have definitely been men.

Star Trek's problem was unnecessarily naming the redshirted women as yeomen instead of letting them be assumed to be engineers or security guards. Why is Martha Landon named as a yeoman instead of just a security-trained crewman. It's like they had to go out of their way to be sexist, which is such a far cry from the Cage that I believe there was an intentional decision to marginalise and trivialise the female crew. :-/

I watched Whom Gods Destroy yesterday. I stand by my claim that Garth would have been a better foil for Kirk in Into Darkness - tactical genius with knowledge of modern technology, ability to change appearance, ability to heal on a celular level with a side effect of affecting sanity (limited Pandora's box) that could help explain how he could survive a long-distance transport and could be a one-off to repair radiation damage, he's nuts, and he even looks a bit like Cumberbatch in TOS.

I like the array of Federation aliens in this one but it is more of a comedy story. Marta is a delight in many different ways and it's nice to see Kirk's much vaunted allure be a double-edged sword. There are some nice special effects too, such as the gravity restraints.

I have no clue why Kirk and Spock beam down on a medical mission without Bones. I can't help feeling I'd have liked it more if it had been McCoy and Noel instead but would the story have played out very differently? If Noel had been tortured, McCoy would likely have caved in and tried to warn the ship some other way. Garth would have had to take out Kirk once on board and it's hard to see how he and a bunch of nutters could have made much headway... Oh wait - space hippies. Still, that doesn't make it right.

 

Didn't that also happen in "Is there in Truth no Beauty"?

When they were tossing that idea around in the Forums before the movie came out and it was revealed that it was to be Khan, I thought the idea of Garth would have been stupid as he was OTT crazy. But the way you explained it, it would have made a lot more sense than Khan. And maybe he could have cured the little girl/Kirk with what he had been taught by those guys who fixed him in the episode. He wouldn't have to have been as crazy as he was in TOS either.
Yeh cool

 

Watched Let that be your Last Battlefield and the Mark of Gideon.

The first one has nothing for the ladies much at all. Both antagonists are male, Lokai preaches only to the men, while Uhura and Chapel get snippets of dialogue. Curiously Uhura gets notified when someone transports instead of the security console. Probably just a way to give her more lines.

Overall the episode is very heavy handed with the symbolism (50,000 years? Really? Get a hobby) but I suppose it was written in more difficult times. A lot of it seems to be full of ranting, reaction shots, and fevered imaginings. I also thought that Bele's ability to control the ship was poorly justified. Someone should also tell the Federation to change their passwords more often - they use the same ones in STIII...

The Mark of Gideon is an interesting one. I think the concept is cool and Odona has a good deal of agency but unfortunately, she uses it to play dumb, thus making her character appear to be far less interesting. Even McCoy and Scotty are in minor support roles in this one. The most fun is watching Spock match his cool wits with procrastinating diplomats while everyone else grinds their teeth.

The plot doesn't really make sense. Either the transporter filters out diseases or it doesn't. Infecting planets you are beaming down to is as big a risk as beaming back an alien disease and this one leaves a big question mark hanging over how bio-filters might actually work.

 

It was a very odd premise that apart from being black and white in colour, these two guys that absolutely loathed each other were virtually immortal as well! 50,000 years must be their equivalent to our two decades I guess!
JB

 

That Which Survives was today's episode. This was actually a decent ensemble piece. I have no idea why or how Uhura monitors the magnetic force of the antimatter chamber from the Comms console instead of the engineering console but at least she got some lines.

The landing party made sense for once. The dialogue referenced the various skills of the characters. Chekov gets a mention despite not being in the episode. Sulu, Scotty, and Spock all get some decent lines. Spock is particularly bitchy, Sulu displays yet more heroic common sense and some impressive agility, and Scotty is willing to sacrifice everything.

It's nice to see the senior geologist is an officer, and we learn that in addition to general surgeons McCoy and M'Benga, and psychiatrist Noel, we have pathologist Sanchez on the medical staff. McCoy has reported on autopsies before though, so it's odd that M'Benga cited an additional doctor.

It is a very technobabbly episode for TOS, including the scientific method applied by the landing party, and that's possibly why I like it. just enough science for my amateur and yet enquiring mind. Obviously, being pinged 900+ light years is a bit problematic storywise. 90 would have been plenty!

As far as the ladies go, Rada makes a decent, professional helmsman, although she looks like she's just applied skin darkening make-up for the role of a south asian. Her dialogue could easily have been gifted to Chekov, so I appreciate her presence. I love the way she takes all the crap from Spock with twitchy grimaces. Far more professional than some of the guests in season one.

Losira is intriguing. I like the subtle tricks she pulls throughout the episode, although the limits on what the computer can and can't do are a bit arbitrary and are poorly explained. Certainly shades of Ilia here, even if Nomad is more often cited as the inspiration for TMP. More crewmen dozily engage an alien intruder solo rather than reporting it immediately. Why? It always ends the same! Starfleet needs to amend its training asap.

It's a shame that there is a lot of focus on her beauty. Even when Spock steps in at the end to remark on her intelligence, Kirk slaps him down and insists on objectifying her. Overall though, i like this one.

 

Anything would have been better than that version of Khan and anyone would have been better than Cumberbatch!
JB

 

Just watched Requiem for Methuselah. It's an intriguing premise let down by hokey story elements. Why does he have such superior technology? I realise it was necessary to add peril but peril would not have even been necessary with a more nuanced plot.

Rayna is interesting but yet again they have to tell us expressly how smart she is because her dialogue and reactions make her look extremely dumb. Here we have an incredibly smart woman and the story is all about encouraging her to embrace crippling and destructive emotion so she can be like other the other irrational women on the show. Yay.

The biggest let down of the episode is Kirk's out of character behaviour. Spock has to remind him of his duty to hundreds of dying crew on multiple occasions and he presses a vulnerable young woman he's only known for a couple of hours into a relationship even though he doesn't need to in order to stop the ship blowing up.

McCoy's cruel dressing down to Spock and Kirk's confession to Spock that he's lonely were the only decent parts that rang true. My heart was breaking as Spock just took McCoy's jibes without expression even though you could almost feel each blow landing square on his chin.

I wonder why wasn't Data wasn't based on Flint's research? Technically Rayna might have been more like a replicant than a robot perhaps. It wasn't clear that she was mechanical in nature I guess.

It might have been nice to have Chapel on the landing party. She loves a bit of robo - romance.

 

The Lights of Zetar features yet another allegedly intelligent woman who is yet again a love interest for a man, whose dialogue yet again demonstrates little of the alleged intelligence described, and whose role involves none of the skills the character is supposed to possess. In fact, she acts stubbornly and contrarily, and is said to be vulnerable basically because she's 'pliant'. In her opening introduction, the male characters objectify her much as they do with Palamis and Denher (or in the latter case, criticise her because she's professional rather than receptive towards male advances).

Pretty much her only act of agency is to stop resisting the investigation. She's largely a passenger to the plot so overall she's a pretty poor example. Chapel does at least get to repeat the computer in this one rather than just hand over a hypo so that's progress.

Interestingly, Mira, like McCoy and Chapel, became qualified first, and only attended Starfleet Academy for officer training.

 

The Way to Eden doesn't have much to offer on any level, except perhaps Spock's rather unusual interest in the space hippy movement. You can almost see the beginning of his decision to take kohlinar in this episode. It's a nice character piece for Chekov too but any potential in the plot premise is squandered with too much hippy music. At least they kept Uhura out of this one. I don't imagine Palmer spontaneously bursts into song very often.

Far better is the Cloud miners. Admittedly, Droxine acts like she's high on valium, and Spock's barely concealed hard-on is a bit distracting and out of character but Vanna is awesome. Not only is she a rebel leader with some balls, she stands her ground in the verbal sparring, and somehow manages to resist Kirk's charms (I'm guessing xenite blocked his mojo).

The themes of the episode, remarkably and depressingly, are still very relevant today, as the gap between rich and poor rises with each generation. All I will say is that someone needs to get Trump a filter mask, cos that xenite done f**ked his brain up.

 

I've just watched The Savage Curtain and Turnabout Intruder.

I really enjoy the Savage Curtain, especially the early part where they try to puzzle Lincoln's true nature. I wouldn't have minded if it had been a two parter, maybe with a couple of extra characters on the planet. It's a shame that Khaless is so limp and that Ghengis and Zora are entirely silent sketches. In an expanded episode, it might have been fun to see Khaless be a peerless warrior or watch Zora concoct poisons. Obviously, the villains are limited by our heroes' knowledge of them. I also really like the Excalibians attitude and dialogue. I was less impressed by their nebulous plot contrived super powers.

Overall, as far as the women go, there's not much here. It was fun to see Zora wrestle Spock but apart from Uhura's exchange with Lincoln, this is all about the boys.

I enjoy Turnabout Intruder more than I should up until the point where they start throwing around executions. Lester-Kirk demonstrates quite clearly that women could have been portrayed far better even in the sixties while the over the top Kirk-Lester shows that it's the way the characters were written with appallingly sexist assumptions that limited their scope.

This episode could also have offered up a decent role for Yeoman Rand, had she remained.

 

Finally got round to watching episode three. They are finally getting it right, including the number of background characters!

 

I always liked the way that Yarnek pronounced the word Klingon as Klingun when introducing Kahless as the one who started their rise to power and cruelty across the galaxy!
JB

 

Eleen pronounced it that way in Friday's Child, when she was dissing the discount Klingon.

 

Watched All Our Yesterdays today. Of all the episodes of Trek I watched as a child, this one affected me the most. Zarabeth's lonely fate, that last look with a single frozen tear was devastating. Joan Collins being run over, not so much.

The assumption is that Zarabeth's is a skilled hunter and she actually saves the men but she's just a bit too sweet for me. I would have liked her to be harder and colder, more damaged, maybe a bit like Michael Burnham.

The Kirk thread is a tiresome distraction, with the slovenly trull being a grotesque comic caricature not even worthy of the worst pantomime.

I can now take great comfort from the novels that detail the fate of Zarabeth's part Vulcan son so at least her story didn't end with that sad and lonely goodbye scene.

 

She did indeed, FL! I had momentarily forgotten that exchange!
JB

 

Doesn't Kothoth pronounce it "Klingin"?

 

You mean Koloth, of course. No, He said "Kling-Ahn", or even "Kling-Gahn". It was Cyrano Jones that said "Klingin".

 

Universal translators always have trouble with klingon. Look at the occasions they fail to translate words completely.

 

The series has lapped itself so I can enjoy some of my favourite episodes from season I watched the Man Trap and Charlie X and both of them actually give Rand and Uhura pretty sizeable parts.

First observation is that Uhura in the Man Trap is REALLY horny. She propositions Spock, then the maintenance man, and then gets seduced by a salt vampire! All Rand gets is some limp celery and a couple of gay guys who wish she'd share her wig-weaving tips. It was amusing how she slapped Green's hand away from Sulu's lunch and then scoffed a load herself. Uhura gets some great lines too. I wish they could have kept up that level of writing for her.

The Sulu-Rand exchange is probably my favourite scene of Rand's because she gets to be sassy with a more junior officer but neither Uhura or Rand drive the story in any way and even this early on, the landing party consisted only of dudes. At least Nancy knew how to take, and deal, a punch!

Charlie X is probably Rand's biggest episode and there is a lot to like in it, even if it comes a bit close to the plot of the second pilot. She does display some rudimentary understanding of human psychology early on but she displays all the common sense of a sack of spuds for not realising that she had the best chance of keeping Charlie under control. A missed opportunity for her to play something other than a victim.

Uhura still wiggling her booty all around Spock is fun to watch. She'll get herself up on a sexual harassment charge if she's not careful, assuming Chapel doesn't get there first.

Tina Lawton was more interesting as a lizard. She had all the empathy of a Gorn. I guess 23rd century teenagers are as annoying as 21st century ones. As least Charlie spurning her spared us any space hippy music.