Requiem for Methuselah

[Trekfan12]

ME TV was broadcasting this episode this past Sat.. and I've seen this episode, like all TOS eps, a gazillion times. I thought the beginning of the episode, the encounter with mysterous Flint, was well done. The urgency of getting the medicine that will save the crew was a good plot line. The thing that annoys me most in this episode is Kirk's romantic interest in Rayna. He doesn't know her, it's like it was 'love' at first sight. And it just made me cringe, why would he fall so hard for her. There have been other women that have crossed paths with Kirk and he didn't act like some hormonal teenager. I thought his first love was the Enterprise, and that his crew was the most important thing to him. With his crew's lives in danger he lets his head be turned by Rayna, who in the end, turns out to be an android.
The only other thing that I liked about the episode is how his friend/brother Spock takes that memory away from him. I think if there was an episode where Spock could have eased Kirk's pain there were many instances. One I can think of at the moment is "City on the Edge of Forever." When he sees Edith die and doesn't prevent it and doesn't let McCoy save her either.

So the romance element ruined the later part of this episode for me.

 

[Forbin]

Many people agree with you on that.

 

[Kor]

Like much of the third season, I consider this a garbled and exaggerated account of events that "really" happened.

The episode did give us a pretty spiffy thin flatscreen TV, though.

Kor

 

[Timo]

The classic dodge on this is that Kirk never fell in love here.

After all, he never does. Instead, he exploits women in order to complete his mission. For a romance to actually interfere, he needs a cosh in the head, a bout of severe amnesia, a trip to another reality.

McCoy wants to get the medicine from Flint. Spock wants to know who Flint is by studying the man and his real estate. Both are faulty approaches that get no results. But Kirk has the winning strategy - he instinctively homes in on Flint's one weakness and exploits that to the breaking point.

That he afterwards feels bad about hurting Flint is typical of him: he seldom despises his opponents, and often sees himself reflected on them. That he spares not a single thought to Rayna the Fembot in the end is even more telling, though!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[feek61]

I always credited Kirk's intense love of Rayna on the Rigellian fever that the entire crew and presumably Kirk was suffering from. Kirk obviously if he were himself would not have acted the way he did but his emotions seemed to be in overdrive judging from all of his actions (beginning with threating to kill Flynt at the start of the episode) and another indication that he was not thinking straight was when we was going to attempt to see if he could salvage the ryetalyn even after M4 AND McCoy said it was unusable. Is Kirk a scientist? If he were thinking straight he certainly would realize that both Spock and McCoy were much more qualified then he and the fact that he did not take McCoys word for it or involve Spock would be unusual if he were thinking clearly.

If you look at the episode with the thought that Kirk is out-of-his mind infected with Rigellian fever; the episode makes much more sense and is actually quite enjoyable.

 

[Timo]

Umm, what salvage attempt? At which point of the episode does Kirk distrust McCoy's word?

I don't see unsound command decisions from Kirk. Nothing he did or left undone slowed down the acquisition of the medicine. Nothing could have speeded it up more than the fight over Rayna. Kirk manipulated, with his fists, with his words, with his lips. And he didn't appear to have truck with being manipulated himself.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[feek61]

Kirk just after the waltz and after McCoy tells him the Ryetalyn is no good; he has a brief conversation with Spock and then exits saying "I think I will go to the lab, there may be a way of reversing the Irrilium's effect and save the existing antitoxin"

This does not seem to be rational thought for Kirk, IMO.

 

[Captain Rob]

Kirk said it himself at the end "We put on a pretty poor show."

 

[Timo]

Ah, thanks for pointing that out! But he doesn't go to the lab to study the rhyetalyn: he just mills about - until meeting with Rayna, which may well have been his intention all along. And meeting with Rayna is eminently rational in their situation. He has just been shoved to her arms by Flint, oddly and deliberately, so clearly there's something going on that involves her, well, intimately...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Timo]

Kirk said it himself at the end "We put on a pretty poor show."

Breaching the fourth bulkhead?

The interesting thing about that monologue is that Rayna has no place in it. It's all just Kirk and Flint, Kirk and Flint.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Poltargyst]

That he spares not a single thought to Rayna the Fembot in the end is even more telling, though!

Timo Saloniemi

So why was the mind meld necessary?

 

[geotrek]

He doesn't know her, it's like it was 'love' at first sight. And it just made me cringe, why would he fall so hard for her.

Interesting post. I've always thought that he fell for her so swiftly because she was "the perfect woman," one that simply didn't exist anywhere. feek61's supposition is very interesting... but if the symptoms are similar to Bubonic Plague, I'm not sure how amorous that would make a person. Since it's Kirk, who knows?

It was always very creepy for me when they go into the second laboratory and see all those earlier versions of Rayna...

 

[feek61]

Could be the sickness or the medication they were on to control the symptoms of the disease; could be either but of course it's all speculation since nothing is ever specifically mentioned. Strange how Kirk pretty much collapses at the end though . . .

 

[Timo]

So why was the mind meld necessary?

So that Kirk could forget Flint.

That's the mistake many (including McCoy) make here: that Kirk would have cared one iota about the robot at that specific point in the story. But the robot doesn't come up in Kirk's monologue at all. He's concerned about "we", that is, the two men he specifies, Flint and Kirk. Kirk probably doesn't want to become Flint. Or grow old, like, ever. Yet he is Flint already, a man in possession of all the power in the world, yet impotent to use it for fighting the loneliness that accompanies the position.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Doug Otte]

As always, Timo, your interpretations are insightful and sound. Did you study literary symbolism?

 

[feek61]

That's crazy talk to say that Kirk was not effected by the "robot" and indeed Spock was certainly helping his friend Kirk "forget" about Rayna. Where is the evidence that Kirk is concerned about not becoming Flint; in fact, how could he? Kirk barely considered Flint in the episode and concentrated solely on Rayna. Why would the conclusion focus on Flint and not the "robot?" That's crazy talk!

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Competing theories:

1) The episode at face value:
- Kirk fell in love at first sight.

2) feek61:
- Kirk was incubating Rigelian fever and went a little nuts when he laid eyes on Rayna. (Possible, but then what's my excuse? I loved her too.)

3) Timo:
- Kirk was using Rayna to put psychological pressure on Flint that might break Flint's game and shake the situation loose.

4) ZapBrannigan:
- Kirk fell in love, but Spock quietly recognized Rayna's Robo-American heritage. Spock secretly agreed with Flint to fake Rayna's system crash, probably with a remote control concealed on Flint's person. This broke the romantic triangle and got Kirk out of Flint's hair and back to his proper priorities, which is what Spock vocally wanted all along. Note Spock's quick and tidy explanation when Rayna collapsed.

You decide.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I say option one.
KIrk always fall in love hard and fast. Along with killing computers, it's his thing.

 

[Nebusj]

I say option one.
KIrk always fall in love hard and fast. Along with killing computers, it's his thing.

So given the chance to do both at once of course he went wild.

 

[Forbin]