No, clueless people continue to defend a stinky poo-poo episode like Plato's Stepchildren.
Fact-Checking Inside Star Trek: The Real Story
- Thread starter Harvey
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No, clueless people continue to defend a stinky poo-poo episode like Plato's Stepchildren.
The problem is it's unintentionally funny.
It's so ridiculous that it pulls me out the show and I'm thinking about the actors and how stupid they must have felt.
If they're trying to show degradation and humiliation, making me laugh isn't going to convey that.
It's so ridiculous that it pulls me out the show and I'm thinking about the actors and how stupid they must have felt.
If they're trying to show degradation and humiliation, making me laugh isn't going to convey that.
I never thought of that. The old stinky poo poo argument... You've convinced me. You've run rings 'round me logically.
Okay. You like it. I dislike it. The world still goes around and stinky poo-poo TOS episodes still stink. 
I've never seen it that way. It's ridiculous because it serves a story purpose to be ridiculous -- it shows how shallow and decadent the Platonians are, how much it amuses them to humiliate their slaves and force them to act ridiculous, and how twisted they are in that they see the subjugation of other people's minds and bodies as something frivolous and silly. It's that contrast between the frivolity of the Platonians' perception of their actions and the horror of its reality that is so damning to them and so chilling to behold.
Okay, granted, maybe it went on longer than it needed to in order to make that point. But it had to be a lengthy enough ordeal to set up the scene where Kirk, McCoy, and especially Spock were dealing with the psychological aftermath -- which was the most effective scene in the episode. And it was just the prelude to the darker stuff the Platonians planned for them later, including an orgy of rape and torture that network standards required interrupting before it began. If the Platonians devoted that much time and effort just to making their new pets sing and dance and clown around, imagine how long their more extreme ordeals would've lasted if our guys hadn't figured out the kironide thing. There's a terrifying undercurrent that, to me, legitimizes the absurdity.
Not everything that serves a story purpose is entertaining, or even remotely entertaining. Entertainment that fails to entertain is a failure.
I love "The Omega Glory"!
One of my personal favorites. I put Ron Tracey as one of TOS's best villains as well.
I always "hated" Plato's Stepchildren...and I revisited it on a re-watch about a year ago...and I found it one of the more terrifying and dark episodes of TOS due to this very interpretation of what's really going on. Also, I found the sub-plot with Alexander to be absolute classic TOS Trek.
Still not a favorite of mine, but far from being a silly clunker. It's just difficult to watch some of those parts. It's REALLY disturbing to see your heroes reduced to playthings. But, as far as this being a smart, emotional sci-fi story...I think it's not bad at all.
I like how when Tracy fights Kirk (and when Matt Decker fights the security guard) it shows that starship captains as a rule are bad asses in a fight.
Harsh subject matter is not entertaining. It is not entertainment. It is not meant to be, it's not appropriate for it to be.
Star Trek, as a television show, is by definition marketed as entertainment. TOS managed to treat "harsh" topics much more effectively within the confines of that venue in many, many other episodes, than it did in PS.
I'm fond of it myself.I love "The Omega Glory"!
I don't care what anything is marketed as.
Guy was ruthless and almost possessed when he fought. It was even more intimidating that he continued to fight relentlessly even after he was proven wrong.
Every time I see Kirk and Spock reciting poetry as Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum I wonder if the script writer confused Star Trek with Laugh-In. Pass the Pepto Bismol because Plato's Stepchildren is on again.
It was banned for nearly thirty years in the UK and when I first got to see it in the early eighties I understood why!
JB
Would have preferred to have seen Kirk kiss Uhura in their respective costumes as well rather than the cornball get up they had on and yes I know it represented the Greek era on earth!
JB
JB
Well, it was also created as such.
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