Star Trek-RM: The Mark of Gideon… Grading/Discussion

[AstroSmurf]

This is the grading & discussion thread for Star Trek Remastered airing the weekend of 05/31/08.

The Mark of Gideon

While making a diplomatic mission to the planet Gideon, the U.S.S. Enterprise begins talks with the planet's ruling council for Federation Membership. During negotiations, the council asks to meet with Kirk on the planet; he obliges and is promptly transported to the planet’s surface. But, for reasons unknown, the captain never arrives at his destination. So the crew must begin a desperate negotiation with the native people for access to the planet in order to mount a search for their missing captain.

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Next Week’s Episode: The Lights of Zetar
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[Joanna McCoy-Kirk]

I have a certain fondness for this episode because IMHO Kirk and Odona make a cute couple. The speech about the Gideonites' preference for life rather than population control, though, always reminds me of the ranting of televangelists. With 15 minutes to go in the telecast, the remastering looks to be "the usual".

JL

 

[cooleddie74]

D for the episode itself(unedited or otherwise). Average for the Remastering work. I've never really cared for this episode growing up or as an adult aside from Odona and the fairly smart, timely(then and now)subtext about population growth and birth control. There are so many dumb loopholes in this script it has always ranked in my all-time Bottom Five or Six.

 

[doublegood]

Meh. Episode pretty average, remastering average. Not much to see here.

 

[NiteTrek]

There are so many dumb loopholes in this script it has always ranked in my all-time Bottom Five or Six.

Yes, here are a few:

A planet that has "standing room only" and people are squished together like sardines and yet they have the room to build an exact duplicate of the Enterprise.

In addition, they manage to build a duplicate so exact that Kirk doesn't even realize it. Nothing out of place?

They had the beam down co-ordinates from when they sent Kirk down, why did they need to get them again? (So Spock & Scotty can eventually discover that they are different co-ordinates!)

 

[Kryton]

My strongest recollection of this episode was all those creepy faces looking in on the screens!

Scheduled to air here in about an hour and a half. Will probably look at it tomorrow.

 

[MANT!]

A B episode for me.. rather heavy handed on the population control thing..with the faces pressed on the viewscreen and the bodies pressed against the council chamber (Where on Gideon do they have any land for food production with all the people covering the landscape?)..the remastering gets an average for really a lack of opportunity

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

A planet that has "standing room only" and people are squished together like sardines and yet they have the room to build an exact duplicate of the Enterprise.

In addition, they manage to build a duplicate so exact that Kirk doesn't even realize it. Nothing out of place?

That's why I think it was a simulation of some kind. There's no way the Gideons could have actually built a full scale interior mockup of the ship, but they could have scanned it and recreated it on a holodeck.

As for why there were shots of people peering in through the 'viewscreen': Those must have been near the 'real' walls of the chamber used to simulate the Enterprise.

Me, the only nit I could think of was why there isn't an epidemic of mass suicide on the planet. I'm guessing the Gideons couldn't murder *each other*, but I wondered why the pressure wasn't getting to some of them and causing them to kill themselves. Maybe they literally couldn't do it - if they tried, their bodies might regenerate?

 

[Swarles Barkley]

D- for the episode, Below Average for the remastering.

I hadn't seen this episode in years. It has not aged well. Too many plot holes and logical inconsistencies make this one nearly unwatchable for me.

The remastering gets a below average simply because there was so little for them to do. Being a pretty classic example of a "bottle show", there just aren't a lot of FX shots to remaster. The Enterprise orbital shots were nice enough, but nothing particularly dazzling, and few and far between.

 

[Timo]

A planet that has "standing room only" and people are squished together like sardines and yet they have the room to build an exact duplicate of the Enterprise.

The episode never really tries to claim the impossible, that is, that people would be living shoulder to shoulder all across the Gideon globe. The cities are jam-packed, sure, but there would certainly be enough room for an important government construction project or dozen.

In addition, they manage to build a duplicate so exact that Kirk doesn't even realize it. Nothing out of place?

I just assume this is the standard way of portraying a somewhat confused hero's viewpoint. The fake is probably far from perfect, but Kirk is sufficiently drugged not to be able to pin down the imperfections. Not too dissimilar from how "Mudd's Women" shows the actual looks of the women changing due to the Venus drug, when in fact the only thing that changes is their attitude, and the way men see them.

They had the beam down co-ordinates from when they sent Kirk down, why did they need to get them again? (So Spock & Scotty can eventually discover that they are different co-ordinates!)

(Yup.) But there's a plausible in-universe reason for it, too. Protocol seems important for the Gideonites (and no doubt for many others our heroes encounter, except when they require coordinates, they do it via Kirk's subordinates at the transporter room, not via the commanding officer himself). Asking for coordinates would be a formality not too different from asking for permission to enter the house of the host even when the answer is known in advance.

Me, the only nit I could think of was why there isn't an epidemic of mass suicide on the planet. I'm guessing the Gideons couldn't murder *each other*, but I wondered why the pressure wasn't getting to some of them and causing them to kill themselves. Maybe they literally couldn't do it - if they tried, their bodies might regenerate?

The spelled-out explanation was that the (surviving) folks were immune to most epidemics, and that murder, while perhaps extant, was considered so distasteful that it wouldn't be present in large enough a scale to solve any of the problems. The latter explanation should apply to suicide, too. People might do it in private, but unless the government could endorse it as a policy, it wouldn't help any.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[NiteTrek]

A B episode for me.. rather heavy handed on the population control thing..with the faces pressed on the viewscreen and the bodies pressed against the council chamber (Where on Gideon do they have any land for food production with all the people covering the landscape?)

Plus, from what I remember, those people all look well-fed. No "walking skeletons" that I could see. Food must be abundant.

 

[NiteTrek]

The episode never really tries to claim the impossible, that is, that people would be living shoulder to shoulder all across the Gideon globe. The cities are jam-packed, sure, but there would certainly be enough room for an important government construction project or dozen.

Then how come just outside the duplicate of the Enterprise, we see these people jam packed, peeping in the viewscreens, pounding on the hull? If they had enough room for "important government construction projects" you would think they'd have a little extra space around the fake Enterprise.

I just assume this is the standard way of portraying a somewhat confused hero's viewpoint. The fake is probably far from perfect, but Kirk is sufficiently drugged not to be able to pin down the imperfections.

What about Spock? He wasn't drugged but when he beamed down he seemed to believe it was a duplicate. In fact, I believe he even said it was "an exact duplicate of the Enterprise." This coming from a Vulcan indicates to me that the fake Enterprise was NOT "far from perfect."

Protocol seems important for the Gideonites (and no doubt for many others our heroes encounter, except when they require coordinates, they do it via Kirk's subordinates at the transporter room, not via the commanding officer himself). Asking for coordinates would be a formality not too different from asking for permission to enter the house of the host even when the answer is known in advance.

Still doesn't make sense. Kirk's co-ordinates would have been stored in the transporter, at least a log of it. Totally different co-ordinates should have been caught by someone right away, ESPECIALLY when the captain of the ship comes up missing. It should have been the first thing they verified.

 

[ZERO_of_ZERO]

A+ : I love this episode (partly as I remember watching it when I was very young)

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The episode never really tries to claim the impossible, that is, that people would be living shoulder to shoulder all across the Gideon globe.

I always thought that it *was* like that. Odona's comments seemed to indicate that it was, at any rate.

 

[zopman]

Yeah, I always felt this was one of the classic 3rd season klunkers, but I have to tell you, the new syndication trimming here (save for one glaring cut which I will discuss in a minute) seemed to pick up the pace & give this episode a bit more punch. And, I gotta say, I had forgotten how GORGIOUS Sharon Acker was in this episode, & the beautiful color remastering highlites her even more. I could even notice the beautiful color of her lip gloss, a wonderful light shade of magenta!!! Yum!!

OK, so besides that, as stated by others, the FX remastering was by now just the standard stuff with not much to do, though I did notice one new Enterprise closeup orbital shot at the opening.

Finally, I do have to mention that I thought the last syndication cut was ATTROCIOUS!! They trimmed out the very last scene as Kirk & Odona leave sickbay & walk into the busy Enterprise corridor, they cut to the final credits instead of keeping Odona's comments about how she was still a little sad that the Enterprise was now crowded with people instead of just the 2 of them. Originally, it was a nice way to end the episode, but here they cut it out! A poor choice after, as I mentioned before, an overall superior trim job.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Wasn't Spock supposed to make a log entry as he walked the corridors of the simulated Enterprise? They must have cut that too.

 

[AstroSmurf]

My schedule has been so grueling lately, I have barely had time to sit down let alone indulge in a little TOS-Remastering. But I did manage to catch this episode... unfortunately. I really despise this episode and it represents, at least in my mind, one of the more inept undertakings of the series. The premise was interesting but the actual episode was atrocious. And all of the pointless bantering between Spock and the council leader was painfully boring while dragging down an already sagging plot. If they had kidnapped Kirk plus Spock and McCoy and let them, along with the audience, figure out what was going on things might have faired better. Creating an elusive yet surreal mystery out of the empty yet still functioning ship with Kirk and his boys logically working things out (with some nice sparking banter between Spock and McCoy), it might have made the episode salvageable. As it stands now... I have to give it an F. This one of four episodes I would not miss if the original negatives were lost.

As for the remastering... nothing new, nothing gained and nothing memorable. The lot was pretty drowl actually. I gave it a "Below Average".

 

[Bad Atom]

Gideon needs condoms.

C+ for the episode, Average for the remastering.

 

[Timo]

Then how come just outside the duplicate of the Enterprise, we see these people jam packed, peeping in the viewscreens, pounding on the hull? If they had enough room for "important government construction projects" you would think they'd have a little extra space around the fake Enterprise.

But the government workers involved in the project would still want to peek in, to get a glimpse of open spaces if nothing else...

The planet must have open farmland and other such ventholes for managing necessary planetary processes such as heat exchange. It would of course be forbidden to enter those expanses of open space, but the land would still certainly be available for projects like this. (Hell, since this was so uniquely important, the Gideonites could have abandoned their principles for this once and executed a few thousand people to create the room. They were literally sacrificing virgins to make this project work.)

If the planet didn't have a relatively conventional urban/rural geography, this would be quite evident from orbital scans. And I don't mean the forbidden sort, but simply Mk I Eyeball once-arounds.

What about Spock? He wasn't drugged but when he beamed down he seemed to believe it was a duplicate. In fact, I believe he even said it was "an exact duplicate of the Enterprise." This coming from a Vulcan indicates to me that the fake Enterprise was NOT "far from perfect."

Then again, Spock hadn't had time or incentive to comb through the actual functionalities of the fake. Naturally the visual appearance would be perfect, as it could be relatively easily recreated from photographic records and blueprints. Faking the contents of the databanks would be more difficult, but Spock makes no attempt to access those. And we don't really have evidence that he would have verified the construction materials with his tricorder, to distinguish between Grade A duranium and Grade F tritanium-osmium alloy.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Michael]

What problem do they have with the original chronometer?