Episode of the Week : Whom Gods Destroy

[CrazyMatt]

3. Few things to recommend for it, but good performances by the guest cast (especially Yvonne Craig) of an occasionally gruesome script. And the parade of demented starship captains continues unabated. Is Kirk the only continually sane captain in the fleet?

 

[johnnybear]

No there was Commodore Bob Wesley and Commodore Stocker and...
JB

 

[UnknownSample]

Someone do a tally of stable and unstable captains we know about. Maybe despite a society in general that's very conducive to sanity, there's still a certain number of dormant power-craving types who are attracted to the job of captain of a ship that can lay waste to a whole planet.

 

[FormerLurker]

No there was Commodore Bob Wesley and Commodore Stocker and...
JB

Commodore Stocker doesn't count. His almost getting the Enterprise destroyed was his first Starship command. As I said in another thread, he was like Everett McGill's character, Major Powers, in Heartbreak Ridge, and came over from supply.

 

[johnnybear]

True. He did state he was more of a Starbase commander than a ship's captain didn't he! And from his actions he was correct!
JB

 

[Timo]

For each madman in the center chair, there also appears to be a specific Event that causes the insanity.

Decker: loses all his crew to a poor command decision.
Tracey: loses nearly all his crew to a force of nature, then fights horrible savages for half a year, knowing that he will be keel-hauled even if he survives.
Unnamed Defiant skipper: gets scrambled by a tri-isophasic spatiotemporal subspachamacallit.
Garth: was subjected to an alien medical treatment.

None of these characters appear to have been mentally suspect before the respective Events.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[ToddPence]

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?

Actually, there WAS a subtle difference in the James Blish novelization of this episode. In the TV version, Garth screams at Spock to shoot, and the real Kirk agrees, but says that Spock must shoot both of them. In the print version, it is GARTH who makes the suggestion that Spock shoot both of them, and Kirk then agrees but amends that Spock must set his phaser from stun to kill as it is the only way to be certain that Garth will be stopped.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Actually, there WAS a subtle difference in the James Blish novelization of this episode. In the TV version, Garth screams at Spock to shoot, and the real Kirk agrees, but says that Spock must shoot both of them. In the print version, it is GARTH who makes the suggestion that Spock shoot both of them, and Kirk then agrees but amends that Spock must set his phaser from stun to kill as it is the only way to be certain that Garth will be stopped.

That's pretty awful from a realism standpoint. "Yes, Spock, kill me dead rather than ask something trivial about our shipboard conversations lately that Garth wouldn't know about!"

The leads were often too willing to die on Star Trek, but that Blish scene would have taken the cake.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Seriously...just ask Kirk what the laugh line was at the end of the previous episode.

 

[UnknownSample]

Thanks, ToddPence. Talk about overkill.

 

[3D ChessMaster]

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

Was it 'Queen back to Kings Level 1'
Was this the last TOS episode to have a significant chess content? I can recall Where No Man has gone before
By any other name
Court Martial
Charlie X

Where there any more? I recall there was an episode where the script had a chess scene but some one cut it as they felt they had used chess in too many episodes, cannot remember which one though?