I don't know. A more diplomatic Captain might have found themselves negotiated into herding goats on Wednesday instead of on Monday.
Revisiting Star Trek TOS/TAS...
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“Friday’s Child” ***
The landing party must negotiate mining rights with a primitive people while the Enterprise is challenged by a Klingon warship.
All things considered this really is an average run-of-the mill episode, and yet it has quite a few fun moments in it. McCoy is a riot in his interactions with Eleen. And I really like Scotty's turn in command along with Sulu and Chekov and Uhura supporting. In this Scotty isn't yet the excitable engineer but has his own distinct professionalism and composure.
The primitive peoples in this are rather cardboard, though. And Tigre Andrews makes for a truly lousy Klingon.He has no distinct speech manner and they couldn't even bother to give him some make-up. Additionally while some of the music was neat quite a bit of it was just a little too obtrusive and some of it didn't fit the story's setting and atmosphere.
Ohh I have so many probs with this episode...the surface elements aren't bad...McCoy familiar with the planet's inhabitants, negotiating per the Organian treaty...BUT these people are primitive! Why are they even talking to these people? This is where a lack of budget hurts the show...they have to make the setting based on their means but it hurt the conceptual side too much for my taste in this particular one. By the ending Julie Newmar is so annoying you want to throw her off of some cliff. Dare I mention the Klingon? Dare I? Ok there are far worse episodes to come though...a generous *** stars.
I don't know. A more diplomatic Captain might have found themselves negotiated into herding goats on Wednesday instead of on Monday.
...or he could have sweet talked him into submission long enough for the power of the Enterprise to target his means of power, or avoiding the use of weapons altogether...thereby avoiding particular nastiness occurring with his landing party.
RAMA
^^ I'm not entirely sure, but if I recall correctly James Blish's adaptation of this episode mentioned something about the Cereans being a long lost colony or something and that contact with them predated the Prime Directive.
Or maybe I'm thinking of something else. But the only reason these people should have knowledge of starships and other worlds is because they've known it for quite some time.
Or maybe I'm thinking of something else. But the only reason these people should have knowledge of starships and other worlds is because they've known it for quite some time.
No, I'm thinking that initial contact goes back decades or longer.
Contact was initiated with the natives because of a couple of mitigating factors:
1) The rather vital minerals on the planet, and,
2) Proximity to the Klingons, who also need the mineral.
1) The rather vital minerals on the planet, and,
2) Proximity to the Klingons, who also need the mineral.
The Federation/Klingon involvement with the Capellans seems to come off as another cold war analogy, much like "A Private Little War". Did this date back to McCoy's first visit to them? In either case, they were already aware of the Klingons and the UFP, so The Prime Directive of TOS does not hamper the tale told here.
Don't let logic interfere with RAMA's beefs against this episode. In his mind, Jim Kirk has broken the Prime Directive at least 12 or 13 times.
Kirk has a way of breaking the PD and the TPD...
But yes, I never realized that the Federation probably shouldn't be there because those cultures (obviously) didn't have warp.
But yes, I never realized that the Federation probably shouldn't be there because those cultures (obviously) didn't have warp.
I'll take it TPD is the Temporal Prime Directive. If so, how could Kirk be accused of breaking something that didn't exist in his time?
The worship the Prime Directive receives has always baffled me. In order to satisfy the Prime Directive, you'd allow planets like Organia, Capella and Neural fall to the Klingons? By doing so, you're declaring open season on any under-developed world.
The Prime Directive doesn't seem to mean quite the same thing in TOS as it does later in TNG. Also I think there's a clue in the episode itself when the leader Akaar (before he's killed) says Earth people have never lied to them. This suggests they've had dealings with the Federation before. And he does says Earth and not Federation. Of course that may mean nothing, but it could suggest contact predates the Federation. In that case then the Prime Directive doesn't apply.
The Prime Directive should really be a judgement call. Whether a society can or cannot, in it's present state, expand it's worldview to accept the existence of other life in the universe.
I never bought the dumbass warp barrier. What an artificial line to base contact on.
Actully, I trhink the PD is TOS WAS often a judgement call as in A Private Little War Kirk was part of a Federation survey team taht made contact with te primatives; and then he filed a report reccommending that the planet and its inhabitants be given the full protection of the Prime Directive.
Also, the Federation WAS practical in the TOS days - in that IF a planet had something of great value to the Federation, they would suspend the PD (as it seems was done in Friday's Child.
IMO - it was TNG that 'expand' the PD into places it never should have gone (like refusing to interfere in the Bajoran/Cardassian conflict, etc.) The PD in TOS specifically reffered to primitive cultures that had yet to develop interstellar spaceflight; and/or had no idea other intelligent life existed.
Once a people had eitther interstellar spacedflight; or knowledge the life on other worlds existed; the PD was no longer in effect.
So you are trying to say a more useful application of the Prime Directive is as follows: "No contact with them until interstellar flight," even if that flight is sublight? That does sound more practical and beneficial.
Yes, but apparently it only takes interaction with ONE race to create a planet of 1930's gangsters.
So it doesn't matter how you get there. What do they say when a sublight boat from some post nuclear world washes up on Star Base 4? "Sorry, you don't have warp. Um... Whatever this 'warp' is... Forget we said anything. In fact, we're not here and this is all a hibernation induced hallucination."
So what does the Federation do when some "less responsible race" start handing out warp drive and ray guns to every world they come across?
Neither is Warp one (our nearest neighboring star would be four-and-a-half years away). It took humans eighty-some years to move from warp one to warp two.
Which is why I feel warp drive is an arbitrary line to decide who is ready and who isn't.
That's the kind of thing that happens when you try to squeeze and twist TOS to make it fit in with the spinoffs.Don't let logic interfere with RAMA's beefs against this episode. In his mind, Jim Kirk has broken the Prime Directive at least 12 or 13 times.
Two answers to this. Yes, because it relates to time, they could conceivably arrest Kirk, though that would prob violate the TPD.
The TPD did NOT exist in Kirk's time, so yes he can be technically accused of committing them without actually having any consequences. Temporal agents may well judge him as guilty. I LOVE the idea of those temporal agents, and am happy that time travel became a serious enough and commonplace issue they decided to address the situation by the late 24th century.
I believe I gave at least two alternatives to the Klingon issue involving primitive planets...blockades in space within the Organian treaty against Klingon encroachment, and/or appeal to the Organians.
Speaking of TAS (in the thread title)...a new animated show has been "talked" about officially.
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