Episode of the Week : Whom Gods Destroy
- Thread starter Botany Bay
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UGH! One episode that I really still to this day I didn't enjoy and I'm not fond of! I can clearly see why it was banned! I gave it a three though!
JB
JB
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I gave it a 9 on the sole basis on Yvonne Craig and those wonderful legs of hers. And her other lady parts.
5
A fairly average episode that's only saved from a below-average score by Yvonne Craig and those wonderful le.... oh, I see Captain Rob beat me to it.
A fairly average episode that's only saved from a below-average score by Yvonne Craig and those wonderful le.... oh, I see Captain Rob beat me to it.
I really like this one. By no means is it in the top 20 or 30 percent of the series, but I always did like it for some reason. Both Garth and Marta are protraoyed with with a very entertaining breed of madness. I guess it's my inner Batman fan loving this episode as it seems like most of the inmates would be as much as home in Arkham Asylum.
Which is not the only Batman connection the episode has.
--Alex
Which is not the only Batman connection the episode has.
--Alex
Keye Luke is normally solid but he seems pretty stiff in this one. I like Craig a lot, and boy does she act loopy. Steve Ihnat was a go-to for playing psychos and nutjobs for a while, and usually as over the top as he was here.
But there are too many implausibilities and absurdities for me to get into this episode. It has a "not really trying anymore" feel to it. It used to have a higher curiosity value for me because it was hard to catch in reruns, but even that has worn off. A charitable 4.
But there are too many implausibilities and absurdities for me to get into this episode. It has a "not really trying anymore" feel to it. It used to have a higher curiosity value for me because it was hard to catch in reruns, but even that has worn off. A charitable 4.
Steve Inhat seemed to be playing Garth just for a few laughs I thought and Yvonne is in no way as sexy as Susan Oliver was as an Orion slave girl in The Menagerie! In fact it looks like her greeny/blue skin was in danger of rubbing off onto the Captain's shirt any moment!
JB
JB
Yvonne Craig was great, Steve Inhat was great with a just enough comical over the top. Keye Luke is a classic. The logo that was designed for mental health instituation and first seen in dagger of the mind returns.
I challenge anyone to to respond to the promt of Queen to Queens level three.....
A 7
I challenge anyone to to respond to the promt of Queen to Queens level three.....
A 7
I gave it a 7. It's classic STAR TREK.
I only gave it a 2. The whole thing about Spock not being able to ask Kirk a personal question that ONLY Kirk would know the answer to just smacks me as dumbed down writing just like in "Turnabout Intruder." They wanted to have the fight between 2 Kirks and ran over the character and integrity of Spock with a mack truck on their way to get there.
Yes. Also, Garth's shape-shifting (with clothes included) pushes credibility too far. And I find Garth's and Marta's styles of insanity to be kind of annoying.
But I do like Craig as eye candy, and I like the cool scene when she is taken outdoors and viewed through the window. I gave it a 3.
My problem with it was that they seemed to take Dagger of the Mind, and make a meaningless, pointless equivalent, that just served as entertainment and nothing more. However, last viewing I decided there was a point: the thought one gets watching Garth rant, or I did, that in the "old days" (now) a lot of people like him have probably actually gotten followers and become real dictators, when being locked up in an institution would have been more appropriate.
I wouldn't say it's one of my favorites, but two things in I do like about it:
1. The play on Napoleon (even including his rise as a brilliant leader, defeat and "exile" to Elba, or in this case Elba II, restyling himself as a lord/as Napoleon named himself consul)
2. That it played on the brilliance of dictators. Rising but letting grander and grander vision overtake them until they were insane and completely changed (the shape shifting).
Also, as many have noted, Craig makes the episode easy to look at
1. The play on Napoleon (even including his rise as a brilliant leader, defeat and "exile" to Elba, or in this case Elba II, restyling himself as a lord/as Napoleon named himself consul)
2. That it played on the brilliance of dictators. Rising but letting grander and grander vision overtake them until they were insane and completely changed (the shape shifting).
Also, as many have noted, Craig makes the episode easy to look at
I love to watch actors who love playing crazy people. And Marta is a lot more formidable than Batgirl, who "won " by smashing henchmen over the head with flower pots.
I like Kirk's injections of dry, serious remarks just when the situation needs grounding. He makes things real. I especially like that bitter, furious look he gives Garth, right after blowing Marta up.
Isn't it strange that Marta was melodramatic and play-acting to the last, reaching out for help while she's choking outside, as if she's in a bad opera, when she really IS dying.
I noticed this time that when Marta cozies up to Kirk on his bed, she pulled out a dagger, but from where? From underneath the pillow Kirk was using.
I like Kirk's injections of dry, serious remarks just when the situation needs grounding. He makes things real. I especially like that bitter, furious look he gives Garth, right after blowing Marta up.
Isn't it strange that Marta was melodramatic and play-acting to the last, reaching out for help while she's choking outside, as if she's in a bad opera, when she really IS dying.
I noticed this time that when Marta cozies up to Kirk on his bed, she pulled out a dagger, but from where? From underneath the pillow Kirk was using.
I always had a complaint about the fight between the two Kirks. And I saw a similar fight resolved quickly this past weekend when I finally saw "Terminator Genesis". And essentially the way I would have solved it.
There's a chase scene where Sarah Connor and Reece are being chased by a liquid metal Terminator. and they get separated. Then she is in a room and is confronted by Reece apparently. Only to have another Reece come in from another direction. She can't tell them apart. But instead of having a big silly drawn out fight. She just simply shoots one of the in the foot. And that one is made of liquid metal. He then dies badly showered in acid.
I always thought that Spock should have just stunned both Kirks unconscious. Then beam down a bunch of security and lock everyone up.
There's a chase scene where Sarah Connor and Reece are being chased by a liquid metal Terminator. and they get separated. Then she is in a room and is confronted by Reece apparently. Only to have another Reece come in from another direction. She can't tell them apart. But instead of having a big silly drawn out fight. She just simply shoots one of the in the foot. And that one is made of liquid metal. He then dies badly showered in acid.
I always thought that Spock should have just stunned both Kirks unconscious. Then beam down a bunch of security and lock everyone up.
The writers really ought to have raised the stakes here somehow, making it essential that the real Kirk do something proactive (rather than just stand aside / fall asleep and let Spock save the day)...
The arguments made by the two Kirks are pretty weird in themselves. Never mind that Spock fails to ask relevant questions; what the Kirks put forth is rather nonsensical to start with. Now, editing may thwart our attempts at telling which Kirk is which, but unless there was a shuffle when we weren't watching, these are the arguments made by the real Kirk:
- "That's Garth, stun him!" (He gets in the first word - would Garth let him do that? To what tactical advantage?)
- "Look at me carefully, Spock. Can't you tell I'm your captain?" (How could Spock? And doesn't that sound exactly like a megalomaniac would phrase it? Although there isn't anything to say the real Kirk wouldn't be one.)
- "Very clever, Garth - that's exactly what I was going to say" (This is a good line, really.)
- "Yes [I object to sending in the security] - they may walk into a trap." (Total nonsense - what trap? And if that really is a concern, if, say, Garth's explosive is more than just a figment of a raving lunatic's imagination, why not just ask the ship to beam up the heroes? Why shoot down Spock's reasonable actions here?)
Ultimately, Spock is under no pressure to figure out which Kirk is real. He has already saved the day by taking control of the forcefield and the communications system. What he has to do now is make absolutely sure that he himself remains safe and conscious, and gets to relay a warning about the fake Kirk. And that's exactly what he proceeds not to do!
Timo Saloniemi
The arguments made by the two Kirks are pretty weird in themselves. Never mind that Spock fails to ask relevant questions; what the Kirks put forth is rather nonsensical to start with. Now, editing may thwart our attempts at telling which Kirk is which, but unless there was a shuffle when we weren't watching, these are the arguments made by the real Kirk:
- "That's Garth, stun him!" (He gets in the first word - would Garth let him do that? To what tactical advantage?)
- "Look at me carefully, Spock. Can't you tell I'm your captain?" (How could Spock? And doesn't that sound exactly like a megalomaniac would phrase it? Although there isn't anything to say the real Kirk wouldn't be one.)
- "Very clever, Garth - that's exactly what I was going to say" (This is a good line, really.)
- "Yes [I object to sending in the security] - they may walk into a trap." (Total nonsense - what trap? And if that really is a concern, if, say, Garth's explosive is more than just a figment of a raving lunatic's imagination, why not just ask the ship to beam up the heroes? Why shoot down Spock's reasonable actions here?)
Ultimately, Spock is under no pressure to figure out which Kirk is real. He has already saved the day by taking control of the forcefield and the communications system. What he has to do now is make absolutely sure that he himself remains safe and conscious, and gets to relay a warning about the fake Kirk. And that's exactly what he proceeds not to do!
Timo Saloniemi
Really, do you write in a scene like that , with doubles, and having to figure out who's who , without some very clever and fun resolution in mind? I wouldn't. Not very satisfying. Was the novelization a little different? I like how Spock's big priority becomes grabbing a chair so he can be comfortable.. . though I guess it was supposed to get Garth to make a move.
There was the required clever line at the end, only I think it was more of a placeholder for a clever line that they never succeeded in coming up with. Didn't Kirk claim that Solomon wouldn't have approved of Spock's having let himself be hit on the head? I think I'm mixing this up with the Biblical figure who advised some one to divided his son in two? I know even less about this than I thought.
There was the required clever line at the end, only I think it was more of a placeholder for a clever line that they never succeeded in coming up with. Didn't Kirk claim that Solomon wouldn't have approved of Spock's having let himself be hit on the head? I think I'm mixing this up with the Biblical figure who advised some one to divided his son in two? I know even less about this than I thought.
I voted 6, mostly because this episode seems like one of the few attempts to remind us that all of those alien type of citizens of the Federation are not something we imagined in Journey to Babel. While that was a much better episode, at least this one shows an Andorian and a Tellerite again, and Marta is presumably an Orion, as well. What other episodes were they in again? But yet these were supposed to be important races that have been around from the beginning, however I know that really came after the show ended.
There was also some other good world building details in this one, Garth and that place where he had that battle, that place that starts with A that I'm afraid to type because I can' t afford a lawyer, and something important about the Federation.
I really liked that Kirk considers Spock his brother.
And I liked the reuse of the uniforms and procedures from Dagger of the Mind for the mental asylum for some continuity, but not that the transporter operator forgot about the shield.
Interesting how the chair in this episode was very similar to the neuronutralizer, just in a more compact form.
So there's good and bad things here, unfortunately most of the good is in background and design and the plot has most of the bad. It's like they had this incredible universe to explore but didn't have any really good thing going on to explore it with. Enterprise delivering medicine again. They don't have any courier type ships in the future? No UFPPS? Federation Express?
I forgot one thing, I love it when Steve Inhat yells "Lord Garth" I don't know how many times I've substituted that for other things over the years, like LORD Marsden!
There was also some other good world building details in this one, Garth and that place where he had that battle, that place that starts with A that I'm afraid to type because I can' t afford a lawyer, and something important about the Federation.
I really liked that Kirk considers Spock his brother.
And I liked the reuse of the uniforms and procedures from Dagger of the Mind for the mental asylum for some continuity, but not that the transporter operator forgot about the shield.
Interesting how the chair in this episode was very similar to the neuronutralizer, just in a more compact form.
So there's good and bad things here, unfortunately most of the good is in background and design and the plot has most of the bad. It's like they had this incredible universe to explore but didn't have any really good thing going on to explore it with. Enterprise delivering medicine again. They don't have any courier type ships in the future? No UFPPS? Federation Express?
I forgot one thing, I love it when Steve Inhat yells "Lord Garth" I don't know how many times I've substituted that for other things over the years, like LORD Marsden!
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