FACT TREK's Back…& That's A Fact

[fireproof78]

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988 is a national service in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and you can call or text and it will connect you with a local crisis responder. Their goal is to provide resources for those struggling with mental illness symptoms, suicidal ideation and homicidal ideation. Please reach out if needed.

 

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I got that issue during my one year subscription. I had seen him at a convention just a few mths before -- he seemed tired.

 

[Tango]

988 is a national service in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and you can call or text and it will connect you with a local crisis responder. Their goal is to provide resources for those struggling with mental illness symptoms, suicidal ideation and homicidal ideation. Please reach out if needed.

988 also serves as the national suicide crisis helpline in CANADA. 24/7.

 

[publiusr]

My opinion is that Shatner's acting is just Shatner's acting styles. There aren't reasons for everything.

Agreed.

You see that on display here:

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--And you also see the Romulan plasma torpedo effect had a use outside of TOS too.

 

[Redfern]

I'm certain Maurice will tell me if I'm (most likely) wrong, but wasn't the "plasma weapon" basically a bucket of water with "dry ice" vapor wafting over the rim and a camera pointing straight down to film the action?

 

[nightwind1]

I remember reading in one or both of The Making of Star Trek by Stephen Whitfield and The World of Star Trek by David Gerrold that Rand was intended to be a longtime acquaintance/friend of Spock's. This never came out onscreen, but would go a long way toward explaining his wholly inappropriate comment at the end of Mudd's Women. If she had continued to be around on the series it could have been established that they teased each other inappropriately in this way. Ah well. The things that will never be.

You must be experiencing a mandela effect, as I never saw that in either book.

And I've read both until they've practically fallen apart.

 

[FormerLurker]

You must be experiencing a mandela effect, as I never saw that in either book.

And I've read both until they've practically fallen apart.

I'm not. My copy of The World of Star Trek is a first edition. Your copy may have been edited differently.

 

[Christopher]

I'm not. My copy of The World of Star Trek is a first edition. Your copy may have been edited differently.

My copy is also the 1973 first edition (albeit the 10th printing thereof). I just skimmed through the whole book and found only a single reference to Rand, erroneously stating that she perceived the salt vampire in "The Man Trap" as a handsome crewman (plus a couple of photos of her in the insert section). After all, Rand was long gone from the show by the time David Gerrold came along, so why would he have any inside knowledge about the character? By the same token, I find no mention of Rand in my skim through The Making of ST, which came out well after she was gone.

The first season TOS bible has no mention of Rand being friends with Spock. If it had been their intent, it would have been mentioned there.

I do maybe have a vague recollection of reading something in a book or essay where the writer, analyzing the series long after the fact, proposed that maybe Rand should have been given a backstory with Spock to strengthen her as a character, or something. I may well be imagining it, prompted by this discussion, but if it was real, that might be what you're remembering.

And I'm sorry, nothing can "explain" Spock teasing Rand about an attempted rape. There's nothing friendly about that.

 

[Maurice]

I'm certain Maurice will tell me if I'm (most likely) wrong, but wasn't the "plasma weapon" basically a bucket of water with "dry ice" vapor wafting over the rim and a camera pointing straight down to film the action?

No idea.

 

[Maurice]

Here's a note about Spock's relationship with Rand, from the folder in the Bird papers with all the drafts of the Director-Writer guides. I don't recall if it's in any of the editions handed out. To wit:

About the only person on the ship who can joke with Mister Spock at all is the Captain's Yeoman, Janice Rand. Perhaps beneath her swinging exterior is a motherly instinct for lonely men -- at any rate, Yeoman Janice can mention things few others would dare to say to Spock's face. And in return, guessing logically at some of her secrets, Spock will give (if you'll excuse the expression) tat for tit. But if the conversation has him looking at her too intently or too long, she will feel the hypnotic quality and beg off -- and Spock will look away. They have an unspoken agreement that the joke will only be carried so far.

That's probably why they had Spock make that comment at the end of "The Enemy Within," but as that relationship wasn't otherwise illustrated on the show, it was a terrible circumstance in which to employ it.

 

[Christopher]

That thing in Roddenberry's notes about men of Spock's species having a sexually hypnotic effect on women was pretty creepy to learn about. It was never explicitly stated onscreen, but now it's apparent that it was implicitly the reason why Chapel and Leila Kalomi were in love with him, and it explains how he was able to compel that Yang woman in "The Omega Glory" to bring him a communicator. It's an idea that was apparently dropped by the time "Amok Time" was written -- I don't see how to reconcile a compulsive mating drive with the disturbing notion that Vulcan men have to hypnotize their frigid women into becoming receptive to sex -- but of course "Glory" was written back in the pilot phase, so it was a relic of Roddenberry's early ideas for the character. Reading that passage about Spock's relationship with Rand, in the context of the "Enemy Within" scene, just makes it more disturbing.

But Roddenberry loved the idea of aliens with irresistible sexual allure, as we saw with Orions, Elasians, and Deltans (and Taureans in "The Lorelei Signal," though Roddenberry probably had less involvement there). Of course, it was a common enough fictional trope in the era, the idea of female villains weaponizing their sexuality to bring men under their power. That was Poison Ivy's original shtick in 1960s Batman comics, controlling men with hypnotic cosmetics, and we saw it in the Batman TV show with Marcia, Queen of Diamonds and the Siren (and arguably Black Widow, though since Tallulah Bankhead was decades past her seductive-vamp days, they made it technological mind control with no sexuality involved). And it's a much older trope than that; misogynistic fear of female sexuality as a dangerous power over men was a motivator behind the Salem witch trials, and you can track it back much further to the Lorelei and Sirens of mythology. Given all that, though, it's a bit surprising that Roddenberry considered employing the trope with a male character as well.

 

[David cgc]

That's probably why they had Spock make that comment at the end of "The Enemy Within," but as that relationship wasn't otherwise illustrated on the show, it was a terrible circumstance in which to employ it.

Wasn't there an earlier draft where Rand herself had the line, and said it to Kirk? I suppose it would've been similar to the beat at the end of "The Cage" where Colt asks whether Pike would've picked her if the situation went differently.

But Roddenberry loved the idea of aliens with irresistible sexual allure, as we saw with Orions, Elasians, and Deltans (and Taureans in "The Lorelei Signal," though Roddenberry probably had less involvement there). Of course, it was a common enough fictional trope in the era, the idea of female villains weaponizing their sexuality to bring men under their power. That was Poison Ivy's original shtick in 1960s Batman comics, controlling men with hypnotic cosmetics, and we saw it in the Batman TV show with Marcia, Queen of Diamonds and the Siren (and arguably Black Widow, though since Tallulah Bankhead was decades past her seductive-vamp days, they made it technological mind control with no sexuality involved). And it's a much older trope than that; misogynistic fear of female sexuality as a dangerous power over men was a motivator behind the Salem witch trials, and you can track it back much further to the Lorelei and Sirens of mythology. Given all that, though, it's a bit surprising that Roddenberry considered employing the trope with a male character as well.

I don't think it's that surprising. It's not exactly the same, since there's no supernatural element to it, but I've seen modern critics point out that Kirk's ability to charm and flirt his way out of situations is a trait that's very female-coded in the present day. I suppose that shift away from characters like Kirk using their masculine wiles could be interpreted as being progressive rather than reactionary; in a period where women in the workplace (or starship, or military base, or alien brain fighting ring) was more of a novelty, it'd be sexist to imply they're uniquely susceptible to the first handsome male space captain who bats his eyes at them, while nobody thinks a straight white man is definitionally unqualified by his nature (something we've been seeing taken to the extreme in the real world in the past couple of years), so it's not discriminatory in the same way for Black Widow or whoever to butter up a random male goon before stealing his keycard or throwing him out a window.

 

[Christopher]

I've seen modern critics point out that Kirk's ability to charm and flirt his way out of situations is a trait that's very female-coded in the present day.

That's an odd way of looking at it, given that it was a common trait of male adventure heroes of the day, e.g. James Bond.

 

[Maurice]

I think the idea that Vulcans used hypnotism wasn’t restricted to the male of the species, but I’d have to check to see if that even gets mentioned. I am pretty sure the hypnotism idea got dropped when they came up with the mind meld for “Dagger of the Mind.”

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Perhaps the touch element was added to quell fears that Nimoy might inadvertently hypnotize viewers.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

Perhaps the touch element was added to quell fears that Nimoy might inadvertently hypnotize viewers.

It seems like that happened anyway.

 

[Christopher]

Perhaps the touch element was added to quell fears that Nimoy might inadvertently hypnotize viewers.

In fact, IIRC, the technique we now know as the Vulcan mind meld (though the term wasn't coined until season 3) was introduced in "Dagger of the Mind" because the network was leery that McCoy's hypnosis of Simon van Gelder (as scripted) would affect viewers. Which seems disingenuous given how many hypnosis scenes there have been on TV over the decades without any reported ill effect on audiences.

After all, the "hypnotic" effect Spock was supposed to have on women was largely involuntary, attracting their interest when he didn't want it to, as with Chapel and Leila. The one time he was shown doing it on purpose, in "The Omega Glory," just entailed staring silently, which wasn't likely to hypnotize anyone (at least, any more than female viewers in the '60s were already enthralled by Leonard Nimoy).

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Characters being (accidentally or on purpose) hypnotized to hilarious results is a trope on some TV shows (Dick Van Dyke Show episode "My Husband Is Not a Drunk", The Lucy Show episodes "Lucy the Stockholder" and "Lucy and Pat Collins".

 

[Firebird]

That’s a trope as old as the concept of showing hypnotism in popular media.

 

[Christopher]

I doubt that the hypnosis techniques used in TV and film are authentic anyway. Never mind that hypnosis is now understood to be more or less fictitious. It was originally believed to be related to a sleep state, hence the name (derived from the Greek for sleep), but we now know that the brain waves of "hypnotized" people are indistinguishable from a relaxed conscious state. Hypnosis is basically a voluntary state of total relaxation and suggestibility, the mind convincing itself that it's in a trusted person's control, as a form of release of responsibility -- much like the "subspace" that a sexual submissive aspires to achieve, but more platonic. When "hypnotized" people are uncomfortable with a suggestion, they just refuse to do it, and they can probably bring themselves out of it at will if they choose to. So I doubt anybody can be hypnotized against their will. They have to be willing to cede control in the first place, or it won't work.

And some minds are less susceptible to it than others. My father once tried getting hypnotized to help him quit smoking, and he just wouldn't go under. They told him not everyone could be hypnotized.