I could sorta understand "I have a problem with them shooting it dead". It's the "I insist they torture it to death by placing it in an environment in which it cannot survive and then dropping it stuff it doesn't want" bit that baffles me. It's essentially one-man Stalingrad, with the Luftwaffe flying in plastic Christmas trees to the starving and freezing besieged, only more personal since there's just that one sorta-person involved. And Starfleet should wish to conduct that for, what, mercy? Scientific curiosity? Spirit of adventure?
None of the heroes were quite that pathologically evil in any of the other episodes. "Man Trap" is a good lead-in to how Starfleet operates. Why pervert it to the opposite of that?
Timo Saloniemi
Interesting perspective! I took the story at face value with the zoo or pet analogy, but while it's not TOS's finest hour, there's still a few things that give pause for thought.
Wasn't "Man Trap" an episode one of the original ideas for the pilot? I remember reading the broadcast executives choosing this episodes over others because they felt it was more conventional sci-fi, compared to other stories already made.
She might perceive her conditions as torture, while Crater hugs her, cradles her, kisses her, calls her "Nancy", and pretends the being that killed his wife
is his wife (which is another issue glossed over).
Robert seemed to be doing it out of mercy and to preserve a species while it still existed... But we never got much of Nancy's perspective, other than being desperate for salt due to the delay. Or why her species became extinct. There could be a clever way to do a backstory, or a lame one that's just as glossed over as many other aspects of this story are - but the positive side of that is that viewers enjoying the episode can think of all sorts of possibilities and they wouldn't be wrong.
That said, for mid-1960s, this episode is remarkably adult and is an early (?) example of sci-fi not showing "big oogabooga monster" but adding a dimension and making an actual sentient being and character (in dire straits, albeit not the rock band), with Kirk shrugging it off as being nothing
but a monster. (Being early in the run, one might argue it leads to a growth experience for Kirk, except the story gives him no reason TO grow as such. Kirk isn't new to space travel and encountering strange new civilizations either... but three seasons of this sort of Kirk wasn't going to fly and season 2 shows a more refined character. Season 3 even has him offering asylum to folks, like Alexander, though why he wouldn't offer it to Shahna, someone he claimed to love... (but Kirk seemed to know somehow that she would make the ideal leader for the Thralls... a sequel showing her succeeding wouldn't be amiss... but I digress.)
No, I literally didn't.
I said that a starship, with no change in schedule, can go to the planet every year and supply the creature with salt. With an ample supply of salt, you're not leaving it a slow inhumane death. Instead of drugging the truth out of Crater, you beam him and his obviously intelligent pet back down and make sure it has what it needs. You don't even have to leave the ship, just beam down the cargo. Check in with Crater from orbit to make sure he's ready. If something happened within that year, well he's an adult. But at least you're giving the creature a chance to survive and Crater is willing to take the chance. He and the creature have already survived together for probably two years.
You are the one who is justifying killing the intelligent creature. I am the one who's trying to say they could saved it's life.
Hadn't seen the previous posts, but this is interesting. Why they'd send the flagship there would be silly, unless it was the nearest.
Salt isn't easily perishable so there'd be little reason to run out, or even have a backup supply.
Instead of killing, which should be a last-resort issue if nothing else were possible, tranquilizing would be an alternative - but the last of its kind, how do you ask it for blood and other samples to figure out what would work as a tranquilizer? Until McCoy shot the phaser, nobody really knew how strong or otherwise it would react to a phaser blast at stun setting - stun could still kill, there is no blanket ability of all species to tolerate the energy bolt being blasted from the thing...
and old age. As this being gets old and needs medications to keep cholesterol, blood pressure, and other gooey things in check... Robert was a romantic, which is good, but hiding the creature was doing nobody any good in the end.
(but both are gold)
