Episode of the Week : The Paradise Syndrome
- Thread starter Botany Bay
- Start date
I give it a ten. It's always been one of my top favorite episodes.
Characters: Kirk is taken out of his element and he's still the coolest guy around. Miramanee is adorable. Spock and McCoy have some great material.
Story: compared to the typical episode, this months-long outing is a saga in itself. Major events in Kirk's life.
Music: an inspired original score, bears up under endless CD listens over the years, never gets old. Original Soundtrack and Royal Philharmonic versions are both excellent.
Hardware Porn: Enterprise vs Asteroid action is good. But the real star here is the obelisk. The obelisk looks great by any standard, but compared to the typical alien props (Landru, anyone?), it's an astounding and gorgeous thing to have built for one episode. So big, so solid and sturdy, so perfectly crafted and finished. Like the Enterprise bridge set, its geometry is complicated, but based on a few simple ideas and fun to draw. I love it.
Characters: Kirk is taken out of his element and he's still the coolest guy around. Miramanee is adorable. Spock and McCoy have some great material.
Story: compared to the typical episode, this months-long outing is a saga in itself. Major events in Kirk's life.
Music: an inspired original score, bears up under endless CD listens over the years, never gets old. Original Soundtrack and Royal Philharmonic versions are both excellent.
Hardware Porn: Enterprise vs Asteroid action is good. But the real star here is the obelisk. The obelisk looks great by any standard, but compared to the typical alien props (Landru, anyone?), it's an astounding and gorgeous thing to have built for one episode. So big, so solid and sturdy, so perfectly crafted and finished. Like the Enterprise bridge set, its geometry is complicated, but based on a few simple ideas and fun to draw. I love it.
Too much of a tearjerker for me; I gave it a 5.
I assume you mean the only third season episode shot on location.
Never liked this episode much. The whole Kirk-gets-amnesia-and-marries-the-Native-American-girl plot just seemed too soap-opera-ish. And in the shots of the Enterprise retreating in front of the asteroid, did the ship have to be moving in reverse? I wonder if it made that beep-beep-beep sound.
Well, the only episode shot on a location that wasn't a studio backlot or a brief glimpse of Vasquez Rocks.
Apart from "Operation: Annihilate!", "Bread and Circuses" and "A Private Little War", that is...
Balancing the hectic shipside action with several months of planetside action is a challenge the episode doesn't even try to tackle. Spock simply sits down to wait and refuses to explain himself. Which is fun as such, reminding us of how alien he really is. But it leaves most of the cast with very little to do.
Timo Saloniemi
Apart from "Operation: Annihilate!", "Bread and Circuses" and "A Private Little War", that is...
Balancing the hectic shipside action with several months of planetside action is a challenge the episode doesn't even try to tackle. Spock simply sits down to wait and refuses to explain himself. Which is fun as such, reminding us of how alien he really is. But it leaves most of the cast with very little to do.
Timo Saloniemi
And "This Side of Paradise" and "Shore Leave." Going outside to film always created a better look than Sound Stage 10.
Good physics (the E needing months to travel without warp drive).
Great personal story for Kirk.
Great interplay between Spock and McCoy.
Salish was a wonderful foil.
Who doesn't love Miramanee?
I even love that fly on Kirk's face in the I'm-so-happy scene - immortalized far beyond his life span!
A solid 9. One point off for the "everyone speaks English" cliche, and for Miramanee wondering how Kirk gets his shirt off without laces and then putting an elastic beaded headband on him.
Great personal story for Kirk.
Great interplay between Spock and McCoy.
Salish was a wonderful foil.
Who doesn't love Miramanee?
I even love that fly on Kirk's face in the I'm-so-happy scene - immortalized far beyond his life span!
A solid 9. One point off for the "everyone speaks English" cliche, and for Miramanee wondering how Kirk gets his shirt off without laces and then putting an elastic beaded headband on him.
But it requires technobabble essays to explain why months without warp drive would correspond to hours at extreme warp factors, instead of mere seconds. Or why a moon-sized object still months away could not be deflected from an impact path by Scotty getting out in a spacesuit and pushing. Is the rock moving at relativistic speeds or not? What's with those tremors? Why didn't the ship even try to move at impulse speed, but instead kept close company to the rock all the way? Etc.
It can all be made to work, despite the misguided intent of the writer. It just takes a lot of doing. Meaning endless hours of fun!
I guess so. Too bad it's really just a great personal story for Kirok!
And to think we missed about 59 days' worth of it!
Timo Saloniemi
5. Far too melodramatic for me, with yet another (sort of) Earth parallel story. And the "I AM KIROK!" scene makes me cringe!
Key plot hole: How interesting that Starfleet would let the Enterprise be off patrol for over a month as it moves back to the planet on impulse after failing to divert/split/destroy the asteroid. There was nothing wrong with the subspace transmitter, so wouldn't it stand to reason that Spock would immediately advise Starfleet that the ship was without warp propulsion capability and that Starfleet would send another ship to rescue Kirk (one of only 12 starship captains, so he'd be considered as Kirk himself labeled Decker, "a valuable commodity")? And while you ponder that, after KIROK! was rescued, just how did the Enterprise get back to a base to repair the warp engines.... did that trip take months too?
Key plot hole: How interesting that Starfleet would let the Enterprise be off patrol for over a month as it moves back to the planet on impulse after failing to divert/split/destroy the asteroid. There was nothing wrong with the subspace transmitter, so wouldn't it stand to reason that Spock would immediately advise Starfleet that the ship was without warp propulsion capability and that Starfleet would send another ship to rescue Kirk (one of only 12 starship captains, so he'd be considered as Kirk himself labeled Decker, "a valuable commodity")? And while you ponder that, after KIROK! was rescued, just how did the Enterprise get back to a base to repair the warp engines.... did that trip take months too?
For all we know, the repair ship was underway for the duration of the episode, and then some more. Response time to starships in distress is measured in months. Heck, response time to major inhabited planets in distress is measured in years! This is either because Starfleet is up to its neck in distresses, or because the distances involved are actually significant and travel time suffices as an explanation for the delay.
In general, starships don't appear to be under obligation to report back to base all that often. A century later, with many obstacles from incomplete commnets and inferior technologies out of the way, it's still considered perfectly normal for the great Yamato to fall completely off the grid for half a year...
The big plot hole here is... What the heck did Kirk think he was going to accomplish? He tried to deflect one asteroid from hitting a planet that Spock established to sit in the middle of an asteroid alley, getting pummeled all the time and clearly being none the worse for the wear! Kirk's contribution would have been both woefully insufficient and completely superfluous.
Timo Saloniemi
In general, starships don't appear to be under obligation to report back to base all that often. A century later, with many obstacles from incomplete commnets and inferior technologies out of the way, it's still considered perfectly normal for the great Yamato to fall completely off the grid for half a year...
The big plot hole here is... What the heck did Kirk think he was going to accomplish? He tried to deflect one asteroid from hitting a planet that Spock established to sit in the middle of an asteroid alley, getting pummeled all the time and clearly being none the worse for the wear! Kirk's contribution would have been both woefully insufficient and completely superfluous.
Timo Saloniemi
It has some nice elements but for me it never really comes together as more than the sum of its parts. The location, obelisk and music are good, and it's interesting to see McCoy and Spock without Kirk. But the tribe scenes are hokey, melodramatic and always seem to drag. That may be left over from how I saw it as a kid, but it hasn't grown on me. An average ep, 5/10.
AGreed that the Kirok stuff is just way too soap opera.
I do like that the Enterprise has no qualms about stopping the asteroid and saving the planet. Way better than the bizarre TNG-era "Do we have a right to interfere? Maybe these people are meant to DIE!" perspective.
I do like that the Enterprise has no qualms about stopping the asteroid and saving the planet. Way better than the bizarre TNG-era "Do we have a right to interfere? Maybe these people are meant to DIE!" perspective.
I remember rolling my eyes at Picard calling a briefing so that everyone could wring their hands about saving the population of a planet from extinction. Kirk would have already done it, and then he would have heard later that Starfleet approves his actions.
Along with taking too long at warp 9 to reach an asteroid within the solar system, another plot hole is: why didn't Kirk divert the asteroid first, in plenty of time, and then visit for a leisurely planet survey second?
But I still love the episode.
But I still love the episode.
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