Production Order Group Viewing 2018

Even Lost in Space figured that out.

 

Yes, but if I recall, at the end (spoiler alert) the Golden Man turned into a distorted monster, much like Gorgon, and the giant frog became a handsome prince. So that LIS episode taught that some beauty is fake, but it vindicated "real" good looks in the end.

Fun fact: years later, when The Bionic Woman had to cast a villain renowned for his charm and good looks, they used the Golden Man, Dennis Patrick. Probably a coincidence.

 

True, but the recap reminded me that Penny told the frog it wasn’t necessary to change his form because they were already friends.

Take that, Gorgon.

 

Never fear, ...Gampu is here? The youthful Pamlyn is actually 18 during Space Academy (1977)

 

Also a noted animal rights activist
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamelyn_Ferdin#Activism

 

SPOCK’S BRAIN

That hack Lee Cronin is back! Time to rip off more of Gene Coon’s work, is he? We’ll see…
To be fair, while he includes superficial elements of previous episodes (underground cities, advanced tech now long decayed and forgotten by society) the story itself is pretty original and high concept which is always welcome, even if sometimes the delivery doesn’t always meet the hoped for intentions…

This episode seems to end up on a lot of “worst episode” lists but I really can’t see why – the plot might be outlandish but it’s hardly the first time in Star Trek – and I was never bored! For me, a bad episode is one that fails to entertain. However, the absurdly goofy second half does let the original premise down somewhat.

As with many Season 2 episodes, the first part of the story is the best. The scenes prior to the crew descending underground are a joy to behold – the crew working seamlessly together, without some know-it-all science officer stealing all the credit.
Despite the outlandish premise, the actors all play the “his brain his gone” totally straight, and quite convincingly too!
The search for the planet, the fight with the cavemen and the ticking clock all add to the tension, and Nimoy plays mindless Spock to perfection, delivering his best Boris Karloff closeup
Then they descend into the Eymorg city and silliness reigns supreme with short skirts, GoGo boots and explicitly unintelligent women. Although to be fair, I think it is often overlooked that the men of the planet are not the brightest either.

The absurd Eymorg society:

• Luma miming to her friend about being stunned by the phaser – hilariously OTT! The goofiness reminds of the hand signal to mark “Warp Factor 7” from The Cage
• While never stated outright, there's several scenes that skirt close to implying that women on their own can't run an advanced society. “I wish to talk to those in charge” says Kirk; he doesn’t specify “a man” but then Kara mentions “The Controller”and Kirk replies that he would like to meet HIM. And no, he doesn’t mean Spock because they haven’t figured that out yet.
• Shatner-tastic acting when he is zapped by the pain belt
• Givers of pain and delight - “yes I certainly did note the delightful aspects”
• “Your body…we brought it along with us” (again, Shatner delivers this totally straight)
• We are told that the effects of the teacher last just 3 hours – in which time she was able to hop into a spaceship, locate a suitable replacement brain, fly across a distance that took the Enterprise 15 HOURS, perform major brain surgery, fly back to the planet in shove Spock’s brain into the computer interface before her intelligence wore off.
  Whew!

Remote Control Spock
(yeah, he gets his own list)

• I can’t believe they ruined the communicator from The Cage to create that boring control box. Shame!
• The ticking noises whenever Spock moves – what and why, exactly?
• I can buy that Scotty programmed a few select manoeuvres into the control helmet (walk, turn, sit etc) but the preciseness at which Kirk is able to use Spock’s body, hand and fingers to press a specific button on Kara’s wrist stretches credulity beyond breaking point
• Spock telling McCoy how to reattach his spinal cord connections, one body part at a time…um…no.
• Spock undergoing major brain surgery TWICE in 24 hours and not a scratch on his forehead. To quote Phil Farrand, does he have a flip top head?

Other thoughts

• In the initial attack, Chapel gets a killer fainting scene! She also features in the subsequent scene – is she a series regular now?
• That projection screen standing in for the main bridge viewscreen is excellent and used very well, with the camera moving all over the place to really show off the effect.
• Sigma Draconis has not 1, not 2 but 3 M class planets! That’s going to make for some interesting conflict further on down the line
• More planet graphics!
• It’s really cold on the planet – luckily, Season 3 uniforms come with a temperature regulator
• A full landing party beam down to the planet – splendid! However, then just Kirk, Zombiespock, McCoy and Scott descend to the underground city (sigh)
• Sulu in command again! It’s been too long. He looks good in the big chair
• Bodiless Spock is snarky Spock – throws some shade at McCoy (but only a little)
• Quite a decent amount of hallway set was built for this episode – far more than just the short stretch they could have got away with if this was the cheap and nasty episode its reputation suggests.
• That teacher helmet basically turns Kara into a big exposition device
• So, the Controller…is the Romulan Cloaking Device??? Did the Rommies visit this colony and copy some tech? Is that why their new cloak is so advanced?

To my surprise, there's a few classic Trek messages here:

• Kara says "the need of my people for their Controller is greater than your need for your friend". So, you might say that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?
• Unfortunately, Kirk takes the ST3 interpretation instead.
• McCoy risks himself for Spock – good Trek message there.
• Then we get the usual Kirk speech about “men and women living together” regardless of the consequences to the societal norms of the planet…which bizarrely is another typical Trek message!

The timing for watching Spock’s Brain is excellent – there’s a good discussion going on about it over in this thread here
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/hey-i-never-noticed-that-before.274883/page-119
and more here
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/hey-i-never-noticed-that-before.274883/page-120

 

Notable because it's the one episode where the redshirts and Chekov get to relax around a warm rock while Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, and Spock all experience pain.

 

Good point; what happened to them? The episode ended on Spock nattering, the Enterprise flew away...did anyone think to pick up Chekov and the guards? If And The Children Shall Lead is any indication, the future doesn't look good for our favourite Russian...

 

Spock's Brain

I'm counting there are 19 episodes left including Spock's Brain, so I calculate that we've watched and reviewed SIXTY episodes to date because we watched The Cage but then watched both parts of The Menagerie in the same week. Sixty episodes? Whew!

Sigma Draconis is a really cool name for a system. Sounds like a land in Game of Thrones.

I like how in TOS whenever the woman shows up we get the soft music. Imagine in real life soft music starts playing whenever a woman walks into the room.

McCoy is spazzing with Kirk about Spock's missing brain like he usually spazzes when Spock is in command, though he's not obnoxious with Kirk. Still, Kirk has the never say die attitude to look for Spock's brain despite how unlikely it is to find it.

One thing TOS does to build drama is to impose these tight deadlines so we can be on the edge of our seat. Oh no! How will they ever find Spock's brain in 24 hours? Sometimes these deadlines feel more artificial than others. For some reason, this one feels artificial to me. Probably it seems so unlikely they could actually find Spock's brain in such a short time. Say you have to find it in a week.

And really. It happens a lot on this show and others. There are some things I don't believe you can calculate to the exact minute. We get shows where they know exactly to the minute when a disease will begin killing people. Here, they know to the exact minute when Spock's going to die. Really? That's something you can calculate so exactly?

It gets talked about a lot here, but I do like the meeting on the bridge giving Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov chances to shine.

Kirk calling Scotty "Mr. Spock." Kirk is so used to having Spock by his side it's like he's missing his right arm without him.

As Kirk stuns the Morg. So... we're not worrying about the Prime Directive then?

Women are givers of pain and delight. Yes. Yes they are.

McCoy's remote control seems way too simple to control all the fine movements that would be necessary for Spock to walk and grab things.

A fight! Kirk doesn't really use much Kirk Fu here except for a double fisted attack once again proving that no one can stand against Kirk Fu.

Not sure I can buy Kirk in the worst agony he's ever felt still being able to control Spock to hold Kara.

"Why do you not understand that the need of my people for their Controller is greater than your need for your friend? " The needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few or the one? Although when Spock says it in WoK, he's willing to make the sacrifice unlike Kara trying to impose the sacrifice on them.

"It would be just enough time." How does McCoy know how long it takes to reattach a Vulcan brain? Actually, it's not a Vulcan brain, it's a Human-Vulcan brain. I wonder how it differs from a purely Vulcan brain.

I'd loved to have had The Teacher applied before some tests I've had in the past.

"You'll be much better off." Kirk tells Kara as he takes apart their society. Reminds of the Apple. We've decided you'll be better off if you live like Humans, although in both cases, Kirk had to act to defend his people.

McCoy begins to forget. Flowers for Algernon-ish.

Spock's head shows no signs of having had surgery. His hair's not even shaved!

Spock being able to assist McCoy with where and how to attach every single nerve in the brain seems unlikely. I'm thinking that a lot. There is a lot of "unlikely" in this episode. Also, Spock's brain takes up most of the room in his head. How would you be able to see and have room to attach every nerve? Aren't these nerves microscopic? McCoy mentions brain fluids, but how was he keeping them contained? BAH, thinking of this makes MY brain want to climb out of my head and run away.

So I assume every so often the morgs and eymorgs get together to make babies? But then, they don't seem to know anything about babies. Are these people immortal? No need for babies, no need for sex, no need for the morgs and eymorgs to come together until the eymorgs decide to capture a morg for physical labor.

Was The Time Machine any kind of influence here with Morlocks living below ground and Eloi living above?

Two weeks in a row we get candidates for worst episodes of the series. This clearly isn't a great episode, but I don't hate it. I actually don't think it is the worst episode. It started off well with a horror mystery, but somewhere this episode lost its mind. Sorry, I'll just let myself out now.

Alien Watch! Morgs and Eymorgs!

Season 1
Talosians
That big ugly Rigellian guy Pike fought in illusion
Vina as an Orion girl in illusion
Glimpse of other aliens captured by Talosians
Ron Howard's brother
That dog from Enemy Within
Salt monster
That hand plant...Gertrude
Spock (duh)
Charlie's parents (Thasians)*
Romulans!
(Ruk)
Miri's planet kids (bonk bonk)
Giant ape creatures of Taurus II
Shore Leave Caretaker guy
Trelaine and his folks*
Gorn
Metrons*
The Lazerii
The remarkably human-looking aliens of Beta 3. (RotA)
The remarkably human-looking aliens of Emineminar VII (AToA)
The Triffids of Omicron Ceti III (TSoP)
The refreshingly non-human-looking Horta
Organians*
Klingons! (Remarkably human looking).
(The Guardian of Forever)
Flying pancakes

Season 2
Sylvia and Korob
The Companion
The remarkably human looking (though tall) Cappellans.
Native Pollux IV-ians (Apollo and his gang)
Full-blooded Vulcans
The remarkably human looking citizens of Argelius II (WitF)
Redjac
The People of Vaal (Gamma Triangulians)
Crew of the ISS Enterprise
The remarkably human-looking** (except for maybe a dot on their forehead) Halkans
Tribbles (not at all human looking)
The remarkably human-looking citizens of...892-VI. Is that what they call this planet? (The Roman one.)
Tall guys, short guys, Andorians, Tellurites, purple lady, Orion made up like an Andorian. (JtB)
The remarkably human-looking people of Neural. (APLW)
The awesome Mugato!
Shahna, Lars, Tamoon, Kloog, Thrallmaster Galt, and the Providers
The Cloud from the Tycho system.
The BIG FREAKIN' AMEBA!!!!!
The remarkably human-looking Iotians. (Gangsters)
Kelvans! Who really look like big, cool squids but choose to look remarkably human.
Sargon and the gang of not-quite-omnipotent aliens.
Remarkably human looking Zeons of Zeon and Ekosians of Ekos. (PoF)
The remarkably human looking Yangs and Coms of Omega IV.
Isis! Who looks remarkably like a cat until she wants to look remarkably human.

Season 3
The decidedly non-human looking Melkotians.
The remarkably human-looking Elasians and not so human looking Troyians.
Lawyer in a muumuu. Remarkably human-looking but maybe that was on purpose.
The remarkably human-looking Morgs and Eymorgs of Sigma Draconis.

*Alien Watch sublist: omnipotent aliens!
**By request

 

Great, that episode is now ruined forever for me

 

SCOTT: I've never seen anything like her. And ion propulsion at that. They could teach us a thing or two.

So, are we to assume that Enterprise finds the ship in an underground hangar, and now, the Federation can study it. When does the Federation start using this superior propulsion technology? Installed in the TMP Enterprise? Trans-warp in the Excelsior?

 

Oh, please... All you need to do is have a bunch of volunteers to wear the teacher one time and record everything they know before it wears off. Nothing should be the same after that.

 

And as the huntsman in the woods in The Incredible Hulk episode, The Antowuk Horror!
JB

 

IS THERE IN TRUTH NO BEAUTY?

At last, a really solid story! And a bottle show no less!
Jealousy, anger, mental concepts of ugliness and beauty are all explored quite well with good performances from Nimoy and Diana Mulder, who gets does a great job of adding little nuances to her performance which in hindsight show how she is "seeing" via the sensor net.
Kirk is still pretty hammy at times but has toned it down somewhat since last week. And McCoy wheels out the ol' southern charm again
The disjointed music and fish eye lenses really help emphasise the “madness” feel of certain scenes
Unusual camera angles too, such as when the rarely glimpsed upper area of the Bridge is seen. There's also that nice walking sequence early on when Kollos is carried to his quarters.

Miranda is much better role than Diana Mulder’s previous character – even if she is objectified rather poorly by the males of the cast. Kirk’s plan to distract her with his wiles is probably the worst, barely justified by Spock’s assertions of Miranda’s response to just being asked for help outright. It’s what they end up doing anyway!

However, prior to that is the dinner scene which is a curious one – full of subtext and regular text!
On the one hand the dialogue lays the groundwork for the episodes themes of beauty, jealousy, murder etc, but on the other it's just an excuse for the menfolk of the Enterprise to drool over Miranda! Kirk kicks things off by asking how "the male population of the Federation" could allow Miranda to spend her life serving Kollos, but the other boys soon join in.

Then, Miranda can’t leave without Kirk and McCoy schmoozing all over her! And then Marvick comes to her quarters for a snog!
She doesn’t seem to object though, maybe she is just enjoying some human contact after all those years on Vulcan?

The timing of the dinner scene is also unclear: Basically, they have a meal with lashings of Andorian brandy, then they all leave and go to bed. Scotty however goes back to work in Engineering. Marvick turns up in Engineering in response (it seems) to Scotty’s wager who in turn promises to gift him a bottle of scotch “this evening” - although its possible that Scotty's perception of time was a little skewed by then...


Other thoughts:

• A formless alien like Kollos is apparently now no big deal! Kirk was a lot more impressed with energy beings and gas cloud beings back in season 1 & 2
• A good reason to clear the corridors – with 2 shots of crewmen leaving, no less! I think only one of them is from this episode though - the other has a distinctive wall feature that does not appear elsewhere.
• Given the established latent Esper abilities in in most humans (established in WNMHGB) it shouldn't be a surprise that full human telepaths are possible, even if somewhat rare.
• How those silly visors are supposed to work is never explained, which is probably for the best – they just do.
  
• So, Larry Marvick was one of the designers of the Enterprise? He doesn’t look all that old. Maybe they mean one of the many refits it’s had during its time (we’ve seen 2 distinct Engine Room sets in the last 3 years alone)
  
• Scotty now has a dress uniform, complete with kilt
• Humans' outmoded notion of beauty Kirk admits this is a prejudice Kirk still holds and freely admits this - in fact, it was on full display with his reaction to the Gorgan last week!
• That “protective shield” on the Bridge looks like a couple of stage flats, ones which could topple over at any moment
• Spock’s brain and his mind have sure taken a beating in the last couple of episodes!

Roddenberry's Merch Store
The dialogue might as well have gone like this:

To be fair though, at least his spiel on what an IDIC is and why true Trekkie should own one is spread out better than what was originally intended, i.e. pretty much as a commercial tag at the end of Spock’s Brain

 

It was Antarean brandy which looks amazing like Romulan Ale. Remember, this is my specialty.

 

I remember chatting with a guy a few years back about how weird it would be if every time a lady you were attracted to walked into a room and you too heard that same outrageous music that Kirk hears every time he takes a liking to somebody in the show and we just cracked up!
JB

 

Guilty! Should have gone back and at least checked the transcript on that one

 

Is There In Truth No Beauty?

I always liked this episode.

But what does the title mean? Is it Shakespeare? Does it mean that there is no beauty anywhere? Or there is no beauty in truth?

Not sure what to think of this "so ugly he drives people insane" thing. I can understand a being who drives people insane if they look at him, but because of ugliness? How can something be so ugly it makes you insane?

Wow, the hallways are filled with crewmen again! Reminds me of Season 1. The Enterprise does have a crew!

Miranda is a telepath, huh? Is this finally an example of a human with a high ESPer rating talked about way back in WNMHGB? When they leave the galaxy, why doesn't she get silver eyes? I like how when Kirk is told she's a telepath, he's mildly surprised and interested, but from the way he acts it's like he's heard of such people before. They do exist among the human population.

Ugh, Kirk is so ham-handed complimenting/flirting with Miranda at dinner. Actually they all are.

Miranda, being a woman and all, also gets the TOS "soft woman music."

That's an interesting camera shot from the turbolift. Never saw the bridge from that angle.

I always thought the Enterprise was trapped in the galactic barrier, but that appears not to be the case. They flew out of the galaxy and into some kind of void. They don't explain it well. There's just this...void...hanging around outside of the galaxy? How big is it?

David Frankham plays a good crazy person.

You can't cross the galactic barrier at sub-light speed.

Miranda has never been to Earth. So she's human but born elsewhere. Interesting.

And Kirk is again ham-handed with Miranda in the conservatory, laying lines on her about how she's going to regret living with the Medusans because she'll miss love. It's like the same lines Larry was laying on her. Is this mansplaining? I'm a guy, I haven't been mansplained to, and I don't think I do it, but Kirk's coming across a bit arrogant. "Now, see here, little lady, you don't know what you really want so let me tell you." Sheesh.

And really, it's so not cool this plan of going behind her back, distracting her so Spock can talk to Kollos. I get she's really jealous about this, but you have to approach her up front, tell her what's going on. If she objects, have her talk to Kollos then.

Cool twist that Miranda is blind, and cool sensor net she has.

This is such a psychedelic 60's episode. The organ music, the blaring horns, the special effects, the wild camera angles. So 60's.

Kirk way heavy-handed again with Miranda at the end when forcing her to confront her feelings. I guess it was necessary.

So were Miranda and Kollos merged at the end? Never caught that before.

Good episode, I always liked it. I like Miranda Jones. What an interesting character. Interesting background, smart, driven, talented, well acted by Diana Muldaur. She would have been a great recurring character.

Alien Watch! Kollos the Medusan! Definitely not human-looking. I'm not sure what he looks like. Let me take a look. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!

Season 1
Talosians
That big ugly Rigellian guy Pike fought in illusion
Vina as an Orion girl in illusion
Glimpse of other aliens captured by Talosians
Ron Howard's brother
That dog from Enemy Within
Salt monster
That hand plant...Gertrude
Spock (duh)
Charlie's parents (Thasians)*
Romulans!
(Ruk)
Miri's planet kids (bonk bonk)
Giant ape creatures of Taurus II
Shore Leave Caretaker guy
Trelaine and his folks*
Gorn
Metrons*
The Lazerii
The remarkably human-looking aliens of Beta 3. (RotA)
The remarkably human-looking aliens of Emineminar VII (AToA)
The Triffids of Omicron Ceti III (TSoP)
The refreshingly non-human-looking Horta
Organians*
Klingons! (Remarkably human looking).
(The Guardian of Forever)
Flying pancakes

Season 2
Sylvia and Korob
The Companion
The remarkably human looking (though tall) Cappellans.
Native Pollux IV-ians (Apollo and his gang)
Full-blooded Vulcans
The remarkably human looking citizens of Argelius II (WitF)
Redjac
The People of Vaal (Gamma Triangulians)
Crew of the ISS Enterprise
The remarkably human-looking** (except for maybe a dot on their forehead) Halkans
Tribbles (not at all human looking)
The remarkably human-looking citizens of...892-VI. Is that what they call this planet? (The Roman one.)
Tall guys, short guys, Andorians, Tellurites, purple lady, Orion made up like an Andorian. (JtB)
The remarkably human-looking people of Neural. (APLW)
The awesome Mugato!
Shahna, Lars, Tamoon, Kloog, Thrallmaster Galt, and the Providers
The Cloud from the Tycho system.
The BIG FREAKIN' AMEBA!!!!!
The remarkably human-looking Iotians. (Gangsters)
Kelvans! Who really look like big, cool squids but choose to look remarkably human.
Sargon and the gang of not-quite-omnipotent aliens.
Remarkably human looking Zeons of Zeon and Ekosians of Ekos. (PoF)
The remarkably human looking Yangs and Coms of Omega IV.
Isis! Who looks remarkably like a cat until she wants to look remarkably human.

Season 3
The decidedly non-human looking Melkotians.
The remarkably human-looking Elasians and not so human looking Troyians.
Lawyer in a muumuu. Remarkably human-looking but maybe that was on purpose.
The remarkably human-looking Morgs and Eymorgs of Sigma Draconis.
Kollos the Medusan

*Alien Watch sublist: omnipotent aliens!
**By request

 

I love Miranda, especially the way she cock blocks all the fawning men. She's a great example of the way men still treat women all over the world. The dinner scene is so cringe.

I wish TNG had taken a leaf out of her book when designing Troi's abilities. They're nebulous and interesting rather than plot busting. As a human trained on Vulcan, she might also be an example of how Number One might have been portrayed.

I thought Kirk's accusation that she was refusing to help Spock out of jealousy was a bit harsh and a bit odd given that a telepath and psychologist should be able to see through clumsy reverse psychology. He implies to Bones that he believes that she tricked Spock.

 

Kirk said they were in a void, but that might not be technically correct:

Extreme sensory distortion at warp speeds seems to be the main problem in navigating back to the galaxy. Fortunate that Kollos is a trained interstellar navigator and his Medusan sensory system is radically different from humans. One button push and they're back where their started from.

Apparently, telepaths are not ESP'ers:

Extra Sensory Perception means seeing actual events in your head either from an unseen vantage point or even from the future, but reading other's minds via telepathy is left off the list of ESP powers. But, energy barrier enhanced people gain telepathy along with telekinesis and matter manipulation. I guess it's included in the standard god-package of superpowers.

In any event, it looks like the Federation has put in tech to prevent the barrier effects on humans. It's good to see that the writers were more or less consistent between Season 1 through Season 3 on the Great Barrier.