"Archons": You make the call.

Discussion in 'Star Trek - The Original & Animated Series' started by plynch, Aug 15, 2011.

  1. plynch

    plynch Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Reading the "Kirk talks computers down" thread, I am embarrassed to admit, I couldn't remember much more than FESTIVAL and the creepy guy in the bowler. So, I and the whole fam watched it tonight. One of the few my kids hadn't seen yet, too.

    It's not an iconic episode, so it gets forgotten, eh? And we really shouldn't fault IT for being one of those Kirk-computer ones, because it was the first. And really, the whole stagnant-but-happy society is a great issue to deal with.

    1. Turmoiled times (1960s, now) do lead people to want a perfect, happy place with no troubles.

    2. The regimented, directed society is reminiscent of Communism and its attempts at an engineered society with the "New Soviet Man."

    3. Just lately I've been wondering about how well democracy works or not. This episode speaks to some of the danger of having a dictator in general.

    Plus it has the "creepy townspeople" trope, and it leaves ya guessin a bit about FESTIVAL!

    Finally, I wish the ship had not been in mortal danger. That would have made it more of a moral dilemma whether to fry the computer.

    What do you think of "Archons"?

    And, had your ship been not in danger, would you have left the society as it was? Or would you have fried Landru so that people can suffer, but create and grow?
     
  2. Admiral Buzzkill

    Admiral Buzzkill Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    As an overall production, the episode is almost "Twilight Zone-ish."
     
  3. Mr. Laser Beam

    Mr. Laser Beam Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I don't see what's so surprising about Festival/Red Hour. I always thought it was exactly what they showed it to be: a way to let off steam. All that emotional control of 'The Body' means they have a lot of pent up anger and lust and all the rest of those emotions just bottled up inside them. They had to let it out somehow. That's why Landru had them 'party' on a regular basis. Otherwise they'd go space crazy.

    As to what I'd do if my ship was not in danger? I have no idea. If there was no risk that other outsiders might get pulled in, I'd probably have left them alone.
     
  4. Vonstadt

    Vonstadt Captain Captain

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    I agree with Mr. LB, ,I mean if my ship was not in trouble you would at best go back under to retrieve your lost crewmen and then get the heck out of dodge to minimize the damage to the culture.

    To just go after the computer would've had Capt. "I did what to the Prime Directive this time?' Kirk in more hot water than usual :P

    The fact the ship was in danger was the story giving Kirk just the right amount of thin ice to skate on to be honest.

    I do have to admit watching this show as a kid made me think of the old Twilight Zone episodes and the townspeople really did creep me out...the plastic smiles and each time that guy on the street addressed them as friend with the eeries Trek music...whoa very scary :P
     
  5. plynch

    plynch Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Still first-seasonish. A sci-fi story in Star Trek guise.

    That's a good guess about FESTIVAL! but we'll never know, will we? I just like the fact that something gets left unexplained for people to think about 44 years later.

    As to leaving them alone, I agree. I know GR was big about there always having to be something in jeopardy to make viewers "care." The ship always in danger, or that plague on Whozis II if we don't rendezvous with the Ludington on time. This time the ship in danger weakens the moral dilemma aspect, though Kirk wasn't struggling with the dilemma. It's actually presented better in the Apple as a disagreement between K & S. And this was the Sixties, the dawning of the human potential movement and self-actualization, so to GR (story credit on Archons), no-growth was abominable, moreso than being overbearing and imposing one's views on a happy people.

    I was noticing the use of creepy S1 music (Man Trap) music, myself. Some good acting in this one by Reger and the priest. The execution of Landru breaking down is a bit lame. I know they had to get in the point about him hurting the body, but when his voice speeds up and smoke comes out, it does take away from the overall production. Shoulda just phasered him like in the Apple. (My second favorable Apple ref. Really I prefer "Archons.")

    Thanks for the thoughts, all.
     
  6. SonicRanger

    SonicRanger Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I've heard that the "ship in danger" angle occurred so frequently because it was requested by the network to up the tension.
     
  7. plynch

    plynch Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Makes sense. Even though we know in '60s tv nothing long-term bad is going to happen.

    I'll hand that to Berman era Trek. Sometimes it did. Bad I mean. Yar and Dax immediately come to mind. But those were both surprises. If we were in tension all ep about some bad thing occurring; and then it really did, that would really keep you guessing in future eps about how they would end (first-run, anyway).

    I'll have to file that idea away for my next series.
     
  8. A.V.I.A.F.

    A.V.I.A.F. Captain

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    I think it's pretty clear that they are all engaging in a drunken orgy and smash-up party (women being carried off wearing lustful expressions). I think that they couldn't be too explicit about what they were depicting given the times.
     
    Last edited: Aug 15, 2011
  9. Admiral Buzzkill

    Admiral Buzzkill Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Yep.

    When TOS stopped being science fiction first and The Amazing Adventures of Captain Kirk and Crew second it lost a lot of its creative energy - and when it further mutated into Kirk & Pals on the big screen it pretty much lost the plot altogether.
     
  10. A.V.I.A.F.

    A.V.I.A.F. Captain

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    I'm not sure how I feel about your statement. I agree with your appraisal of how TOS mutated over the course of its three seasons; but I am not sure if that mutation was necessarily a negative (as I presume you do). Granted, the third season was really very weak with the exception of some truly great episodes with great story-lines; however, I don't think that TOS could have worked according to a similar structure as Zone or Outer Limits for that matter. In the case of those series, each episode was designed to be totally self-contained. TOS, on the other hand featured the same core characters returning each week. Consequently, making episodes that focused on these characters reacting to a new problem each week seems appropriate (i.e. the Kirk & Pals formula).
     
  11. ToddPence

    ToddPence Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    That's what they tried to do. But Landru deactivated the landing party's phasers, making it necessary to talk him to death.
     
  12. plynch

    plynch Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Yup. But why, if L has such good control over them? The whole pent-up release theory makes sense, but it's never explained to us dumb audience members. I like that.

    Formulaic, almost.

    I find S3 as good as 2 because in 3 you get away from "humor" and the mundane (K and S on the _________ planet stories) back to more sci-fi conceptual ones.

    Very true, I meant the writers could have had the phasers work, to avoid the cheesy breakdown effects. But you wouldn't have gotten the Big Words from Kirk, so I guess I'm ok with the way it went.
     
  13. Wingsley

    Wingsley Commodore Commodore

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    "The Return of the Archons" reminds me of some backwards places I've been to. You can always tell when a place or an organization is controlled by some clique that doesn't tolerate dissent or any outsiders or outside influence of any kind. People often try to make themselves happy to cope, and they wind up being very weird. It's even creepier to see in real life.

    I don't claim to know the mind of the Great Goddenberry, but it does seem to me that GR was making a political statement with this ep, showing that sometimes "interference in other societies", presumably banned by General Order One, aka the Prime Directive, ("...you swear you'd all die before you violated it, am I right?") is not so absolute. ("...life itself is an exercise in exceptions.")

    I believe Roddenberry was using this story to show how a local "establishment" can become corrupt and totalitarian, and this can pose a threat to its neighbors much as Communism and Jim Crow did. GR seemed to be saying that sometimes "the plug must be pulled" presumably because a corrupt establishment was too dangerous to be fit to survive. The starship threat angle, as has been pointed out upthread, becomes repetitive in TOS. "The Apple" is the most obvious example. In the 1970's and early '80's novel writers Sondra Marshak and Myrna Colbreath explored several recurring themes first raised in TOS. In their TOS-based novel "Triangle", Spock speculated that a planet the Enterprise was approaching "could be a starship trap", I took this to be the final christening of a "once upon a planet"-style plot device the proved to be an effective staple of political commentaries in STAR TREK. It goes like this: the Enterprise (or some other unfortunate starship like the Archon or the Valiant at Eminiar VII) is out exploring or is dispatched to deal with a situation on a non-aligned alien world. Upon arriving, the starship is ensnared in a trap; the local corrupt establishment turns out to be totalitarian, hostile to Federation visitors and their ideals, and so a powerful attack ensues. The Archon and the Valiant were unfortunate victims of starship traps. Perhaps GO1 contains a "starship trap clause", allowing Federation skippers to override the non-interference directive if the attack makes it clear that an alien world demonstrates the power (and the inclination) to threaten starships.

    When Landru attacked the Enterprise at Beta III, it was at least among the first examples of what would become a somewhat well-used plot device we can call the "starship trap". Kirk recognized that an alien society that uses mind control on its people and also shows itself to be "powerful enough to destroy a starship" can be exempted from GO1.

    When Proconsul Claudius Markus attempted to pressure Captain Kirk to "order your officers to come down", Scotty was correct to issue a much more limited response with the electro-magnetic pulse blackout of the capital city. Note that even though Kirk mused about ordering 100 Enterprise crewmen to attack the Empire, Markus knew enough about the Federation to dismiss the bluff. Planet IV of System 892 did not represent a "starship trap"-style threat, at least not yet.

    I do not fault "The Return of the Archons" with being a "starship trap" cliché, since this was arguably only the second example of such a snare being used on the Enterprise. (The first was "Shore Leave", the next being "A Taste of Armageddon".)

    This ep does raise the question in my mind, though, that the Federation should empower its starships to use unmanned probes to sniff out such traps before risking exposure of one of their capital ships.
     
  14. A.V.I.A.F.

    A.V.I.A.F. Captain

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    Yes, I agree! S3 definitely brings back that "out there" kind of flavor both to the plot-lines and to the non-Entreprise characters. Unfortunately, much less effort was actually put into the production of that season's episodes and the stories weren't developed as well as they could have been.
     
  15. plynch

    plynch Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Yeah. No argument here.
     
  16. Cadet49

    Cadet49 Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    Great comparison! I always loved the Trek episodes that felt a bit, as you say, Twighlight Zonish ... like "Shore Leave" and "Squire of Gothos", "Charlie X" etc. all felt like they had Twilight Zone feel to them!
     
  17. Wingsley

    Wingsley Commodore Commodore

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    ^ Part of that was how it was filmed. The "look" of TOS Year 1 had a pronounced "Twilight Zone" look to it; not just the camera and angles or lighting, but also the look of some of the sets.
     
  18. Jose Tyler

    Jose Tyler Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    Not the best S1 episode, but I was always fond of two parts; the first was when Kirk disobeys the lawgivers and starts in with his finger-pointing "you tell Landru" bit (a great example of badass S1 Kirk) and the second is when they try the slow-speed escape from the boarding house, a totally effective creepy vibe...
     
  19. The Squire of Gothos

    The Squire of Gothos Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    As an aside, the scene in the prison cell is the very first bit of Trek I remember from many, many years ago.
     
  20. plynch

    plynch Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Yes - you get the "smiling townsfolk who are really scarey" trope. Done best by (no surprise) Ray Bradbury in Martian Chronicles, almost bittersweetly. Dang. Ray Bradbury.

    You get it again a bit in Voyager's premier too.