Episode of the Week : Shore Leave

[Ssosmcin]

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.

When I was a kid, I thought the bullet caught him in the mouth. I also thought they Enterprise always went to the same world, since they were constantly beaming down to the Planet "Surface."

 

[Timo]

...We could rationalize this if we really wanted to appear anal-retentive. So here goes:

Melakon fires with abandon, sweeping his gun rather than trying to hold it at a specific spot: the bullet holes on the curtain are something like thirty centimeters apart. He might be considering the possibility of Gill standing up and trying to flee, I guess.

OTOH, there's a glass of some sort between the curtain and Gill - quite possibly armored to a degree.

So perhaps Gill did stand up, turn around, and get caught in the back by a few bullets that had lost much of their momentum in the armored glass (which we don't really hear or see shatter)?

That Gill was heavily drugged and forced to do something he didn't want to is a theory put forth by our heroes who want to believe good things about the man. For all we know, Melakon merely provided the very willing Führer with a bottle of local intoxicant to take away his worries, and Gill gladly consumed it before making public speeches. It would stop him from worrying about politics - but not about a submachine gun being pointed at him...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Push The Button]

A lazy Saturday afternoon, so I'm rewatching this episode. A few observations:

Sulu gets more screen time and dialogue than usual, which is good to see. He also gets to scare Don Juan off with a little martial-artistry while Rodriguez just stands there.

Kirk is a pretty good shot with any weapon, it seems. Not sure how many bullets that revolver holds, but it is apparently more than six.

Number of ruined uniforms: 3, but Tonia and McCoy get new ones by the end of the episode.

The transporter wasn't working, but once again, how about sending down a shuttlecraft to pick up the landing party? Or would the "energy dampening field" have prevented it?

 

[Timo]

The transporter wasn't working, but once again, how about sending down a shuttlecraft to pick up the landing party? Or would the "energy dampening field" have prevented it?

When Spock beamed down, there wasn't a strong reason yet for him to consider evacuating the landing party. Nobody had been killed, and apparently Kirk didn't think Barrows' attempted (?) rape was worth reporting upstairs.

Spock could of course have left instructions to send down shuttles after a certain period of time, just in case. But Kirk encounters the Caretaker pretty soon after Spock's arrival, and things are sorted out; the grace period might not have expired yet.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Silvercrest]

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

"I'd notice the difference," said McCoy.
"No, you wouldn't," said the Caretaker, "you'd be programmed not to."
"Yeah," said Kirk with a sudden evil grin, "you'd just have to program it to say Dammit Jim! and He's dead Jim! and You pointy-eared green hobgoblin! Who'd notice the difference?"
"Dammit Jim!" cried McCoy, backing away still farther.
"See what I mean?" said Kirk, and howled with pain because of something that Spock did at that moment.

<Apologies: The Earth has just developed a slight eccentricity in its orbit from Douglas Adams spinning in his grave.>

 

[Mario de Monti]

 

[Mytran]

Excellent crossover!

 

[Robert Comsol]

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).

If you don't mind, I'd like "pretends" to be emphasized in bold.

I don't think he would have actually used the Thommy gun (because he wouldn't know how to work it and because he would not have wanted to kill anybody with it). It was more like "speak softly and carry a big gun".

Bob

 

[Commishsleer]

I dislike this episode for just one reason - the white rabbit.
I just can't get over how fake it is.
Although I'm OK with the Gorn and Mugatu.

Can someone tell me what was the explanation for the planet's computers stopping the Enterprise from beaming and communicating with the planet? Surely if they encourage visitors then threatening their ships isn't the way to go.

I love how Spock tricked Kirk into going down to the planet.
Its sort of spoiled in my mind because Picard was too clever to fall for the same trick.

 

[BillJ]

Can someone tell me what was the explanation for the planet's computers stopping the Enterprise from beaming and communicating with the planet? Surely if they encourage visitors then threatening their ships isn't the way to go.

Maybe it wasn't intentional?

 

[Robert Comsol]

"Damnit Spock, I'm a doctor, not a corpse" could have been a line saving some of this lower than average episode, IMHO.

I really never liked it and probably never will. The tacky white rabbit has been mentioned, add the shaky antenna to it, events that raise more questions than are answered, Kirk being slower than the audience and crew members getting killed but apparently don't mind the experience.

And then this:

SPOCK: The term is amusement park.
CARETAKER: Of course.
SPOCK: An old Earth name for a place where people could go to see and do all sorts of fascinating things.

So here you have it, Spock considers trivial (and old style) amusement park entertaining "fascinating".

And Kirk swallows the same blue pill as George Clooney in "Solaris" to spend a couple of days with a fake Ruth / puppet / robot.

Almost a prequel to "I, Mudd" and its sophisticated sex dolls.

Bob

 

[Marsden]

I dislike this episode for just one reason - the white rabbit.
I just can't get over how fake it is.
Although I'm OK with the Gorn and Mugatu.

They used the same footprint for the Mugatu that they used for the rabbit. It was stock footage. So, they made the White Rabbit with Mugatu feet or....

I don't have an or.

 

[Timo]

..Or any Mugatu space traveler, if stuck on a planet like that long enough, devolves into something out of Lewis Carroll stories (and in fact gave birth to said stories, in an incident that proves Earth isn't so different from this planet after all).

So here you have it, Spock considers trivial (and old style) amusement park entertaining "fascinating".

"Sarcasm... It is a difficult concept. It is not logical." Perhaps Spock wasn't too good at it yet? And at letting down his hair.

Can someone tell me what was the explanation for the planet's computers stopping the Enterprise from beaming and communicating with the planet? Surely if they encourage visitors then threatening their ships isn't the way to go.

Just a few years later, we learn the planet's systems are seriously malfunctioning, due to lack of maintenance. Possibly the Caretaker was already senile, or whatever the machine analogue to that state, and could not cope with even the most routine simulations without these detrimental side effects.

Timo Saloniemi