I’m watching The Original Series again

[The Laughing Vulcan]

The Immunity Syndrome

The Enterprise is on its way to Starbase 6 for some much needed R & R, when they get a message to divert to an adjacent sector. Interference is affecting communications with the Starship Intrepid, and contact with the civilisation in the area has been lost. Then Spock suddenly stiffens in shock. He has just felt the Intrepid die, it’s all Vulcan crew lost, their last feeling one of astonishment. Not only that, but the billions strong civilisation on planet Gamma Seven A has also been eradicated. The mystery isn’t long in deepening when the Enterprise encounters a region of darkness in space. Instantly, power begins to drain, and a deepening malaise affects the crew. The prudent thing would be to withdraw, but their mission is clear. Kirk orders the ship into the zone of darkness, sending the ship into the same peril that annihilated the Intrepid. At the heart of the darkness lies an awesome sight, a single celled organism grown to planetary proportions, and one that feeds on the very energy of life itself. The ship’s sensors and functions are debilitated, and the only way to study it is up close in a shuttlecraft. For McCoy it is the most fascinating laboratory in creation, but Spock has the constitution that will help him survive the penetration into the creature. Either way, it is a suicide mission, and it is Kirk who must determine which of his closest friends to sacrifice.

The Immunity Syndrome is an odd episode for me. There’s no denying the effort put into the episode, the strong sci-fi elements to the story, and the curious back-story it establishes. In some ways, it is Asimov’s Fantastic Voyage in reverse. If you can’t shrink the ship, inflate the disease. And in this case, the disease gets blown up to planetary proportions. The Enterprise must serve as our galaxy’s antibody to rid the Federation of this blight. It’s just that I was never a fan of Fantastic Voyage, and The Immunity Syndrome engenders the same feelings of apathy in me. It’s a story that could be told in half the time. The pacing is glacial, the tension is contrived (at this stage of the game we know we aren’t going to be losing any of the principals), and just like The Motion Picture and The Changeling, it feels to me as if the episode is hampered by effects shots and reactions. The execution feels almost sterile, as if it doesn’t really have consequence or import (although a lot of that has to do with the bottle show nature of it), and it all seems played very po-faced and seriously. A moment or two of lightness could have made an interesting contrast. Frankly, the only high point that I can find is McCoy’s “Shut up Spock, We’re rescuing you!” and that is precious little reward for what to me is 50 minutes of tedium.

This is despite it being a pretty strong character piece. It’s very much a Big Three episode, with Kirk having to deal with sacrificing one of his friends. This is pretty small potatoes compared to the Spock McCoy dynamic in this episode though. We get to see the professional side of both men when it comes to the opportunity of examining the creature, coupled with the obvious affection they have for each other. Once you see the interchange on ‘The hardness of human hearts’, it becomes apparent that the debate between the two will reach uncommon depth and seriousness. It’s almost, but not quite enough to redeem this episode for me.

Points to note include the introduction and despatch of the ill-fated Starship Intrepid, a vessel crewed solely by Vulcans. Of course we don’t see the ship, so we can only assume that it is a Constitution class vessel. In fact there’s no reason why it can’t be a proprietary Vulcan design, a holdover from one of those pretty looking ships from the Enterprise series. That raises further questions in and of itself, such as why a Vulcan ship would have a Terran name, or indeed why in an inclusive Federation is there segregation of races? Is this a universal policy, will we find Tellarite starships, Andorian ships and other such mono-species vessels? Are the Vulcans placated with a ship of their own while the humans do all the real exploring, or are they too high and mighty to muddy their fingers with us lowbrow apes?

Spock’s reaction seems a one-off. We never hear of such abilities again, or at least not in Star Trek. Spock feels a disturbance in the Force and the Enterprise goes haring off to Alderaan! The death of 400 Vulcans affects Spock visibly, although the billion or so Gamma Seven A-ans deaths leave less of an impression. Given that in a population of several billion, deaths due to natural causes will top several thousand a day, I wonder why Spock doesn’t spend his whole life in a state of catatonia, just through the natural turnover of the Vulcan population? Also while it is useful for the show for the Enterprise to succeed where the Vulcans have failed, their failure doesn’t make much sense. Any species so hardened to new possibilities and ideas as these Vulcans, who couldn’t adapt to the information and illogic that their sensors would have conveyed to them wouldn’t be long for this world. And Kirk’s solution of blowing the critter up with antimatter hardly requires wild leaps of illogic to come up with. Surely someone must have tried firing a photon torpedo at the great big lava lamp!

One thing that unreservedly impressed me was the makeup in this episode. The debilitating effects of the amoeba were readily apparent in the crew, with everyone looking drawn and pale, suffering from nervous sweat. Even Spock looked a little greener than usual. It’s subtly done but utterly effective.

However, the same illogic of Obsession strikes here, with the assumption that this bug is the only one of its kind. Why? Surely it split off from a like bug in its past, just as it is about to divide here. Following this episode, I have a vision of a whole new section of Starfleet, assigned to hunting these things down, keeping space nice and clear for the average Federation citizen.

Oh, and Kirk calls Kyle Cowl all the way through the episode!

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

A Piece Of The Action

A follow up mission to Sigma Iotia II runs into some unexpected problems. A hundred years previously, prior to the formulation of the Prime Directive of non-interference, the Horizon visited this world as part of its exploratory mission. Having just received its radio message, Starfleet assigns the Enterprise to pay a visit to this highly adaptive and imitative society to see what effect the Horizon’s visit had. After making contact with Bela Oxmyx, the prominent ‘Boss’ on the planet, Kirk, Spock and McCoy beam down to what looks like Earth of the 1920s. However, this is a warped version of Earth, run by mobs and where everyone packs a gun. Oxmyx is pleased to see the representatives of the Federation, as 100 years of advancement means new technology to take advantage of. Following the tenets of ‘The Book’, he lays a little deal on Kirk, “Make with the fancy heaters or else!” The Federation will supply the hardware, and in return Oxmyx takes over the planet. However, Kirk is in the middle of a gang war, and Oxmyx’s rival Krako is looking to make the same deal. All this has happened because of one book left behind by the Horizon’s crew, “Chicago Mobs Of The Twenties”. Kirk assumes responsibility for the contamination, but the ship’s computer is at a loss as to how to resolve the sociological nightmare.

Now that’s more like it. A Piece Of The Action is a thoroughly entertaining episode that is so much fun that the TNG crew had a go as well, with their first holodeck episode. It’s time travel without the pesky time travel, and after visiting Romeworld in Bread And Circuses, Kirk et al get to go back to 1920’s Mobworld for a rip snorting adventure, with all the culture clash and tongue in cheek shenanigans that implies. It’s fun to see Kirk and Spock donning the suits and getting to grips with the lingo, although for a change it’s Spock who spends most of the episode in a state of confusion and befuddlement. It’s a formula that was successfully revisited for the Voyage Home feature.

The episode although light in tone, also acts as warning of the perils of interfering in other societies, actions which may come back to haunt you down the line, as well as the folly of basing one’s entire society on one book. Religion, pah! However, logic takes a flying leap for this episode, with the Iotians apparently taught how to read and write English by the Horizon crew, before using a textbook left behind as the basis for their society. It’s a preternaturally accurate job they do in recreating 1920’s Chicago, and its surprising how similar the world appears. Recreating a world from text is nigh on impossible, no matter how descriptive the writing is, especially if you lack the context in which to place the words. One would think that the book had a free copy of The Untouchables DVD with it. For an imitative society, it was remarkably lacking in Capones, Nittys and Nesses. You would think they would adopt human names as well.

Odd things include the big three beaming down to the middle of the city, and no one blinking an eye or screaming “Demons Of Air And Darkness!” I’m worried about the ship’s phasers that can be set to stun. It’s Ok for the mobsters, but what about the poor kids, the elderly, those people with heart problems. And then McCoy leaves his communicator behind, ample justification for a sequel if ever I saw one. Frankly, George Bush would have been well advised to use Kirk’s solution in Iraq. A great, fun episode.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: A Piece Of The Action

Frankly, George Bush would have been well advised to use Kirk’s solution in Iraq.

I thought I was the only one who recently re-watched that episode and noticed Iraq parallels.

But the problem is, if Bush tried Kirk's solution, Oxmyx and his rivals would just kill Kirk & Spock and then go back to killing each other, even at the risk of incurring the wrath of the all-powerful Federation.

Kirk didn't actually KILL anyone in his little demonstration. A real warlord type wouldn't back down unless he'd seen some mass carnage and even then, maybe not. After all, if he backs down, he's through as a warlord, and he's used to sending underlings to their deaths, so why would some mass carnage faze him? He might even be murdered by his own troops for showing weakness. Backing down is never going to be an option for him because the logic of his world is based on power thru fear and nothing else.

Really, the bosses were convinced by Kirk only because the script called for them to be. In the end, they were kinda lightweight fantasy versions of what a mob boss would be like. Just contrast the Sigma Iotans - more cute and funny than murderous and psychotic - with the guys from The Sopranos.

If we took this episode out of silly fantasy-land, let's say Kirk was actually willing to cause some carnage in order to whip the Sigma Iotans into line. That's like America deciding to level Sadr City with a few MOABs. Sound like a good idea? Because that's what it would take, and even then...?

Sometimes Star Trek episodes can give us insights into the real world, but this episode is really just lightweight fun with no more insights than you'd get from a Disney flick. It's got that same sort of childlike sanatized view of grownup things.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

By Any Other Name

Responding to a distress call, the Enterprise sends a landing party to a serene idyllic planet, with no apparent signs of intelligent life. It isn’t long before their tricorders are picking up human life forms though. But far from requiring rescue, these humans have a far more nefarious purpose in mind, and with the aid of controls on their belts, they subdue and disarm the landing party. The leader, Rojan announces to Kirk that he is taking over his ship, and setting course to the Andromeda galaxy. Kirk is sceptical at first, but when the superior technology of the Kelvans, as they call themselves, quickly renders the Enterprise crew helpless, he has to re-evaluate. The Kelvans are looking for a galaxy to conquer, as their own will soon be lifeless due to increasing levels of radiation, and they’ve decided on the Milky Way. The landing party is restrained on the planet’s surface while the Kelvans go about adapting the Enterprise to their needs, modifying the engines to greatly increase the starship’s velocity. Kirk, naturally tries to escape, but is quickly disabused of the notion when Rojan decides to punish him. Two redshirts are taken aside, and the Kelvans use their belt devices to reduce them to their most basic essence, a grey polyhedron. Rojan then crushes one of the shapes, and Yeoman Thompson is dead, while the other redshirt can be revived. This method is used to place the majority of the ship’s crew in suspended animation, and when Kirk refuses to countenance destroying the Enterprise, it seems that the Enterprise is destined for a long voyage to the next galaxy over. But an earlier attempt at escape offers a glimmer of hope. When Spock tried to mentally influence a Kelvan, he was bombarded with a host of alien images. It becomes apparent that the Kelvans are aliens assuming human form to more easily interact with human technology, and they aren’t quite used to the experience yet.

This is an episode of two halves, both of them good. The first half is really quite the chiller, with the Enterprise crew at the mercy of the Kelvans, completely on the back foot, and unable to respond. It’s a fairly innocuous start, with the Kelvans placing the landing party under their control, and despite the paralysis gizmo, we would expect Kirk to finesse his way out of the situation. Instead it keeps getting worse. An escape attempt is dealt with harshly, and while the lack of bloodshed ensures a U rating (G in the US I believe), there is still something gruesome about a person being reduced to his essence and then crushed into powder. The fact it’s the pretty girl who gets dusted and not the security guard simply adds to the terror. Kirk continues to lose control of his ship as time passes, his crew put into suspended animation, with only him, Spock, McCoy and Scotty left to challenge the Kelvans. Even then, he refuses to take the next logical step. Spock and Scotty rig the engines to explode and destroy the ship, taking the Kelvans with them. When Kirk is presented with this option, he reacts in shock, as if refusing to countenance it. And though he does eventually consider it, when he decides not to exercise the self-destruct, there is a part of me that sees him as a man desperately flailing for hope, rather than someone with a plan.

It’s when Spock offers that thin chance at regaining the Enterprise that the whole tone of the episode changes. We go straight from high tension and drama to all out comedy. The odd thing is that it works brilliantly, as the story makes it believable. It’s time for psychological warfare, and the four remaining crewmembers work on the Kelvans newly developed human natures. The funniest, and most memorable aspect of this is Scotty’s attempt to drink Tomar under the table, resulting in the immortal “It’s green!” line. The pair’s descent into inebriation interleaves the other interactions. McCoy irritates Hanar with one of his potions to the point that he’s willing to rebel against Rojan. Kirk does what he does best, get it on with Kelinda Cameltoe (that costume!) with Rojan’s burgeoning jealousy being stoked by some subtle needling from Spock. For a Vulcan averse to emotions, Spock shows some fine understanding of them here with the way he manipulates Rojan. Inevitably the Kelvans realise that they are no longer the beings that left Andromeda, and agree to return control of the ship to Kirk and accept help from the Federation.

However, this is one episode where Kirk loses control of his ship early on, and it isn’t really his actions that solve the problem, merely hasten the end. This is very much a War of the Worlds ending, with the Kelvans defeated by their own incipient humanity. As the journey would have continued, emotions would have overwhelmed the Kelvans anyway, and the end result would have been the same. The seeds were sown the minute they noticed the aesthetic qualities of the world on which they were marooned.

This episode is remarkable in terms of continuity. For a series where few episodes reference others, this one contains not one but two such references. We get to see the Galactic Barrier again that so tormented the crew earlier. It’s apparent that the ship has gone through an upgrade or two as the engines weren’t burnt out this time. The Kelvans stated that they were altering the engines, not the shields, so unless they did, we have to assume that starship shielding had improved in the interim. The second reference is far more interesting. While the ship disabling effects of the Great Barrier are implicit in its name, not requiring that you watch WNMHGB, the second reference to Eminiar VII is more ambiguous. It’s practically an invitation to watch the earlier episode where it is explained how Spock distracted the guard. Here it is practically used as shorthand before he tries the same trick on Kelinda, and it’s the sort of continuity you would expect from a show of more recent vintage.

Then again there is a continuity failure as well, with the Kelvan enhancement of the Enterprise engines apparently un-reversed at the end of the episode. Such an alteration to a ship would naturally have consequences, and I’m sure that the technology would be removed when the Enterprise returned to the Milky Way. But it would be in Starfleet hands. Yet Warp 12+ starships didn’t really make an appearance. And if Kirk’s promise of sending a robot ship were to be kept, then Starfleet would have to understand and adapt the technology. Actually far more interesting than the apparent velocity increase is the fuel efficiency of the new propulsion system. Unless the intergalactic void is peppered with service stations, the Enterprise would have been able to traverse millions of light years of space on just one tank of antimatter! Such a magic technology would have utterly altered the series premise, and just like the later Warp 5 speed limit, it was quietly forgotten. Another intriguing question is just why radiation levels in an entire galaxy increase. Rojan drops it as a throwaway, but it invites speculation. Is it a natural phenomenon, or is it a by-product of sentience? Are the Kelvans actually polluting their own galaxy to such a degree that the very galaxy itself is being destroyed, or is it a galaxy spanning nuclear war beyond belief?

By Any Other Name is a memorable episode that blends drama and comedy in a way that shouldn’t work, but succeeds resoundingly. An excellent episode.

 

[scottydog]

Re: By Any Other Name

I agree, By Any Other Name is excellent and borders on being a classic trek episode. When I watched this episode as a kid, I had nightmares about being a crushed white powdery cube.

This is also another one of those episodes where our heroes encounter a race with far superior technology but far inferior morals. And we humans end up teaching the techologically superior beings a lesson in "humanity".

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

Return To Tomorrow

A signal diverts the Enterprise to a star system, a distress call that makes little sense. They fall into orbit around a dead planet, apparently lifeless, when a booming voice is heard, welcoming them to the planet. Sargon invites them to beam down, to a cavern 100 miles beneath solid rock. It’s a prospect that isn’t appealing, especially to McCoy, but Sargon guarantees his ‘children’s’ safety. He claims to be a survivor of a race that seeded the galaxy over half a million years previously, and claims that humanity may be descendants of his people. Sargon seems benevolent enough, despite displaying control over the Enterprise to the degree of dictating the choices for the landing party, which is why Kirk is surprised to see Dr Ann Mulhall in the transporter room. They beam down to find three disembodied intelligences existing in three glowing receptacles, survivors of the planet’s last destructive war. When Kirk asks what Sargon wants, he replies by displacing Kirk’s consciousness and taking over his body. But it isn’t as sinister as it seems. They want the use of three bodies, Kirk, Spock and Mulhall, long enough to use the Enterprise engineering facilities to manufacture three android bodies to house their respective intelligences. In return, they offer technological advances to the Federation beyond imagining. It’s a tempting proposition, but there is danger involved. The transference places the body under great stress, and prolonged inhabitation will be fatal. Worse, while Sargon is benevolent, his wife Thalassa becomes increasingly disenchanted with the idea of android bodies. Former adversary Hanoch has dark plans of his own, and inhabiting the superior Vulcan body, he’s in a better position to enact them. And he’s the one in charge of creating the serum that will protect the three bodies from the ravages of hosting their consciousnesses.

Return To Tomorrow is an early example of the possession episode that appeared regularly in all incarnations of Trek. There’s the TOS finale, TNG’s Power Play, and DS9 broached the subject on more than one occasion. But Return To Tomorrow is one of the better examples of the genre. For one thing, there is little focus on the mechanism of the swap, no mention of katras or orb experiences, and the mind swap is presented as a fait accompli. It’s best not to spend too much time thinking about these things, as the idea is a fairly ridiculous one, and better suited to comedies rather than drama. Yet this episode works well, as Kirk, Spock and Mulhall are called on to host three ancient intelligences. What makes the story work, despite the bizarre concept is that Sargon, Thalassa and Hanoch are at heart very human, possessing the same frailties and failings that affect us, and through their new hosts, they wind up bringing a half million-year-old conflict back to life. It’s their hubris, vanity and jealousy that ultimately doom them, and their tragic story as told through the Enterprise crew is really quite affecting. Unfortunately, I’ve never been a fan of Diana Muldaur as an actress, her delivery is usually dry to the point of tedious, and her cadences approach a monotone that inevitably have me drifting off. Her presence in this episode is the one thing that prevents me from lauding it.

It’s a shame, as this episode is filled with fascinating concepts and canon. Not least of which are the Seeders. Sargon claims that his people explored the galaxy and seeded several intelligent worlds. Mulhall hotly denies this claiming humanity’s evolution as being fully documented. That leaves Sargon as potential Von Daniken aliens, uplifting an already extant humanity to higher potential. Yet Spock claims that Vulcan prehistory has certain ambiguities that would be resolved by accepting Sargon’s story, yet this is an aspect that has never been explored again. While such an idea explains the prevalence of humanoid life in the Trekverse, further visits to the concept have been contradictory and confused.

The effort to help Sargon is fraught with danger, beginning with the effort required simply to reach the cavern, and McCoy is harshly sceptical of allowing the body swaps to take place. He could be the one stickler in the plan, and to convince him, Kirk delivers one of the best speeches of the series. Following as it does from another tedious observation from Mulhall, it also serves to wake me up. But the writing has to be lauded here, with the “Risk Is Our Business” speech stirring the blood and inspiring the casual viewer in front of the television, let alone the officers sat at the briefing table. Who needs gazelles?

But the reason for all this is remarkably mercenary. It’s the prospect of leaping forward 10000 years in technology that prompts this great risk. It’s obvious that Kirk sees no need to apply the tenets of the Prime Directive to his own civilisation, doesn’t seem concerned that his society won’t be allowed to grow at its own pace, and is eager to accept the help of a superior civilisation. Is it hypocrisy that he doesn’t apply his standards to the situation where he is the primitive caveman faced with the microchip? I would have expected Spock at least to point out this dichotomy, yet he remains silent. It’s a case of hands off the primitives, but full speed ahead.

Odd points to me include Kirk’s lack of familiarity with Mulhall. He has to ask her who she is. Surely he should know the members of his own crew, however fleetingly, but it appears that he has never laid eyes on her before, nor is he aware that his ship even has an astro-biologist. It’s an odd moment that doesn’t make much sense. Also noted is the fact that Chapel gets to be intimate with Spock in a way that she probably never expected. She should be grinning like the cat that got the cream for weeks following this, and I’m sure that Spock will have to suffer some teasing too. It would have been a typical ending for the episode, and it’s surprising that they didn’t succumb to the temptation. Finally, why androids? Of course it was a major plot point, the whole reason that the venture was destined to fail tragically, but the whole problem could have been solved if Sargon had simply asked “Hey Captain Kirk, can I borrow a couple of stem cells and the use of your cloning lab?” I’m sure they could have engineered the bodies to support their big glowing intellects.

Return To Tomorrow is an interesting episode that for one reason and one reason only I’m disinclined to like. I’m sure that is a reason that rarely affects anyone else, so I guess this opinion can be taken with a bigger pinch of salt than my other ones. Wait till I get to Is There In Truth No Beauty!

 

[mrsspock]

Re: Return To Tomorrow

I like this one for the most part. Spock gets to be the bad guy for a while. It would have been very interesting to see how things could have developed if the show did arcs back then.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

Patterns Of Force

The Enterprise has been ordered to follow up on the status of renowned historian John Gill. Kirk recalls his lectures from the Academy, while Spock notes his considerable achievements in the field. However none of this can prepare them for the horror that awaits them in the Zeon – Ekos star system. They are shocked to discover that the people of Ekos now subscribe to a Nazi philosophy, with all the trimmings and paraphernalia that came with the movement on Earth, as well as following the dictates of their very own Fuhrer. It’s a breach of the Prime Directive on an unprecedented scale, and the danger to the pacific Zeon world is evident when a thermonuclear warhead targets the Enterprise. Spock and Kirk beam down to find a world in the grip of the Third Reich, with military progress and loyalty to the fatherland paramount, and the final solution against the Zeonians about to be put into effect. It isn’t long before Spock’s appearance raises a few eyebrows, and their initial attempts to locate John Gill prove unfruitful. Fortunately, they find an active Zeonian underground on Ekos, aided by those Ekosians who oppose the path that their society has chosen, and they manage to infiltrate Nazi headquarters on their second attempt. The truth that Kirk has been dreading can no longer be denied. John Gill is the Fuhrer.

Alien Space Nazis! There had to be a first time in Trek, and this was it, and it isn’t even a third season episode. With the absolutely pitiful Nazi excursions of Voyager and Enterprise, you would expect that this first such episode would have been a significant precedent and influence on the later episodes, and you would be right. However there are positive aspects of Patterns Of Force worth considering, and it does offer more than just the novelty of ‘goose stepping morons more intent on burning books than reading them’.

Patterns Of Force is very much a product of its era, and must be evaluated as such. That’s why it gets a pass, where Voyager and Enterprise fail. The sixties and seventies were much closer to the Second World War. It was very much a gaping wound, parts of Europe still lay in ruins, and rather than take the chance to take stock and rebuild, the world dove into a Cold War instead, continuing the atmosphere of fear and hate. Few wanted to be reminded of the reality of the Nazis, the atrocities that were committed, and the depravity that was revealed in the human psyche. Films like Judgement at Nuremberg were the exception, and by and large the Nazis were to be ridiculed on film, lampooned, belittled. We didn’t want to be reminded of just how close we were to disaster. In film and in television, Nazis were reduced to clowns, guaranteed to fail through their own stupidity. It’s an understandable reaction, but the entertainment of the era had a somewhat unfortunate effect, it romanticised the war, made us feel nostalgic for rationing and air raid warnings. I can’t have been the only one to have watched the Great Escape and wondered ‘how cool is that?’ By the nineties, when the Voyager and Enterprise episodes were made, there was no such excuse. Films like Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan and shows like Band Of Brothers had peeled back the veneer and shown the war in something approaching reality. The later Trek episodes no longer romanticised the war, they trivialised it, reduced it to something akin to an arcade game.

Comedy Nazis then. Spock and Kirk both make light of their situation, with the same culture clash reactions that were seen in Tomorrow Is Yesterday. With Spock making quips like “You should make a very convincing Nazi” to Kirk and then put him through more agony than the torturers managed by clambering over his sore back, we know that this is an episode that we aren’t meant to take seriously. The music also carries the show’s tone, and it is irreverent and mocking. The Nazis are hardly profligate either, with just a smattering of Swastikas. They look more like the White Supremacists from The Blues Brothers, more of a weekend club rather than a world shaping political movement. That’s a sign of the budget, but more on that later.

The show is of course another ode to the Prime Directive. Once again someone interferes in a world and it all goes to hell. This isn’t a Klingon spy though, but rather a somewhat dry academic. This is perhaps the darkest side to the story. It shows our innate fallibility of course, but it does make you wonder about how future generations will look at our immediate past and us. Will time have mitigated the wounds of the Nazi movement, or will something more horrendous have occurred to actually make the Nazi ideal preferable. That all of human history presents only the Nazis as a shining example of efficiency and progress does raise concerns, although not as many as a historian with an ego so large that he wilfully engages in a bout of social engineering, shattering the highest law that his own society cherishes. I once described Marla McGivers as a romantic academic, whose blinkered view of history led to her unleashing Khan Noonien Singh on the 23rd Century. That stupidity is no less prevalent in John Gill. A dry academic, whose career has been spent lecturing and buried in books, is given the keys to the candy store when sent to observe the Ekosians, finally, a clay society to play with, to sculpt, to mould. He must have been a sociopath, a latent criminal whose academic pursuits kept him safe and secure in lecture halls. It’s also another example that humanity is yet to start evolving, that characters like Kodos and Tracy still abound. Once again we also get to see Kirk’s impatience with fallen idols. He was practically abusive to Matt Decker after the loss of the Constellation, here he has no qualms about giving Gill an overdose as long as he’s lucid enough to make a speech and correct his mistake.

What marks this episode out is the use of allegory to make a point, thin though it is. Remember that this was the era of the comedy Nazi, and talking about Jews and the Final Solution was hardly prime time material. We wanted our Nazis to say stuff like “For you ze war is over” and “Ve haf vays to make you talk”. We didn’t want to know about genocide, gas chambers, and mass murder. Yet this episode did just that, as it’s Ok for two alien races to want to wipe each other out. Kirk and Spock beam down into Ekos’ own Kristallnacht, although these Nazis are even more efficient and bypass the ghettoes to go straight to the Final Solution. There’s no alien make up, both the Ekosians and Zeonians pass for human, and the allegory is plain to see. When Isak learns of the manner of his fiancée’s death, no further explanation is required.

The low budget really rears its head with the sets, reused for the broadcast booth and the cells. This is one episode that could have benefited from stock footage to appear ‘larger’, but as it is it just feel small. Another oddity is the Ekosian technology. The Enterprise crew see a spaceship heading towards them over interplanetary distances, it’s unmanned yet obviously under control, yet they only accept that the Ekosians have advanced in technology when the nuke goes off. Shouldn’t nukes come before space travel in the average technology race? More one-time tech includes the subcutaneous transponders, little rubidium crystals that can easily be constructed into a powerful laser. Forget one, if I was in Starfleet, I’d want to be implanted with two at all times, and keep two spare in my pockets. We also learn that Kirk is quite the pickpocket.

This is the best of the Alien Space Nazi episodes that Trek has produced, although that is hardly a ringing endorsement. It’s hardly an elegant allegory, and from a 21st Century perspective, the lighthearted tone seems misplaced. Still, there is more positive than negative to the episode, and it is easy to watch. It does leave some lingering questions. First, can one speech turn back the tide of history so easily? John Gill announces he was wrong and manipulated, and a few billion bloodthirsty Ekosians change their minds and hang up their Howitzers. Second, we see Melakon deposed, and the new leaders assure that they will do their best to bring the society back on track. No one mentions the political structure changing. As recent history teaches us, razing one political system and expecting a new one to arise in its place is naïve. Could that mean that on Ekos a benign Nazi government still rules after the Enterprise departs?

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

The Ultimate Computer

The Enterprise is diverted from its mission to take part in war-games. With a skeleton crew, she will be required to face an armada of 4 other similar starships. Kirk is surprised at the inequity, but as Commodore Bob Wesley explains, he’ll just have to sit back and relax, as the M5 will take care of everything. The M5 is Richard Daystrom’s new brainchild. Daystrom was the father of duotronics, the computer systems that currently run the Enterprise, and now after 25 years of research he has created the next generation in computing. The M5 is so versatile that it eliminates the need for human controls completely, allowing man to pursue other, safer interests, while the M5 takes on all the dangerous work of exploration. Kirk is conflicted. He has a bad feeling about the idea of automating his ship, but he’s uncertain if it is because of the loss of prestige that entails. McCoy has no such qualms; he knows a threat to humanity when he sees one, while Spock is in silicon heaven. The initial tests are promising. Other than an odd power drain, the M5’s survey of an uncharted world is flawless, although it does eliminate the Captain from a landing party list as unnecessary personnel. The initial engagement with two of the ‘enemy’ ships is also resolutely decided in M5’s favour. But then something outside of its programming parameters occurs, and M5’s reaction is devastating. Encountering an automated freighter, it destroys it out of hand. The major war-game is imminent, but now M5 is playing with devastating lethality. Of course, Daystrom hasn’t installed an off switch.

Well, what do you know? It’s been at least 10 episodes since Kirk talked a computer to death. We must be overdue another one, and here it is, appropriately called The Ultimate Computer. Taken at face value it is yet another opportunity for Kirk to ask a machine an irrational question, and see it fizzle out in a burst of smoke. Go one level deeper and we see that it is the classic Frankenstein tale retold, with Daystrom’s misunderstood monster going on the rampage. What makes it interesting is that this time it’s the very Enterprise that turns against Kirk. Surely it is the ultimate betrayal, when the very machine that you depend upon for your life, the ship in which you’ve invested your life and soul, the one true love that you cherish above all others, turns around and tries to kill you, and destroy that which you hold dear.

But where this episode excels, is as character study. McCoy is the dependable support as always, the rock upon which Kirk can lean. And of course there is plenty of opportunity for the usual McCoy Spock sniping. It’s the glimpse into Kirk’s psyche that is so enlightening. There is the worry that he is some sort of hi-tech Luddite, willing to go only so far and no further. We already see with the Woden that automated ships are commonplace, but creating a computer intelligence versatile enough to handle the multi-role capacity of a starship could ease the burden from human shoulders (Indeed, by the 24th Century, when a computer generated hologram can and indeed does command a starship, however briefly, we can see that the promise of M5 is eventually fulfilled). Kirk has a bad feeling about M5, although I would say that he had a bad feeling about Daystrom and transferred that hunch to his creation. We know that Kirk is a more humanist Captain than a technological one, and if anyone were to have misgivings about poorly programmed machinery, it would be Spock. It’s seeing that hunch clash with Kirk’s concerns about whether his ego is getting in the way that proves pivotal, not helped by the inevitable obsolescence that M5 threatens. We can see Kirk has romanticised the role of Captain, equating it to the ancient mariners of Earth, and it indicates great self-awareness that he can recognise that he can be blinded by poetic notions. Excellent writing combine with a strong performance from Shatner to elevate this episode.

Spock on the other hand displays what I can only describe as his childish side. Remember when you were young, and looked forward to that special gift at Christmas. You would eagerly unwrap it, marvel at the shine, hastily insert the batteries and you would be playing all day, disregarding all else, and annoying all the guests. Then around teatime, just before the sprouts were served, it would break, or the batteries would run out, or you would realise that it doesn’t do half the things the advert promised, or that actually it was utterly lame. That is Spock in this episode, reacting to the M5 with glee, eager to play with its innards, and anticipating the fun. It’s compounded by the presence of Richard Daystrom, computer engineer extraordinaire, and probably one of the few people that Spock would idolise. His initial amour quickly fades however when the M5 starts behaving irrationally, and Daystrom reveals that he’s fruity as a nutcake. He makes a warm speech about loyalty to Kirk, but I can’t get the image of a shamefaced child out of my mind, looking down at his feet, idly scraping the floor with his toes, mumbling, “ ’m sorry”, when he realises how silly he’s been.

Then of course there is Daystrom himself, who makes a significant impression in this one episode. The flawed genius trying to recapture lightning in a bottle, and relive past glories. Inspiration rarely strikes twice, so he resorts to desperate measures. It seems a common failing of Trek scientists, whether it’s Manheim meddling with Time, or Marcus using protomatter in the Genesis Matrix, they all cut corners and take ridiculous chances to succeed. But Daystrom is a man on the edge of a nervous breakdown as he has spent 25 years trying to recapture that glory, and 25 years, and 4 failures have taken their toll. The M5 is a mirror image of his mind, and it’s no surprise that it has the same flaws and neuroses.

Taken in a modern context, an element of unreality rears its head. Just how did Kirk retain command after this incident? We’ve already seen his contemporaries turn against him once in Court Martial, indicating he isn’t exactly Starfleet’s poster boy. Now he’s just been in command of a ship that has attacked four others, effectively destroying one, and killing hundreds. Incidentally Picard had to have a good cry after being unwillingly used to similar ends by the Borg. One wonders if Kirk had any misplaced guilt to deal with. But in the real world, the Enterprise would be taken out of service while the whole matter was investigated, and one can assume an inquiry would require the presence of the skeleton crew for extended periods. I doubt the Enterprise would be allowed to remain in dock for that long, and would quickly have a new Captain while the inquiry continued for months if not years. Then there is always guilt by association. Even if Kirk wasn’t responsible for M5’s actions, he was on board when the incident occurred. Just as Sisko nurtured a loathing for Picard, how many of the war-games’ survivors will now hate and despise Kirk? It’s one of the drawbacks of episodic television that we never found out.

An interesting point is Daystrom’s rationale for the M5, which he has created to preserve human life and take the burden of dangerous discovery. The same rationale is currently used in space exploration, albeit for economic reasons. Why risk manned space exploration when automated probes can do the same thing at a fraction of the cost, we are told. Trek has been remarkably prescient in many ways, but this is one that I really only noticed last night. Religion also finds its way onto Trek, but it’s telling that it’s the homicidal machine that quotes ‘The Laws of Man and God!’ and not any of the regular cast. A sticking point for me in this episode is the character of Bob Wesley, supposedly Kirk’s friend. But after the initial engagement with M5 when Wesley calls to congratulate the machine, he comes out with the ‘dunsel’ comment, and laces it with such indifferent contempt that he’s nothing more than a mean bastard. Some friend! But at the end, when Wesley spares the Enterprise on a hunch and through compassion, the point is made, and the sermon against excessive automation succinctly delivered. Always an excellent episode.

 

[Brutal Strudel]

Re: The Ultimate Computer

Of course, if M5 works, Wesley's out of a job, too. Looks like they're both dunsels to me.

 

[Woulfe]

Re: The Ultimate Computer

^ NCC-1701-D had an M9 computer IIRC....

- W -
* Memory Is A Bit Rusty After 20 Years *

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

The Omega Glory

The planet Omega 4 is the Enterprise’s destination this week, following up on the starship Exeter. They find the ship abandoned in orbit. Beaming over, our three intrepid heroes, as well as phaser fodder Lt Galloway find a death ship. All that is left of the crew are their uniforms, and some curious white crystals. McCoy’s analysis reveals that the crew didn’t leave, and all the crystals are actually their desiccated remains. Playing back the medical log, it is revealed that a disease brought back from the planet’s surface is what decimated the crew, and the log implies that the only way to survive is to return to the surface, where there is some kind of natural effect counteracting the disease. Of course the boarding party are infected, so they beam down as well. What they find is a planet turned nightmare. They arrive just in time to interrupt a summary execution. At the same time, the Exeter’s captain, Ron Tracy appears to also call a halt to the barbarism. He explains the situation, as with the barbaric tribal Yangs on one side, and the Kohm villagers on the other, such behaviour is commonplace. Spock is more concerned when one of the Kohms recognises the phaser he is carrying. It’s all too clear when evidence of a massacre is uncovered, the Prime Directive has been broken, and unless Kirk acts against one of Starfleet’s most revered Captains, he’ll be deemed just as guilty. Ron Tracy has good reason for his actions though, the conditions on the planet don’t just inhibit the disease, they extend life. There are Kohm villagers who are over a thousand years old. And if Kirk won’t help him secure this fountain of youth by supporting the Kohms against the Yangs, then he’ll just have to be removed from the equation. Meanwhile McCoy’s investigations into the disease reveal some interesting results.

Here’s an episode that raises more than a few eyebrows, and not just Vulcan ones. It’s commonly on the worst of lists, but I don’t actually find it that bad. A lot of it has to do with who I was when I first saw it. In my early teens, when my naivety of the world had yet to be washed out by a deluge of cynicism, I had the idealised vision of the United States that many of my age and era shared. Distrust of the American way, the bold dream, the sheer love of capitalism was yet to set in, and we bought into everything we saw, heard and read about America. Add to that, the fact that I had just read Isaac Asimov’s The Stars Like Dust just prior to watching this episode, and learned that the ultimate premise of both stories was similar. Finally, it was the height of the cold war, where Mutually Assured Destruction was a prospect that never strayed far from one’s thoughts, and then you can realise why this episode particularly resonated with me.

But I have to admit that time hasn’t been kind, and as I have developed my opinions about the world, I can’t see this episode in the same optimistic light any more. Nearly all of it is down to the tarnished political image that the US currently enjoys abroad. In fact, it was no different back then, Vietnam, Irangate, Central America, the US self image and the reality has rarely coincided. The naïveté of youth, coupled with the imminent threat of nuclear annihilation can blind a person to flaws. It’s become fashionable to bash the US, and that fashion makes it hard to feel an upswell of optimism when this story’s final twist is revealed, it’s more likely to result in a cynical roll of the eyes, and an exasperated sigh. The symbols of the ‘holies’ carry a taint to them now, and when you hear Cloud William state, “I do not understand your words Kirk, but I will try to follow them”, I get the feeling he means, “I do not understand your words Kirk, but as soon as you bugger off, we’re going to slaughter the Kohms and steal all their oil”. Of course it may not be as ominous a trait as current US foreign policy that overshadows the episode. It’s more a case that 40 years on, the cracks in the US system are beginning to appear, and it is Kirk who appears naïve at so lauding the words that he recites. This is a Kirk who doesn’t know about the erosion of civil liberties and privacy, who hasn’t lived under a system of government that has to pander to corporate interests before representing the interests of the people that elect it. This is a Kirk who was much like myself at age 13, who embraced the ideals of freedom and liberty, without understanding the lies behind those words. Maybe there is a sense of betrayal that comes with watching this episode now, a feeling that it lied to me. In the end, isn’t that what all entertainment is, the lies that allow us to escape the real world? So trying to come up with a rational analysis of The Omega Glory proves difficult.

It’s another paean to the Prime Directive of course, with Ron Tracy’s avarice leading him to interfere with the natural development of a planet, requiring Kirk’s own benevolent meddling to put things to rights. Tracy is an interesting character, introduced as a Captain revered throughout the fleet. It’s an example that everyone has his or her price, and Tracy’s is the promise of immortality itself. The idea of a fountain of youth is a common one in stories, and it crops up here to explain Tracy’s turning to the dark side. He is a flawed, manic character, and when we encounter him he is deep in his mania. The one problem is that we have no frame of reference. Some idea of the man Tracy originally was, would have contrasted with the criminal that we do meet. Just as Spock’s recitation of Daystrom’s accomplishments contrasted with the disturbed character we eventually met, some idea of Tracy’s accomplishments and moral rectitude would have served well here. If you want to see The Omega Glory Remastered by the way, just pop Insurrection into your DVD player. Same story, almost as successful.

Hodgkin’s Law of Parallel Planet Development sneaks up on us again, with Omega 4’s society developing practically identically to our own, only thousands of years beforehand. This world’s superpowers went to war with bioweapons, and the survivors have been living in the aftermath for thousands of years. The development is so parallel that they have English as a language, draft the same Declaration of Independence, and sew the same flag. Remember, it isn’t coincidence, it’s allegory. In fact, this society parallels that of A Private Little War as well. We have the more advanced villagers on one side, and the noble savages (read morons) on the other. In fact, Cloud William is so stupid that he didn’t even try to escape until Kirk showed him that the bars on the cell window could be pulled out. Once he realised that, he pulled them out with ease. It’s called aping intelligent behaviour, which leaves Cloud William as subhuman on the IQ scale.

More stupidity… Quarantine doesn’t mean much, with Kirk et al beaming over to the Exeter with no thought of possible contagion. Ron Tracy wastes phaser power profligately, keeping his weapons set on vaporise, when maiming would have been enough. And Spock can now hypnotise women like David Blaine.

There is interesting back-story though, with much of it provided by McCoy. Earth’s third war had nothing to do with the superpowers apparently. He makes that explicitly clear when he compares the disease afflicting them, to the bioweapons made on Earth in the 1990s. But Earth avoided the war that took place on Omega. This appears to conflict with the Third War mentioned in Space Seed, but only if you assume the antagonists to be Russia and the US. Completely different sides must have fought the Eugenics War, albeit at the same time, and the result was obviously not as devastating. I wonder why Khan never used these bioweapons, since they obviously existed at the time.

I may be battered and bruised by decades of cynicism, but I still have a soft spot for this episode. Perhaps in a way it is even more relevant than before, despite how badly it has dated. Its lesson on the fragility of the US system has never been more desperately needed. And when one looks at Cloud William, a man who doesn’t understand the meaning of the words that he holds so dear, then can anyone really dismiss this episode as banal and without merit?

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

Assignment: Earth

It’s 1968, the world is on the brink of a major crisis, and the Enterprise is in orbit to observe just what it was that pulled us back from the brink. The mission is disrupted when a powerful transporter beam, originating from over a thousand light years away, overwhelms the ships systems. The beam is diverted into the transporter room, and the light fades to reveal… a suited gentleman stroking a black cat. Gary Seven is surprised to see a ship from the future, and indignantly demands to be beamed down so that he can complete his mission. Kirk on the other hand is in no mood to allow a potential threat such as the unknown Gary Seven to have access to primitive Earth. Gary Seven wins, when he breaks out of confinement and escapes custody. He beams down to somewhere in New York, and Kirk and Spock have to go undercover to track him down. Seven on the other hand is just where he wants to be, in the office of a couple of encyclopaedia compilers. These absent compilers just happened to be members of his alien organisation, who have a vested interest in the long-term well being of Earth. They have abducted and bred human agents for thousands of years, and reinserted them back onto Earth to effect positive change. Only the two members of the New York office are missing. Things get more confused when ditzy secretary Roberta Lincoln turns up late to work, and finds that things have gotten much weirder in the office. Magic pens aside, Seven manages to use the old patriotism trick to get Roberta on his side, but his mission, to sabotage the launch of an orbiting nuclear weapons platform, can hardly be considered conducive to the national security. When Kirk learns of this, it becomes a race against time to stop a nuclear war, but with future history at stake, can Kirk make the right choice?

There were three seasons of the Original Series, and three downright disappointing finales, Operation Annihilate, Turnabout Intruder, and this, Assignment Earth. You would think that with a time travel episode there would be a greater attraction, but this episode tries to be two things at once and fails at both, although in attempting so much still offers much of interest. It’s both a Star Trek episode, and the pilot for something new, and the Star Trek side really suffers for it. The regular characters merely serve, not only to observe the goings on in 1968, but also to frame the other story. Kirk and Spock’s presence in that time (note the relative lack of culture clash shenanigans), doesn’t accomplish a thing. Events would have unfolded in just the same way were they not there, only with a little less hindrance.

This really is a Gary Seven episode in all but name, and as a pilot it is interesting, but a little weak. Benevolent aliens abduct humans from ancient Earth, then initiate a eugenics program to breed agents to send back, to direct Earth onto a peaceful path. So we have a group of people on Earth, acting clandestinely with alien technology to help mankind. They’re like intergalactic secret agents. Unfortunately the pilot needed to be stronger, the cast broader and the premise a little better defined. As it is we got two characters, Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln, three if you count the shape-shifting cat (which has no purpose here, but which could have been developed in subsequent stories). It’s cute the way the computer demands exposition as proof of identity, and some of the shenanigans between self-assured Gary Seven and ditzy Roberta Lincoln do provide for entertainment. But the mission of sabotage is a little tame. Other than the Enterprise presence, there isn’t really a strong enough peril for Gary Seven. All he has to do is blue mist himself over to the rocket, fiddle with its innards, and blue mist back again. What could have made this episode far stronger, and far more entertaining would be if the two worlds were brought together head on. After all, we have Gary Seven’s group interfering their way through history, opposing the Federation Prime Directive of non-interference. Actually seeing the two issues collide through Kirk and Seven would have made for a more compelling drama.

All that is left is the minutiae of the episode. It turns out that for one day in 1968, there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky, over the whole planet! We also learn that you don’t need a cloaking device to render a ship invisible, as mere deflectors will suffice. Kirk introduces his ship as the United Space Ship Enterprise, surely the origin of the USS nomenclature. When Gary Seven refers to a hidden planet, surely he doesn’t mean Aldea of TNG fame? We also see Kirk for once asking his entire crew for advice. It outdoes any boardroom conference that Picard ever convened. While Gary Seven is intent on destroying the orbiting nuke, he has no qualms about irradiating the atmosphere to do so. And Scotty can get a side view of a launch pad from a weather satellite.

Actually, this episode confirms that Trek takes place in an alternate reality, and all of subsequent Treks’ attempts to retcon history to fit our own are wasted efforts. This episode was first broadcast in 1968, a time when no orbiting nukes were ever in production, or even seriously considered. Even in 1968, it was obvious that this wasn’t nor ever will it be our future. It’s just a story. Which makes the canon disputes all the more irrelevant. Also this episode contains the worst dialogue ever, “Boost signal to maximum, boosting signal, boosting signal, destruct signal at maximum boost!” The writer of that is the one who should be boosted. Another sore point is that all through the episode there is a big kerfuffle about who Gary Seven is and the danger he poses to Earth. Then right at the end, Kirk announces with a wink that Roberta and Gary have been located in the Enterprise records, and that they are in for some more interesting adventures. What took Spock so long to search the computer? I can imagine Kirk asking the same question. It’s an uncharacteristic slowness on Spock’s part, just to provide a neat line to launch the new series with. Unless we get into Slazenger’s (sic) Cat territory, and say that the computer records didn’t exist until Seven had completed his mission.

Considering whether a Gary Seven series would have worked is an interesting question. Whereas Star Trek, always faltering in the ratings, was a rare space adventure serial in the sixties, with little to compete against, Gary Seven’s mix of espionage and gadgets would have been placed directly against Mission Impossible and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. In fact the New York setting and the silver pen of hypnosis is far too reminiscent of the latter. I think it would have failed simply because of a lack of originality, which is a shame as Robert Lansing and Terri Garr created some memorable characters in that hour of television. The adventures of Gary Seven did eventually continue in print. Greg Cox has penned some tie in novels that relate further adventures of the pair, and even tie them into Khan’s back-story. Devotees of copious continuity would lap them up, but… well let’s just say that they don’t fit my mediocre criteria of a half-decent tie in novel, and leave it at that.

Well, that’s the second season done and dusted. I better mix up an extra strong batch of bile and vitriol for what’s coming next. Season 3 awaits!

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

Spectre Of The Gun

Kirk has been ordered to make contact with the Melkot at any cost, and as we join them, the Enterprise and her crew are headed for an unwanted rendezvous with a Melkot buoy. A voice booms out over the bridge, warning them to stay away, but they all hear it in their native languages, Vulcan, Swahili, Russian and English. Spock warns of the perils of tangling with a strongly telepathic race, but Kirk has his orders. The two of them with McCoy, Chekov and Scotty beam down to a foggy incoherence of a world, through which a disembodied head with glowing eyes appears, irate at their stubbornness. They have been judged and found repellent, disease like, and will be treated accordingly. The manner of their deaths will be chosen from Kirk’s memories, as he is responsible. Suddenly they find themselves in Tombstone. The year is 1881, and the date seems oddly familiar to Kirk. The truth sinks in, when the town’s residents recognise the landing party as the Clantons, the McLowerys and Billy Claibourne. It’s the day of the Gunfight at the famous OK Corral, and in a matter of hours, the landing party will die in a hail of bullets at the hands of the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday. With none of their equipment working, their phasers replaced with pistols, the landing party will have to rely on their ingenuity and wits to survive, but something isn’t quite right. The town is incomplete, buildings only fragmentary in construction, and the laws of science don’t seem to operate. Then history is altered, when the one original survivor from the Clantons’ gang is killed.

How do you spell procrastination? I’ve been dreading this, the third season, the point where Trek took a nosedive in quality and gave us classics like “Brain and brain, what is brain?” And while I have no qualms about heaping vitriol where it is deserved, it’s hardly original to dismiss the third series as something to be ridiculed. It’s an easy target, and there comes a point where the reviewer attracts more hate than the episodes, for kicking someone while they are down. I can’t believe that it’s been almost a year since I posted one of these reviews. To be honest I had been feeling a little Trekked out. But with the third season remaining to be viewed, I’ve been putting off the fearful moment as long as possible. It’s gotten to be like getting a vaccination. The more you think about it, the worse the prospect is. Now, I feel like I’m going in for an operation. Still…

The Spectre Of The Gun is an episode that I hadn’t seen in quite a while, so I approached the start of the third season with more than a hint of apprehension. It turns out that the start of the third season is a bloody good one, and a whole sight better than Catspaw, which launched season 2, although both cover similar grounds.

In fact, the start of the show is very promising indeed. We get a whole new fanfare, and the show has a new set of themes to liven things up. There are certainly no signs of staleness in the music department. Similarly the show has a new directorial flair to it, all moody close-ups and strong use of light and shadow. It’s visually a very striking episode from the off, and it only gets stronger as we get into odder territories. It’s not exactly the most original of stories though, with superior beings testing the Enterprise crew to see if they are worthy of survival and contact. The added dimension is the unreal air of it, with the protagonists put through their paces in a shared illusion. It’s probably what Arena would have been, were there no Gorn involved. It isn’t the last time we’ll return to the theme, as The Savage Curtain is yet to come. This is also the birth of the Trek Western. It’s a chance to see our heroes strap on some shooting irons and go toe to toe with villains all dressed in black. There is that time travel culture shock to it, but as this is drawn from Kirk’s mind, there doesn’t have to be any actual time shift. Ironically, neither A Fistful Of Datas nor that Enterprise episode whose name I forget involved time travel. I guess it shows there is still creativity to be had in story writing (of a sort).

It’s all drawn from Kirk’s mind, apparently. And that mental aspect to the show defines the bizarre looking sets, with buildings and rooms defined by a single wall and the essential bits of furniture. It gives the show a more theatrical feel to it, but I guess is effective in conveying the unreality of the situation. It’s odd that the landing party didn’t see this whopping great clue immediately, and had to gather more evidence first. I also find myself thinking that it’s lucky that the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man didn’t show up. My biggest problem in this episode is probably down to the fact that the scenario is drawn from Kirk’s mind. The Earps and Holliday are cookie cutter villains, lacking dimension, personality, and energy. They’re dressed in black, serve to menace and that’s it. If they are drawn from the imagination, then it can be understood why this is, but I would have preferred characters with a little life to them, a more dramatic counterpoint to the heroes. As it is, their appearance in this episode is one that saps energy and makes me want to fast forward their scenes. They’re more deadpan than Spock in the Motion Picture. Still, the shootout when it comes is amazingly effective. It isn’t often that you see the Clantons as the heroes on television or in film; in fact this is the only occasion that I can recall. It’s obvious why of course, as they lost. But it calls into question just what version of history Kirk has been taught, just what movies did he watch growing up, in which the Clantons are the good guys?

But the third season cracks are apparent in this episode, if you know where to look. Pretty much all of it is with Spock. The most obvious moment is when Chekov is killed (sorry to spoil it folks), and Spock, McCoy and Scotty have a row about grief and feelings, and the lack of same in their Vulcan colleague. I’m sorry but this has already been resolved in Season 1 and 2, especially in episodes like The Galileo Seven. It’s redundant to go over the same ground again, unless of course this season of Trek was aimed at a new audience, and was in effect starting over with the characters. The second thing is that Star Trek is becoming the Spock show. Apparently this was when the studio became aware of the popularity of the character, and decided to give audiences more of what they wanted. So Spock is more verbose in this episode than ever before, more apt to exhibit that dry wit, and issue a few wisecracks. Also it is Spock who is an authority on the Wild West. I get an image of a young Spock sat in front of a TV, wearing a cowboy hat and toting toy pistols, watching Westerns all weekend. You would think that of the five, it would be Kirk and McCoy with greater knowledge of their own heritage.

Things that I find charming about this episode… It’s actually Chekov and not Kirk who gets the girl, it’s just a shame that he dies for her. DeForrest Kelley will always stick in my mind as an actor who fought on both sides at the OK Corral, albeit in different productions, and with the Melkotian test taking place in the landing party’s minds in a brief instant on the ship’s bridge, The Inner Light isn’t looking half as original now.

 

[Mallory]

Re: Spectre Of The Gun

The Laughing Vulcan said:
How do you spell procrastination? I’ve been dreading this, the third season, the point where Trek took a nosedive in quality and gave us classics like “Brain and brain, what is brain?” And while I have no qualms about heaping vitriol where it is deserved, it’s hardly original to dismiss the third series as something to be ridiculed.

Good to see you back to reviewing again TLV, even if it is the third season. There are a few good episodes (and good moments) scattered throughout it, so it won't be all bad. Still, better you than me.

...nor that Enterprise episode whose name I forget involved time travel.

That would be North Star.

 

[ToddPence]

Re: Spectre Of The Gun

Laughing Vulcan, I can ease your mind a little by telling you that most of the traditional diatribes against the third season are vastly overstated. While the quality of season three is not quite up to the par of the first two, the dropoff is hardly of the level most pundits seem to think it is. It seems to me that there maintains a sort of a double standard when criticizing third season episodes - they are lambasted for flaws which also exist in first and second season shows, but those episodes aren't criticized as much for them.

 

[egonbeeblebrox]

Re: Spectre Of The Gun

ToddPence said:
Laughing Vulcan, I can ease your mind a little by telling you that most of the traditional diatribes against the third season are vastly overstated. While the quality of season three is not quite up to the par of the first two, the dropoff is hardly of the level most pundits seem to think it is. It seems to me that there maintains a sort of a double standard when criticizing third season episodes - they are lambasted for flaws which also exist in first and second season shows, but those episodes aren't criticized as much for them.

That's pretty much how I feel about it. Though, I gotta say that neither the second OR third seasons come anywhere close to the first one [aside from the crap that is "The Alternative Factor]. The third was definitely a step-down from the second, but not by much.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

Elaan Of Troyius

The Enterprise is called on a diplomatic mission to the Tellun system, where two warring worlds are trying to forge a peace through an arranged marriage. They first pick up Petri, ambassador to Troyius, and then head to Elas to collect the Dohlman Elaan. They are supposed to head back to Troyius at a snail’s pace, to give Petri enough time to educate Elaan in the ways of polite society, something that her warrior heritage leaves her unaccustomed to. But watch out, there are Klingons about! A warship is shadowing the Enterprise for reasons unknown, there is a spy aboard the ship, Elaan is so annoyed with Petri that she stabs him, leaving Kirk in charge of her education, and there is an odd property to Elasian tears that Kirk has no knowledge of. When Elaan turns on the waterworks, the whole ship is endangered.

And the third season hits with the full force of an Acme Anvil. The Star Trek Compendium describes this episode as a loose adaptation of Taming of the Shrew, but for me it just plays as an inferior rerun of Journey to Babel. And yet it was remade again as an even more inferior TNG episode, The Perfect Mate. We have the diplomatic mission, the mysterious ship shadowing the Enterprise, the assassin, the stabbing and the dilithium behind the whole thing, just like Journey To Babel. What makes it different is the eye-candy that is Elaan, and her subjugation and indoctrination by Kirk into the ways of polite society. It’s that original story with added sex appeal, but with just a fraction of the intelligence.

Elaan is really there as a sex object, with the slow pan up her bikini regalia clad body as she beams aboard a case in point. I lost count of just how many costume changes the character had. (Speaking of costumes, how bizarre was the cardboard armour plating the Dohlman’s guard had to wear?) This must have been around the time of, or not long after the Liz Taylor Richard Burton movie, as the Cleopatra look and haughtiness has to be invoking something.

That haughtiness and arrogant attitude provides much of this episode’s entertainment value for me. Seeing Elaan attacking her food with gusto, ordering her underlings around, heaping abuse on all and sundry (calling Scotty a mechanic) is certainly an early expression of girl power, and I actually find the attempts to ‘civilise’ her misplaced. It doesn’t say much of respecting alien cultures if you feel the need to remake them in your image. Why did the Elasian have to adapt to Troyius? Why not vice versa? Why not compromise? I have a vision of an effete blue skinned aristocrat being taught how to eat with his hands, talk whilst chewing, bellow and fart with impunity. It’s a nice performance from the actress in the first half of the story, and I love the touch that makes it seem that she is a young girl out of her depth, acting the way that she thinks people expect, with just a hint of nervousness.

But then the ‘tears’ plot twist occurs and what interest I have in the story evaporates with a leap of illogic. These tears are supposed to make men putty in Elasian female hands, establishing a master servant dynamic. Only it doesn’t here. Elaan weeps, Kirk is smitten and she becomes meek and pliant. What? Surely she should remain in control and arrogant, surely she should be ordering Kirk to lick her boots clean, and he should be wrenching his back in his haste to comply. But it seems that the tears backfire, and turn her into clingy, needy Dohlman.

With McCoy racing to find a counteragent to the tears, it looks like we are in a drug allegory situation, with Kirk actually having to fight his addiction, trying to quit the Dohlman cold turkey through sheer force of will, where no lesser man can ever succeed. It would have worked too, until Spock points out that Kirk is already addicted to another drug. Another nod to the real world was the mutually assured destruction scenario drawn out for the two worlds, certainly relevant during the cold war era.

There is another invocation to the incompetence of pencil pushers at the start of the episode, and bureaucracy’s failing is highlighted once more in the most incompetent of ambassadors, Petri of Troyius. His supercilious attitude towards Elaan is apparent from the first scene, and his attempts to educate her dismal. It must have been his first ambassadorial gig…

The coolest thing about this episode for me has to be the first look at a Klingon ship, which turns out to be a really nifty model, well detailed and photographed, and an impressive change from the distant glowy light that we usually got. There’s a nice throwaway line about the uniqueness of Vulcan women, and for some reason I always thought that the lip smacker between Elaan and Kirk was the first interracial kiss that everyone speaks of.

Daftness includes a whopping great plot hole. Kirk calls down to Scotty to hear of a bomb attached to the warp drive that he can’t defuse. The next time, this un-defusable bomb has apparently been defused, and now the crystals have burnt out. What happened to the bomb? Where’d it go? I want to know and I want to know now. Also, pivoting at Warp 2, what’s all that about then? Why would you want to rotate at faster than the speed of light? Does that even make any tactical sense?

Elaan Of Troyius is the point in my mind where the writers stopped caring so much. It’s by the numbers Trek, that while it entertains, certainly isn’t memorable. And with a red mother and blue father, spare a thought for all those purple kids!

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

The Paradise Syndrome

The Enterprise is on a mission of mercy. An asteroid the size of Earth’s moon is on a collision course with an idyllic planet, one that has intelligent (if primitive) life on it. While time is of the essence, Kirk, Spock and McCoy do have enough time for a look see. What they find is surprising. Plant life that looks and smells as if originates from Earth, a strange alien Obelix, I mean Obelisk that resists Spock’s analysis, but hints at a technology beyond the Federation’s, and living close by, a settlement of American Indians. Obviously the Prime Directive applies, and the clock is ticking. Kirk decides to take one last look at the obelisk before beaming up, and that proves to be his undoing. Out of sight of the others, a trap door opens up and he falls into a chamber under the monolith. Spock and McCoy spare all the time they can and more to search for him, but with the asteroid bearing down, they have to leave so the ship can get to the interception point in time. Meanwhile a strange alien ray zaps Kirk and wipes out his memory. When he climbs out from under the obelisk, two Indian women confront him and promptly fall to their knees and start worshiping him. The ship races at Warp 9 to get to the asteroid, but the stress of the trip, the futile attempts to deflect it and destroy it, all take their toll on the engines, leaving the ship disabled, and limping back to the planet, 4 hours ahead of the asteroid at impulse speed, a journey that will now take 2 months. The Indians have taken Kirk to their hearts, accepting him as a saviour sent by the aliens that planted them there. They expect him to take the place of the Medicine Chief, and use the correct ritual to save them from the darkening sky. Kirk, or Kirok as he has now been dubbed may not recall his past, but he does have a sense of higher purpose, and settles into the role ascribed to him. It doesn’t hurt that the tradition states that the Medicine Chief gets to marry the Priestess, a woman named Miramanee. But all this doesn’t sit well with the previous MC, Salish, who has seen his role usurped, and his woman taken. As the fateful hour approaches, Kirok has no idea how to activate the obelisk, and is shown by Salish to be not at all divine.

The Paradise Syndrome is an episode that I really want to like, and it’s just one solitary annoyance that keeps dragging it down in my estimation. But this is a great story, with real science instead of babble. The idea of deflecting asteroids away from inhabited worlds is rapidly losing the fiction from the science in the real world, and slowly people are beginning to realise the necessity of protecting the planet. What I really like is that unlike the nonsense of Armageddon, Spock and co realise that the only way that they, even with warp drive, phasers and deflectors, can successfully protect the planet is to intercept the asteroid as far away from the planet as possible, where the least amount of energy is required to change its course. There’s none of those last minute saves with a nuclear bomb fifty feet above the planet’s surface. Of course there is the ultimate solution presented by the Preservers, but that can be described as technology sufficiently advanced to be called magic. The whole point is that our heroes don’t resort to a last minute babble solution to save their bacon.

Ah, the Preservers, another aspect of the show that has lingered on in Trek Lore, the galactic zookeeper/conservationists, who go around looking for primitive societies in peril of extinction, and then rescuing them and taking then to some sort of nature reserve in the stars where they can survive in peace. Note, this is a different group from Sargon’s Seeders, who claimed to have started humanoid life on various planets millions if not billions of years ago. The Preservers would have been operating in relatively recent times, within the previous thousand years or so, to have transplanted Native American tribes to safe havens. It would have been so recent to have meant that some evidence of their existence beyond just the random obelisk should have survived, home worlds, cities, wrecked spaceships, or even extant civilisations with which the Federation are yet to make contact. It’s a fascinating concept that explained the profusion of humanoid societies in the Trekverse, but one that was woefully neglected in later Trek, a story telling opportunity that would have been very rewarding, certainly more so than cookie-cutter villains of the week that later Trek employed. It doesn’t matter, as they wound up on Stargate anyway.

The big three also take centre stage in this ep, with another of those ‘Kirk separated from the ship, and McCoy and Spock fretting about it’ storylines. Spock of course takes the only logical course open to him, but perhaps by cutting things so fine, the stresses on the ship caused the attempt to deflect the asteroid to fail. Still, a starship moving a moon sized mass must have been a long shot anyway. The usual sniping between the two prominent blue-shirts is understated, although that may have more to do with the episode being stretched over two months, and it’s worth noting that it takes the majority of those two months for McCoy to admit that Spock was right in his decisions and to eventually forgive him.

This episode also looks splendid, with significant contribution from location filming in a genuine idyllic setting. Lakes and pine trees make for a wonderful backdrop for the story, and understandably invoke the Tahiti Syndrome that follows Kirk into his amnesia, and no doubt contributes to his flagrant disregard of the Prime Directive (Brain injury is not an excuse, he says tongue in cheek). The production values also continue over into the effects, with some interesting new angles of the ship, a nice composite of retreating ship and ominous asteroid, and the debut of the deflector beam. You can almost envisage it coming from the deflector dish in its primary mode of operation, leaving the Swiss Army attachments of later Trek for more dispiriting sci-fi. This show was made when Stardates were still meaningless numbers, and its hard to envisage a modern Trek episode set over two months of time, without some sort of reset button or temporal anomaly involved. Also, I think this is a Trek one-off in that it employs inner monologue for the main character. My thoughts never sound like I do; in my head I’m witty, urbane and suave, before my mouth filters it into an incoherent mumble. It’s funny to realise that Kirk thinks in Shatner-Speak.

What kills this episode for me is the whole noble savage cliché, wheeled out once again as shorthand for primitive cultures. Of course, I have the 21st Century perspective informing my opinion, and I’m sure this episode would have played just fine back when it was first aired. But the assumption that primitive equates to stupid is just so wrong. Regardless of how far up the technological ladder we climb, the thoughts and feelings people have remain just as complex, and the shorthand used here is nauseatingly trite. Salish is a case in point, stoic to the point of constipated, looking more like a TNG Klingon than a human, it’s hard to take him seriously when he responds with naked jealousy to Kirk’s usurpation. The whole, “White man comes from sacred rock, worship him, worship him” is something I find offensive, and the drama that unfolds on the planet is childish and puerile. Although I can see that Miramanee would be glad to dump Salish for anyone else. After all, who would want to marry someone with a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp? And Kirk has to wear the Technicolor Dreamcoat to get married.

Dramatic licence takes hold when McCoy doesn’t understand the urgency in intercepting the asteroid. Surely someone who works in space, regardless of role would understand something fundamental like that. But we as the audience probably don’t, which is why McCoy has a momentary brain sprain. Also for our benefit is the revelation that the Indians comprise Delaware, Navajo and Mohican tribes, as I doubt such detail would be of much use to 23rd Century astronauts. The Preservers also seem a remarkably self-contradictory race. After hundreds of years, said Indian transplantees have hardly progressed, yet they themselves say that the Wise Ones want them to improve. You think in all that time, they would have invented the lamp. There appears to be the thought that the Preservers have taken these people to protect them, to leave them in isolation to develop naturally, yet they also want to maintain some sort of divine influence over them, so they require them to come to the obelisk, and perform a ritual in times of danger, keeping the worshipper deity relationship intact. You’d think an automated defence system would be safer and more foolproof, after it only took one shaman jealously guarding his secrets to the grave, to throw the whole system out of whack. It makes little sense to me, and a little more thought into the consistency wouldn’t have been amiss. Another annoyance is the mind-meld. Nothing wrong with the brain lock in itself. It’s just that when Kirk awakes, he announces, “It worked!” Was this really necessary? We’re not that daft, we get it, mind meld, cure amnesia, back to work, save the priestess, save the world, or not. We could have figured it out without you telling us, Shatner…

I find myself in two minds about this story. I love the science, the McCoy Spock stuff, the effects, the Preserver mythology, but I loathe the Indian plot. Time hasn’t been kind to The Paradise Syndrome.

Ma puir bairns!

 

[TigerOfDarkness]

Re: Elaan Of Troyius

I seem to recall reading somewhere that TOS frequently got stories from girl fans where a young woman would board the Enterprise and have a romance with Kirk. The stories would end with the realisation that Kirk was married to the ship.

After watching EoT again recently, It occured to me that maybe they did this partly so they could say "but we've done that one already" ( or maybe I read that too? ).