Production Order Group Viewing 2018

Was it? Or was it just desperate for salt?

Incidentally, is the creature female? They do a good job keeping up the horror with references to an "it."

 

No idea.

 

For the most part, I've always enjoyed The Man Trap. When I was a kid it was utterly terrifying. It's really eerie trying to gauge the life-form's nature, based on how we see it act in human form. Now older, I find myself drawn to the archeological expedition studying the remnants of the civilization it was a part of. I wish they had explored that a little bit more, given some more details. Imagine being drawn in by a civilization that is genuinely interesting, and knowing that killing the salt-creature is even more of a tragedy. The situation still effectively evoked sympathy from me when I recently watched it, but I thought they could have pushed the idea more, challenged us that extra bit.

There something of a tragedy in seeing the early episodes, which have a different emphasis that is reinforced when you go through them in production order. We see Captain Kirk's character develop from the commander full of angst and self-doubt and loneliness, into a character who is at home with himself, confident and charismatic. The tragedy is all the other stuff that is thrown out, and subsequently dropped. Rand, Spock and Uhura, the sense of characters being developed in more overt ways. I don't mind when they settled into their more static incarnations who exist to serve as a catalyst for change in each situation they arrive at in each episode.

 

I think they just popped the "regulars" any place they could.

 

Great post. The M-113 creature scared me silly as a kid, as did to a lesser extent the poor woman at Memory Alpha affected by the Zetarians, Gorgan (yup - I thought he was scary despite the shower curtain) and Redjac. The archaeological take is fascinating.

 

I agree, those other episodes you mention are also very effectively frightening, when I watched them at the right age. Nowadays I see in those stories what is commonly mentioned, but for the most part find myself able to forgive, unless the episode is stretched too thin, storywise. I like how episodes like "And The Children Shall Lead", "The Savage Curtain" and others have dialogue about space legends about the local area the Enterprise is exploring. It's a little silly, but it's also somewhat evocative. Every time the allude to space legends, I find myself wanting them to detail the legends. "And the Children" actually does that a little bit, I was happy to re-discover!

 

Production Order Week 7
Star Trek Episode 1x06 The Naked Time
First aired: September 29, 1966
7th episode produced, 4th episode released.

The Enterprise crew is intoxicated by an inhibition-stripping contagion that causes mayhem throughout the ship.

 

The Naked Time

Allow me to first express my extreme displeasure at the fact that despite the title, no one in this episode actually gets naked.

Hmm, holding landing party members in the transporter beam for decontamination. Interesting.

Isn't it a little nuts for Starfleet to leave these researchers on this planet until so close to the planet's breakup? Reminds me of All Our Yesterdays where the Enterprise shows up to check out the planet right before the supernova. Think ahead, Starfleet!

Do they really need to be that close to the planet to study its breakup?

Introducing the helmsman of the week: Riley!

Heh. For a change someone else tells McCoy "he's dead."

Uhura takes the helm again!

"I'll protect you, fair lady!" "Sorry, neither!" Haha.

"Take D'artagnan here to Sickbay." Haha. Especially funny coming from Spock.

"I will render Kathlene ONE. MORE. TIME." "Please not again." Haha.

Didn't realize there were so many good lines in this episode.

Poor Rand. She gets sexually harrassed every episode. (And we haven't seen Charlie X yet.)

Rand takes the helm!

This leads me to a question maybe better saved for another discussion. I've been calling both Chekov's and Sulu's stations "the helm." What is the difference between the two stations?

This disease is especially torturous for Spock who tries so hard to control his emotions. Does he feel that grief all the time but just keeps it buried?

Scotty: "I can't change the laws of physics!" That's okay, Spock can.

So let me get this straight. In 20 minutes time, McCoy comes up with the cure for the disease and treats the entire crew, and Spock comes up with the formula for a cold restart of the engines? Whoa.

And that cold restart formula is a "theoretical relationship between time and antimatter." Damn.

And here is more evidence that Kirk's love of Enterprise makes him completely immune to any sort of mind-altering substance be it chemically-enhanced women, mild-altering disease, spores, love potion tears, or love itself.

For some reason, McCoy has to rip open Kirk's jersey to give him the cure which he did not need to do to anyone else. Kirk's shoulders are so manly, they cannot be contained and are yearning to be free!

Huh. They can time travel any time they want, and they DON"T need to slingshot around a star to do it!

When I was a kid, I found this time travel scene to be truly awe-inducing. They just learned that time travel is possible! Look at the awe on Kirk's face, in his voice! It seems clear that they knew it was theoretically possible, but no one had done it before. A truly stunning moment in Star Trek history.

And so what do the producers of ENT do? The show that supposedly was a prequel to TOS? Oh, they completely stomp all over this awe-inducing moment by having a GD TEMPORAL COLD WAR in their first season where aliens, Starfleet officers of the future, and Archer himself galavant back and forth through time like it's old hat. I am NOT happy about that.

This was never one of my favorite episodes, but I enjoyed it more this time through.

 

Not "lady" but "maiden".

SULU: I'll protect you, fair maiden!
UHURA: Sorry, neither.

She's neither fair=light skinned or a maiden=virginal.

 

Don't you regard this as quite a bold thing to say in the 60s?
Not saying it was ground-breaking or anything but a lady admitting she's not virginal in a family series seems brave

 

Allow me to first express my extreme displeasure at the fact that despite the title, no one in this episode actually gets naked.

Not even the man taking a shower on Psi 2000.

 

Be careful what you wish for - they got naked in "Naked Now" and it wasn't very pleasant.

 

Or maybe it's because they found a simpler, new way to do it. If the cold restart sequence is revolutionary, how much more so the fact that they can time travel with it? No special alien devices equipment needed to go back whenever you want.

I find it interesting that they just continued on their way and let their past selves get into trouble. I would think McCoy would be itching to send a subspace message warning past Kirk not to send poor Tormolen to the planet, or to send along his cure for the polywater and Spock's cold restart calculations. Neither of which might ever have been discovered in the first place if Joe hadn't scratched his nose.

There should be a story where Kirk and/or McCoy wrestle with choosing scientific knowledge, however valuable, over the chance to save a man's life.

Couldn't that be taken to mean she isn't that young anymore (compare 17 year old Tina Lawton, whose actress was 21 at the time)? The actress was 34 at the time. So not a maiden, but more of a matron (in her own mind).

 

In the 23rd Century it seems Flight Control (Conn) and Navigation were separate stations. Sulu is the Conn officers (Flight Control. Referred to as Helm). The other station which so far has been manned by the rotating navigator of the week is the navigation station. The navigator plots the course and the helmsman steers the ship.

By the 24th Century these stations were combined into one station referred to as Flight Control or Conn.

It appears that the Starship Operations station (Ops) of the 24th Century is not a single dedicated station in the 23rd. Ops operations on Kirk's Enterprise appear to be divided between Communications, Science and Helm. Also of interest is that 24th Century starships do not have a dedicated communications officer.

Nearly 50 years and I never took "fair" to be a comment on her skin color. Odd.

 

What did you think it meant? That she didn't consider herself to be lovely?

 

That's my favourite Uhura line, although I'm very fond of her scene in STIII. Sulu is great fun in this one too. I like it when Uhura momentarily loses her cool too.

It's a fun episode with some neat science, although some characters are allowed to have more fun than others. We see that Spock works hard to suppress overwhelming emotions and has some serious issues, although it's odd that the effects come on so quickly.

Chapel displays the keen analytical skills of a qualified biologist in this one, foreshadowing the reveal that she is way overqualified for her job (not). She does however give us some insight into Spock.

It would have been nice if Rand could have stayed at the helm for longer. It's not as if she had anything else important to do.

It's interesting to observe the recurring theme of Rand as damsel in distress. The only occasions where she isn't is when she's mincing around on some pointless admin task. It's why Man Trap is my favourite episode for her.

Riley has quite a bit of personality. I like his easy familiarity with the other crew. You can see why people might like to see him again (as long has he isn't singing).

The resolution to the medical drama is a bit more realistic than the technological one largely because I disapprove of the shoddy security that they have with key systems.

Once again we get a peek beneath the hood of a more vulnerable Kirk. In some ways this might have been a better episode to appear later in the run when we're getting comfortable with who we think the characters are.

It would have been fun if the script for the time travel story had been ready. It might have led to a couple more two parters throughout the show's run.

 

It it usually used in reference to a person's hair colour, i.e. "she was fair haired" which often indicated blonde or light brown hair. Obviously this would not apply to Uhura either!

THE NAKED TIME is great episode with many iconic moments and lines.
Some top class ribbing between Spock and McCoy. Sulu apparently gets a new hobby every week! The crew continue to feel like they live & work together. Kirk demonstrates that he knows most of his crew on a casual level at least (he gently jibes Tormolen about continuing to sign on for tours of duty despite his reservations). The whole non-verbal interaction of Kirk shouting at and then apologising to Uhura is a great example of their professional working relationship. A little bit of 50's scifi in the form of a reference to "space madness"

Kirk gets more poetically awesome dialogue: “We may go up into the biggest ball of fire since the last sun in these parts exploded, but we've got to take that one in ten thousand chance!” and we get a really deep dive into what it means to be Spock. Nurse Chapel has heard that Vulcan men “treat their women strangely” which she interprets to mean physical violence, but Spock’s soliloquy suggests that it is more like emotional repression.
First indication of Spock’s great strength when he knocks Kirk over the table with one swing.
Another first is the appearance of the Jefferies Tube, something that will become a Star Trek staple. At this point in the show it is housed in a small room just off the main corridor.

Eddie Paskey is back and playing an engineer named “Rand”. In Mudd’s Women he was playing a technician named “Connors”. I wonder if the character has any other twin brothers on board that also go by different names? Or is he the same guy, named “Randall Connors” and Spock just knows him really well?

The interaction between McCoy and her is also great - he never once questions her ability to do her job

Actually, he seemed to get "drunk" within seconds of touching the infected Spock, far faster than any of the previous victims. He also got so into his "she needs me" melancholy that he couldn't hear Spock calling out the very solution they needed to save the self same ship!

The empty Engine Room from The Enemy Within is back and apparently manned by only Scott and his assistant! However, later in the episode we get the following tannoy announcement:

With multiple engine rooms on board, we can surmise that this one was just one of many throughout the ship (the easiest for Riley to take over, presumably) and he merely used its controls to override ship functions. I wonder if we’ll see one of these other engine rooms in a future episode?

The most powerful sensors on the Enterprise are apparently short ranged, as well as having the option of them being “manned” by certain crewmembers, presumably specialists in their respective fields.

Yeah, they are pretty bad-ass...except for Scotty, who thinks it will take him another 15 minutes to continue cutting through the wall panel. 4 minutes in and he’s already more than half done; what gives?
In a case of stunning continuity, from the point Spock where announces that they have less than 20 minutes left (and allowing for the few extra moments that Scott’s efforts in the Jefferies Tube buy them), this countdown is kept to more or less in real time. Good job!

Unfortunately, the 20 minute time span does make the ship seem rather small: Sickbay is a short walk from the Briefing Room, which is apparently on the same level as the Engine Room and given the ease at which characters stumble across one other, all rooms must be in fairly close proximity!
Just how big is this ship? How large is the crew? Pike in The Cage mentioned 203 lives, but Kirk’s crew might be less! Hopefully we’ll get a definite number in an upcoming episode ;-)

The way that Kirk utters the words “time warp” suggests that this is always a possible (if extremely rare) outcome when using the main engines. When warping space, you run the risk of warping time as well, I suppose!

It also supports a theory of mine that many early warp ships (with less well balanced engines) did indeed end up in time warps, although at the time they would have been assumed lost or destroyed. These time-lost ships went on to colonise planets hundreds of years in the past, which explains why there are so many human looking “aliens” in Star Trek

6th episode in is OK, buy I certainly don't think it should have come any sooner! Unfortunately, this point was unclear in 1987.

 

Ah, okay. I like that better.

 

I hope so!

Doesn't Spock explain at some point about how there was this ancient race that travelled throughout the galaxy spreading their seed along the way?

 

There's this exchange in The Paradise Syndrome:

Unfortunately (despite what McCoy says) unless the Preservers went back to Earth on many multiple occasions this doesn't really explain planets' proclivity for the humanoid form. It might account for one or two human species that the Enterprise encounters, but that is all. The amount of humanoid races in the galaxy would have to have a cause that pre-dated the Preservers themselves.