TOS Rewatch

Let That Be Your Last Battlefield


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I've always felt this was a rather interesting episode where bigotry and racism play key elements in the story. They also speak of evolution, which is good when too many feel it's not science but fantasy, and evolution is responsible for the very differences between races, as well. There is also some good acting and dialogue. I would have rated it more highly except for the fact there are numerous things about the episode that bothered me or seem needlessly . . . epic.

NitPicks Abound:

Despite knowing little of that area of the galaxy, they seem to know where the planet Cheron is - it's name and exact location - but they've never been. Well, maybe they know a guy who knows a guy who's been. But it's impressive Kirk doesn't even need to consult the computer to have an idea of where it is or what it's called, which seems pretty good for a planet they have no formal contact with. Maybe it's near his patrol area, and Kirk stays up on anything that comes near his ship.

That repeatedly zooming in and out of the red alert light in this episode is kind of stupid or silly looking.

Commissioner Bele's ship is invisible, and yet they have no problem detecting it and tracking its course. Why? The only reason it may have been invisible was to justify not depicting it on the screen and therefore saving money on a dwindling budget - there was no real need for it to have that ability. The explanation for why it disintegrated seems silly, too - just wore out at that moment, and Bele decided to rush the Enterprise at high velocity, too, in case they wanted to blow him out of the water to protect themselves, since it was more dramatic that way. Oh, wait – huh?

The red alert during Bele's approach and other places is inconsistent - sometimes the claxon is blaring, sometimes not, then it is again after the commercial break, or the scene changes - ramping up the volume. They realize it's annoying and muffle it or cancel it at times - but it makes little sense. In other episodes or movies, I think Kirk orders the sound to be shut off since it was annoying, but here, it just happens on its own, like it knows when not to be a distraction.

The very idea the chase between Lokai and Bele has been going on for 50,000 years is impractical and nearly impossible to believe - it suggests incredible longevity for the race and even a longer one for their culture, but practically an arrested culture that has made no significant advances in those 50 millennia, particularly technological ones. Bele claims Lokai's people were freed thousands of years ago, but for a race like that, it was just recent - and Lokai may have been a slave and not just an ancestor of slaves, and Bele a slave owner, and not just an ancestor of slave owners. Anyway, there is simply no need for this longevity or this length of pursuit for the story, IMO. Also, the complete lack of knowledge of what's been going on at home, on Cheron, is dubious, too. It's relatively easy to call home, and, quite frankly, I think this race's technology and innate abilities are superior to the Federation's, so that might make it even easier. I suppose they might be a very xenophobic race and a bunch of isolationists who refuse to use subspace communications, so you have to physically return home to find out what's been going on, and that might help explain the Federation's lack of knowledge of them despite being, as it turns out, just a few hours outside their normal patrol area - pretty near Arrianus, a hub of commerce and travel. Or maybe the entire race on Cheron died just a couple years ago - which would be a hell of a coincidence during a 50,000 year chase. But then, the Enterprise frequently shows up when a rare event has just occurred or is about to occur. Lucky, that. Well, in a way, it's lucky - for the viewer/audience, anyway.

They have a big legal problem with Lokai taking a shuttlecraft without permission - i.e. stealing it - so he'll have to answer those charges - but after the attempt of Bele to commandeer the Enterprise, they completely let that slide - like that wasn't an even bigger crime. Well, maybe Bele has diplomatic immunity, but I doubt it since the Federation apparently has no formal treaties with Cheron - so it makes no sense they'd let that matter go as a minor incident. Then again, maybe Lokai's crime on starbase 4 isn't Kirk's to dismiss, while it is his within his authority to let Bele's actions slide on his ship. He's a pretty forgiving guy, that captain. He even forgave Khan - sort of. But Bele prety much said a billion lives on Arrianus didn't matter and could go ahead and die. I wouldn't have forgiven that - or I'd at least have kept him in the brig. Of course since Bele seems to do a lot of this manipulation mentally, that may not have stopped him.

Too bad those personal force fields repel phaser stun. But why he wouldn't up the power setting to kill and see if they might get through, I dunno. I'd have tried it - or at least threatened to try it to see what they'd say - but no.

The name, Lokai, also bothers me - too close to Loki.

Shatner pronounces "sabotage" in a really weird way. Amusingly, Vic Mignogna (Star Trek Continues) pronounced it that way, too, in the wrap up two parter, To Boldly Go. I suspect he did it for laughs, but I can't be sure.

Anyway, Bele is completely unreasonable, even when he gets his way. After 50,000 years, waiting a few days longer is just not at all satisfactory. NOT AT ALL! Starfleet command even says he can have Lokai, retaining his prisoner, after Lokai answers for the theft of the shuttlecraft - which seems in direct contradiction to not giving anyone over without due process. And it's like Bele doesn't even hear this or won't take yes for an answer since it's not immediate or happening right this minute - or he thinks it means he won't be allowed to retain Lokai down the road for some new reason. I don't understand the apparent reversal of Starfleet when they say Bele can retain his prisoner, and I even understand less why Bele is unwilling to wait a few days since he's finally getting Lokai AND a ride home. You just can't please some people.

The Enterprise reaches warp 10 and continues accelerating, but it's apparently no big deal this time - no one seems too worried about the speed at all or the structural integrity of the ship tearing itself apart, or even particularly impressed they're going that fast, which should be impossible - and there's really no reason for that speed. And, it seems, Bele is able to do all that with just his mind. Incredible. By that I mean, it is simply not credible. Of course Nomad did it, too, I guess - even faster, IIRC, and also, apparently, "mentally."

While I love the scene with the self-destruct sequence - this episode's greatest and most memorable moment - it seems pretty slow to initiate, so it could hardly be practical to accomplished in an emergency (though I am impressed by all the seldom used codes and passwords they must have memorized to run that ship). I have a hard time remembering my email password. And Kirk shut the self-destruct off quite quickly, though taking longer than the 5 seconds that remained. I guess the computer puts everything on pause whenever at least one of the three command personnel utters the word, "computer" - so it awaits further instructions after that and before proceeding. The whole thing took about a minute - not 30 seconds - but in the movie, The Search For Spock, they actually start that countdown at 60 seconds, anyway, so . . . seems right. Bele really waited too long there, IMO. Down to 6 seconds? He's lucky Kirk could cancel it in 1 second. I've always felt Kirk was bluffing about that, though, and he could have canceled it anytime before reaching zero and he just lied about that 5-second rule. But I dunno. But was it a bluff he'd destroy the ship at all? I think not. Letting a ship like that fall into enemy hands makes Kirk and his crew responsible for every bad thing that happens afterwards – and they are supposed to die to prevent that. That's one of my bigger gripes with Abram's movie when Spock allows a power that can kill thousands of planets and trillions of people fall into the hands of a mad Romulan rather than self destruct. But I digress.

In case you want to see the self-destruct sequence to its completion, here it is in The Search For Spock.


I guess warp 10 is only about 5 times faster than warp 6, and we don't watch them every minute of the day, so maybe some lengthy stretches of time go by off camera. But if not, it seems weird traveling toward Cheron at warp 10, but getting back to Arrianus at warp 6 takes nearly no time, and then in even less time, Bele takes control again and they make it to Cheron is practically no time. WTF? Were Arrianus and Cheron practically in the same direction anyway? That might explain things. They were just off from one another by a few degrees, maybe. They certainly couldn't have been in opposite directions - not given the times depicted.

Kirk explains there is no need to resort to violence in the Federation anymore - but they do it all the time. Well, maybe not for internal matters - but I doubt it. We come in peace, shoot to kill, shoot to kill, shoot to kill, we come in peace, shoot to kill, shoot to kill, men.

Unless large sections of Earth's history were wiped out in the wars, I find it hard to believe Chekov and Sulu think racism was only a problem on Earth in the 20th century, and not since (or maybe not before, like the 19th century or earlier). They don't seem to have a firm grasp of history, if you ask me. Later Trek shows a level of racism, or speciesism, for non-humans - maybe they feel those are two unrelated things. But I think bigotry is bigotry, and prejudice is prejudice. I hate prejudice people. They're all the same, anyway. (jk)

Lokai seems off base in the beginning - both paranoid and a thief - but as the story progresses, it becomes increasingly clearer that Bele is a pretty flagrant racist, despite his initial claims, and he feels Lokai's people (and possibly us mono-colored trash, too) are inferior and should be subjugated and segregated. He offers no actual proof of any superior ability of his race - they both seem to have identical abilities - in fact, Lokai has evaded Bele for 50,000 years - so Lokai must be laughing at the "superior" master race. Only the insistence being black on the right side is superior to being white on the right side is given. It's meant to seem silly, as racism often is when more closely examined. Why the terms half-white or half-black are pejoratives escapes me since they are both of those things - but maybe like a Zebra, it matters if it's a white animal with black stripes or a black animal with white stripes and there's a way to tell which half is the base color. The only true differences I can see is that Bele dresses somewhat better, or maybe, unlike Lokai's people, Bele's people opened their hard boiled eggs from the little end instead of the big end, but I dunno. It all just seems a silly reason to believe in one's superiority. Bele even calls us mono-colored trash - I couldn't help but laugh at that.

Evolution

Spoiler

They briefly discuss evolution, though the very idea nothing explains the black/white coloration apart from a unique mutation seems completely wrong to me. And, almost as if Bele and his more scientifically advanced people have never heard of evolutionary theory before, he states that he has heard of the (mistaken) belief some have in the Federation that people are descended from Apes (instead of simply having common ancestry, as is really the case) - I'm guessing that's supposed to be an offensive thought to some people, and so they reject the theory of evolution simply because it's offensive to them to have any kinship with any "animal" and they certainly aren't an "animal" themselves - but Spock restates the theory of Evolution a little better - though he also gets it wrong, after a fashion, introducing the subjective terms of lower or higher/more advanced life forms. In truth, or more accurately, the terms should be better suited or less suited to the current environment, and there is nothing about a human, for example, that makes it innately superior to a shark or a cow. They are different, and humans are more intelligent, yes, but placing a value on intelligence is a subjective thing to do and not something Mother Nature is striving toward. In fact, an advantage in today's environment that might be considered to make someone a "higher" or "move evolved" being could be a disadvantage if the environment changed, so the same mutation isn't innately "better" or "superior," but only better suited or less suited for the current environment. But I digress.

My guess is Spock arbitrarily equates a higher level of intelligence as having higher value or being a more advanced species, even though such intelligence may ultimately not turn out to always be good for survival - such as when a species engages in self destruction - like the people of Cheron, for example. All dead, due to ideas that can only come from "higher" thinking - or they soon will be all dead when Lokai and Bele finally kill each other. They sure can't breed with one another, I assume, so their species is effectively extinct.

Advanced Genetic Science

Spoiler

Of course you never know with advance science. Tweaking the genes, maybe you can regrow a race or species - you just need to have the DNA samples, or be able to put those sequences back together if you have them mapped out and recorded somewhere and access to the right equipment.

Bele relinquishes control of the ship for the second time, but I don't know why since Kirk would/should turn the ship around. Only the fact they are practically at Cheron stops them. Maybe that's why - he felt Kirk wouldn't turn around since they were already there.

It's totally weird it takes those two so long to run to the transporter room. A person can normally get there in scant seconds from the bridge. Lokai and Bele make it look like they're running the 660. I guess it's not always easy padding these episodes out to 50 minutes.

Though Cheron is totally dead, the night side of the planet seems to be lit up in the remastered version. Automated lights and self-powered system, no doubt, that continue to operate even long after everybody is dead. Or maybe they just finally died and the advanced systems have yet to fail.

Side-By-Side Comparison


Some Changes

Spoiler

Hanger Bay recovers shuttlecraft (no longer the Galileo 7 stock footage, but an actual one from Starbase 4 named the DaVinci with its own serial number.
The Enterprise is off course at warp 8 - good exterior scene of the ship.
The Enterprise in a circular course at warp 10 - going nowhere, mighty fast.
The Enterprise on a long circular flight path correcting the course for Arrianus.
The Enterprise decontaminates Arrianus - a significant change in detail from the original, and it shows a spray (I think) being deployed from the lower part of the ship from something resembling open bomb bay doors. There had been more dramatic color changes (to my eyes) before, but with little detail - now the planet's changes are probably more realistic, but I can't see it as well.

I had given this episode a 5 out of 10 before. The story warrants more, as racism is an important subject and the acting is good - well, I liked it - but the mistakes or nitpicks are too distracting, so 5. The remastered effects, however, are actually much better. While the original had a unique shot of the underside of the saucer section, and a close up of that area and this remastered version doesn't, there are lots of new angles and close ups in these remastered episodes, so I don't lament the loss of the non-stock-footage shot that much. The shuttlecraft recovery and the Enterprise at warp 10 and Arrianus and the bomb bay doors, etc. all add to it, so I'm going to raise the score to 5.5 or even 6 out of 10.

 

The Mark of Gideon

This was a very interesting episode. The opening was quite strong and the mystery perhaps one of the most intriguing and least transparent of the series. I liked how well they feinted at the idea that the Gideons weren't actually involved. The second half also brought out of lot of interesting sci-fi concepts about the flaws of paradise and the psychological horror of a crowd. The guest stars were all pretty strong and Spock's arguing with the Gideon council was actually pretty great (although it was odd that Spock seemed so down on diplomacy in general).

Overall, I'd say this one came pretty close to being great, but it is undermined just a bit by the fundamental flaws of the story's resolution. Specifically, the only reason Gideon was in trouble in the first place is because they chose to be, and their solution makes far less logical sense than the dozens of different ones the Federation could easily provide. They hold life too sacred to use condoms, but not too sacred to deliberately infect themselves with a fatal disease? Not to mention the blatantly obvious solution that was bizarrely absent even from Kirk's side of the argument: expand Gideon's society. Build a few colonies on totally empty worlds and watch the crowds disappear. That's without even talking about the strange fact that they somehow found enough room to build a totally empty full size replica of the enterprise and were somehow managing to feed that massive population which supposedly filled every inch of the planet.

 

Do you have this TrekBBS thread tab open on your phone or other mobile device? I've found that interferes with my own notifications sometimes

All these years worrying about warp speed discrepensies and I'd never noticed this one! Time to give LTBYLB another watch, I think!

Your review overall was enjoyable reading - it's a nice change of pace from the direct criticism this episode often receives. There IS good in here - just not always terribly well executed

 

The Mark Of Gideon



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We begin with the odd premise that the planet Gideon is a perspective member for inclusion into the Federation of Planets. Why is that odd? They apparently have no interest in allowing Federation visitors to ever visit their planet or even scan it. I fail to understand why the Federation would even consider them for membership. And yet here we are, walking on eggshells to make it happen, like something significant depended on it. If so, we're never told what.

I also dislike Spock's claim interplanetary war is a thing of the past in the galaxy, so Gideon's concerns were unfounded. When the hell did total peace encompass the entire Milky Way Galaxy, let alone the small part of it the Federation has explored, that he could make such a claim, and why are they often fighting Romulans or Klingons or others if what he said was true? I was a little impressed Spock outright lied about there being an actual malfunction of the transporter that they found and repaired. Spock can lie with the best of them.

I really didn't care for this episode. Plot Holes are just too numerous.

The very idea of tricking Kirk with a duplicate but fake Enterprise was a preposterous and Byzantine idea, with Gideon unlikely to have the necessary details to fool Kirk (such as including countless imperfection throughout the ship like minor scratches or damage or stains or even smells that they'd have no way of knowing about but that Kirk would undoubtedly almost immediately notice - and I kind of doubt they'd have the design specifications of the ship to even come close to approximating the "unopened, in the box," Constitution Class Starship, anyway - let alone the space and resources to pull off such a ridiculously elaborate plan. This story idea is the kind of idea that initially sounds clever and easy to do - just empty your set of actors - until you consider what you'd have to actually work out and how to pull off such a plan, which makes the actual execution astronomically problematic. Then there's the obvious lack of functionality of most of the ship's systems that would have been a dead give away. It would be obvious it was a fake within minutes. It seemed fairly obvious to Spock, but he was looking for something amiss, so . . .

And hey, look, Kirk beamed down without the one thing anyone leaving the ship would most definitely carry - a communicator. WTF? Far better had he beamed down with it, but lost it somehow, or discovered it was broken. They could have done that, considering what else they did do, but no.

So we're denied seeing the lost 9 minutes of Kirk's transport. It appeared he was beamed down and then immediately rematerialized on the Fake ship, but, it would seem, they captured him, extracted blood, messed with his memory so he couldn't recall those 9 minutes or being abducted at all, and then they beamed him onto the fake ship, presumably the same place as before but this time with nobody waiting for him. If they could do all that, the simple and obvious plan would have been to take his blood, infect a volunteer, cure them, and use their blood for their purposes, a plan which they've always failed to fully appreciate - and then Kirk would never be the wiser. No fake ship - no lying to the Federation - they could do it for a nickel's worth of effort instead of a billion dollar hoax. I'm not sure Gideon even really wanted to join the Federation of Planets, anyway - they just wanted the diseased blood. They could have almost certainly bought a sample from most anyone. This was a stupid plan.

Speaking of Kirk's blood, they likely had to tweak it to reactive the strain since I suspect Kirk's blood isn't contagious on its own. I doubt Kirk is a walking Petri dish containing a lethal, contagious disease, though one might come to that conclusion from what they show, not showing any of the details of this screwy plan.

So, while it might be easy to confuse one set of coordinates with the other by normal human memory, it's completely unlikely this discrepancy would have gone unnoticed for so long, computers being what they are.

875-020-079 vs. 875-020-709

I recall somebody thinking I was unusual that I could answer a trivia question she felt nobody "normal" should be able to answer - What are the coordinates of the council chamber on the planet Gideon? I just instantly rattled them off and she looked stunned. Well, it's not like they were a bit of meaningless numbers spouted off once in passing, but were an important plot point and repeated several times. No way could I recite star dates or even all the planets' names or many other truly trivial details like that, but make it a plot point, repeat it a few times, and it's not so tough.

More NitPicks:
Why it would take years to locate a body floating nearby in space escapes me. They seem to have little difficulty detecting other minute details PDQ when they need to.

Why would the viewing screen(s) ever show the people? Sure, fun to show the audience, but why would they do it? Mistakes, perhaps, but simple mistakes for people who went to such lengths? And those synchronized heartbeats - moronic. Why were they synchronized like that?

Why Odona seems uncertain at first about her own name seems odd. Wow, it's been decades since anyone has asked me my name. What was it again? Hmm, oh, yeah, Odona. Yes, my name is Odona.

I wonder why Kirk thinks the ship's power constantly renews itself. Free, limitless power? Solar collectors? And food for five years for 430 is stored onboard? Seems unlikely. With replicator technology, and the recycling that undoubtedly goes on there, you'd have food as long as you have power. Now maybe some things defy replication, but I bet they re-provision with those items every time they pull into a starbase, which happens far more often than once every 5 years. Anyway . . .

Scotty seems to have intimate knowledge of what Kirk said to Spock just before he left. How? Was he watching the episode like us? Ah, he's a bad penny, that one.

The story for this episode was co-written by Stanley Adams, who previously played Cyrano Jones in The Trouble with Tribbles. I guess he was concerned with overpopulation - perhaps as a result of seeing it exaggerated in something like the tribbles. Kirk's suggestion of sterilization seemed extreme, but I guess these Gideons regenerate - so that's impressive. And contraception is out of the question since they're all Catholic, or something like that. Personally, I can understand the respect for life once it begins from the moment of conception onward, but preventing conception seems like a good idea to me. Alas.

Nevertheless, they claim they won't do these things because they cherish life, and yet they are willing to unleash a lethal disease upon the people, so this seems contradictory. He speaks of volunteers, but would enough do this to thin the herd? Then this is just a form of voluntary suicide? There must be more effective ways to do that - just ask the people of Eminiar VII. Or did he mean volunteers to become infected, and have them walk amongst the unsuspecting population and let them randomly pick up the virus? I'm just not really sure WTF their plan was. But it didn't seem consistent with their beliefs.

Actually, in today's terms, despite being the leader of the council, doing this on the sly makes these people biological terrorists, whom, I'm sure, they feel only their actions will make the world a better place. Frickin' terrorists is what they are.

I wonder how Gideon feeds itself? One might think simple starvation or lack of water would take its toll. But maybe they have the tech to provide those needs. Just, apparently, no means to expand into space or populate other worlds. But building a duplicate Starship seems no challenge.

I wonder how old those people get. The people of Cheron lived more than 50,000 years and they didn't seem to have this problem - they never say how old these Gideons get, but death is so infrequent, even due to old age, that it is practically unheard of. As far as warning stories go, such properties in the population that are so far removed from our own characteristics make any similarities between their problems and ours insignificant.

This may have been a story about the problems of overpopulation, but I think it misses its Mark on Gideon.

The Beauty of the day is Sharon Acker playing Odona.

I think her hair looks artificially inflated, like it's pulled over some bump up device to elongate her skull. It looks weird. And while the costume could have been a little racier, it was a nice outfit. I liked it.


Gene Dynarski plays his second of three trek roles. I had NO idea this was the same guy until recently.

Ben Childress Mudd's Women,
Krodock The Mark Of Gideon,
Commander Orfil Quinteros TNG: 11001001.

I do love some ultra close ups of the ship - but there's not much else that was changed in the remastered version.

Side-By-Side Comparison


While there are countless plot holes, there are some nice things - I like some of the dialogue - but I wouldn't rate the episode all that highly. A 4 out of 10 is the best I will do, and since even the worst of these episodes I rate a 3, this is only a tiny step above those - so it's not that good. I dunno. I'd still recommend watching it, at least once.

 

So, it's been a while again, but I am determined to finish this rewatch, especially now that I'm so close. Today's episode is:

That Which Survives

I really like how it starts with a real, scientific mystery with no hint of badness.
Of course, it doesn't last long.

That 'quaking' rock is really poorly done.

'The occipital area of my head seems to have impacted with the arm of the chair.'

Spock spends a lot of time making useless pedantic remarks while time is short this episode.

'Reverse polarity should seal the incision' - is this the first use of a nonsensical polarity reversal to magically solve the problem?

'Beauty survives'... That doesn't seem like the insightful take on the episode title the writers seemed to imagine it to be. I suppose it must be the 'beauty' of Losira's kindness, which Kirk credits for allowing them to survive for so long that he's talking about, but to me, the main thing that survived here was just a tragic ghost of fear (defending the outpost at all costs).

Overall, I'd say this episode started well and never really went anywhere. I liked the Enterprise plot, even though Spock's writing was a little off, but the planetside plot just spent the entire episode marking time, learning things the audience already knows, repeating the same encounter several times, only to survive solely due to Spock's timely rescue. And with all those references to survival, finding food and water, etc, it mainly just made me wish that that had been the actual focus of the episode (a la ST: Robinson Crusoe) instead.

 

Yeh Spock was totally ridiculous in this episode correcting everyone to 4 decimal places. Kirk was also a bit of a jerk too.
What was he doing anyway beaming down Sulu and McCoy to the mystery planet and leaving the Science Officer on board?

And what the heck was going on with Scotty and his last minute save telling Spock to eject him or something because he couldn't reverse the doo-dad on the thingemygyg? They were all going to die anyway. I don't understand that sequence.

If the characters hadn't been a bit off I probably would have liked this episode. But it ranks in my bottom 5.

 

I got Netflix Japan last month. Ive listed all 7 TV series as well as For the Love of Spock and The Captains. I’ve downloaded all 12 episodes of Discovery and seen all of them.

I’ve been watching TOS, beginning with The Cage. The order of viewing is in order of series, unlike the first Netflix release. I just finished S2 #14 Wolf in the Fold. Next is The Trouble with Tribbles, my favorite from my childhood.

It’s a real treat seeing TOS. The lighting is beautiful. The scripts are usually well written.

It’s interesting to see how often Spock does display even a trace of emotion.

 

Yeah, this rewatch is my first viewing of TOS since I was a teenager and Spock and the effects are two of the things that have definitely stood out to me the most so far.

There are, obviously, plenty of FX/visuals that don't hold up well, but I was genuinely surprised how many really do given that it's a 50 year old FX heavy show.

And in hindsight, the Spock I remember most (the one from the movies and from TNG) actually now seems more logical and less emotional than the original, despite his supposed character arc centering on a merging of his logical and emotional sides over time.

 

I think the intention was while they could eject the portion of the ship that Scotty was in (containing the malfunctioning antimatter containment system) the abrupt way that this would cause the ship to stop would be almost as dangerous as failing to repair the fault itself

 

Well, these are the digitally remastered 1080/stereophonic versions. And all the space/planet exterior scenes are CGI, IIRC. I’m not sure about the mattes, which are nice and have that Old School SF feel.

 

That Which Survives




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While I love some moments about this episode, mostly it's a slightly above average one brought down to an average level by a dubious premise and impossible numbers. The premise? An automated defense system clever enough and powerful enough to do so much, but rock solidly too dimwitted to deal with relatively minor obstacles. Obviously, as suggested, the projected copy of Losira was made so well, her intellect and emotions were copied, too, and became part of it, and it was clearly at odds with what the computer was requiring her to do. So, a poorly devised self-defense system that was made by some very clever people. And the "beauty" that survives? Probably Losira's empathy for others and her reluctance to kill, and not just her pretty face.

But the very planet seems ludicrous - an artificially created moon-sized world with the mass of the Earth (giving it an average density 50 times greater than Earth, way past any known non degenerate materials). O.K. Spock's analysis of the planet's mass was probably gravitationally determined, and when one has artificial gravity, with enough energy, a race could make a world appear to have a much larger mass than it actually does. But why? It makes little sense. The whole world makes little sense. Why even make it? Why so big? We must conclude it does something other than serve as a simple personnel platform for an outpost. It does, after all, demonstrate incredible power in transporting the Enterprise 990.7 light years away, and projecting Losira that far and back, reading minds (it would seem) and the power to fuse equipment at that distance that would have taken the output power of entire ship's phaser banks. Even just the ability to disrupt every cell in the human body is impressively powerful (but only if it first aligns itself with the DNA or chromosomal pattern of the intended target). So it's a powerful place. Weird, then, how easy it was to beam in there and kill the main computer with a single phaser shot, even though its projections were completely impervious to phaser fire and the below ground areas were blocked off from tricorder scans before. I guess they figured the computer would never need shields since its projected defenses were good enough. Maybe that's why the Losira projections were so hell bent on stopping them in the first place - the outpost was so overly vulnerable, visitors might easily destroy it.

One Possible Answer

Spoiler

Though for different reasons and for a roleplaying game, I fabricated such a small world using a micro black hole or singularity at its center for a power source – drop matter in and the energy given off is impressive. It powered a spherical force field of sorts to surround the singularity and hold up the rest of the planet, and such a thing would explain why such a small planet was so massive. This was long before TNG showed us the Romulans used something similar to power their starships. But with that kind of power, one might do things, like transport a ship 990.7 light years. Of course if the intent were to destroy the ship, there would be little excuse for failing. We can only assume Losira didn't outright destroy them since she felt that was wrong, so perhaps gave them a chance to save themselves, which was the best she could do and still obey her directives since the computer compelled her to kill them for self defense. But I digress.

Whatever the Kalandans were doing a few thousand years ago, when they made that place, they created a bug that wiped them all out - so despite their huge advances in science and technology, they couldn't lick that little problem. I get the impression such a thing could have been solved by McCoy and Spock in under an hour - but, well, there it is. Simple isolation from it and quarantine would have done it, too, but no - it apparently got the jump on all of them before they knew it and spread absolutely everywhere before becoming lethal and everybody was killed - despite being a space faring race and possibly on numerous planets, outposts, and space ships and space stations - that bug still went everywhere and killed everyone. Luckily, it's not still around, or if it is, it's not lethal to humans.

And the Kalandans left the outpost and the equipment around, but the Federation never seemed to figure out how to adopt or adapt such fantastically powerful technology. I generally dislike stories that rely on super powerful things for plot complications and then those things stick around, yet they mysteriously aren't used later.

Why Is That?

Spoiler

Perhaps the justification for that is that it takes forever to dispatch a science team, and decades longer to understand the discoveries, and more than a century or two before they are finally adopted and adapted into Federation society. That way, you wouldn't expect to see most things reappear in the lifetime of a series or the professional lifetime of any one character. The entire point of exploration like the Enterprise's 5-year mission is to discover where to look and where to send the science teams. Without that, we'd have to rely on our own inventions - or trade with our allies - who may not always be willing to share. Nothing about the Federation suggests it's a requirement to share your technology with other Federation members, though one would hope every member planet is doing just that. So society and technology marches forward - faster than going it on our own, but maybe slow enough not to see the instant adoption of tech that can beam things 1,000 light years away. Transwarp beaming? Or maybe you just need a power source the size of a small moon to do it.

Another justification is the power source is that planet, and it's not exactly portable, so they can't really use it elsewhere.

Speaking of which, the Horta was rather a powerful being - a powerful race - and they used them for mining later right away. Well done. But I mention this since in this episode Sulu referred to the life forms on Janis VI (he doesn't mention the Horta by name, but that's what he was talking about it, so that was a rare and good call back to an earlier episode). Sulu didn't appear in the Horta episode, but like most good officers, he read the reports.

So what's wrong with the numbers? Mass and size of the planet, as mentioned, warp speeds again too high - higher than they're supposed to be able to go, but mostly just being flung 1,000 light years away and zipping back in under 12 hours, when it should have taken 1.67 years at warp 8, or there about (cube rule). You simply can't use huge numbers to make something seem so awe inspiring, but then just ignore the established limitations on your own abilities. 1,000 light years is impressive, but not so much if one can cover than distance in less than half a day.

I also wonder why Sulu thinks a matter-antimatter explosion would leave a lot of radiation around. It's a pretty clean process.

But a bigger flaw, why the hell would Kirk let Losira touch him when Sulu explicitly warned him not to let her touch him - it would mean instant death? Yet he did it. He just stands there and takes it, like he has advanced knowledge it wouldn't hurt him but it would instead provide the clues he needed to cleverly capitalize on the defense's weakness of one target at a time. BAD BAD BAD. Kirk's lucky to be alive. This was just bad writing or acting – he should have tried harder to dodge it.

Speaking of problems, Mr. Spock is far more frequently short with multiple crewmembers, completely intolerant of rounded off measurements or approximations, or of just letting colloquial expressions slide without comment. Once or twice, O.K., but with that frequency, it seemed almost uncharacteristic. Of course he is walking around most of the episode with a type of calculator in his hand, so I guess he has those numbers to the Nth decimal place right in front of him. Still. I mean, I assume with Spock's mental abilities, he's practically a living calculator himself, and if you give him garbage to work with, he'll get garbage out, so I can see wanting more accurate measurements, but since he apparently already has them (and we have to wonder how), he's being a bit of a dick, IMO - more so than usual. And maybe even sexist. You might note when Scotty says it's 1000 light years, Spock doesn't tear him a new one but lets it slide without comment, but when the female says, well, that's too much to take. I'm not sure why he comes across so much worse in the episode - the writing, I guess. The author took one aspect of Spock and overplayed it since he had nothing else of merit to add. I dunno.

I love inverse phasing, but I'm not sure why the ship "slightly" out of phase would respond to a probe's setting 180 degrees out of phase. Maybe anything in that 0 – 180-degree range will work, and anything in the 181 to 359 range won't. In fact, I admit, I don't understand most of what Spock and Scott are doing or how that would work. Interrupt the fuel source, sure - but how would jettisoning Mr. Scott solve anything? At most, you won't blow up that second, but still will in a few more minutes. Or did it become the case, when Scott set some charges, such a jettison would be like dumping the warp core and would save the ship - even though some of it would blow, most of it wouldn't anymore, and though you'd be without warp power or FTL drive, the crew would live until help arrived? If that's the case, I don't think they made that clear. But Scotty urging them to jettison him so they would live an extra 10 seconds seemed silly, so I have to assume they did something like that.

I did love that Spock and Scott were having a Kobayashi Maru moment in this episode - we're dead anyway, so might as well risk something that seems pretty lethal to me. Spock first, but Scott stepped up, too. Good moment for both of them.

Note: The phaser can raise the temperature of something to 8,000 degrees Celsius, or above 14,400 degrees Fahrenheit, so that's interesting.

They killed 3 crewmen this episode. Thanks for your service, guys. But as I understand it, these are the last deaths of any crewmembers for the rest of the TOS run, so for all of those who died in the line of duty before now, once again, thank you for your service, and we salute you.

The Beauty of the day is Lee Meriwether playing Losira. Like Julie Newmar in Friday's Child, Lee also played catwoman - but I knew her mostly from The Time Tunnel.






Again, the FX effects were a better-looking planet, and zipping through space at a seemingly faster rate. Plus when the Enterprise was actually transported, you can see the stars change, so that's cool. I don't recall if that was clear in the original.

Side-By-Side Comparison


Good moments in this episode, and you can see some insight into Spock and Scotty and their relationship, so it's a good episode for that, too. And it's even great for those who like extra details of the ship and how it works, but not everyone does. But the story seems improbable and the computer defenses needlessly murderous on one hand, and incompetent on the other, and too epically powered. This was needless - better problems and more realistic distances, I think, could have given us nearly the same story, but made it more believable. All told, I've given this episode a 5 out of 10. Average.

Spoiler

Note: Since I give most TOS episodes an average or higher rating, I should point out I don't mean "average" for the series, but average or above average for television shows in general that are worth watching. Therefore, you wouldn't expect half the episodes to be below average and half above. Most TOS episodes are above average viewing, even compared to today's shows, IMO. This episode, though - was just average.

 

He took D'Amato, a superior science guy when it comes to geology (and one who is, ahem, more exspendible).

IIRC, I think Scotty rigged some explosives to jettison the area into space – it would be like dumping the warp core in TNG or beyond, but they never allowed for that in TOS design, so I think a decent fraction of the ship (the lowest deck, anyway) might be blasted away, too, along with Scotty, of course, but most people in the upper decks and saucer section would be spared – until rescued – since they wouldn't have FTL drive anymore. Oh course, Kirk and McCoy and Sulu wouldn't have been saved at the last minute, either, but thems the breaks.

Bottom 5? Wow – I like it much more than that, and it has some real great moments, but it does have some pretty daffy things in it, too, and I can understand if they ruin the overall episode for you. Still, it was a pretty exciting moment for Scotty and Spock while saving the ship.

They even redid most of the mattes in the remastered versions on NETFLIX (or Blu-Ray). While the originals hold up well, if I had a choice, I would rather watch and show (to new comers) the remastered versions more often than not. There is an exception or two.

 

I think they needed to say it though

In this scene if they had said something like if we don't fix this then we'll have to eject this (important engine thingy) and the ship will be stranded in space and we won't be able to help the guys stranded on mystery planet then the scene would have made more sense.

This would have been an opportunity to detach the saucer section to save the crew while having a few hardy soles stand by and try and save the rest of the ship.

 

If people condemn Let That Be Your Last Battlefield, Mark of Gideon, That Which Survives and The Lights of Zetar then they couldn't have seen Plato's Stepchildren! They really can't have!
JB

 

Battlefield and Plato are in my top 10.
Gideon and Zetar can join "That Which Survives" in my bottom 5 - oops might have to make that my bottom 10.
Got to leave room for "Cloud Minders" and the usual suspects.

I just wanted Scotty to punch Spock in his stupid pedantic face in "That Which Survives".
If Spock was like that in every episode I wouldn't be a fan of TOS.

 

I'm glad that you've found something you like in Plato's Stepchildren, Commish! Unfortunately for myself I didn't enjoy it one bit. And The Children Shall Lead gets a lot of unwarranted heat on here and I never found it to be that bad myself!
JB

 

Here's my bottom of the barrel list - I included all the 3/10 and 4/10 ratings and ordered them from bad to worst.

The Empath = 4/10
Dagger Of The Mind = 4/10
The Enemy Within = 4/10
Spock's Brain = 4/10
And The Children Shall Lead = 4/10
For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky = 4/10
The Alternative Factor = 4/10
The Mark Of Gideon = 4/10
Turnabout Intruder = 4/10
The Cloud Minders = 3/10
Mudd's Women = 3/10
The Way To Eden = 3/10
Miri = 3/10

But the order can change a bit - depending on the mood I'm in. Anyway, those are the stinkers. That makes 66 out of 79, or 83.5% of TOS Trek average to above average T.V. viewing, which is pretty darn good

 

Don't worry, I'm not going to drag up those warp speed vs distance discussions again
I just wanted to say thanks for adding the notion of a planet with an incredibly dense core to the discussion. However, didn't they establish that the planetoid was artificial in construction? Given Trek propensity to assign "unnatural" properties to artificially constructed materials, couldn't this account for the unlikely density?

 

I got a kick out of seeing Spock be a jerk. I enjoyed the snarky banter between him and Scotty. Too bad Spock couldn't appreciate Scotty's colorful metaphors, "like ants crawling all over my body."

"That Which Survives". I have always wondered if the word "Which" in the title might have been a homophone for "witch" -- the "witch" being Losira, a creepy, mysterious woman who can appear and disappear and who has a deadly touch and who was the lone survivor.

This episode might be the first time Kirk was afraid to be touched by a beautiful woman.

 

Plato's Stepchildren is the bottom of my list. The worst part of that ep was the manipulation scene with Spock dancing around Kirk while he is on the floor and then Alexander riding Kirk like he is a horse. I think it is SO uncomfortable. I wonder how the actors felt? No dignity in those scenes.