Permission to board the bandwagon?
Episode of the Week : Dagger of the Mind
- Thread starter Botany Bay
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Do what, stretch the thread?
Marianna Hill as Helen Noel has always been my vote as Star Trek's hottest female. And I never found her the least bit irritating. 
I think a lot of her appeal stems from her uniform being about two sizes too small for her.
When it comes to TOS babes, Marianna Hill is certainly up to par, but she's not head and shoulders above the rest.
I suspect the good doctor had Gene Roddenberry's infamous scissors do some work on her uniform. But I think someone must have gotten a bit nervous about Roddenberry's tailoring job. When Noel beams down, I notice she has her hands behind her back to cover her science division blue underwear when she walks through the elevator doors.
So, what are your theories on what Dr Adams' motivation was? Did he accidentally wipe out Van Gelder's mind in an experiment gone wrong, and is now trying to frantically cover his tracks or did he just snap one day and decide to turn the whole colony -- staff and patients -- into a bunch of mindless drones?
So, what are your theories on what Dr Adams' motivation was? Did he accidentally wipe out Van Gelder's mind in an experiment gone wrong, and is now trying to frantically cover his tracks or did he just snap one day and decide to turn the whole colony -- staff and patients -- into a bunch of mindless drones?
I'd think Adams did good work with curable criminals, then got frustrated with the ones he couldn't cure, and overstepped first one line, then a dozen trying to get it right. When van Gelder caught him red-handed, he panicked and turned the knob to eleven (whether with the help of a ruse or just physical coercion, we can't tell), and had absolutely no idea what to do next.
When Kirk called, Adams tried something desperate again. But crediting him with a "plan" would seem unfair. He didn't have ambitions beyond being a respected criminotherapist again.
I doubt his staff consisted of zombies. The people we saw were just your standard goons, working in a steady job and doing things they couldn't hope to understand.
Timo Saloniemi
When Kirk called, Adams tried something desperate again. But crediting him with a "plan" would seem unfair. He didn't have ambitions beyond being a respected criminotherapist again.
I doubt his staff consisted of zombies. The people we saw were just your standard goons, working in a steady job and doing things they couldn't hope to understand.
Timo Saloniemi
The ones who spoke had flat affect and were therefore certainly zombies. I really don't see why he wouldn't put everyone there under the neural neutralizer. Once he had some converted, he could overpower everyone else one by one.
It's never clear what this episode is trying to be. Is it supposed to be a knock at hypnosis, maybe even a warning about psychiatry? Or is it just trying to kill roughly an hour, for entertainment purposes?
I think he turned megalomaniac. He didn't seem panicked at all, he was cleary overconfident, blinded by arrogance. That's why he was unable to realize why he couln't neutralize a starship captain as he did with Van Gelder.
I don't think it was a warning about psychiatry in general, "being trapped in asylum runned by a mad doctor" isn't rare, but a warning about some practices as A Clockwork Orange did. In fact, what Adams did in the episode is close of what Ewen Camermon did in real-life in Montreal between 1956 and 1963.
Remember who these people are supposed to be - they are wardens in a mental asylum. Why would they put more timbre to their voice? (And why would they find anything unusual in being asked to subdue and strap to the Neutralizer a person wearing a flashy uniform and claiming to be a brilliant military leader?)Timo Saloniemi
There really are a lot of unknowns in this story, aren't there? Including the character of Lethe (river of forgetfulness, if I'm not mistaken), and that weird toast of Dr. Adams', during which we see Lethe. I'm not sure what was implied here...
"May we never find space so vast, planets so cold, heart and mind so empty that, that we cannot fill them with love and warmth."
Which if nothing else brings up an always-interesting aspect of actors, at least for me. This actress, for all we know, might be the most entertaining, nicest, laugh-a-minute person in the world...but in the episode...my God, look at that (non)expression!
"May we never find space so vast, planets so cold, heart and mind so empty that, that we cannot fill them with love and warmth."
Which if nothing else brings up an always-interesting aspect of actors, at least for me. This actress, for all we know, might be the most entertaining, nicest, laugh-a-minute person in the world...but in the episode...my God, look at that (non)expression!
There really are a lot of unknowns in this story, aren't there? Including the character of Lethe (river of forgetfulness, if I'm not mistaken), and that weird toast of Dr. Adams', during which we see Lethe. I'm not sure what was implied here...
"May we never find space so vast, planets so cold, heart and mind so empty that, that we cannot fill them with love and warmth."
Which if nothing else brings up an always-interesting aspect of actors, at least for me. This actress, for all we know, might be the most entertaining, nicest, laugh-a-minute person in the world...but in the episode...my God, look at that (non)expression!
I think this speaks to Dr. Adams' motivation, at least in the beginning. He may have thought that he was curing the sick by inserting sanity into them, but the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Lethe is one of the episode's highlights for me. "I love my work." Chilling. Obviously neural-neutralized.
...And now you have put into my mind the horrid idea of Adams perhaps having found "Lethe" lacking in love and warmth (towards him) and having applied a treatment purely on that basis, rather than on basis of her being a mass murderer or hedgerow vandalizer or even an inmate at all.
Timo Saloniemi
Wow ... wouldn't that be something, if that were so. One woman hurt him and he took his revenge by giving her a labotomy. Poor honey ... she still knows how to apply her make-up properly, though. Must be a genetic, instinctive thing women do ...
I think he may have been planning to perfect his brainwashing techniques and spread the "love". Space was a bigger place in TOS, you could get away with things out on the frontier.
I'm in the middle of watching it yet again, and paused at the mind meld scene.
It's just the script, Nimoy, Woodward, Kelley, and all those folks behind the camera and in editing. Nimoy and Woodward carry it all, with just reactions from Kelley. Just a marvelous sequence for this strange, new thing Spock can do. It's a shame that the mind meld became a type of shorthand for Spock having peculiar powers.
Edit:
The incident may also contribute to Kirk's popular reputation as a womanizing stud. Spock watched Kirk and Helen beam down, with Kirk already irritated for her being in the room. The next time he sees them together, Kirk is going all mushy face on her after pulling her from the air conduit. Spock, of course, would just have to tell somebody about this, even if it's only McCoy.
It's just the script, Nimoy, Woodward, Kelley, and all those folks behind the camera and in editing. Nimoy and Woodward carry it all, with just reactions from Kelley. Just a marvelous sequence for this strange, new thing Spock can do. It's a shame that the mind meld became a type of shorthand for Spock having peculiar powers.
Edit:
The incident may also contribute to Kirk's popular reputation as a womanizing stud. Spock watched Kirk and Helen beam down, with Kirk already irritated for her being in the room. The next time he sees them together, Kirk is going all mushy face on her after pulling her from the air conduit. Spock, of course, would just have to tell somebody about this, even if it's only McCoy.
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