The Return of the Archons - 45th Anniversary this week
- Thread starter Wingsley
- Start date
PLYNCH - Can you explain a bit more on what you mean; I am not quite following you.
I know they explain the Landru Computer releases control of the members of the body for the partaking of Festival, so I am wondering if you mean WHY they go crazy during the release from control?
So, I guess they never really do explain the 'going crazy' effect.
Is that what you are pointing to, or I am still off-base?
I know they explain the Landru Computer releases control of the members of the body for the partaking of Festival, so I am wondering if you mean WHY they go crazy during the release from control?
So, I guess they never really do explain the 'going crazy' effect.
Is that what you are pointing to, or I am still off-base?
Hmmm. There's no accounting for taste, but this ep IS notable for the first mention of "The Prime Directive". I think we have G.Coon to thank for that.
It also has a strong Scotty on the bridge, the first I think, and again, thanks to Mr. Coon.
It also goes outdoors, which always helped. Thanks, Mr. First Season Budget.
Otherwise, it's something of a leaden script.
But did I mention I really dug the "light panel"?
It also has a strong Scotty on the bridge, the first I think, and again, thanks to Mr. Coon.
It also goes outdoors, which always helped. Thanks, Mr. First Season Budget.
Otherwise, it's something of a leaden script.
But did I mention I really dug the "light panel"?
Not an episode for the time capsule to be sure, but a guilty pleasure.
This episode has one of Kirk's great lines : "Well, you're on your own, Marplon; I hope you're up for it. You can get rid of those robes... If I were you, I'd start looking for another job."
^ Love that line.
But I'm not so sure about the "time capsule" aspect of it. I think Spock's comment about "the peace of the factory, the tranquility of the machine" will hold up. It certainly seems relevant today. Communism may be practically dead, but totalitarianism certainly isn't. And we're still struggling with the question about whether or not any nation should interfere.
I love this ep, even though they should've used a less-conventional looking clock, and some of the trappings should've been a little less 1880s. (I did notice a power line in the background of one of the wide-angle street shots (the one just as the "Red Hour" struck; so maybe we're talking 1900.
Does anyone know where that article is about TOS and the minimalist approach to set and prop design? It was posted a few months ago, but I have no idea where it is.
I think that's what "the Body" sets to work doing after they recover from their hangovers. It gave everyone something to do.
I agree with Captain Tracy on this. The point of this episode is that while the inhabitants of C-111 Beta III may be alien, they appear to be basically human on some level. Landru ended their wars and gave them peace and purpose, but at the cost of being themselves.
Landru made the natives into zombies, which would drive them insane if not for Festival, which acts as a steam release. (And maybe a stimulus for the gene pool as well.)
Huh?,... Agree with CAPTAIN TRACY about what?
I was asking for PLYNCH for clarification.
You mean this one?
For all we know, their culture is purely Earth-human in origin. The existence of the fancy lamp proves the 1880s look is unnatural for them, and suggests cyclical history; the visit of the Archon establishes Earth influence. As Landru runs the daily Red Hour, it would only be fitting for him to also run the Blue Day and the Green Year when the society undergoes some other sort of violent change. Perhaps the history of the world is rewritten every fifty years or so, hopping from one Earth-stolen milieu to another (and sometimes inserting bits stolen from Andorian or Bugocreepian history) without any more rhyme and reason than there is in the Red Hour?
This is one of the many episodes where the presence of an exactly Earth-like society is perfectly justifiable, even if the writers never actually justify it. 1880s midwestern towns do not exist in cultural isolation, yet the episode implies this is the only town on the entire planet, smack atop Landru's lair. There's the reference to the mysterious Valley, which may or may not exist for real, and that's that - no mention of the possibility that Kirk's posse could be from some other community comparable to the Town. It all appears just as delightfully fake as in, say, Prisoner...
Timo Saloniemi
The purpose of red hour, I believe, is never stated, and our thoughts about it are supposition. Plausible though it might be. I'm open to correction from the script, though.
I think part of red hour was just to film a crazed riot and inject it into the ep. TV is spectacle, after all, as well as story and character.
I think part of red hour was just to film a crazed riot and inject it into the ep. TV is spectacle, after all, as well as story and character.
Yes, I believe that's the one. Thanks!
The best part of this episode was watching DeForest Kelley act like an indoctrinated lunatic on some strong sedatives.
Overall, good episode, not one of my personal favorites though.
Overall, good episode, not one of my personal favorites though.
I believe you are right. I find it amusing that in all these years, I never really thought it through; and now that you have brought it up, it really is an unsupported causation.
Thanks for pointing that out.
For all we know, the Festival had no purpose. It may have been a mere malfunction of the control system, which was clearly under a lot of strain, judging by its pitiful reaction speed and inability to cope with invaders or even internal resistance movements. It had all the necessary hardware, it just couldn't make the decisions, not fast enough.
Perhaps the population of the planet had grown beyond the design limits of the system? Or perhaps the machinery had worn down? The Festival might be but a necessary reset for the failing control system.
Timo Saloniemi
Perhaps the population of the planet had grown beyond the design limits of the system? Or perhaps the machinery had worn down? The Festival might be but a necessary reset for the failing control system.
Timo Saloniemi
I suspect the producers wished to imply it was a necessary blowing off of steam. This episode always seems a bit weirdly edited, so maybe there was a line that got chopped. As it is, the ambiguity adds to the weird/creepiness of the ep. I certainly like it better than some.
Maybe it's time to make a priority list of my own, of the 79. I've never done that, though I've participated in the hive-mind exercises here. I don't know if I could really distinguish between, say, a #7 and a #8, though. Maybe just some general categories:
Love. Like. Don't-dislike. Dislike. ??
Maybe it's time to make a priority list of my own, of the 79. I've never done that, though I've participated in the hive-mind exercises here. I don't know if I could really distinguish between, say, a #7 and a #8, though. Maybe just some general categories:
Love. Like. Don't-dislike. Dislike. ??
Here's a little tidbit to think about...
The episode clearly announces that the Enterprise's mission is to investigate the disappearance of the Starship Archon. Kirk quizzes Spock about Landru's power readings being "powerful enough the destroy a starship", which strongly implies that the Archon was a starship-of-the-line, perhaps an earlier version of the Enterprise and her ilk.
But it is never made clear if the Archon was a Federation starship or a starship straight from one of the member-worlds of the newborn Federation (such as Earth or Vulcan).
Judging strictly on the way Kirk, Spock and Sulu talk about the Archon and their mission, do you think they were investigating what happened to the U.S.S. Archon?
The episode clearly announces that the Enterprise's mission is to investigate the disappearance of the Starship Archon. Kirk quizzes Spock about Landru's power readings being "powerful enough the destroy a starship", which strongly implies that the Archon was a starship-of-the-line, perhaps an earlier version of the Enterprise and her ilk.
But it is never made clear if the Archon was a Federation starship or a starship straight from one of the member-worlds of the newborn Federation (such as Earth or Vulcan).
Judging strictly on the way Kirk, Spock and Sulu talk about the Archon and their mission, do you think they were investigating what happened to the U.S.S. Archon?
I don't see any overt evidence the Archon could NOT have been a Federation starship. It was, as you say, implied to be *a* starship, albeit an older model. This episode came right after "Court Martial" which was the first time we ever heard of the Federation. We had no idea how long the Federation had, in the context of the show, been in existence. It wasn't until TNG where we learned how old the Federation was.
So at the time this TOS episode aired, the Archon's ultimate source could be anything. Certainly the Archon could have been a Federation starship and it wouldn't have violated a stitch of continuity.
Agreed. The people on Beta III would have gone space crazy if they didn't have some way of letting out all those emotions they had bottled up inside them. (Much like people do today, IRL.) The Red Hour was a perfect way to do this.
BILAR: Tula, these folks come for the Festival. Your daddy can put them up, can't he?
TULA: You're from the Valley?
LINDSTROM: Yeah, we’re like, from the Valley, dude!
Aye-yeah.