McCoy's phaser in "City..."

I always wondered what the point was of the COTEOF scenes involving McCoy's phaser (ie, McCoy taking it from Kyle, the bum stealing it and vaporizing himself). These scenes didn't seem to be crucial to (or even necessary for) the plot. I'm not fully versed in the original Ellison version of the story; perhaps these were left over from scenes in the original story?

Also, did the bum shoot himself or set the phaser on overload? His manipulation of the phaser suggests the former, but the sound effect suggests the latter. If it WAS an overload, it seemed awfully simple to initiate! Also, aren't phasers on overload shown in other episodes to explode ("Conscience of the King," "That Which Survives") rather than dematerialize?

 

Plus McCoy is a doctor not in a military division.

 

The point was to show that it was a dangerous weapon in inexperienced hands. It was reiterated several times through the other series when a non-Starfleet character held a phaser and someone said, "Careful with that."

 

He was actually a rodent.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Human_20th_century_Rodent#Rodent

Kor

 

In some ways, the character was a holdover from Harlan Ellison's first draft, but with a significant downward shift in his participation in the story as told.

Ellison included a character he called Trooper, who had been a WWI veteran, wounded in action, and peddling pencils on the street to get by. Kirk had been referred to him as a source of information on the character Kirk and Spock were pursuing (NOT McCoy), and when Trooper led them to him, he killed Trooper with a phaser. Trooper's existence was dismissed by the Guardians (actual people running the time portal) as not essential to the timeline.

The Rodent took the idea of an inconsequential member of society killed by future science and made that all he was.

 

I like that he's given a little bit of story that's a diversion from the main plot. Too much Trek is so rigidly written around the A and B plots that it sometimes feels sterile. But his unfortunate little story added some pathos. It also seemed to resonate thematically because part of the point was that humans were inherently destructive, and the character ends up messing around with something more powerful than he had the knowledge and responsibility to handle. In some ways, it was a metaphor.

 

The Metrons in Arena told Kirk that violence was inherent in humanity too, Florky!
JB

 

Why do you think scenes that don't push the plot along are pointless or unnecessary?

This is my favorite Star Trek scene, ever. It has a world full of stuff to think about in it. Mainly, it's a sort of dark, fatalistic moment, a real life sort of moment that draws back all the glitz of big, noble principles and ideas, and shows us how life goes wrong, especially in those back alleys of humanity that no one talks about. The whole scene is like a stage play. And it ends with the only witness to the raving time traveler accidentally immolating himself, totally alone and unobserved. So in ST terms, it's all tied up in a neat bow, because the timeline is safe. Because an innocent man died.

 

Do I think that? I guess if that's the same as "wonder(ing) what the point was," I do. Except that it isn't and I don't.

With screen time limited (How long did episodes run originally...50ish minutes?) and such an involved story, it struck me as odd to include the scenes involving the phaser. I agree that the Rodent phaser scene is interesting and well done.

I do NOT, however, like the McCoy-takes-phaser scene. Why is Kyle working on the console with his back to the door, and why doesn't he look up when the door opens? We know from "Dagger of the Mind" that the door noise--even on the busy bridge--is loud enough to cause Kirk and McCoy to wheel around to look at who's opened it.

 

Kyle had no reason to presume that the door opening constituted a threat. For all he knew, it was Scotty, stopping by to see how his work was progressing. Or it could have been someone else he was even expecting, stopping by for a chat.

He had his back to the door because it needed to be for what he was doing, and he didn't look around when it opened because no one had called down to him to report McCoy going off the deep end on cordrazine. That's all.

 

He didn't maintain situational awareness. I see that all the time. Kyle got what he deserved.

 

Well, Kirk's voiceover log entry indicates that "all connecting decks have been placed on alert" prior to McCoy's escape from the ship. I suppose if the transporter room isn't considered to be on a connecting deck Kyle wouldn't be aware of that alert (though the security team we see during the "connecting deck" log entry is the one that finds Kyle post-attack).

Also, if you look at what Kyle is doing, he's working controls that would normally be right in front of him if he were manning the console as we see in every other episode where a transporter chief is shown. Indeed, in the seconds before McCoy Austin Powers-chops him, he's not doing anything at all.

All that said, it's a ridiculously small point about a wonderful episode. The scene doesn't play well for me (obviously), but I love the episode.

 

Poor Kyle can't catch a break. Mirror Spock fries him with an agonizer, Kirk mispronounces his name, he gets dumped on Ceti Alpha V by Khan ..

 

And Spock knocks him outta the way in Wolf's Fold while he laughs and says, "No need to shove me, Mr.Spock, I'd have gotten round to it..hahaha!"

JB

 

Plus Khan knocks him out and Captain Christopher pulls a phaser on him!

If there's any transporter chief that needs that second crewman with him, it's Kyle!

 

It's not really in my interest to focus on rough edges and imperfections, that might interfere with my appreciation of a great episode, so I don't. I sort of surf above all that mentally, letting flaws in unimportant areas speed by, only half noticing them, and forgetting quickly.

 

As a story mechanic, it also serves to get the phaser out of the hands of a paranoid, potentially homicidal McCoy.

 

In addition to those mentioned above, there are two more points to the scene with Rodent: they show that McCoy is still under the effects of the cordrazine, but starting to come out of it (his collapse), and they serve to validate Spock's theory of time operating akin to natural water flow. Since Kirk & Spock just encountered Rodent, and Rodent probably wasn't very mobile, it's a subtle way of telling us that Spock was right and that McCoy is now near the mission, setting up his later appearance there very well.

 

Agreed. But for the scene I decry above, the phaser would never have been in McCoy's hands. It didn't need to be for the story. (But I nevertheless do appreciate the different interpretations of the Rodent-phaser scene.)

I agree that the Rodent scene was relevant (and well done). Rodent gave McCoy someone to yell at. That scene showed that McCoy was coming down from the extreme cordrazine-driven paranoia. The phaser part of the scene (while cool) did not further that.

I love the idea that Rodent is an embodiment of Spock's "time is fluid" theory. That never occurred to me.

 

In one of the "Best of Trek" collections, an article called "The Disappearing Bum" suggested that after the guy was phasered out of existence his young son headed down the same dark path becoming an alcoholic. Eventually moving to California where while drunk driving he ran over and killed a young police officer (and aspiring screenwriter) named Eugene Roddenberry.

Which is why "Star Trek" never existed in the Star Trek universe and the whales ended up going extinct.