I’m watching The Original Series again

[The Laughing Vulcan]

The Empath

Kirk, Spock and McCoy beam down to a science outpost in the Minarvan system to evacuate the staff. The main star is about to go nova, and time is running out. As it is, the star emits a flare so powerful that Kirk orders the ship to safety while the landing party weathers out the storm in the relative safety of the planet. As soon as the ship is out of range, the trio walk into trouble. They find the outpost deserted, dusty and abandoned. Looking at the scientists’ records, they watch as an eerie sound heralds the disappearance of the two men on screen. Just then, the same thing happens to the landing party. They wake up elsewhere, in a seemingly endless cavern under the planet’s surface. Detecting an alien presence, they explore to find a mute female. For ease of conversation, McCoy dubs her Gem, but before they can get acquainted, two further aliens appear, Vians, who appear to have engineered the situation. They disarm the landing party, and inform them that they are to take part in an experiment, then vanish again. Kirk doesn’t react well to this, and he’s thrown back. When Gem heals Kirk’s gashed forehead, McCoy declares that she must be an empath. Exploring further, they find the corpses of the two scientists, frozen in a grotesque pose of agony. It becomes clear what sort of experiment the Vian’s have in store for the landing party. What isn’t clear is why.

There are three things that I have been raised to hate in this world. It’s an irrational hatred, verging on the violent. It’s a prejudice so deep seated and offensive that in other circumstances it would be considered criminal. My hatred for Morris Dancers, Clowns, and yes, Mimes knows no bounds. The Animaniacs had the right idea about mimes, drop an anvil on their heads, run a herd of cattle over them, hurt and maim them, that’s the only way they provide entertainment value. You can guess how thrilled I am when this episode turns up again.

The Empath is an acquired taste that I have yet to acquire even after all these years. Mime as a pure art form is just painful to me, despite the fact that it underpins so many of the actor’s disciplines. So Gem’s exaggerated emoting has me reaching for the fast forward button. It’s worse because it highlights the pretence of the other actors, especially when they are doing the traditional “trapped in an invisible box” thing with the Vian forcefield. Add to that the theatrical aspects to the show, the blackened sets and Spartan decoration make this episode more experimental theatre than prime time television sci-fi.

I also find it disappointing in that it’s one of those rare episodes that render the main cast wholly pointless. They are there as guinea pigs, rats in the Vians’ maze, but wholly irrelevant to the outcome of the story. They are simply there as part of the test being run on Gem, and while they observe proceedings, little that they do has any outcome (other than Kirk pointing the irony of the Vian’s own lack of compassion when testing Gem for hers).

The set up is a familiar one to sci-fi, that of lowly humans being tested by ‘superior’ aliens, and the testicle headed Vians are a little too reminiscent of Talosians for my liking. The theatrical tone of the show also renders the torture scenes tame, there is little or no drama to what happens, and the make-up applied to the injured men is rather poor. It’s telling that despite the desperate straits the three find themselves in, all that really sticks with me is that Kirk is hung up sans shirt, while McCoy manages to keep his on in order to get shredded. (I also wish that Kirk would have said, “There are four lights!”)

As mentioned before, this episode makes little sense, with the Vians testing for compassion by exhibiting extreme cruelty, just to see if a race is worthy of rescue from an impending nova. There’s no mention of just how such a rescue will take place with the nova imminent, and why, if they have the power to effect such a rescue, they are limited to only rescuing one race. It does however indicate the Prime Directive is in effect, for if the Federation is invested in setting up an observation post to monitor the dying star, they must be aware of any intelligent species resident in the system, but there is no mention of any starships racing to save any of them.

Anyway, the only rationalisation I have for the Vian actions, other than the fact that they are alien, is that some 300 light years from here, a Vian intercepts a transmission from Earth, and takes a note of it in order to advance their knowledge of humans and how to interact with them. That transmission is of the movie Saw.

Torture porn aside, the only thing that I find The Empath good for is to reaffirm the strong bond between Kirk, Spock and McCoy, with all three falling over each other in their need for self-sacrifice, and McCoy winning in the ‘take me, spare the others’ stakes.

 

[RookieBatman]

Re: The Empath

One thing I found strange about this episode (kind of a nitpick) is the choice to call the girl "Gem." If I remember correctly, it's only said twice, both times by McCoy (after he names her), and both times, it was barely distinguishable to my ears from "Jim," the oft-repeated name of Our Hero? Why did they pick for her that sounded so much like the principal character's name, and why did they even name her at all, since McCoy only uses the name twice, and every other time, all the other characters just talk to her directly or something similar that never seemed to be confusing, even though they didn't use her name?
Like I said, not really a big thing, but it's an interesting comment that I remember arising from the episode.
And I also noticed how little the humans had to do with the whole thing. I seem to vaguely remember that I had a profound thought about that when the episode finished, but I have no clue what it was now.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

The Tholian Web

The Enterprise is on a search and rescue mission for its sister ship, the Defiant. It’s been out of touch for three weeks, and following its last known path, the Enterprise enters a region of space that presents strange readings to the sensors. It’s as if space itself is breaking up. This is also having an effect on the engines, with the ship slowly losing power. When they eventually locate the Defiant, it’s by sight alone, with nothing registering on the sensors. The ship looks strange as well, surrounded by a blue glow. There is enough of a presence for there to be a transporter lock, and Kirk, McCoy, Spock and Chekov beam over to investigate. They find the crew dead, apparently through self-inflicted violence. While they investigate the carnage, Chekov is affected by a dizzy spell, but more chillingly, the ship begins to phase out of existence, noted when McCoy’s hands pass through a corpse. By that time, the Enterprise is feeling the effects of denatured space, and the transporter is playing up. Spock, McCoy and Chekov return to the Enterprise, but Kirk is left stranded on the Defiant. Then the Defiant disappears, sucked into another dimension. Spock is left in command of the Enterprise and he decides, against McCoy’s vehement objections, to remain in the area to wait for the next moment of interphase, so that Kirk can be retrieved, if he survived the transition in the first place. But the denatured space is taking its toll on the crew, with first Chekov, and then others going insane. Spock insists that any alteration to local space-time will change the conditions of interphase, but then the Tholians show up. Theirs is a crystalline ship, suiting the crystalline nature of their species, and they are vehement that the area belongs to them. Spock convinces them that the Enterprise is on a rescue mission, and that the Defiant is due to reappear. But the Tholian arrival has changed things, and the Defiant doesn’t show up when expected. This is the justification that the Tholians need to attack the Enterprise, rendering it powerless and adrift, and while Spock manages to bloody the Tholian’s noses, another ship arrives, and they begin constructing an entrapment energy field. The time of interphase past, Spock has no choice but to declare Kirk dead, and assume command of the Enterprise. But he’s in command of a powerless ship, about to be ensnared by the Tholians, the crew is rapidly losing their minds, despite McCoy’s best efforts to create a vaccine, and time is rapidly running out. Then Uhura sees Kirk’s ghost.

It hasn’t been that long since the last one, but we already have another Kirk missing, and Spock and McCoy bickering episode. But whereas the Paradise Syndrome failed in my eyes, despite all that it had going for it, The Tholian Web succeeds, despite a multitude of flaws. One that I really only just thought about last night is the implausibility of the premise. Just as I was impressed by the Paradise Syndrome’s scientific accuracy when it comes to deflecting asteroids, The Tholian Web throws science to the wind. Space is big! Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Big! It is BIG! It is impossible to comprehend just how big it is, that’s how big it is. Starships are comparatively small. Compared to the universe, they’re like mouse farts at a rock concert. There is a whole lot of dramatic licence when it comes to Star Trek and other space operas when they embark on their regular search and rescue missions. You have to give a fair bit of leeway for the story, and assume that as faster than light vessels, with dimension warping drive systems, they make a bigger impact on space than their mass warrants. Also ships’ sensors are designed specifically to detect other vessels. But not in the Tholian Web, as space is acting all weird. Searching for the Defiant they can’t locate it on sensors, but they do find it by sight. I guess space isn’t really that big…

Inconsistencies continue, with a ship that can’t be located on sensors, but the transporters can lock onto its bridge. What with? Oh yeah, the sensors. But the sensors can’t find the ship. Oh no, I’ve gone cross-eyed! Fortunately despite the technical issues, the episode succeeds because it pretty much relegates the babble to the background. The transporters go offline off screen, Spock’s investigations into the Interphase are mercifully left to the imagination, and all we hear is the final plan to stay behind and rescue Kirk. There is as little mention as possible of the nature of space, the other dimension, what oddities of subspace physics may be involved, whether there are any strange particles emanating… Can you imagine if this was a Voyager episode?

What’s most important here are the relationships, most prominently the friction that threatens to ignite between Spock and McCoy. McCoy is typically irrational when he accuses Spock of desiring command, yet Spock’s first impulse is to stay behind and rescue the Captain. Surely if he was eager for the Captaincy, he would have vacated the area as soon as possible. McCoy is just letting his frustration at losing Kirk show, something that Spock cannot do, at least not until the two of them view the tape that Kirk recorded for them in the event of his demise. It’s a touching message that encapsulates the bond between the three perfectly, and as Kirk describes their characters, it’s almost as if he is describing two halves of himself as well.

Also impressive are the visual effects, both around the Defiant, and the Tholian web. These are some of the best visuals in the series, and watching the show last night makes me lament again the idea that someone found it necessary to remaster the series.

Oddities that I noticed… There has apparently never been a mutiny on a starship, not counting This Side Of Paradise, or Garth of Izar. It’s a nonsensical statement that doesn’t hold up to much scrutiny, given the Trek that we have seen so far, and that Starfleet has apparently been around for donkey’s years. Of course, no one wants to advertise that rate of insurrection on starships, so you could argue disinformation, or spin, requiring some ridiculous legal definition of what a mutiny actually is. Have you ever seen Moonraker? The bit where Bond drives a gondola hovercraft through a Venice piazza, and a pigeon does a double take, courtesy of a little movie trickery? Chekov does the same thing in Defiant’s engineering when confronted with the corpses. Time goes all funny too at one point. On the bridge, between Chekov going nuts and the Tholians showing up, that scene lasts about 5 minutes, yet given the dialogue, some twenty minutes pass in the story. I’d guess some other scenes were meant to be intercut there, but were left on the cutting room floor. Racial Stereotyping! McCoy’s cure is a theragen derivative, mixed with ethanol. Scotty’s in Scottish alcoholic heaven. “Does it mix well with Scotch?” indeed!

The Tholian Web looks great, is paced to perfection, and performed with gusto. The central relationship gets a good going over under a microscope, with the emphasis on how Spock and McCoy deal with Kirk’s absence. It’s entertaining and fun, and despite its many flaws, it’s well worth an hour of anyone’s time.