Synopsis: The Enterprise is given a mission to Memory Alpha, an installation set up by the Federation solely as a central library containing the
total cultural history and scientific knowledge of all Federation planetary
members.
The Enterprise is delivering equipment and a specialist named Lieutenant Mira Romaine to Memory Alpha when it encounters what appears to be a "storm," though it is unusual in its intensity and in its ability to exceed light speed in its pursuit of the ship. The storm, characterized by an intense visual display of lights, does invade the bridge, affecting everyone there. It seems to have a particular effect on Lieutenant Romaine, causing her to collapse.
After leaving the Enterprise, the "storm" heads directly for Memory Alpha, and reaches there before Kirk can arrive. When the away team reaches the facility, they find the memory core burned out, and all personnel dead or dying. Mira Romaine begins to have premonitions, such as the sight of the dead personnel on Memory Alpha, or the knowledge that the alien storm was returning, reflecting a connection between herself and the alien lights. Mira also has a problem beaming back to the ship along with the others.
With everyone back aboard, the Lights have returned and begun pursuit of the ship one more. Kirk fires phasers at it and ends up causing pain to Lieutenant Romaine. Clearly there is some connection betweeen Romaine and the lights that Spock now identifies as a collection of 10 distinct life units. When the lights overtake the ship, Mira is overcome by the life units who occupy her body and speak with her voice.
The Lights identify themselves as being from the planet Zetar. Specifically, "the desires, the hopes, the mind, and the will of the last 100 of Zetar." These remnants of Zetar insist that they must be allowed to survive, by any means necessary. Kirk, however, tells them that the price of their survival is too high.
Scotty puts Mira into a kind of pressure chamber, and Spock increases the pressure, eventually driving the lights out of Mira and destroying them.
Analysis
There is no question that this is one of the better episodes of the third season, but somehow I always manage to fall dead asleep about halfway through. This is entirely my own fault, I am sure.
Part of the issue is that this is a dialogue heavy episode, with much of the plot development coming through discussion and conversation, but I think a deeper problem is that there is very little continuity between the problem and its resolution. The problem is Coherence.
While unusual and interesting things happen, they don't appear to fit together in a meaningful way that creates a larger story. The lights kill everyone at the Memory Alpha facility but not on the bridge of the Enterprise, and we don't really know why. Even when the question was asked during the episode, only a vague answer (they resisted) was offered. One of the researchers, and earlier Mira herself, begins speaking in a distinctive creaking sound with exaggerated facial gestures. But again we are given no explanation as to why this is meaningful, and it doesn't form a piece of the larger puzzle we put together at the end. Why was Mira left behind when the party returned to the ship? We never got a good explanation of what happened. In short, the clues we receive along the way are vague, revealing little that is concrete about the problem.
Compare this with, for example the episode where Kirk heard an insect-like buzzing, which was later revealed to be the vastly sped up aliens taking over the ship. By introducing that effect early, we are able to connect the later story with the former in a satisfying moment of epiphany. "So that's what Kirk was hearing!" Only in this episode, we get no similar payoff. We don't know why Mira was making the same grotesque faces as the victim at the library. And that piece of the story never makes sense.
Early in the story, Spock declares that there are 10 life forms that make up the lights. Later, the Lights themselves declare that they are the "last 100 of Zetar," introducing an odd and unnecessary contradiction. Are there 100 or 10? And why introduce these numbers into the narrative if they don't matter in any way?
Kirk decides to put Mira into a pressure chamber, but that's not based on any experience we've had with the aliens up to this point. It is solely his own idea.
Because these clues to the mystery are so poorly explained, they don't really point in an actionable direction, and we don't really use them in formulating a solution. As a result, the audience is strangely detached from the final resolution. No particular reason was offered for why pressure would cause the Zetarans to leave Mira, as opposed to heat, for example, or light or inducing a coma, or a number of other ideas. And once having left, why did they remain in the pressure chamber? They could pass through the walls of the ship, and through the ship's shields, so there was no reason for them to stay and be killed. The narrative fails because the solution doesn't grow out of what we've learned during the course of the story.
Memory Alpha
The concept of Memory Alpha as a repository of all knowledge in the Federation was a brilliant creative idea. Unfortunately, it was an idea lost in this particular episode, because its actual function played no role in the developments of the story. As far as I could discern, the outpost could have been a mining colony for all the impact it had on the narrative. It's a shame that such a story rich idea was just thrown away, and thrown away literally since the Zetarns destroyed it unintentionally. Spock kept going on about how irreplaceable it was, but that didn't motivate any urgency on Kirk's part, who didn't make any overt move to try to protect it or salvage any of the data.
If Kirk was so complacent, it's hard for the audience to generate some sadness about it. All that was left was for Spock to shrug as if to say, "You humans are the reason why we can't have nice things." At the end of the episode, they intended to drop Mira back at Memory Alpha, presumably to install that new equipment she brought into the smoking hardware of the central memory core that the Zetarans just fried.
All the other station personnel were killed, and with the emergency beam out, the away team just left them to decay. So I'm guessing Mira has a little bit to clean up before she can get started on what will doubtless be a lonely job. Let's kick off months of isolation with the disposal of a half-dozen bodies before moving on to cataloging just how much of the vast wealth of the Federation's knowledge has been carelessly lost due to the hubris of politicians who don't want to create a bad impression. It's just what Dr. McCoy ordered, to get over a little psychological distress. Good, honest work.
One odd thing was the continual references to
Mira Romaine as "the girl," which seems unnecessarily patronizing. Part of her characterization was a narrative that Mira was a young officer, a fresh Starfleet commission, perhaps unused to the rigors of space and the discipline of the chain of command. This was the reason suggested for why she was abrupt and almost disrespectful with senior officers. I think it was to reinforce the idea of her youth and inexperience that Kirk and Mr. Scott kept referring to her as a "girl." It was also suggested that this brashness on her part enabled her to fight off the attempts of the Zetarans to take control of her mind.
Scotty was alternately delightful and annoying. Mira was good as an outspoken fresh graduate, and made the most of her scenes with Mr. Scott
Rating: 3 out of 5. I want to rate this higher but it needed a more coherent story.
Sunday, October 29, 2017
Star Trek TOS That Which Survives. S3 E17
Synopsis: the Enterprise has located a planet that seems to defy all logic. It is about the size of a moon and is very young but has an atmosphere and vegetation like an earth-type planet that is larger and much older. Just as they beam down to investigate, Kirk, McCoy, Sulu, and geologist D'Amato are surprised by the appearance of a woman in the transporter room. After they dematerialize, the purple woman touches the transporter chief and kills him instantly.
The Enterprise is displaced 1000 light years away and begins the return trip to the planet. The Purple woman appears again, this time questioning one of Scotty's engineers before killing him as well. The Enterprise begins accelerating out of control, meaning that the ship will explode if something isn't done to correct it. Scotty undertakes the dangerous task, while Spock analyses data from the displacement.
Back on the planetoid, the Purple woman begins to appear to the away team. First D'Amato is killed, and then Sulu is attacked but escapes when Kirk intervenes. The Purple woman is only programmed to kill a specific target, and is harmless to others. After dodging other purple assassins, the away team finds a door leading to the interior of the planet and the central computer. Inside, three purple assassins appear, one for each of them and they spend some time dodging away.
On the Enterprise, Scotty's initial attempt to fix the ship has the opposite effect until Spock's analysis reveals that the spatial displacement also knocked the ship out of phase. Evidence of this is what Mr. Scott observed when he said that something felt wrong with the ship. When Mr. Scott reverses the polarity of his probe, the repair attempt is effective.
On the planet, Kirk and the team are about to be touched by the assassins when Spock and a security officer beam down, and shoot the controlling computer with a phaser. Then a recording plays of the purple woman who is revealed to be Losira, the last commander of this station. She explains that this planetoid is the remains of an artificially constructed outpost that had contracted a deadly disease, killing everyone and leaving the automated defenses active. McCoy surmises that the entire species had been wiped out by this disease, and this outpost was all that remained.
Analysis
Taken in its entirety, this was an entertaining episode, with both the action on the Enterprise and the action on the planet working together to tell a coherent story. The structure is right, the cast is right, it's just that there isn't enough there to give it any punch. After a few minutes, it just felt like padding.
Kirk directing his team on the planet seemed repetitive and each time we went back to them, basically the same things happened and the story did not advance. Yep, stuck on a desert planet with no food or water, better look around. Yep, let's say the same thing over again 3 minutes later. Still on the planet, no answers, no clues, the team still working over old ground, the purple woman appears for D'Amato and still we learn nothing.
Spock and Scotty are trying to re-take control of the ship, which is a great story idea. Spock comes up with a solution and Scotty volunteers to carry out the plan. Again, Trek gold here. It's just that it was too drawn out so that it felt padded and lost its drive.
I wanted to like this episode so much more that I actually did. For example, Scotty reports to Spock that the ship doesn't feel right. The audience instinctively believes the chief engineer and knows this will lead to an important breakthrough. But then, nothing and we are distracted by a development in a different direction.
The bottom line is that this should have been a hallmark episode: a mysterious planet, creepy deaths, a deadly female assassin that appears at will and kills with a touch, a long-dead civilization with an automated defense that kills without remorse, or does it.... It has all the classic elements that should provide for an intriguing solution to an intractable puzzle, a brilliant discovery, dazzling displays of intuition, dogged persistence, and deductive reasoning. And while we got the form, it lacked in substance.
Small asides:
1. Spock's dialogue with the bridge crew, and especially Scotty, completely missed Spock's character. Rather than making him appear devoid of emotion, it instead made him appear irritable, impatient, and annoyed. Spock is a Vulcan dedicated to logic, not a cultural neophyte who is unfamiliar with human idioms and figures of speech.
2. I was fascinated by the brief suggestion that part of Losira's character remained within the computer's re-creation of her as a weapon of assassination. Some of Losira's compassion, value for life, and abhorrence at murder seemed to shine through, however briefly. I would have loved to see this idea developed even more and incorporated into the ultimate solution.
3. Kirk snapping at Sulu seemed entirely out of place. And the extended burial scene for D'Amato seemed forced and awkward. In the absence of any explanation offered by the story I must conclude that this was poor writing.
Rating 2.5 out of 5
The Enterprise is displaced 1000 light years away and begins the return trip to the planet. The Purple woman appears again, this time questioning one of Scotty's engineers before killing him as well. The Enterprise begins accelerating out of control, meaning that the ship will explode if something isn't done to correct it. Scotty undertakes the dangerous task, while Spock analyses data from the displacement.
Back on the planetoid, the Purple woman begins to appear to the away team. First D'Amato is killed, and then Sulu is attacked but escapes when Kirk intervenes. The Purple woman is only programmed to kill a specific target, and is harmless to others. After dodging other purple assassins, the away team finds a door leading to the interior of the planet and the central computer. Inside, three purple assassins appear, one for each of them and they spend some time dodging away.
On the Enterprise, Scotty's initial attempt to fix the ship has the opposite effect until Spock's analysis reveals that the spatial displacement also knocked the ship out of phase. Evidence of this is what Mr. Scott observed when he said that something felt wrong with the ship. When Mr. Scott reverses the polarity of his probe, the repair attempt is effective.
On the planet, Kirk and the team are about to be touched by the assassins when Spock and a security officer beam down, and shoot the controlling computer with a phaser. Then a recording plays of the purple woman who is revealed to be Losira, the last commander of this station. She explains that this planetoid is the remains of an artificially constructed outpost that had contracted a deadly disease, killing everyone and leaving the automated defenses active. McCoy surmises that the entire species had been wiped out by this disease, and this outpost was all that remained.
Analysis
Taken in its entirety, this was an entertaining episode, with both the action on the Enterprise and the action on the planet working together to tell a coherent story. The structure is right, the cast is right, it's just that there isn't enough there to give it any punch. After a few minutes, it just felt like padding.
Kirk directing his team on the planet seemed repetitive and each time we went back to them, basically the same things happened and the story did not advance. Yep, stuck on a desert planet with no food or water, better look around. Yep, let's say the same thing over again 3 minutes later. Still on the planet, no answers, no clues, the team still working over old ground, the purple woman appears for D'Amato and still we learn nothing.
Spock and Scotty are trying to re-take control of the ship, which is a great story idea. Spock comes up with a solution and Scotty volunteers to carry out the plan. Again, Trek gold here. It's just that it was too drawn out so that it felt padded and lost its drive.
I wanted to like this episode so much more that I actually did. For example, Scotty reports to Spock that the ship doesn't feel right. The audience instinctively believes the chief engineer and knows this will lead to an important breakthrough. But then, nothing and we are distracted by a development in a different direction.
The bottom line is that this should have been a hallmark episode: a mysterious planet, creepy deaths, a deadly female assassin that appears at will and kills with a touch, a long-dead civilization with an automated defense that kills without remorse, or does it.... It has all the classic elements that should provide for an intriguing solution to an intractable puzzle, a brilliant discovery, dazzling displays of intuition, dogged persistence, and deductive reasoning. And while we got the form, it lacked in substance.
Small asides:
1. Spock's dialogue with the bridge crew, and especially Scotty, completely missed Spock's character. Rather than making him appear devoid of emotion, it instead made him appear irritable, impatient, and annoyed. Spock is a Vulcan dedicated to logic, not a cultural neophyte who is unfamiliar with human idioms and figures of speech.
2. I was fascinated by the brief suggestion that part of Losira's character remained within the computer's re-creation of her as a weapon of assassination. Some of Losira's compassion, value for life, and abhorrence at murder seemed to shine through, however briefly. I would have loved to see this idea developed even more and incorporated into the ultimate solution.
3. Kirk snapping at Sulu seemed entirely out of place. And the extended burial scene for D'Amato seemed forced and awkward. In the absence of any explanation offered by the story I must conclude that this was poor writing.
Rating 2.5 out of 5
Saturday, October 28, 2017
Star Trek TOS The Mark of Gideon. S3 E16
Synopsis: Beaming down to the isolationist planet Gideon, Kirk seems to be lost and the diplomats of the planet refuse to allow the crew of the Enterprise to search for him. In fact, Kirk has been beamed to a duplicate of the Enterprise that is completely empty of any of the crew. Wandering the empty corridors, he eventually encounters a beautiful woman named Odona who claims to have no idea who she is or where she comes from.
As Spock struggles with Starfleet's orders and the Gideon adminstration, Kirk and Odona continue to wander the empty ship until Odona collapses with an illness. At that moment, the planetary leader, Diplomat Hodin, appears revealing that the mock Enterprise was all a deception to get Odona and Kirk together. Previously, Kirk had Vegan choriomennengitis, a disease that almost killed him. Unless Odona receives treatment within 24 hours, she will die.
However, Hodin reveals that this has been their plan all along. Gideon suffers from severe overpopulation and they have decided to introduce this deadly infection as a method of reducing the population. Kirk must stay and continue infecting people, while Odona's death will be an example to the population and will inspire others to volunteer.
Finally, Spock has had enough of the diplomatic stalling and simply beams down on his own authority. He finds Kirk and Odona and the three of them beam back aboard the Enterprise. McCoy heals Odona, though she retains the microorganism in her system just as Kirk had and as the show ends she beams down to the planet to carry out her gruesome task of thinning the population.
Analysis:
Just as the previous episode had been about racism, the anvilicious message here was about the dangers of overpopulation. As Hodin described it, because their culture valued life and refused to practice birth control, the planet had become severely overpopulated to the extent that there was room for nothing except merely existing a hollow life that everyone longed to leave but was prevented from doing so by annoying moral fixations on the sanctity of life. This was written at a time when Paul Ehrlich's "population bomb" was on everyone's mind, a bomb that failed to go off when the predicted famine and disease declined to appear. But in the meantime, the Catholic Church's discouragement of contraception took a beating from liberal intelligentsia.
That is the position that Hodin is referring to when he says:
The story presented a trivial problem (Gideon trying to keep Kirk as a prisoner) with a very obvious solution (Spock beams down, despite protestations, and retrieves Kirk.) The rest of the episode spent sparring with Hodin, endlessly repeating transporter coordinates, and wandering the empty decks of the Enterprise was meaningless and conveyed nothing.
And in the meantime the story introduced annoying plot inconsistencies.
1. Why did the planetary government reconstruct the interior of the Enterprise in painstaking detail? It provoked a few hours of confusion on Kirk's part, but they didn't maintain the ruse longer than that. So months of work for a few hours of use seems like a bad trade off. Where did they find the space for it on that ant hill of a planet. Was it really worth it?
2. Where did they obtain the detailed plans to the Enterprise interior? How could this isolationst fringe member of the Federation possibly obtain these plans?
3. That dumb Starfleet bureaucrat seemed to be particularly wrongheaded to the point that I was convinced that he was a Gideon plant and was genuinely surprised to discover that Uhura's transmissions hadn't been intercepted by someone on the planet with a Starfleet uniform.
4. Once again, the boys with the gold or blue shirts have absolutely nothing to offer in the way of a solution to this planet's problems. They're just glad to fly away at the end of the episode, and put as much distance between themselves and the freakshow happening down on the surface. We're not even going to address those volunteering to be infected by the deadly disease to relieve the population pressure by taking themselves out of the gene pool. Very dark, Crow...
5. There's no way either Spock or Scotty would have even hesitated to recognize that the transporter coordinates had been transposed. The Gideon schemers were exceptionally clumsy.
6. Freebie: Kirk beams down without a communicator? The first thing Spock does is use his communicator to talk to Scotty on the Enterprise. The whole elaborate ruse that the Gideons had set up could have been foiled in seconds if Kirk had simply followed procedure.
7. Another Freebie: if the health of people on the planet was so strong that they could regenerate organs lost to sterilization, how long would it be before the population developed an immunity to Vegan meningitis?
Rating 1.5 out of 5. Not the worst episode ever, not the most offensive, but overall boring and without presenting the smart solutions that ST is known for.
As Spock struggles with Starfleet's orders and the Gideon adminstration, Kirk and Odona continue to wander the empty ship until Odona collapses with an illness. At that moment, the planetary leader, Diplomat Hodin, appears revealing that the mock Enterprise was all a deception to get Odona and Kirk together. Previously, Kirk had Vegan choriomennengitis, a disease that almost killed him. Unless Odona receives treatment within 24 hours, she will die.
However, Hodin reveals that this has been their plan all along. Gideon suffers from severe overpopulation and they have decided to introduce this deadly infection as a method of reducing the population. Kirk must stay and continue infecting people, while Odona's death will be an example to the population and will inspire others to volunteer.
Finally, Spock has had enough of the diplomatic stalling and simply beams down on his own authority. He finds Kirk and Odona and the three of them beam back aboard the Enterprise. McCoy heals Odona, though she retains the microorganism in her system just as Kirk had and as the show ends she beams down to the planet to carry out her gruesome task of thinning the population.
Analysis:
Just as the previous episode had been about racism, the anvilicious message here was about the dangers of overpopulation. As Hodin described it, because their culture valued life and refused to practice birth control, the planet had become severely overpopulated to the extent that there was room for nothing except merely existing a hollow life that everyone longed to leave but was prevented from doing so by annoying moral fixations on the sanctity of life. This was written at a time when Paul Ehrlich's "population bomb" was on everyone's mind, a bomb that failed to go off when the predicted famine and disease declined to appear. But in the meantime, the Catholic Church's discouragement of contraception took a beating from liberal intelligentsia.
That is the position that Hodin is referring to when he says:
HODIN: The birth rate continued to rise, and the population grew, until now Gideon is encased in a living mass who can find no rest, no peace, no joy. ... But you see, the people of Gideon have always believed that life is sacred. That the love of life is the greatest gift. ... We are incapable of destroying or interfering with the creation of that which we love so deeply. Life, in every form, from foetus to developed being. It is against our tradition, against our very nature. We simply could not do it.So in this episode we get a nice little moralizing speech about the benefits of sterilization, contraception, abortion, voluntary euthanasia, and forced population reduction because we definitely don't want to end up wandering in circles wearing those hooded onesies.
KIRK: Yet you can kill a young girl.
The story presented a trivial problem (Gideon trying to keep Kirk as a prisoner) with a very obvious solution (Spock beams down, despite protestations, and retrieves Kirk.) The rest of the episode spent sparring with Hodin, endlessly repeating transporter coordinates, and wandering the empty decks of the Enterprise was meaningless and conveyed nothing.
And in the meantime the story introduced annoying plot inconsistencies.
1. Why did the planetary government reconstruct the interior of the Enterprise in painstaking detail? It provoked a few hours of confusion on Kirk's part, but they didn't maintain the ruse longer than that. So months of work for a few hours of use seems like a bad trade off. Where did they find the space for it on that ant hill of a planet. Was it really worth it?
2. Where did they obtain the detailed plans to the Enterprise interior? How could this isolationst fringe member of the Federation possibly obtain these plans?
3. That dumb Starfleet bureaucrat seemed to be particularly wrongheaded to the point that I was convinced that he was a Gideon plant and was genuinely surprised to discover that Uhura's transmissions hadn't been intercepted by someone on the planet with a Starfleet uniform.
4. Once again, the boys with the gold or blue shirts have absolutely nothing to offer in the way of a solution to this planet's problems. They're just glad to fly away at the end of the episode, and put as much distance between themselves and the freakshow happening down on the surface. We're not even going to address those volunteering to be infected by the deadly disease to relieve the population pressure by taking themselves out of the gene pool. Very dark, Crow...
5. There's no way either Spock or Scotty would have even hesitated to recognize that the transporter coordinates had been transposed. The Gideon schemers were exceptionally clumsy.
6. Freebie: Kirk beams down without a communicator? The first thing Spock does is use his communicator to talk to Scotty on the Enterprise. The whole elaborate ruse that the Gideons had set up could have been foiled in seconds if Kirk had simply followed procedure.
7. Another Freebie: if the health of people on the planet was so strong that they could regenerate organs lost to sterilization, how long would it be before the population developed an immunity to Vegan meningitis?
Rating 1.5 out of 5. Not the worst episode ever, not the most offensive, but overall boring and without presenting the smart solutions that ST is known for.
Friday, October 27, 2017
Star Trek TOS Let That Be Your Last Battlefield. S3 E15
Synopsis:
The Enterprise encounters a shuttle reported to be stolen from Starbase 4. Tractoring it onboard, they discover a single occupant who is unusual because of the pigmentation of his skin. He appears to be divided directly down the middle, with half of his face being white and the other half black. He gives his name as Lokai. Kirk questions him about stealing the shuttle, but he remains unresponsive and unrepentant.
Back on the bridge, an invisible ship is being tracked, which eventually deposits another visitor on board named Bele, also half black and half white. Bele identifies himself as a commissioner in pursuit of Lokai, who is a political refugee. He demands that he and Lokai be taken immediately to their planet, Cheron, where Lokai is sentenced to be executed. Kirk refuses because of an emergency mission to the planet Arrianus. Bele uses the power of mind to take control of the ship, and Kirk threatens to destroy the Enterprise using the self-destruct mechanism until Bele relinquishes control.
Again in command, Kirk re-directs the ship back to Arrianus where Scotty and the bridge crew are successfull in decontaminating its atmosphere. With this completed, Kirk directs that the ship return to Starbase 4, but Bele insists that they communicate with Starfleet about Bele's request to travel to Cheron. When Starfleet refuses, Bele again takes control with his mind, this time deactivating the self destruct circuits in the main computer.
Arriving at Cheron, Spock reports that all humanoids have been killed. The entire species of black and white humanoids has been wiped out except for the two on the Enterprise. After fighting with each other on the ship, the two Cherons beam themselves down to the planet to continue their struggle on the surface of the planet, the only two people alive.
Analysis
As a piece of social commentary, this was interesting if a little heavy handed. I think it is brilliant that the superficial differences between them were intended to be so subtle that Kirk and Spock, and I would guess the audience as well, did not even notice until Bele specifically pointed them out, "I am black on the right side... Lokai is white on the right side. All of his people are white on the right side." I remember the moment of this reveal as electrifying in its triviality. (Now, of course, the episode is so well known that the revelation is lost.)
I think it's a mistake to consider this a direct allegory of 60's racism, however. That's too simplistic and does a disservice to the story. The writers made the decision to create a distinctly different world that is not a direct parallel to the American civil rights era, and this gives them the freedom to tell a slightly different story for Lokai, with a different conclusion. In fact, we are never given confirmation that either of their stories are entirely accurate.
I also can't help but wonder where Lokai was, when Bele was taking over the ship with his mind. If there are nothing but superficial differences between them, and Lokai was so adamant not to return to Cheron, it seems that he should have struggled with Bele for control of the ship. Lokai's quiescence at that point was puzzling.
The Enterprise encounters a shuttle reported to be stolen from Starbase 4. Tractoring it onboard, they discover a single occupant who is unusual because of the pigmentation of his skin. He appears to be divided directly down the middle, with half of his face being white and the other half black. He gives his name as Lokai. Kirk questions him about stealing the shuttle, but he remains unresponsive and unrepentant.
Back on the bridge, an invisible ship is being tracked, which eventually deposits another visitor on board named Bele, also half black and half white. Bele identifies himself as a commissioner in pursuit of Lokai, who is a political refugee. He demands that he and Lokai be taken immediately to their planet, Cheron, where Lokai is sentenced to be executed. Kirk refuses because of an emergency mission to the planet Arrianus. Bele uses the power of mind to take control of the ship, and Kirk threatens to destroy the Enterprise using the self-destruct mechanism until Bele relinquishes control.
Again in command, Kirk re-directs the ship back to Arrianus where Scotty and the bridge crew are successfull in decontaminating its atmosphere. With this completed, Kirk directs that the ship return to Starbase 4, but Bele insists that they communicate with Starfleet about Bele's request to travel to Cheron. When Starfleet refuses, Bele again takes control with his mind, this time deactivating the self destruct circuits in the main computer.
Arriving at Cheron, Spock reports that all humanoids have been killed. The entire species of black and white humanoids has been wiped out except for the two on the Enterprise. After fighting with each other on the ship, the two Cherons beam themselves down to the planet to continue their struggle on the surface of the planet, the only two people alive.
Analysis
The two characters of Bele and Lokai, locked in eternal
struggle, eternal pursuit; neither able to overcome the other nor be swayed by their
arguments.
The characters are very skillfully created. While our immediate sympathies were with
Lokai, the pursued, the one who seems to be oppressed by the other, Bele. Bele
seems to assert superiority based entirely on the pattern of his skin color,
something that the audience instinctively recognizes as racism, and so we
question his right to take Lokai prisoner.
We are further convinced that he’s bad, when he takes over the
Enterprise and refuses to abide by the Starfleet directive.
However, the writers gave Lokai some equally unsympathetic
scenes as well: quick to take offense at
Kirk’s questioning, quick to justify his own bad behavior (in stealing the
shuttle), quick to condemn the Enterprise crew for not immediately flocking to
his side when he urges them to kill Bele.
In the end, the show condemns each of them as being lost to
their own hatred. It shows the hopelessness
of their situation with the condition of their home planet, where everyone has
died. And it suggests that the two of them are destined to continue this
struggle for eternity. The chase scene running
in circles around the lower decks of the ship serves as an allegory for their
entire 50,000 years of existence, something they are destined to repeat down on
the planet.
As a piece of social commentary, this was interesting if a little heavy handed. I think it is brilliant that the superficial differences between them were intended to be so subtle that Kirk and Spock, and I would guess the audience as well, did not even notice until Bele specifically pointed them out, "I am black on the right side... Lokai is white on the right side. All of his people are white on the right side." I remember the moment of this reveal as electrifying in its triviality. (Now, of course, the episode is so well known that the revelation is lost.)
I think it's a mistake to consider this a direct allegory of 60's racism, however. That's too simplistic and does a disservice to the story. The writers made the decision to create a distinctly different world that is not a direct parallel to the American civil rights era, and this gives them the freedom to tell a slightly different story for Lokai, with a different conclusion. In fact, we are never given confirmation that either of their stories are entirely accurate.
The problem was that there was very little actual story
involved. The message was
conveyed almost entirely through dialogue, with dueling speeches between Bele,
Lokai, Spock, and Kirk. Instead, we were given
extended and largely meaningless procedural scenes to fill the remaining time: tracking the incoming ships, activating the
self-destruct mechanism, purifying the planet Arrianus, Spock narrating their
positions on the lower decks and eventual exit from the ship. Each of these was
action without purpose, without tension, without story. It’s like someone telling a science fiction
story without actually understanding science fiction, and what makes it
meaningful.
Equally annoying is that old favorite of The Original
Series, the hyper-powerful species; one that is immortal and travels in an
invisible ship that easily transports through the Enterprise’s shields, a
species that can take control of the ship using their will alone, and repel
phasers with an impregnable personal shield. The problem with these super
powers is that they don’t allow the story to focus on the science fiction, on
the physical mechanics of what is happening.
They don’t allow the crew to employ their knowledge and training to
resolve the situation. Instead, either
Kirk attempts to argue with the antagonist, or the alien wanders off on its own
as was the case in this story.
The story denied the crew agency. Other than Kirk’s threat of self-destruction,
which was eventually rendered moot, nothing the crew of the Enterprise did had
any effect on the outcome of the story.
Once again, they were mere observers as the two aliens drove the action
and engaged in their struggle.
Eventually, the Cherons got what they wanted and were delivered to their
own planet, after which the Enterprise simply flew away leaving them to their
own fate.
There are other minor continuity problems with this episode
which stem from the director not really caring about them. The most obvious of these is that the primary
method to combat a hijacked ship is to stop the engines. Ship design should have this as an integral
component. A hijacked ship should be
dead in the water.
I also can't help but wonder where Lokai was, when Bele was taking over the ship with his mind. If there are nothing but superficial differences between them, and Lokai was so adamant not to return to Cheron, it seems that he should have struggled with Bele for control of the ship. Lokai's quiescence at that point was puzzling.
In addition, when Spock comes upon Cheron, he describes
bodies lying in the cities, but the vegetation and wildlife beginning to
encroach on its borders. I think the writers
didn’t have a clear picture of what happens to bodies left out in the open,
which would have been long decayed or scavenged by the wildlife, unless the
final destruction came mere days before. Yet it takes years for vegetation to
begin to encroach on a developed city, not weeks.
It is an important moment because Spock’s narration is the lasting image left in our mind – the fate of this planet of hate, and its two remaining occupants. But it’s a conflicted image that doesn’t make sense. Did the Cherons, after having been gone 50,000 years, miss their civilization’s downfall by a few weeks? Are the burning buildings that appear as images to the running Cherons visions of what is happening on the planet? Or maybe they are simply a reflection of the hatred burning in their minds.
Story element references: In The Enemy Within S1: E5, Kirk is split into two halves by a transporter accident. and in The Alternative Factor S1: E27 the two versions of Lazarus are committed to an eternal struggle where neither can die and neither can win. This is very similar to the struggles of the two left on the planet Cheron.
The Bottom Line : They have some interesting characters and an exciting premise about racial hatred but no actual story to take place in that premise. The Cherons come on board the Enterprise, travel to Cheron, and leave. That's really all that happens.
Rating: 2 out of 5
It is an important moment because Spock’s narration is the lasting image left in our mind – the fate of this planet of hate, and its two remaining occupants. But it’s a conflicted image that doesn’t make sense. Did the Cherons, after having been gone 50,000 years, miss their civilization’s downfall by a few weeks? Are the burning buildings that appear as images to the running Cherons visions of what is happening on the planet? Or maybe they are simply a reflection of the hatred burning in their minds.
Story element references: In The Enemy Within S1: E5, Kirk is split into two halves by a transporter accident. and in The Alternative Factor S1: E27 the two versions of Lazarus are committed to an eternal struggle where neither can die and neither can win. This is very similar to the struggles of the two left on the planet Cheron.
The Bottom Line : They have some interesting characters and an exciting premise about racial hatred but no actual story to take place in that premise. The Cherons come on board the Enterprise, travel to Cheron, and leave. That's really all that happens.
Rating: 2 out of 5
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
Star Trek TOS Whom Gods Destroy. S3 E14
Synopsis:
Tasked with delivering a new medicine to a mental health facility for the criminally insane on the desolate planet of Elba II, Kirk and Spock beam down only to be taken prisoner by Garth, a former fleet captain of the Federation, now declared criminally insane. Captain Garth has the ability to perfectly mimic the appearance of anyone he sees and he adopts the guise of Dr. Cory, the governor of the penal colony, first to take control of the institution and then to capture Kirk.
Garth is insane and his plan is to take over the Enterprise disguised as Kirk. With his insane followers and a new powerful explosive that he has discovered, he has grandiose plans to take over the galaxy. However, his initial attempt on the Enterprise is foiled because of a new security measure that Kirk instituted before leaving the ship. When Garth asks to be beamed aboard, Scotty gives a sign "Queen to queen's level three" and requests the counter sign, which Garth does not know.
Garth hosts a dinner to attempt to gather information from Kirk. When conversation and dancing fail, Garth tries to use torture to extract the password from Kirk, but the captain will not reveal anything. Marta, the Orion dancer and prisoner, pleads with Garth that she will get the information out of Kirk, if he will stop the torture.
Marta does begin to seduce Kirk, when suddenly she pulls out a dagger and attempts to stab him. At that moment, Spock arrives and subdues Marta with a Vulcan neck pinch. Armed with a phaser, the two of them make their way to the control room to lower the force field surrounding the planet. Once there, however, Kirk suspects that Spock is actually Garth in disguise and refuses to give the countersign to Scotty.
Now completely insane and past all reason, Garth begins to set up a kingdom, with the rest of the inmates as his subjects. He demands to be called Lord Garth and hosts a grand coronation ceremony with Marta as consort and Kirk as the "heir apparent." Afterward, however, Garth brings Kirk to the control room to watch as Marta is dragged out into the poisonous atmosphere of the planet and then killed by the detonation of a small crystal of Garth's explosive.
Garth then sends his minions to bring Spock from his cell. Spock dispatches both of them and takes their phaser only to find two identical Kirks in the control room when he arrives. Initially hesitant as to who is the real captain, when one of them demands that Spock shoot them both and bring the Enterprise to safety, Spock stuns the other Kirk, who proves to be Garth in disguise. Spock then calls the Enterprise and gives the correct counter sign "Queen to King's level one."
McCoy beams down to the planet and administers the medicine to each of the patients in the facility who begin to recover from their insanity and have no memory of the previous events.
Analysis
Whom Gods Destroy is another of those episodes noted for the passivity of the crew. Kirk, Spock, even Scotty are notable for their inaction, merely observing the development of the story around them. Instead, we are captive to the machinations of Lord Garth. And this remains the major complaint throughout. All of Kirk's plans are negated, as indeed are Garth's. The resulting stalemate becomes increasingly boring and ultimately annoying. The death of Marta should have been shocking, but it came so late in the proceedings that it served only to cement our lack of will to care about the outcome. I wept for Marta, but I was not angry at Garth so much as at the writers, who couldn't think of any better ending for that character.
And finally when we had run through the nonsensical dance scene, torture chair scene, seduction scene, and coronation scene, during which our heroes take no action, we bring Spock out of seclusion to almost instantly save the day. Nothing we had done up to that point in the story made any difference to the outcome. It's hard to argue that Garth had undergone any development or arc in his character, and we were merely accumulating scenes to document the depths of his insanity.
Even the twin dilemma at the climax seemed underwhelming. This was clearly an opportunity for the writers to have Spock do something very clever, as the reference to Solomon seemed to indicate, but the fact that he had at his disposal a phaser that could stun meant that elaborate wisdom was not needed. As Kirk pointed out, he should have just stunned them both, and watched Garth resume his normal form.
For that matter, Why was Kirk, the real Kirk, fighting Garth at all? Garth chose to attack Spock when he reached for the chair, instantly identifying himself as the imposter. Spock should have just stunned him then or overpowered him with his superior Vulcan strength. Instead, Kirk decided to jump in, leading to the two twins locked in a totally unnecessary deadly struggle. The bottom-line here is that the this scene should have been all about intelligent problem solving, Star Trek's bread and butter. But instead it was so full of holes that it was robbed of its triumph.
In the end, the audience is left to look at the spectacle as it flows past. Watching fools be fools, isn't very interesting. Most of the crew are off screen for the majority of the episode, the Enterprise rendered impotent by a planet-wide force field, leaving the mad captain Garth to carry the show on the back of his madness, which wasn't that interesting.
There were a couple of minor quibbles, as well. How could Garth use the Vulcan neck pinch on Marta to subdue her when he was disguised as Spock? This seems like a minor thing, but it effectively undermines whatever credibility the writers had as fair storytellers. The power of this story lies in the mental contest between Kirk and Garth. This is the meaning of the chess reference in Scotty's sign and countersign. The two captains are playing a game of chess for control of the Enterprise, and this is borne out in many clever scenes when Garth creates an elaborate ploy and Kirk sees through it just in time. So when the writers cheat by giving Garth Spock's powers without justification, the audience stops looking for clever solutions. They just assume that the writers will continue to cheat and that any further engagement with the puzzles is a waste of time.
What happened to the powerful explosive that Garth discovered, a single pouch of which could destroy an entire planet?
Throughout its run, The Original Series has an unfortunate habit of resorting to the foolish and bizarre instead of developing a strong plot. Here was another tired example of that failing.
Rating: 2 out of 5.
Tasked with delivering a new medicine to a mental health facility for the criminally insane on the desolate planet of Elba II, Kirk and Spock beam down only to be taken prisoner by Garth, a former fleet captain of the Federation, now declared criminally insane. Captain Garth has the ability to perfectly mimic the appearance of anyone he sees and he adopts the guise of Dr. Cory, the governor of the penal colony, first to take control of the institution and then to capture Kirk.
Garth is insane and his plan is to take over the Enterprise disguised as Kirk. With his insane followers and a new powerful explosive that he has discovered, he has grandiose plans to take over the galaxy. However, his initial attempt on the Enterprise is foiled because of a new security measure that Kirk instituted before leaving the ship. When Garth asks to be beamed aboard, Scotty gives a sign "Queen to queen's level three" and requests the counter sign, which Garth does not know.
Garth hosts a dinner to attempt to gather information from Kirk. When conversation and dancing fail, Garth tries to use torture to extract the password from Kirk, but the captain will not reveal anything. Marta, the Orion dancer and prisoner, pleads with Garth that she will get the information out of Kirk, if he will stop the torture.
Marta does begin to seduce Kirk, when suddenly she pulls out a dagger and attempts to stab him. At that moment, Spock arrives and subdues Marta with a Vulcan neck pinch. Armed with a phaser, the two of them make their way to the control room to lower the force field surrounding the planet. Once there, however, Kirk suspects that Spock is actually Garth in disguise and refuses to give the countersign to Scotty.
Now completely insane and past all reason, Garth begins to set up a kingdom, with the rest of the inmates as his subjects. He demands to be called Lord Garth and hosts a grand coronation ceremony with Marta as consort and Kirk as the "heir apparent." Afterward, however, Garth brings Kirk to the control room to watch as Marta is dragged out into the poisonous atmosphere of the planet and then killed by the detonation of a small crystal of Garth's explosive.
Garth then sends his minions to bring Spock from his cell. Spock dispatches both of them and takes their phaser only to find two identical Kirks in the control room when he arrives. Initially hesitant as to who is the real captain, when one of them demands that Spock shoot them both and bring the Enterprise to safety, Spock stuns the other Kirk, who proves to be Garth in disguise. Spock then calls the Enterprise and gives the correct counter sign "Queen to King's level one."
McCoy beams down to the planet and administers the medicine to each of the patients in the facility who begin to recover from their insanity and have no memory of the previous events.
Analysis
Whom Gods Destroy is another of those episodes noted for the passivity of the crew. Kirk, Spock, even Scotty are notable for their inaction, merely observing the development of the story around them. Instead, we are captive to the machinations of Lord Garth. And this remains the major complaint throughout. All of Kirk's plans are negated, as indeed are Garth's. The resulting stalemate becomes increasingly boring and ultimately annoying. The death of Marta should have been shocking, but it came so late in the proceedings that it served only to cement our lack of will to care about the outcome. I wept for Marta, but I was not angry at Garth so much as at the writers, who couldn't think of any better ending for that character.
And finally when we had run through the nonsensical dance scene, torture chair scene, seduction scene, and coronation scene, during which our heroes take no action, we bring Spock out of seclusion to almost instantly save the day. Nothing we had done up to that point in the story made any difference to the outcome. It's hard to argue that Garth had undergone any development or arc in his character, and we were merely accumulating scenes to document the depths of his insanity.
Even the twin dilemma at the climax seemed underwhelming. This was clearly an opportunity for the writers to have Spock do something very clever, as the reference to Solomon seemed to indicate, but the fact that he had at his disposal a phaser that could stun meant that elaborate wisdom was not needed. As Kirk pointed out, he should have just stunned them both, and watched Garth resume his normal form.
For that matter, Why was Kirk, the real Kirk, fighting Garth at all? Garth chose to attack Spock when he reached for the chair, instantly identifying himself as the imposter. Spock should have just stunned him then or overpowered him with his superior Vulcan strength. Instead, Kirk decided to jump in, leading to the two twins locked in a totally unnecessary deadly struggle. The bottom-line here is that the this scene should have been all about intelligent problem solving, Star Trek's bread and butter. But instead it was so full of holes that it was robbed of its triumph.
In the end, the audience is left to look at the spectacle as it flows past. Watching fools be fools, isn't very interesting. Most of the crew are off screen for the majority of the episode, the Enterprise rendered impotent by a planet-wide force field, leaving the mad captain Garth to carry the show on the back of his madness, which wasn't that interesting.
There were a couple of minor quibbles, as well. How could Garth use the Vulcan neck pinch on Marta to subdue her when he was disguised as Spock? This seems like a minor thing, but it effectively undermines whatever credibility the writers had as fair storytellers. The power of this story lies in the mental contest between Kirk and Garth. This is the meaning of the chess reference in Scotty's sign and countersign. The two captains are playing a game of chess for control of the Enterprise, and this is borne out in many clever scenes when Garth creates an elaborate ploy and Kirk sees through it just in time. So when the writers cheat by giving Garth Spock's powers without justification, the audience stops looking for clever solutions. They just assume that the writers will continue to cheat and that any further engagement with the puzzles is a waste of time.
What happened to the powerful explosive that Garth discovered, a single pouch of which could destroy an entire planet?
Throughout its run, The Original Series has an unfortunate habit of resorting to the foolish and bizarre instead of developing a strong plot. Here was another tired example of that failing.
Rating: 2 out of 5.
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
Star Trek TOS Elaan of Troyius S3: E13
Synopsis:
In an effort to promote peace between two traditionally warring planets, the Enterprise is directed to accompany the Troyian ambassador to Elas in order to transport Elaan, a daughter of the Elasian ruling house, to Troyia to be wed to their prince. Elaan is an unwilling participant in this diplomatic arrangement and in a fit of arrogance, stabs the Troyian ambassador.
Kirk is unimpressed with her haughty ways and develops a rapport with the princess, one which is quickly cemented through contact with her Elasian tears. These tears have a chemical property that creates an emotional bond with the man who comes in contact with them, an effect that Kirk seems subject to as well. With Kirk distracted, one of Elaan's guards, apparently without her knowledge, has been subverted by the Klingons to sabotage the Enterprise, disabling the warp drive and destroying the dilithium crystals that control it.
The extent of the damage is discovered just as the Klingons begin to mount an attack. As Kirk and the bridge crew fend off the Klingons as best they can, Elaan develops a reproachment with the Troyian ambassador, accepting his gift of wedding robes and the royal necklace. Returning to the bridge in her new attire, Spock discovers that the necklace she has been given contains uncut dilithium crystals which Elaan decrys as "common stones." As Kirk attempts to stall the Klingons, Scotty and Spock reconstruct the dilithium matrix and return warp capability to the ship. Thus restored, the Enterprise defeats the Klingons, who limp away.
Kirk continues his mission to deliver the Elasian princess to Troyia. The importance of this star system, both to the Klingons and the Federation, is made clear by the abundance of dilithium. By wearing the Troyian robes, Elaan has signaled her acceptance of her responsibility to bring peace to the system.
Analysis
This is easily one of the best episodes of the third season and a strong contender for the entire Original Series. The story delivers both the human element in the form of the unwilling princess bride as well as the adventure elements of the sabotage and Klingon attack. Each of the characters is well used, with Kirk taking the obligatory love interest, but Spock, McCoy, Scotty, and Sulu each have a satisfying contribution. Uhura, Checkov, and Nurse Chapel all get a brief spotlight as well and feel comfortable in their roles, easily capturing the essence of their characters.
This is also one of the few episodes that has the main cast appearing in their traditionally assigned roles on the bridge: Checkov as navigator and tactical, Sulu at the helm, Spock at the science station, Uhura at communications, Scotty at engineering, with McCoy and Chapel in sick bay. This is the team that we traditionally remember, yet it is surprising how seldom this ensemble actually appears in a bridge-based episode.
The quality of this episode is in the strength of the narrative. The story is quickly paced, with each scene bringing new elements into the narrative, and is a clear break from the moody, atmospheric episodes that precede it. This is a classic short story, capturing the intermittent threat from the Klingons as well as the struggles and triumphs of what are essentially diplomatic missions undertaken by the Enterprise. In this episode, we establish the Klingons as a credible and everpresent threat to the Enterprise, and debut their iconic battlecruiser as a menace worthy to challenge the Galaxy class starships of the Federation. Again, every element that the audience identifies with Star Trek, every element that persists to the later series, is found in this episode.
This is not a hot war with galaxy shaping consequences but more of the daily adventures of a capable ship and crew, the kind of story and genre for which Star Trek is famous. Fifty years later, these are the enduring elements that persist, while the vague, ambiguous, bizarre and minimalist episodes have almost entirely fallen by the wayside. Not in evidence are Hyper Powerful Species that control the crew at their whim, nor bizarre inverted worlds where the laws of physics and reason don't apply, nor visual phantasmagorias where nothing makes sense.
Instead, we are dealing with a very real and ordinary threat from the Klingons, who are no less dangerous. And we resolve the tension with the crew's ingenuity and skill, rather than being brow beaten into submission through the convoluted reasoning of a Kirk Speech. The crew operates as competent characters who know their job and do it well. They struggle with the limitations imposed upon them by the story: (Scotty with his saboteur and Sulu with the sluggishness of the ship, for example) but the characters succeed in spite of the limitations, rather than being rendered ineffective by them. The limitations serve to highlight their capabilities rather than negate them.
Elaan, as the guest character, becomes more believable and relatable as her story unfolds. The interaction with Kirk humanizes her, and we explore the real source of her arrogance as being an unwilling pawn in a diplomatic game that leaves her frustrated, frightened and alone. We initially see her as a spoiled child, but with Kirk we recognize the unfairness of her situation and the absolute necessity of her accepting this role that her planet has demanded of her. In fact, Kirk recognizes parallels to his own situation, duty-bound to complete this distasteful mission and put up with Elaan's childishness at .037% impulse power when he would much rather be anywhere else.
This character could have been a caricature of entitled royalty, and instead delivered a nuanced exploration of the balance of personal freedom with societal duty.
Post Script: A lot has been made of the sexism that this episode contains, On one side of the argument are obvious references to classics such as Taming of the Shrew, Antony and Cleopatra, My Fair Lady, and Helen of Troy. Surely Trek can participate in that same tradition. Unless, of course, you find each of these to be hopelessly sexist in their own right, in which case they are no help.
When pointing out the sexism of the show, commenters point to three things: the Joke, the Blow, and the Deal. Kirk starts out the episode with a particularly offensive joke about how the only logical women are found on Vulcan. There's no real defense of this, except to say that jokes about women and men not understanding each other are commonplace even in the modern day, where men are pigs with lizard brains.
The Blow is a much darker matter, since the instinct not to hit women is deeply ingrained in our culture and any kind of justification seems feeble at best. I would only say that Elaan and Kirk exchanged blows as part of an ongoing plot where Elaan had earlier stabbed the Troyian ambassador, later threw a knife at Kirk's back, and initiated the exchange with her own blow first. Elaan was a violent person. She was the product of a warrior culture that valued violence and respected strength. None of the people around her was strong enough to warrant her respect, least of all the ambassador. I see this sequence more about Elaan being a warrior and Kirk dealing with her on those terms, than about her being a woman.
The Deal is the plotline of a thousand romance novels, where a young woman is asked to marry against her will. Diplomatic marriages were the standard across medieval Europe as exampled by Elizabeth's extended negotiation for a husband. While it isn't particularly empowering to women, neither is it sexist to admit that arranged marriages are a legitimate source of tension, and a tension that was addressed in the story. Nobody simply accepted that this deal was a good situation and that Elaan wasn't entirely justified to rebel against it, just as Petri was right to despair of being ruled over by an Elaian queen.
In Elaan, I don't see someone who has lost her strength of will, or become meek and domesticated. Instead, I see her as turning her strong will from selfishness to responsibility. None of the players (neither Elaan, nor Ambassador Petri, nor Captain Kirk; and I'm not convinced of the prince of Troya either) want to be here in this situation. Each is forced into this role because of duty and for the sake of peace. I think it raises an interesting question that we single out Elaan as somehow more put upon because she is asked to marry.
rating: 5 out of 5
In an effort to promote peace between two traditionally warring planets, the Enterprise is directed to accompany the Troyian ambassador to Elas in order to transport Elaan, a daughter of the Elasian ruling house, to Troyia to be wed to their prince. Elaan is an unwilling participant in this diplomatic arrangement and in a fit of arrogance, stabs the Troyian ambassador.
Kirk is unimpressed with her haughty ways and develops a rapport with the princess, one which is quickly cemented through contact with her Elasian tears. These tears have a chemical property that creates an emotional bond with the man who comes in contact with them, an effect that Kirk seems subject to as well. With Kirk distracted, one of Elaan's guards, apparently without her knowledge, has been subverted by the Klingons to sabotage the Enterprise, disabling the warp drive and destroying the dilithium crystals that control it.
The extent of the damage is discovered just as the Klingons begin to mount an attack. As Kirk and the bridge crew fend off the Klingons as best they can, Elaan develops a reproachment with the Troyian ambassador, accepting his gift of wedding robes and the royal necklace. Returning to the bridge in her new attire, Spock discovers that the necklace she has been given contains uncut dilithium crystals which Elaan decrys as "common stones." As Kirk attempts to stall the Klingons, Scotty and Spock reconstruct the dilithium matrix and return warp capability to the ship. Thus restored, the Enterprise defeats the Klingons, who limp away.
Kirk continues his mission to deliver the Elasian princess to Troyia. The importance of this star system, both to the Klingons and the Federation, is made clear by the abundance of dilithium. By wearing the Troyian robes, Elaan has signaled her acceptance of her responsibility to bring peace to the system.
Analysis
This is easily one of the best episodes of the third season and a strong contender for the entire Original Series. The story delivers both the human element in the form of the unwilling princess bride as well as the adventure elements of the sabotage and Klingon attack. Each of the characters is well used, with Kirk taking the obligatory love interest, but Spock, McCoy, Scotty, and Sulu each have a satisfying contribution. Uhura, Checkov, and Nurse Chapel all get a brief spotlight as well and feel comfortable in their roles, easily capturing the essence of their characters.
This is also one of the few episodes that has the main cast appearing in their traditionally assigned roles on the bridge: Checkov as navigator and tactical, Sulu at the helm, Spock at the science station, Uhura at communications, Scotty at engineering, with McCoy and Chapel in sick bay. This is the team that we traditionally remember, yet it is surprising how seldom this ensemble actually appears in a bridge-based episode.
The quality of this episode is in the strength of the narrative. The story is quickly paced, with each scene bringing new elements into the narrative, and is a clear break from the moody, atmospheric episodes that precede it. This is a classic short story, capturing the intermittent threat from the Klingons as well as the struggles and triumphs of what are essentially diplomatic missions undertaken by the Enterprise. In this episode, we establish the Klingons as a credible and everpresent threat to the Enterprise, and debut their iconic battlecruiser as a menace worthy to challenge the Galaxy class starships of the Federation. Again, every element that the audience identifies with Star Trek, every element that persists to the later series, is found in this episode.
This is not a hot war with galaxy shaping consequences but more of the daily adventures of a capable ship and crew, the kind of story and genre for which Star Trek is famous. Fifty years later, these are the enduring elements that persist, while the vague, ambiguous, bizarre and minimalist episodes have almost entirely fallen by the wayside. Not in evidence are Hyper Powerful Species that control the crew at their whim, nor bizarre inverted worlds where the laws of physics and reason don't apply, nor visual phantasmagorias where nothing makes sense.
Instead, we are dealing with a very real and ordinary threat from the Klingons, who are no less dangerous. And we resolve the tension with the crew's ingenuity and skill, rather than being brow beaten into submission through the convoluted reasoning of a Kirk Speech. The crew operates as competent characters who know their job and do it well. They struggle with the limitations imposed upon them by the story: (Scotty with his saboteur and Sulu with the sluggishness of the ship, for example) but the characters succeed in spite of the limitations, rather than being rendered ineffective by them. The limitations serve to highlight their capabilities rather than negate them.
Elaan, as the guest character, becomes more believable and relatable as her story unfolds. The interaction with Kirk humanizes her, and we explore the real source of her arrogance as being an unwilling pawn in a diplomatic game that leaves her frustrated, frightened and alone. We initially see her as a spoiled child, but with Kirk we recognize the unfairness of her situation and the absolute necessity of her accepting this role that her planet has demanded of her. In fact, Kirk recognizes parallels to his own situation, duty-bound to complete this distasteful mission and put up with Elaan's childishness at .037% impulse power when he would much rather be anywhere else.
This character could have been a caricature of entitled royalty, and instead delivered a nuanced exploration of the balance of personal freedom with societal duty.
Post Script: A lot has been made of the sexism that this episode contains, On one side of the argument are obvious references to classics such as Taming of the Shrew, Antony and Cleopatra, My Fair Lady, and Helen of Troy. Surely Trek can participate in that same tradition. Unless, of course, you find each of these to be hopelessly sexist in their own right, in which case they are no help.
When pointing out the sexism of the show, commenters point to three things: the Joke, the Blow, and the Deal. Kirk starts out the episode with a particularly offensive joke about how the only logical women are found on Vulcan. There's no real defense of this, except to say that jokes about women and men not understanding each other are commonplace even in the modern day, where men are pigs with lizard brains.
The Blow is a much darker matter, since the instinct not to hit women is deeply ingrained in our culture and any kind of justification seems feeble at best. I would only say that Elaan and Kirk exchanged blows as part of an ongoing plot where Elaan had earlier stabbed the Troyian ambassador, later threw a knife at Kirk's back, and initiated the exchange with her own blow first. Elaan was a violent person. She was the product of a warrior culture that valued violence and respected strength. None of the people around her was strong enough to warrant her respect, least of all the ambassador. I see this sequence more about Elaan being a warrior and Kirk dealing with her on those terms, than about her being a woman.
The Deal is the plotline of a thousand romance novels, where a young woman is asked to marry against her will. Diplomatic marriages were the standard across medieval Europe as exampled by Elizabeth's extended negotiation for a husband. While it isn't particularly empowering to women, neither is it sexist to admit that arranged marriages are a legitimate source of tension, and a tension that was addressed in the story. Nobody simply accepted that this deal was a good situation and that Elaan wasn't entirely justified to rebel against it, just as Petri was right to despair of being ruled over by an Elaian queen.
In Elaan, I don't see someone who has lost her strength of will, or become meek and domesticated. Instead, I see her as turning her strong will from selfishness to responsibility. None of the players (neither Elaan, nor Ambassador Petri, nor Captain Kirk; and I'm not convinced of the prince of Troya either) want to be here in this situation. Each is forced into this role because of duty and for the sake of peace. I think it raises an interesting question that we single out Elaan as somehow more put upon because she is asked to marry.
rating: 5 out of 5
Monday, October 23, 2017
Star Trek: TOS Empath S3: E12
Synopsis:
In advance of a star's imminent transition to a supernova, the Enterprise is sent to evacuate a science station established to study the phenomenon. Not being able to locate the station personnel, Kirk, Spock and McCoy are themselves taken as captives by a highly-powerful species (HPS), the Vians, apparently to serve as rats in some grand experiment. While prisoners of this experiment, the three meet Gem, a member of an empathic race, which, while unable to speak or communicate, can heal with a touch.
The party's attempts to escape are thwarted by the HPS, but during the course of these events, each of the three demonstrates a willingness to sacrifice himself for the good of the others. When Kirk is badly hurt by the Vian's experiments, Gem demonstrates her ability to heal him, though at considerable risk to herself, by taking on his wounds and his pain.
Eventually, McCoy is wounded so badly that he is in danger of dying, when the captors reveal that the purpose of their "experiment" is not to learn anything about humans, but to test the value of the empathic race to be saved from the coming supernova of the nearby star. As Gem attempts to heal McCoy, Kirk scolds the captors for having lost their own compassion in an effort to demand it in others. Chastened, the Vians let everybody go.
Analysis:
The episode is plagued with long segments without any dialogue or action of any kind as we focus in on the suffering or the emotions of a particular actor (Kirk suffering, Gem being sympathetic, Spock being solitious). This takes a potentially interesting problem and makes it boring and uneventful. This, coupled with the reluctance of the captors to explain what they are doing, means that fully half the show grinds on with no development, the apparent gains made by McCoy and Spock rendered meaningless, and nothing happening or changing.
Spock's tricorder works, then fails to. Exits appear and then are undetectable. Scotty and Sulu do nothing aboard the Enterprise. McCoy can do nothing to heal the wounded except administer a painkiller. The Vian antagonists are almost motionless and non-responsive, offering nothing to ponder, or reason with, or struggle against and ignore nearly every overture from Kirk. And although Gem is attractive as an actress, having the camera stare at her motionless for minutes at a time becomes tedious, particularly since she has no lines of dialogue throughout the episode. The bottom line is that the audience is starved for interaction of any kind.
As is common with all the original series, this episode suffers from the common tropes of the Highly Powerful Race who is able to exert complete control over the Enterprise away team. Although Spock is eventually able to counteract that control with the emotional equivalent of the Chinese finger trap, it makes little difference to the outcome of the story.
In the end several good ideas are offered, such as the conundrum of being able to only save a single planet's inhabitants from the impending destruction of the system, and the difficulty in choosing which one to save. But no real discussion is offered, since it seems like the Vians have already made up their minds about who to save and are just toying with Gem, like perfectionist maiden Aunts.
Similarly, the crew's altruism is manifest in several different ways, for example in their instinctive willingness to bring Gem with them in their escape from the Vians. If only the resolution of these conflicts weren't dismissed summarily at the end, without any serious consideration or intelligent solution.
What redeems the episode is the cleverness with which McCoy gets the better of both Kirk and Spock, and the obvious compassion that Spock shows to the dying McCoy.
Unresolved issues: What about the other planets that are doomed to be consumed by the supernova? Millions of people are about to be exterminated in the flash of a dying sun. Can the Enterprise do nothing for them? How does Kirk's compassion interact with the prime directive?
Does the prime directive prohibit interaction even with advanced societies such as the Vians? Could the Federation have saved the Vians?
To what extent are the Vians violating the prime directive? Are the Vians' efforts to save Gem's species noble or a mistake? It is likely that a Federation consistent with its own prime directive would see their efforts as a misguided effort at best, and possibly even an evil to be opposed. The underlying problem created by the dying star is one that is barely even touched upon but it presents a perfect opportunity to talk about real-world applications of the prime directive and how it is informed by compassion.
So the moral lessons of the show are that humans are good because they are altruistic, and you shouldn't lose sight of your compassion even when trying to accomplish a greater good.
Rating: 1.5 out of 5.
In advance of a star's imminent transition to a supernova, the Enterprise is sent to evacuate a science station established to study the phenomenon. Not being able to locate the station personnel, Kirk, Spock and McCoy are themselves taken as captives by a highly-powerful species (HPS), the Vians, apparently to serve as rats in some grand experiment. While prisoners of this experiment, the three meet Gem, a member of an empathic race, which, while unable to speak or communicate, can heal with a touch.
The party's attempts to escape are thwarted by the HPS, but during the course of these events, each of the three demonstrates a willingness to sacrifice himself for the good of the others. When Kirk is badly hurt by the Vian's experiments, Gem demonstrates her ability to heal him, though at considerable risk to herself, by taking on his wounds and his pain.
Eventually, McCoy is wounded so badly that he is in danger of dying, when the captors reveal that the purpose of their "experiment" is not to learn anything about humans, but to test the value of the empathic race to be saved from the coming supernova of the nearby star. As Gem attempts to heal McCoy, Kirk scolds the captors for having lost their own compassion in an effort to demand it in others. Chastened, the Vians let everybody go.
Analysis:
The episode is plagued with long segments without any dialogue or action of any kind as we focus in on the suffering or the emotions of a particular actor (Kirk suffering, Gem being sympathetic, Spock being solitious). This takes a potentially interesting problem and makes it boring and uneventful. This, coupled with the reluctance of the captors to explain what they are doing, means that fully half the show grinds on with no development, the apparent gains made by McCoy and Spock rendered meaningless, and nothing happening or changing.
Spock's tricorder works, then fails to. Exits appear and then are undetectable. Scotty and Sulu do nothing aboard the Enterprise. McCoy can do nothing to heal the wounded except administer a painkiller. The Vian antagonists are almost motionless and non-responsive, offering nothing to ponder, or reason with, or struggle against and ignore nearly every overture from Kirk. And although Gem is attractive as an actress, having the camera stare at her motionless for minutes at a time becomes tedious, particularly since she has no lines of dialogue throughout the episode. The bottom line is that the audience is starved for interaction of any kind.
As is common with all the original series, this episode suffers from the common tropes of the Highly Powerful Race who is able to exert complete control over the Enterprise away team. Although Spock is eventually able to counteract that control with the emotional equivalent of the Chinese finger trap, it makes little difference to the outcome of the story.
In the end several good ideas are offered, such as the conundrum of being able to only save a single planet's inhabitants from the impending destruction of the system, and the difficulty in choosing which one to save. But no real discussion is offered, since it seems like the Vians have already made up their minds about who to save and are just toying with Gem, like perfectionist maiden Aunts.
Similarly, the crew's altruism is manifest in several different ways, for example in their instinctive willingness to bring Gem with them in their escape from the Vians. If only the resolution of these conflicts weren't dismissed summarily at the end, without any serious consideration or intelligent solution.
What redeems the episode is the cleverness with which McCoy gets the better of both Kirk and Spock, and the obvious compassion that Spock shows to the dying McCoy.
Unresolved issues: What about the other planets that are doomed to be consumed by the supernova? Millions of people are about to be exterminated in the flash of a dying sun. Can the Enterprise do nothing for them? How does Kirk's compassion interact with the prime directive?
Does the prime directive prohibit interaction even with advanced societies such as the Vians? Could the Federation have saved the Vians?
To what extent are the Vians violating the prime directive? Are the Vians' efforts to save Gem's species noble or a mistake? It is likely that a Federation consistent with its own prime directive would see their efforts as a misguided effort at best, and possibly even an evil to be opposed. The underlying problem created by the dying star is one that is barely even touched upon but it presents a perfect opportunity to talk about real-world applications of the prime directive and how it is informed by compassion.
So the moral lessons of the show are that humans are good because they are altruistic, and you shouldn't lose sight of your compassion even when trying to accomplish a greater good.
Rating: 1.5 out of 5.
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