If when he said that he was all these people, what he meant was that he replaced them after their deaths (caused by him or not) assuming their appearance, knowledge and abilities, at least it'd explain how he could be an uberpolymath.
Requiem for Methuselah Review
- Thread starter Soullessblackeyes
- Start date
Great idea, sloppy and rushed execution. End of the run, must save money and time, this script is good enough style production Freiberger and Singer were saddled with. The cast makes it classy but the flaws are obvious.
This episode would work is it wasn't taking place over a few hours and the Enterprise wasn't in jeopardy. Star Trek was filled with "ticking clock" episodes, there's no reason why the clock has to run out so fast.
Give Kirk a few days with Rayna, have Flint actually program her to be more appealing to him as he learns more about Kirk so he can't help but start to fall for her and you have a stronger reason for the climax. But you have to remove the Enterprise in jeopardy plot for this story to work. The Kirk we watched for 70+ episodes prior to this wouldn't forget his crew for yet another blonde. He'd punch her in the jaw and escape to save them.
No
This episode would work is it wasn't taking place over a few hours and the Enterprise wasn't in jeopardy. Star Trek was filled with "ticking clock" episodes, there's no reason why the clock has to run out so fast.
Give Kirk a few days with Rayna, have Flint actually program her to be more appealing to him as he learns more about Kirk so he can't help but start to fall for her and you have a stronger reason for the climax. But you have to remove the Enterprise in jeopardy plot for this story to work. The Kirk we watched for 70+ episodes prior to this wouldn't forget his crew for yet another blonde. He'd punch her in the jaw and escape to save them.
Isn't that's Kirk's romance M.O. ?
No
I think it is. He falls hard and fast for a number of women,
Oh, yeah. One guy can't do it, especially off on his own. Historically, technology advanced the most when discoveries cross-pollinated between disparate regions, with different industries, different needs, different mothers of invention. The opposite extreme is the last uncontacted tribes in South America, who still live nearly naked, unhoused, and have handmade bows and arrows as their highest technology. No isolated tribesman can out-think and out-discover a world he can't hear from.
Apart from inventing things, you then have to build them. This famous Milton Friedman bit goes into how many people takes to make a pencil, and I think it proves that Flint didn't build his home and technology from scratch. He ordered parts and hired temp workers:
I always thought Rayna was mechanical, and Kirk's speech ("...down to the last blood cell, she's human!") was just a passionate, hyperbolic rhapsody. Flint says she was supposed to have been immortal. Also, I can't imagine him growing human flesh like a test tube Frankenstein. Third, if Flint tried to make a flesh and blood woman his perfect companion, she probably wouldn't die of an emotional overload. She'd just make his life miserable 'cuz bitches be crazy.
Regarding the artificial that can't be told from the natural: Battlestar Galactica (2004 series) and Bionic Woman (2007 series) both started out making you think the mechanisms were straight-up mechanical, and then migrated to a technology that was somehow indistinguishable from human, only stronger. I didn't like that. It was too much like the writers didn't have a fixed idea, so they left themselves more and more leeway as they went along.
No.
About the only one he fell for "quickly" was Edith Keeler in "The City on the Edge of Forever." Miramanee took time (Kirk was on the planet for months), and Kirk was decidedly not himself.
Just about every other situation was an old flame ("Shore Leave", "Court Martial"), Kirk was under the influence of more than feminine wiles (e.g. "Mudd's Women"), or Kirk was using his masculine Corbomite for ulterior motives. Even Lenore Karidian fell into this last category.
Like the red shirts myth, Kirk really isn't that much of a tomcat if you do the numbers and count the number of episodes. (Granted, it was only 134 seconds from the moment Lenore entered the party, and Kirk had hooked her and reeled her in. But that's just technique. And he's the Captain.)
I'm not referring to the tomcat myth when I say he falls hard. I mean he falls deep for the women he falls in love with. Rayna, Edith. Mirimanee.
There were two things going on. True, Kirk was charming and handsome, with high status as a ship captain, so he could absolutely get the girl at a cocktail party. But the second thing, revealed later, is that Lenore wanted to be "got" so she could get close to her next target.
Also, I support your argument that Kirk had a relatively restrained love life.
Fair enough. Rayna is the only one that doesn't work and Freiberger was romance happy that season to get the girls watching (they were already there but whatever). At least Kirk had time to get to know the other two. Although I wish the Edith relationship was better fleshed out.
In the 1953 story "Whatever Happened to Corporal Cuckoo" by Gerald Kersh, the titular immortal character (born 1507) remains a simple soldier throughout the centuries and doesn't collect anything.
I assume Kirk was in love with Janice Lester at least for a while since they had a one year relationship before they broke up.
I assume Kirk was in love with Janice Lester at least for a while since they had a one year relationship before they broke up.
Maybe. That sort of takes us back to the "Your world of starship captains doesn't admit women" line. If one believes as I choose to that the dialogue wasn't inherently sexist, it suggests strongly that Kirk wasn't really that into Lester, or didn't have time for something as serious as what she wanted. That work/life balance issue continues as a theme in Kirk's life right through his final on-screen appearance, so it's not too incredible.
There is also all those other Rayna bodies laying around. Spare parts or previous models (or both). Implies mechanical. If they were all dead or in a coma that would be creepy. And need life support equipment.
How about the stasis Flint used on the Enterprise? (Although bridge lights continued to flicker. So the computers were awake.)
I was unaware of that story, so I looked it up and am reading it now. Thanks.
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