An interesting episode, but not action filled, nor without problems. Here the Enterprise is drawn to the planet
Arret (not named in the actual episode, but this is just
Terra spelled backwards). It is described as a class M planet, which is immediately weird since class M means suitable for human life, but this planet has had its atmosphere ripped away some half million years ago and it is not suitable for human life at all. It may have been class M at one time, but no longer, so it shouldn't be described as class M. It would just be described as whatever class it is, which isn't M.
The problem with this episode, of course, is if these beings were truly God-like, why do they need so much help from us humans? Going too Epic like that often produces more problems than it's worth. The solution for me - they really aren't all that impressive a race and were kind of foolish and extremely arrogant to think of themselves as gods. They fall far short of the Q continuum, for example, who themselves are kind of God-like but still fall far short of many Godly standards, and they were confined to one planet, it seems, and had limited influence beyond it, and their best technological efforts can't even seem to construct an android that matches, let alone surpasses Data's capabilities, less than 100 years away from current Federation technology. Not that
TOS should foresee everything, particularly things written and accepted in
TNG or beyond, or technological advances decades ahead of the show's time, but I did feel Sargon's race was pretty puny in power and wisdom to dare think of themselves as gods, and still not all that advanced technologically, and the episode missed pretty badly at guessing about how far technology would be advanced in half a million years, IMO. Maybe since they were forced to use only the "stone knives and bear skins" the Federation could supply it didn't look like much, and that might explain why their androids looked like they were a collection of transistors and bulky circuit boards. Of course, I suppose it's possible some of the tech they left behind and didn't use ended up on the workbench of Doctor Noonian Soong - you just never know where we pick stuff up. Perhaps many advances in Trek were not the product of clever human research so much as happy accidental discoveries and applications and reverse engineering of alien technologies, or even traded tech from more advanced races. So you think no way could Humanity get that far in 300 years, but what it we heavily relied on trading with more advanced civilizations?
One might wonder if Sargon's spacefairing race encountered the Q. If they had, they had a lot of cheek considering themselves gods by comparison, and if they hadn't met the Q, why not? Seems to me the Q would be dicking with most races as they began their reach toward the stars. Oh well. It's not
TOS's fault they didn't think of the Q. Maybe the Q continuum is simply not that old, or dicking with newly advancing races is a new fad for them, or humanity alone, more or less, have so inspired them to interact that way.
I also hated the hook, or hooks in the show - it's like Sargon was deliberately being vague or stating things in such a way as to maximize the probability the humans would jump to the wrong conclusions just before the commercial breaks - like he wanted to steal their bodies - instead of borrow them - or all humanity must die if they don't help him - they never really explained that opening hook. Why would humanity perish if they don't help Sargon? It's stupid. Maybe he felt we'd make the same mistake in half a million years if we didn't learn from their mistake, and therefore destroy ourselves. I dunno. Or is it just 10,000 years, for that's as far a leap as Spock suggests, and most of the last 600,000 years they just lay dormant and not steadily advancing in tech? Yeah, let's assume that. So they aren't half a million years beyond us - just 10,000.
Another bonehead move is Henoch tweaks Nurse Chapels's memory when she notices what he's doing with the medicine and hypos, so he makes her forgets what she saw - but THEN, after that, he further explains to her how he's going to kill Sargon and Kirk. WTF?
Anyway, so the idea is floated that a literal Adam and Eve may have been a pair of space travelers from Sargon's race, but the timelines don't match up at all, unless you wish to accept Adam and Eve occurred about 600,000 years ago and Earth's written history reaches that far back. It just doesn't by a couple orders of magnitude, of course, so I felt the attempted connection to Earth there seriously failed. Vulcan, too. Though it might explain Jack the Ripper, who has been with us since "time began" and could take other bodies and inhabit the ship's computers. Sound familiar? If so, doubtless Jack and Henoch would have gotten along famously. What a couple of bastards.
It probably could have been fixed had they simply not felt the need to reach that far back into deep time to set the scene for the self-inflicted cataclysm Sargon's race unleashed upon itself. Too Epic - a needless problem that comes about essentially because you want something to sound more epic rather than finding a better way to show it is actually more epic. Anyway . . .
The ultimate crisis for a race is suggested that a race could get so powerful, they might dare think of themselves as Gods - sort of an ultimate sin, I guess - the worst kind of blasphemy, the punishment of which is obviously essentially the race's annihilation. So watch out, humans, lest we ever think too highly of ourselves or our accomplishments.
In this episode, they start out hundreds of light years beyond where the farthest Earth ships have so far come - another mistake - and it'll take 3 weeks just for Starfleet to even receive Kirk's initial report via subspace, which travels many times faster than warp 9, so again, WTF? So that's pretty far out. Again, at warp 7, it'd take 200 or more days to get out this far, 400 to get there and back, and it's highly questionable there was nothing in between or they'd bypass it all just to investigate this one thing, so again, reaching for the epic in that way is more of a problem than it's worth. One might estimate subspace communications, however, travel 10 or more times faster than their highest warp factors (if you play with some of these numbers), so they are 30 weeks out at maximum warp, or even farther at typical warp. Bad numbers, all the way around. Either ignore them or adjust them rather than struggle to make them fit, IMO.
But there are some nice things about the episode. It's something to think about - the idea of living inside a machine, what it might be like to rematerialize inside solid rock, normal communicators can't communicate through 100 miles of solid rock (which is strange if they use subspace tech), warp engines the size of a walnut, or what Gods are compared to humans, or even what one might sacrifice to obtain knowledge or power - like would you sacrifice a stranger's life, fellow crewmen though they may be, to advance humanity 10,000 years in knowledge?
Fortunately for Lt. Commander Mulhall, our good doctor McCoy's principles hold true and stand the test of temptation - he won't peddle her flesh. Even better, Sargon and Thalassa's self-restraint carries the day, and Henoch's greed and cruelty loses out. It's always enjoyable to see a villain get his comeuppance. One does wonder WTF he actually did to Uhura to make her scream like that, but this is left a mystery. We only know Sulu was ready to act, but even he ultimately decided it would be a pointless attempt when Henoch threatened him. Fortunately, Henoch is destroyed in the end. Sadly, the good guys, Sargon and Thalassa, meet the similar fate of oblivion, though voluntarily. This bothered me a bit and I was somewhat surprised to learn the original author had them survive as disembodied spirits - perhaps powerless, but alive and together (maybe floating in space like Jack). Roddenberry, however, rewrote them into oblivion. I'm not sure why. But John T. Dugan, the author, used his pen name, John Kingsbridge, instead of his real name since he didn't approve of the change either. I just felt they deserved a better fate than Henoch, which, technically, they did get, but only inasmuch as they willingly and fearlessly chose oblivion while Henoch was forced into oblivion while experiencing terror and fear. But they all ended up the same way in the end - non-existent, oblivion.
NOTES: Lt. Commander Mulhall, an astrobiologist and a doctor, Phd, is the highest ranking female we ever see in
TOS. It's weird she is wearing operations red instead of science blue, but she probably looked better in red, so that was that.
Diana Muldaur plays three different doctors in Star Trek - Ann Mulhall, Miranda Jones, and Katherine Pulaski (who wore blue most of the time, but she was much older then and maybe not trying to give the impression of a young hottie in red - but I dunno).
The most surprising thing about Ann Mulhall is that Kirk has NO clue who the hell she even is, and she's a frickin' Lt. Commander on his ship - not just some nameless nobody. I find it amazing any crew member is on board his ship that hasn't been introduced to him at some point, and Kirk is not that bad with names and faces, so it's weird he's never met her - particularly given her rank. In fact, officers are usually required to report to their captain first thing - aren't they? And they are so far from port, she must have been on board for months and he still had no clue.
Anyway, Ann Mulhall was the least offensive of her three characters, IMO, and it's good to see a woman who was ranked so highly in
TOS. I wish it would have happened more often. Instead, Kirk even once suggested women weren't allowed to be captains, so WTF that meant, I dunno, but by
TNG, and retroactively in
Enterprise, women were clearly capable and allowed to rise in rank that high and higher - perhaps, in part, in some small way, since
TOS broke the ground and suggested professional women were quite capable. Any little step helps, I say.
I always appreciate them showing how an impassioned reaction to a situation is often wrong, and a moment's reflection or more logical thought is worth considering. Here, McCoy is reminded by Spock that pointing a phaser at Kirk's body is a meaningless threat.
George Takei returns as Sulu, having finished his movie,
The Green Berets. Welcome back, George.
I'm always amazed when I recall Sargon's voice was supplied by James Doohan himself - he must have been a more talented voice actor than I would even have guessed from this Canadian's Scottish accent - a Scottish accent so bad, I'm told, that while real Scotsmen can understand what everybody else is saying just fine, they have a hard time understanding anything Scotty says.
Huh? What did he just say?
There's little remastering done. A few ship shots, the planet, maybe the flames Thalassa hits McCoy with, I dunno - nothing too impressive. They could have, but don't even clean up the stained carpet on the floor of the bridge, which we hardly ever see, but we get a better look at it when Henoch goes down.
Side-By-Side Comparison
I like the episode, but it's far from a favorite - so I've given it a 5 out of 10 and it remains there. Too many little things bothered me about it, and a lack of action didn't help it along. But I did love the scene where Kirk enthusiastically reminded everyone why they are out exploring space in the first place. A very good scene - one which I'm sure many feel is just Shatner over acting, but I loved it. It makes me feel good about being a curious, exploring, boldly adventuring human being.
