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[March 8, 1967] Absolute perfection (Star Trek: "This Side of Paradise")

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by Gideon Marcus

The place: Omicron Ceti 3.

The hazard: A lethal showering of Berthold Rays, destructive to all animal tissue.

The mission: The Enterprise has the sad duty of following up on a new Omicron colony, where there are unlikely to be any survivors.

Yet, when the starship arrives, the colonists are not only alive and well, but in perfect health.  Too perfect–even scars and excised organs are healed.  Colony head Elias Sandoval talks of the new paradise they have found, and he flatly refuses to leave the planet.  If only the Earthers knew what they were missing, they'd understand.

They soon do.  First Mr. Spock, then the rest of the landing party, and finally the entire crew of the Enterprise succumb to the same spell as the Omicronites.  All facilitated by a particular plant (fungus) that has taken root on Omicron.  Each of the humans is hit by a shotgun blast of spores, and immediately they feel a burst of contentment and connection with their fellows, as well as an overriding urge to live on the planet. Spock, in particular, has extra incentive to stay: for the first time, he is capable of expressing love, and one of the colonists is a scientist who has held a torch for the Vulcanian for the past six years.


Love in the green grass.

Kirk, whether through happenstance or strong will, is the last to be infected by the Omicron disease.  Nevertheless, fall under the spell he does, leaving a moment of utter bathos for the viewer.  Is all lost?

But we know Jim Kirk.  This has happened to him before, in "The Naked Time".  In the end, his love of his ship (which is not just the girders, engines, and phasers, but also the people who crew it) snaps him out of his Lotus-Eating trance.  Realizing that violent emotions are the key to breaking the hold of the spores, the captain beams Spock back aboard the vacant ship and hurls insult after insult at his first officer until the ensuing scuffle returns Spock to sanity.


A risky and painful maneuver.

Together, they then induce irritation in the colony members and deserted crew on the planet through a subsonic communicator transmission.  A mass fracas breaks out, freeing the humans from the thrall of the spores.  A much-chagrined Sandoval realizes that he and his people have accomplished nothing in the three years they have been on the planet, but produce minimal food and tend to the spore-plants.  He accedes to Kirk's orders, and the colony is abandoned.  Paradise lost, indeed.

This is the story in thumbnail, of course.  I am leaving it to my colleagues to expand upon the myriad aspects of this episode that make it so brilliant.  We've seen elements of this plot before: the stagnant, placid society with an external controller was just seen in "Return of the Archons".  The members of the crew acting uncharacteristically emotional/somewhat intoxicated was explored in "The Naked Time".  But the execution of these married threads, the bared souls of our favorite characters, the implications, both technological and philosophical, all are eminently fascinating.

This is my favorite episode of Trek yet.  Five stars.

To thine own self be true


by Abigail Beaman

I would like to start off by noting that I have not seen the earlier episode, "The Naked Time", and from what I’ve heard, these two episodes are extremely similar. Which in all honesty, is sad, as I very much enjoyed this episode and hate the idea that it might be a retread. I also feel that, if I had seen "The Naked Time", I might have a lot more to say, but alas you’ll be getting whatever crummy ideas come to my head based on my incomplete knowledge.

Now even though I missed Naked Time, I’ve also heard (as I am a doll who fancies a bit of tittle-tattle) the episodes may air over the summer! So if you missed any Star Trek episodes (and I pray that you haven’t like I have) free up your schedule now for the reruns during 1967’s summer! Now back to the topic at hand.


Pull up a chair.

How would you describe Mister Lieutenant Commander Spock? Would you say he’s stoic? Or maybe the word emotionless comes to mind? My impression of the half-human, half-Vulcanian, is that Spock is a calm, logical, and controlled being who is amazingly portrayed by Leonard Nimoy. He in fact plays the normally cold Spock so well, that, seeing Leonard Nimoy happy and swinging on a tree was actually extremely off-putting for me (although I did love seeing Nimoy smile)!


Spock, just hanging around.

What I’m trying to say is that Spock is a being who simply can’t or won’t show emotions. That’s who he is, who he wants to be (and who I've come to fully accept). Now we don’t know if Spock has ever shown emotions, but none of the Enterprise or past co-workers for that matter, has seen Spock show emotions (except, I hear, in that "Naked Time" episode…). They all knew it was due to his Vulcanian heritage, and that Vulcanians either don’t feel emotions or flat out avoid them. When he gets sprayed with the spores, we see Spock show pain, as he seems to be fighting back his emotions, and even if it isn’t physical pain and just him trying to prevent showing even a sliver of emotion doesn’t that tell you something? He doesn’t want his emotions. To him emotions are illogical. Perhaps, even shameful.


Love hurts.

I haven’t forgotten the elephant in the room, that being Leila. While yes I want Spock to be happy (as his wife, I want the best for him always), Leila is not the girl for him. What she wants can never be achieved. She wanted to change Spock into someone who would love her, but that wouldn't be Spock. Even when she is off the spores (drug parlance intended), and knows what they did to her mind, she still wants to be on them so she can be happy and love Spock without all the pain it brings her. That’s why I feel nothing but pity for her. At the end of the episode she does, in fact, accept that Spock is who Spock wants to be. He is in his own “self-made purgatory” and so is she. Spock’s is to shun emotions, while hers is being in love with a man who shuns emotions.


"We all live in our own self-made Purgatories…"

That’s why one of the biggest lines uttered in this episode, “For the first time in my life, I was happy” feels like a stab in the back to fans (and might I say lovers) of Spock. Some people believe it’s Spock being wistful for an emotion he felt, at last, and can no longer feel again (and it’s torturous, to say the least, as a wife of Spock, to know I can't make him happy), but I would argue Spock is instead ashamed of showing that emotion. It’s something he has, and will likely continue to actively avoid his whole life. He was happy, but at what cost? Being happy isn’t Spock. Being logical and computerized is Spock. He is in his own “self-made purgatory”, and it seems Spock is himself, when in it.


Not happy, but at least, perhaps, satisfied.

This episode did have some downers, like the introduction of spores being able to regrow organs, and the crew just sorta saying “doesn’t matter, let’s leave”, but it’s a solid episode I can get behind. I would rate this episode a high 4.5 stars.

Debating Paradise in a Vacuum


by Tam Phan (Secret Asian Man)

What would you give to have perfect health and no worries? At first glance, it looks like Sandoval and the colonists have it all figured out. There’s no clear reason as to why they should leave, but Kirk says otherwise. Is he right? Initially he wanted to save them from the radiation. Yet, he continues to press the matter even after he quickly discovers it’s no longer a threat, which leads me to believe that his version of paradise is not the same as Sandoval’s.


Sandoval's paradise.

Kirk’s version of paradise requires some type of progress. For him, living in a world without it might be the furthest thing from paradise, but that’s not necessarily true for others. How does Kirk know what kind of progress is acceptable? Sandoval just wanted to build a garden. Couldn’t that also be considered progress? If one is content with life, isn’t achieving enlightenment a form of paradise? Does Kirk have the right to take that away from someone?


Kirk's paradise.

On the surface, one could interpret this episode as yet another bout of Kirk imposing his ideals and beliefs onto other cultures. But is it? Where “Return of the Archons” fails, “This Side of Paradise” succeeds, giving us a slightly different perspective where (I believe) Kirk’s intrusion is warranted. In both episodes, everyone is under some influence that causes them to behave in a way that is abnormal, and though the difference is subtle, it makes all the difference. In “Return of the Archons”, there’s an already existing culture. They’ve been living this way for a very long time, and the only justification for interference is that an uprising might well have been inevitable; Kirk just sped up the process. In “This Side of Paradise”, however, the colonists had desires and goals before they came under the influence of the spores. Kirk’s interference was necessary to break the colonists free from behaving out of the norm, and that none chose to go back to the spore-drugged existence is telling. Of course, one could argue that Spock and Kalomi might have been perfectly happy together (indeed, Spock implies it would be the only way he could be happy), but Spock chose a different path in the end.

There is a clear anti-drug metaphor in this episode, which I appreciate. It’s not much of a paradise to me if you’re not in your right mind and don’t have the capacity to make decisions for yourself. It may have made them physically healthy, but mentally, it was a different story. Then again, maybe ignorance is bliss.

Five stars

The Best of the Best


by Janice L. Newman

I have to agree with my friends above: this was one of the best episodes of Star Trek yet. As I watched I was drawn into the emotional core of the story, but I also couldn’t help but note how well crafted it was. The writing, the pacing, and the carefully set up reveals were very, very well done.

One sequence stands out in particular. Kirk, having avoided being infected by the spores, makes his way to the bridge. He encounters one of the flowers that his own crew have brought aboard, and tosses it aside in a rage. Several scenes later, he returns to the empty bridge and sits there, alone, expressing to the uncaring computer his frustration, helplessness and grief at the loss of his crew. And just as the audience thinks Kirk has reached the lowest point and are wondering how–nay, expecting that he’s going to turn things around…he gets hit with a blast of spores from the forgotten flower. It’s masterful.

This script was also particularly well-written, with memorable lines like, “I am what I am, Leila, and if there are self-made purgatories, then we all have to live in them. Mine can be no worse than someone else's.” And although the music was once again mostly recycled from earlier episodes, it was carefully integrated: the musical stings and cues emphasized the action without overwhelming it.

This episode is one of the best examples of how different Star Trek is from other so-called science fiction shows on television. It’s a nuanced, bittersweet story written for adults, and as such, it’s already miles ahead of Time Tunnel and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Maybe even The Twilight Zone. I cannot wait to see what the Star Trek writers, actors, and directors come up with next.

Five stars.

Too Many Shirts


by Erica Frank

This is Sulu's third incident of mind-altering effects resulting in bliss. If this keeps up, he's going to become known as the Enterprise's resident accidental "stoner." (He is a botanist, after all…) I suppose the need for agricultural labor kept his shirt on this time. Pity.


Happy Sulu

Nobody else is shirtless in this episode either. Is the planet a bit chilly? Are there no nudists aboard the Enterprise? Does Kirk only lose his shirt to violence, never to joy? And even the spores cannot overcome Spock's modesty. Such a shame.

Setting aside the emotional effects, the spores have tremendous medical possibilities. Surely Starfleet will want to study them—a plant that protects people from deadly radiation and heals past injuries? Incredible! Side effects include… happiness and contentment? What an amazing retirement colony Omicron Ceti 3 could be!


"And they've got shuffleboard at 3:30!"

Of course, in order to get such a place built, they'd need a way to regularly snap people out of the influence. The colonists have managed to sustain themselves but failed at their development plans. Also, we saw no children on this "colony" planet. That may be one of the other side effects of the pollen—one that would prevent it from functioning as a growing colony, but could be a tremendous benefit for a medical center or retirement home.

Alternatively, it could become a prison planet: used to house violent offenders who've been deemed to have no hope of integration with society. Would Khan's people have accepted this planet instead? I suppose Kirk would consider that a "waste of potential." And the Federation itself may have uses for this one.

The Federation should immediately start researching how to set up a permanent center, possibly with a starbase in orbit to snap key personnel out of their euphoric stupor. Perhaps the ground crews would wear gas masks while residents breathe freely. Of course, there are the deadly Berthold Rays to consider: the spores give immunity; anyone without them is limited to short-term visits. But even with that problem, I'd expect the Federation to value a planet where people return to perfect health while living in blissful peace.

Unless there are some unknown after-effects that McCoy failed to discover, OC3 seems like a wonderful planet, just not suited for the plan the Federation originally had for it.

It would, however, be delightfully suited for a planet-wide Be-In, a sprawling agrarian society with no violence (no ambition, I can hear Kirk's voice in my mind), no competition (no innovation), no war (no progress). And—if the settlement were in the warmer parts of the planet—no shirts.

Five stars; this one leaves me with happy thoughts, even though I know the possibilities will probably be ignored.

This Side of Potential


by Robin Rose Graves

After the episode’s close, I realized the true message and how the spores are ultimately nothing more than a device through which to convey it. This is a topical episode, representative of the issues that plague us now: the false respite of heroin abuse, the sirensong of Communism. Social commentary absolutely has a place in science fiction, and I don’t entirely hate how this episode is shaped by the message it tries to get across, but I feel it’s at the sacrifice of further exploring the fascinating nature of the spores.

In order to maintain a symbiotic relationship with humans, the spores keep their hosts alive in an environment that would otherwise kill them within a week. In return, the humans cultivate the plants that release these spores. The strangest part of all, this is posed as a problem rather than a brilliant discovery.

The spores not only kept the colony in perfect health for three years, but allowed them to regenerate organs as well as allowed humans to live on the planet despite the presence of harmful Berthold rays. I can’t help but think these plants are the perfect tool for the spacefaring crew of the Enterprise. It would allow them to venture on planets with otherwise hostile environments and to provide lifesaving medical treatment crew probably couldn’t even receive in a hospital, let alone on a starship.

This has been part of a trend I’ve noticed in Star Trek. Interesting ideas are introduced when convenient and abandoned the moment they no longer serve the story they’re trying to tell. Androids. Planetary computers. Time travel (twice!) This, of course, is a symptom of television's episodic nature, necessary to a degree so one doesn't necessarily have to watch all of it to understand what's going on.

Yet it still frustrates. Perhaps even more frustrating is when it happens with characters – particularly whenever there is a female guest star. In this episode, it’s Leila, a woman who has a history with Spock that has never been mentioned before this moment (and I have full confidence will never be referenced again as the story progresses), and who just so happens to be on Omicron Ceti 3.


It was nice knowing you, Leila. I'm sure we won't see you again.

We’ve seen the same thing happen with random past love interests appearing and disappearing in episodes “What are Little Girls Made Of,” (Chapel's Roger Korby) “Shore Leave” (Kirk's Ruth), “Court Martial” (Kirl's Areel Shaw) and even in the series debut episode “The Man Trap” (McCoy's Nancy). Not only is this giving us flat female characters and then sweeping them aside the moment they are no longer needed, but it is also cheating our male characters of development as well. If the series isn’t going to explore the science of its world, at least it could give better attention to its fascinating cast of characters. I say that out of love, because I like the crew (maybe not Kirk so much…) and I want to know more about them, but Star Trek isn’t delivering.

I give this episode 4 stars for what it did, but not 5, because I know what it never can.

Next episode promises to be very different.  Join us tomorrow at 8:30 PM (Eastern and Pacific) for a Star Trek:

Here's the invitation–beware the Blob!



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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[March 2, 1967] (Star Trek: "A Taste of Armageddon")

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A Cold, Cruel Counting


by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

Most of my friends only experience the war through numbers. Unless they have family on the streets where the bombs are falling, in uniform or not, kill counts reported on the screens in our homes are the only way many people track the war in real-time.

It helps me to remember that TV show writers don't live in a pocket universe, one more far-seeing, wiser than the one in which we all shower and shave and find holes in our socks every day. Unless they are unlucky enough to have participated in the current war, their knowledge of the war comes from those same sources.

The pictures we see on television or in our papers – bombs, bodies, landscapes we've never driven through, leaders speaking languages we do not, propaganda both crudely and delicately crafted – have limited currency. But numbers, kill counts especially, are strangely memorable. We repeat them, over and over, as if these numbers tell us something of what it is like to fight and die on the other side of the world.

Gideon's copy of The World in 1966: History as We Lived It by the Writers, Photographers, and Editors of The Associated Press (Published February 1967) has this to say about the ongoing conflict in Vietnam:

"The allied side lost nearly 14,500 dead during the year, including some 4,800 Americans.  Enemy dead were placed at 50,000, but some officials privately said the figure was inflated."

The war in "A Taste of Armageddon" feels like the product of this numbers-based approach to understanding war. In this writerly extension of bloodlessly reported casualty counts, Captain Kirk and his crew face two entire societies (Eminiar Seven and Vendikar) which conduct their war via computers and then tally up the expected deaths. Living people then march into disintegration chambers to keep their 500 year war's gory score. Those societies have chosen to ensure that:

Anan: […] Our civilization lives. The people die, but our culture goes on.
Kirk: You mean to tell me your people just walk into a disintegration machine when they're told to?
Anan: We have a high consciousness of duty, Captain.

Backing up, Captain Kirk and his crew had been ferrying Ambassador Fox to open up diplomatic relations with Eminiar Seven, who they have little knowledge of. They are warned away, but acting under the Ambassador's orders, they disregard the warnings. It soon comes to light that, by entering orbit around Eminiar Seven, the Eminians and Vendikans now consider the Enterprise as a fair target in their murderously bloodless war games. When Captain Kirk declines to order the crew to transport themselves to the surface to be disintegrated, the leaders of the planet hold him and the rest of the landing party hostage.

There is some clever interplay, personal bravery, voice-faking trickery, stubborn commitment to principals on both sides, a self-sacrificing lady in distress, a self-important diplomat, some cruel things said about diplomats as a category by Mr. Scott ("Diplomats. The best diplomat I know is a fully activated phaser bank"), and finally, a threat of overwhelming force, via the apparently genocidal standing "Order Twenty Four." (I spent much of the episode hoping "Order 24" was an old joke between the Captain and Scotty, but that shoe never dropped, leaving me disturbed as to Starfleet's comfort with destroying sentient life en mass). Eventually, Captain Kirk gains the upper hand and forces the Eminians and Vendikans to the negotiating table, with the following mandate:

Kirk: "I've given you back the horrors of war. The Vendikans now assume that you've broken your agreement and that you're preparing to wage real war with real weapons. They'll want to do the same. Only the next attack they launch will do a lot more than count up numbers in a computer. They'll destroy cities, devastate your planet. You of course will want to retaliate. If I were you, I'd start making bombs. Yes, Councilman, you have a real war on your hands. You can either wage it with real weapons, or you might consider an alternative. Put an end to it. Make peace."


Make Love, not War

Because, despite the callow specimen of a diplomat that Ambassador Fox turns out to be, all wars – computer-run or otherwise – end at the negotiating table. Smart leaders try to get there as soon as possible, because they know the reality that the Eminians and Vendikans did not seem to grasp: every life lost in war is a blow to that culture. Every dead body, bomb explosion, pitted landscape, dead leader, and bit of corrosive propoganda is part of cultural death.

To be clear, I am not against self-defense in war. A proper pacifist, I am not. If I had the option of being drafted, I could not honestly mark myself a conscientious objector because I do believe there are some wars that need fighting; the jacket I wear in my photo was a relative's Plebe jacket from West Point, class of '49 and he is not the only one to serve in my family. But wars of choice are an entirely different matter to me. Those leaders who wake up one morning and decide to send other people's children to die over borders they should not have crossed in the first place are a curse upon our shared world. We have no idea how the war between the Eminians and Venikans began – by choice, by misunderstanding, by cement-shoe treaties, or with one attacking and the other defending. They do not seem to recall the inciting incident either. In the end, like all wars, peace will only come from talking.

And I find myself agreeing with Captain Kirk, wishing more people would know the consequences of war, and not just the counts of it. Perhaps we too would seek peace and hold her more dearly if we did.

Four stars.

A Polite and Gentle War?


by Erica Frank

I'm sure Dr. Leary would have something to say about the psychology of a whole society—two whole planets, in fact—that has indoctrinated its people so well that they politely march off to death when a computer tells them to.

This is exactly the opposite of the Human Be-In that took place in San Francisco last month, with its focus on "Turn on, tune in, drop out." Instead, the Eminians (and, presumably, Vendikans, although we don't meet them) have a whole culture of "Show up, tune out, drop dead."


The Eminians could take a page from our book…

While their society appears peaceful to Kirk and his team, there must be a great deal of turmoil under the surface. It's not easy to get people to just politely walk to their deaths, so their indoctrination must start very young—perhaps in infancy. Otherwise, how could you explain to a six-year-old that Mommy is leaving forever because a computer said she's dead now? Do parents calmly hand over their children to be disintegrated? …Or are children exempt from "war death," and that's one of the "messy" parts of war that their game avoids? Either way, Eminiar must have a booming business in last-minute video recordings left at the disintegration center for loved ones to pick up later.

However, I suspect the people are not so controlled as all that. While some people—like the High Council—might walk quietly to their own deaths for the sake of society, the general populace may not be so compliant.


"All those in favor of marching to your death, please remain seated."

What terrors must their death guardians commit on the populace, to convince millions of people to leave their families to die?

What do anti-war protests on Eminiar look like? Perhaps they hang around the death centers, handing out flyers that say "You Still Live! Reject the Computer and Reclaim Your Life!" Of course, the High Council would have the Enterprise crew believe that nobody protests, that everyone follows orders. But if that's true… why do their guards carry guns?

Eminiar seems to be a technologically advanced society. Surely a society that is at peace except for the cold calculations of the war itself, has little experience with interpersonal violence. But their guards are armed and well-trained. If people go to their deaths without complaint, why would their guards be so combat-ready that they are able to take down Kirk and his team? Who are they trained to fight when Federation agents aren't visiting?

I think we only got to see a tiny slice of Eminian life, filtered through the biases of the council that calmly declares millions of deaths and then makes sure that number comes true. We saw "Ministry of Peace" propaganda, not what life is actually like for most people.

Four stars. The more I think about this episode, the more chilling implications I find.

Mutually Assured Accounting


by Lorelei Marcus

How often can someone confidently say they are living through an historic event?  The kind of world-altering occurrence or period that will go down in the textbooks, that kids will memorize for years to come. 

I think everyone lives through three or four.  I narrowly missed World War II, but the bulk of my life has been spent in the conflict that has succeeded it.  Indeed, this one may be even more global in character than the last, because we all are living in its shadow: The Cold War.

I know the Cold War is a big deal, beyond the news items, the Duck and Cover drills, the Ban the Bomb protests, because it is everywhere in my entertainment.  In songs like Barry MacGuire's Eve of Destruction.  In movies like Dr. Strangelove, Failsafe, On the Beach, Panic in Year Zero.  On the small screen in shows like Twilight Zone and Britain's The War Game.  Books like Alas, Babylon and Farnham's Freehold.

These cautionary tales are so omnipresent that they've almost become cliché.  Sure, we're all afraid of the Bomb.  Using it is clearly senseless.  What else can/need be said?

So you can imagine my surprise (and not a little delight) at Star Trek's complete inversion of this theme with its latest episode, "A Taste of Armageddon".

Rather than the typical structure of two equally matched parties tensely avoiding conflict because of mutually assured destruction, instead the episode plunges us right into a Hot War.  A hot but clean war with no real weapons, but innumerable calculated casualties.


"G-4" "It's a hit!"

To stave off the possibility of total annihilation from an ever-escalating conflict, the two superpowers (planets in this case) chose to guarantee destruction, but only of people.  What a clever, callous twist!  Not only is it a comment on how nations might paradoxically value their existence over their constituents (what is a country if not the people living in it?) but it also highlights that no matter how efficiently one conducts a war, the result is still death and ruin.

The only answer is peace.  Five stars.

Getting to Know You


by Gideon Marcus

My colleagues have done an excellent job discussing the content of the episode, so I just want to note a few nifty things about its production.

One of the things that endears Star Trek to me is its ensemble nature.  This was a particularly balanced episode that saw many of its principals shining (though Uhura still remains underused, and Sulu was absent this week).  I was particularly impressed with Chief Engineer Scott's first televised turn at the helm, at which I thought he did just fine.  It seems a little strange to have the engineers in line for the bridge's center seat, but the "Starfleet" of the "United Federation of Planets" (terms of art we're starting to hear more and more) seems a lot looser on branch distinctions than the U.S. Navy.  Viz. Kevin Riley (is he still around?) moving from Engineering, to Navigation, to Communications–a path Lt. Uhura also seems to have traveled.


"I'll nae lower th' screens!"

This is the second time we've had a special Federation commissioner on board.  While I did not appreciate Mr. Fox most of the time, I do appreciate that the Enterprise is often a courier as well as a scientific vessel and sometimes warship.  The jack-of-all-trades cruiser-like nature of the ship allows for a wide variety of interesting stories.

Joe Pevney has returned to take up the director's megaphone.  He and Marc Daniels appear to have most put their imprimatur on this fledgling show, and they have yet to really disappoint (sometimes scripts let them down, of course).  A name I am seeing more is Gene L. Coon, usually in co-writing credits.  I've seen him all over television, particularly on Laredo, COMBAT!, and Wagon Train.  I'm sure there are others I've missed/forgotten.  Along with his arrival, I'm noticing a minor change in tone.  Trek feels less like an anthology show that happens to have consistent characters, and more like its own entity–a lived-in universe.

I suppose it was inevitable that, as the world of Trek became established, folks not attached to the show would want to become part of the phenomenon, particularly in light of the big "Save Star Trek" campaign we saw at the end of last year.  So it is no surprise that we are seeing our first Trek-specific clubs and even club 'zines.

Trek has been guaranteed at least one more season.  I look forward not only to more great episodes like this one (I give it a solid four stars), but also to learning more about the inhabitants and worlds that populate it!

Something WEIRD is going on. Join us tonight at 8:30 PM (Eastern and Pacific) for what looks like it will be a very strange episode of Star Trek:

Here's the invitation!



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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[February 16, 1967] The People's Choice (Star Trek: "Return of the Archons")

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by Gideon Marcus

Last minute reprieve

If you're just an average, everyday stf-loving citizen, you've probably been feeling pretty secure about the new show, Star Trek.  After all, it's leaps and bounds better than any other SFnal show on TV (e.g. Voyage to the Bottom of the Aquarium, It's About Time (this show got canceled), Time Sink, Lost in Spoof, The Invasive, etc.) Surely if Irwin Allen can get his shows renewed, Gene Roddenberry can, right?

Well, maybe not.  Late last year, the fanzines and club meetings were abuzz.  Seems Harlan Ellison had sent out a written plea, letterheaded by more than half a dozen Big Names in the SF screenwriting biz (self-importantly dubbed 'The Committee') begging trufans to write their local stations, NBC, Desilu, the Pope, etc. voicing their support of the show.  Otherwise, it might not finish out the season and certainly won't get renewed.

This call was met mostly with enthusiasm, though there were cynics.  Thousands of letters were sent (one over-enthusiastic fan conjectured the number was "around a million").  It now appears that Trek will run another season after this one is done. 

There is something of a preemptive quality about all of this.  Talking to astute newspaper-clippers and folks in the know, I learned that Trek was greenlit for a full season back in October, before the alarm was sounded.  Now, I don't think it's a bad idea to tell the powers-that-be how much you like a show to make sure it stays on longer than the usual crud, but I worry that this may have been a bit of crying wolf.  If the network really does plan to axe this lovely new SF show in the future, will they take us seriously then?  Tune in next winter, I guess.

An Orgy of Destruction

Speaking of last-minute reprieves, this week's Trek episode, "Return of the Archons", was full of 'em. 

Investigating the loss of the starship Archon decades before, the Enterprise visits Beta 3, an uncharted world.  The episode begins quite effectively with a cold open: Lieutenants Sulu and O'Neill, in Western garb, are being chased through a nameless 19th Century-style city, completely unadorned with signs or other decoration.  Before Sulu can be beamed aboard to safety, he is zapped by goons in monk robes.  Once aboard the ship, the vivacious helmsman is reduced to a grinning imbecile, now one with "the body".

In perhaps the greatest disregard for sense I've yet seen on the show, three of the most senior crew transport down to investigate.  There, they find a world of zombie people, placid, without will.  Except that night is "Festival", an uncommon but periodic occurrence when the muzzle is removed and people give in to their urge to lust and rapine.  All of this, the mindlessness and the maelstrom, is the will of "Landru", some sort of omnipotent, telepathic God.


Landru.

Some of the Betans are resistant to being "absorbed" into the body, however.  They do their best to help Kirk and co., though they fail to prevent Dr. McCoy (who the captain jarringly keeps calling "Doc" rather than "Bones" in this episode) from losing his mind to Landru.  It is determined that this status quo has existed for 6,000 years, a reaction to a period of world-threatening savagery.  Landru was a real fellow who set up this completely (except for Festival) peaceful and static society to save the people of Beta 3.

It worked, but only at the cost of the human soul.  And, as Kirk and Spock correctly guess, only a soulless entity could create such an order: in this case, a computer of Landru's construction.  When directly confronted, the computer quickly gives up the ghost, and Beta 3 is left rudderless.  A team of sociologists (the Enterprise conveniently has them on hand) stays behind to provide better guidance than LANDRUVAC.

My colleagues will discuss the various elements of this episode in subsequent sections so I'll keep my comments narrow.  "Return" is quite a good episode, utilizing existing costumes and sets (for other Desilu shows, presumably) to get more bang for the budget (though if the Enterprise had a panoply of outfits they got from Bonanza, you'd think they'd have them for other eras, too – would have been useful when they visited modern day in Tomorrow is Yesterday! There are inconsistencies and some areas underdeveloped due to lack of time, but the show flows pretty well.


If only they'd had access to this wardrobe in earlier episodes…

There are lots of messages one can divine from "Return", notably the "computer-driven society is bad" message we've gotten a few times before.  Going deeper, particularly tying in with Spock's noting that the peace and tranquility of Beta 3 is that of the factory, the machine, I discern an indictment of Communism.  "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need" sounds like a good idea in theory, but it robs humans of their individual dignity, placing power solely at the venal top.  Landru's projected image, with his robes and cult of personality, calls to mind Mao and Confucius, with inflexible dogma and inescapable "justice".

Such a society clearly cannot stand.  I wonder, however, if simply toppling the big boss and (mostly) leaving the wrecked culture to fend for itself, is the best way to ensure a future of democratic enlightenment.

Four stars.  It's solid entertainment for all its stumbles.

Silicon life?


by Abigail Beaman

If something does not feel, only does what it is told, and shows no creativity, is it alive? That’s what this week's episode titled, "Return of the Archons", was about. A computer-run colony of people with a very stagnant culture that seemed to be more destructive than helpful. This episode, despite having some flaws, is probably one of my favorite episodes, not only because Mr. Spock looks very dashing in his cloak, but because it digs into what makes a human being alive.


Dashing Mr. Spock.

Society, by definition, is the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community, and from what we know, Landru has not allowed the Betans’ society to thrive. Instead, he has allowed it to stay in this linear pattern, which is nothing more than the same routine every day. Well, that is except for one day, of course, during the Festival, where it seems you are allowed to do whatever (and whomever) you want, without Landru's instruction. But why is the culture so stagnant? That’s simply because Landru is a machine.


Our first glimpse of "Landru".

Throughout the episode, it is suggested multiple times that Landru is not human by Mr. Spock, and as someone who isn’t fully human, he should know. And by the end of the episode, Mr. Spock is right but also somewhat wrong. Landru was a human many years ago, but now he no longer exists as a living creature but is instead a computer, who may have his knowledge but not Landru’s wisdom. While Landru tried to save his people from the ruins of war, by having a machine input and output peace and tranquility above all, he created a machine that prohibited all human creativity and advancements. To put it simply, these Betans are not thinking for themselves as they have a machine telling them what to do and probably how to feel non-stop. It’s even stated by Mr. Spock, after Kirk causes the Landru machine to self-destruct:


“They have no guidance. Possibly for the first time in their lives.”

Free will is the basis of all of humanity. Without free will, we are nothing more than just robots. We are nothing more than what Landru was, awaiting the next input from a human. If you cannot think for yourself and rely on someone to tell you what to do, are you truly alive? That point was underscored by the confrontation between Landru and Kirk talked: Landru could ordered its men to kill Kirk or simply stop talking, but instead, Landru allowed Kirk to tell it what to do. Landru does not have free will, therefore relies on someone to tell it what to do.

Yes, a programmed society IS a dead society, for it contains no individuals. It can not grow from human mistakes. It will stay the same, because that is what it is programmed to do. It is programmed to give you the same result each time. A human can never give you the same result all the time, no matter what you tell them.

That’s why, to me this episode kept me thinking, even in the slower parts of the episode. And just for that, I give it my good old rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars.

But also for Mr. Spock in a smock.

Everything Old is New Again


by Janice L. Newman

“Return of the Archons” was a fun episode, but one that doesn’t hold together well if you look at it too closely. I had to wonder if the story was written to make use of sets and costumes Desilu had on-hand. If so, they did a decent job, making the transitions from Western Town to what looked like Castle Dungeon fairly convincing. Plus, it was fun to see the crew dressed in period costume even if, as The Traveler noted, this was inconsistent with prior episodes.

Garb and scenery weren’t the only things we’d encountered before. From music, to actors, to the very theme of the story, all of these were recycled from other episodes.

Setting aside the Enterprise crewmember regulars, at least one of the townspeople appeared in a prior episode: the old man Tamar, who dies at the hands of Landru’s enforcers, appeared as the illusory leader of the colonists in The Cage (or as most people will remember it, The Menagerie). Re-using actors is common practice, of course, but it’s always fun when one can identify someone that’s been seen before.


“Aren't you Vina's father?” “Of course not! Vina's parents are dead…I mean…Vina who?”

As for music, Star Trek commonly reuses themes written for the first few episodes of the show. I thought it particularly cleverly done this time, with the driving ‘encounter with the Fesarius’ music from the The Corbomite Maneuver used to back the violent ‘Festival’ scenes juxtaposed effectively against the eerie, wailing piece that begins with a descending half step that was first introduced in The Cage/The Menagerie (though viewers not privileged to see The Cage may have first encountered it in other episodes). Themes from several other episodes were interwoven throughout, but those two in particular stood out to me as interesting choices. I especially liked that the piece from The Cage, which has usually been used to introduce beautiful women who are viewed through a soft-focus lens, was instead used to underline how oddly the people of the planet were behaving.

And then there’s the thematic recycling. While it’s not a one-to-one match, there are definite resonances between Return of the Archons and What Are Little Girls Made Of?, the episode where Kirk encountered (and ultimately destroyed) multiple androids. Doctor Korby, or at least his android version, had envisioned a society where all people were turned into androids like himself. When confronted, he cried, “I'm the same! A direct transfer. All of me, human, rational, and without a flaw.” Contrast this with computer-Landru’s words: “I am Landru. I am he. All that he was, I am. His experience, his knowledge.” Consider, too, that computer-Landru built a ‘rational’ society of people who were little more than robots, fulfilling a similar vision to Korby’s dream.

Reusing and recycling can be good if it’s done with cleverness. Just as a skilled tailor can take an old dress and disguise it as a new one with a few alterations, changing the context can make costumes, sets, actors, music, and even themes feel like new and different choices. It’s a good cost-saving measure and an efficient use of what one already has on hand.

But like a dress that’s been altered too many times, sometimes the seams start to show. There were too many questions left unanswered in Return of the Archons for me to enjoy it as much as I’ve enjoyed other episodes. What exactly was the purpose of “The Festival” and how often did it occur? How wide was Landru’s influence – for example, were the people of “the valley” also under his control? (And if not, why did they not seek to free their neighbors from it?) Why were some people immune to Landru’s influence? Why was it so easy for Kirk to break Landru at the end (another parallel with What Are Little Girls Made Of?), despite the fact that his logic didn’t make much sense?


Dialectic at thirty paces

I can come up with answers to all of these questions, and I’m sure you can as well. Sometimes that’s the fun of shows like these: filling in the holes. But leave too many holes and a garment falls apart. I’m afraid that under closer scrutiny, Return of the Archons does just that, which is why I can only give it three stars.

Computer Dating


by Lorelei Marcus

There are many issues that come from a society run by a computer. Of course, there's the lack of will of its inhabitants, as Abby points out. But beyond that, there are serious logistical concerns. Landru's utmost priority is to "preserve the good of the body" or protect the community he is in charge of. He does this by assimilating every one of his citizens into a state of compliance, and then has them walk around all day greeting each other. "A simpler time" indeed.

Assuming there is no labor in this society, and all the infrastructure is produced and controlled by machines (perhaps using energy to matter food converters like we've seen on the Enterprise), then the biggest logistical issue in Landru's society is the production of more people.

(Note: the beings we see are not actually humans but aliens on their own planet with a coincidentally similar biology to us. Despite this, those from the Enterprise frequently refer to them as humans and rejoice in the destruction of Landru because it makes the society more human. Now who's doing the assimilating?)

I believe Landru's solution to the (need for) population issue is Festival Day, one of the great mysteries of the episode. A time when the young adults of the town (the elderly are excused) riot in the streets, breaking windows, setting fires, and generally committing acts of lust and violence alike. It's a horrific display, and one that contrasts jarringly with the normal tranquility.


Kirk's hotel overlooks the Sunset Strip.

There are two explanations for Festival, one being that, while Landru has an immense capability to pressure human minds into subservience, inevitably there will be some, over time, whose suppressed emotions boil over and cause outbursts (or perhaps even turn them into resisters). The Festival allows them to get these out of their system in a directed fashion.

The second explanation: as far as I can tell, there are no interpersonal relationships in this culture, which would lead to a distinct lack of intimate sexual encounters.This would lead to extinction. So Landru kills two birds with one stone, allowing its people to indulge their baser desires on Festival, and nine months later, producing the next generation for Landru to influence. An elegant solution to an inelegant problem. Something that could only be conceived by a machine.

I personally have no opinion on the rightness of Landru's programmed culture, but I do feel the concept had and has a lot of potential for a science fiction setting. I wish Captain Kirk had taken a little more time to explore and understand his surroundings before deciding that destroying them was the only option. Perhaps this episode will inspire more stories with a similar premise, but more fleshed-out worlds. We can but hope.

Three stars.

When you assume…


by Erica Frank

Sigh. Once again: An entity with godlike abilities controls a society where a veneer of peacefulness hides an underbelly of fear and violence. This time it's a soulless computer, not an "evolved" being—but it still treats humans as playthings. Two clichés for the price of one!

I suppose it's difficult to write about benign beings with godlike powers; if they exist, wouldn't they be out helping people and making the galaxy a better place? How would the Enterprise even encounter them, except in a setting like Shore Leave – "here's our vacation resort; enjoy?" But I am so very tired of the variations on "actually, ESP stands for Evil Supremacy Powers."

Setting aside the hackneyed science fiction elements and focusing on the story itself, I thought Kirk missed his mark, and more than once.

When he spoke to Reger and Marplon, trying to convince them to help him fight Landru, he tells them to set aside their fears and "start acting like men!"…as if they were actually humans who grew up in a human culture. Instead, they are aliens who just look like humans, raised in a culture where, for thousands of years, people who show any resistance have their memories and personalities wiped, and become "of the body"—forever lost to their loved ones.

They don't have a context for bravery. They have no stories of heroes to inspire them. They have a whispered legend: Someday, the "Archons" will return to save us. But they have no plan for assisting. Defiance, for them, is secrets and stealth, not confrontation. Yet Kirk expects them to act like human men from a culture that values heroism.


“Did we say 'resistors'? We meant 'rejoicers!' We love Landru!”

Later, Kirk told Landru that the society he'd built wasn't peaceful, but stagnant, that people need creativity and free will. That's true—but he failed to mention the "Festival" of violence and destruction. Why didn't he mention Tula's injuries, the rubble in the streets, the terror and carnage of the twelve hours of Festival? Those seem like much stronger counterpoints to Landru's claim of a "perfect and tranquil" society.

However, even though I sighed at the mind control, and may have yelled at the screen during Kirk's talk with Landru, I enjoyed most of the episode. The blend of an apparent 19th-century culture with "lawgivers" who look like medieval monks was delightful, and I'm fond of "religious kook" language, even when it's obviously forced. Maybe especially then—I did like Kirk's pretense of being "of the body" near the end of the episode.

Three and a half stars. Fun to watch; even more fun to critique.

A Perfect Society—for Whom?


by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

The "Festival" scenes from "Return of the Archons" reminded me of a piece by Miriam Allen deFord in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction back in 1956. She was responding to a Saturday Review column by Dr. Robert S. Richardson, where he argued women should absolutely be included on future missions to Mars – as sex toys for the male astronauts. Ms. Allen DeFord deftly picks apart Mr. Richardson's argument, redolent with "subconscious male arrogance," piece by piece, in an article I have laid out in my feminist scrapbook; but it was her successful shredding of his argument that women are emotionally unsuitable for space travel that I thought of most during this week's Star Trek episode.


Women. So emotional.

Ms. Allen deFord writes:

"The notion that women are inherently more emotional and excitable than men is a hoary myth that belongs back in the days of the 18th century 'vapors' and Victorian swoonings. Actually, the convention that induces men to repress every indication of emotion makes neurosis more prevalent among them than among women."


Men. The picture of mental stability.

That see-sawing between repression and violent emotional excitement formed the core of Landru's unbalanced world. But the near-total invisibility of women on Beta Three – with the exception of Tula, the daughter of a saloon-keeper who seems to only have existed to be brutalized during the Festival – was exactly the kind of society that Dr. Richardson had envisioned humanity creating on Mars. One where women's only roles are to be carried off by men, screaming.


Landru takes Beta 3 back to a simpler time: the Neolithic.

I like Ms. Allen deFord's vision better, because it reminds me of the world we are usually treated to on the Enterprise. One which is composed of, as she says: "a bisexual instead of monosexual staff of prioneer observers, investigators, and technicians." It is a future where women are not toys or victims, but living people who sing, study, lead, organize, and live. Where: "Women are not walking sex organs. They are human beings. People, just like men."

Landru's major failure in this episode wasn't just assuming that the best world for his descendents would be one characterized by dull emotional repression, punctuated by scarlet periods of neurotic violence; it was designing a world where women held no meaningful power and were confined to roles which profoundly limited their human potential far below the men in their society.

Here's hoping in the next episode, Lieutenant Uhura gets more than one line and we go back to having fully human women alongside us on our journeys to the stars.


If you squint, you can almost see Uhura in this episode.

Three stars.

PS: I wish some brave soul would collect and republish Ms. Allen deFord's essay and other pieces from her era so more people could enjoy her incisive wit and colorful prose; maybe pair it with some women-centered fiction by Mari Wolf, Alice Eleanor Jones, or Evelyn E. Smith.

Tonight at 8:30 PM (Eastern and Pacific), Hollywood Palace presents Ricardo Montalban and his Amazing Supermen!

Come join us – here's the invitation!



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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[February 8, 1967] Hung Jury (Star Trek: "Court Martial")

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Better Than Perry Mason


by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

In Court Martial, we see Star Trek trying on a new genre: courtroom drama. Like a good Perry Mason episode, we have twists, turns, dramatic monologues on the subject of rights, stodgy courtroom pedantry, and a wicked villain who gets his comeuppance before the hour is up.

But it being Star Trek, it added some important layers to the genre. Our Perry Mason – a stolid Luddite named Samuel T. Cogley (Elisha Cook Jr.) – is less dapper and more dogged in his defense of Captain Kirk. Unlike any Perry Mason I can remember, the prosecutor is a woman (Joan Marshall as Areel Shaw), and the four judge panel is played by actors who can trace their family trees to nearly every continent on Earth, including Commodore Stone (played by the excellent Percy Rodriguez), Starship Captain Chandra (Reginald Lal Singh), Starship Captain Krasnovsky (Bart Conrad), and Space Command Representative Lindstrom (William Meader).


A nice cross-section of ethnicity, if not gender

Percy Rodriguez was born in Montreal and is of Afro-Portuguese descent (that gets us three continents right there). Reginald Lal Singh was born to Indian parents in what was then the mainland of the British West Indies and is, as of May 26, 1966 the independent state of Guyana (which gets us two more continents, plus a second count in Europe’s column for the British passport). Then add in the unnamed Ensign who appeared to be of East Asian descent, and we don’t even need to count real-life U.S. Army Colonel Bart Conrad, who as it happens, also worked in several episodes of Perry Mason.

I don’t list these actor’s family histories to distract from their professional credits, but to note that Star Trek manages to reflect our world in ways that many theoretically more realistic shows do not. Afterall, we are a country which first elected Dalip Singh Saund to the U.S. Congress in 1955, and seven years later, appointed Thurgood Marshall to the Second Circuit Federal Court of Appeals, the brave lawyer who argued Brown v. Board of Education before the still all white, all male U.S. Supreme Court. (Perhaps 1967 will be the year at least one of those descriptors changes).


The Supreme Court, in 1962

Today, there are dozens of Black judges serving on the federal, state, and municipal bench – including Vince Townsend, a municipal judge in Los Angeles County who played a judge in the 1963 Perry Mason episode “The Case of the Skeleton's Closet” (and, because the world is tiny, I have heard that Judge Vince Townsend used to be roommates with Judge Thurgood Marshall). So why do we need to look hundreds of years into the future to see judges and captains and prosecutors who reflect our real world?


Perry Mason, in the courtroom

As interesting as the casting was for this episode, the plot itself also held my attention. First, we think we’re about to follow a routine investigation into the tragic death of a crewman. Then his daughter appears, wild with grief and accusatory in speech. Things begin to shift for Captain Kirk, his colleagues turning their shoulders at him, an old flame warning him of impending disgrace, and a trial which forces his nearest and dearest officers to testify fairly damningly against him.

But then in hops our very own Perry Mason, with clever words about rights and the flaws of technology. Cogley convinces the judges to return to the Enterprise where my very favorite moment of the episode happens: a luscious soundscape of heartbeats that is slowly narrowed down to a single, unknown body, stowed away belowdecks.

Well, second favorite; as I am sure Erica will concur, watching Captain Kirk roll around on the floor and tear his shirt on the carpet isn’t a bad use of screen time either (another common Star Trek cliché that Perry Mason never included).


Two absolutely convincing stunt doubles fighting in Engineering

The episode lost most of its tension at this point, as we waited for an increasingly barechested Captain Kirk to corral the previously-thought-dead Lieutenant Commander Finney and stop him from crashing the Enterprise into the planet’s surface.

The little twist at the end, where we discover Cogley has now agreed to represent Lieutenant Commander Finney, was a nice touch.

This episode gave meaty, well-developed roles to Areel Shaw and Percy Rodriguez, giving them space to explore courtroom theatrics and protocols in roles many drama’s casting directors would have given only to white men. Though parts of this episode flagged, that delightful choice carried it through for me.

Rating: 4 Stars.

Wrong Way Street


by Abigail Beaman

While I know a majority of my peers rated this episode highly, I was let down by the ending of the episode. I feel that Trek has worked best when it left me with some warning or moral, and to have it just devolve to fisticuffs and Kirk half naked at the end just seemed to disappoint. And believe me, I like when the cast gets half naked.

Perhaps I was just expecting a different story. "Court Martial" opens up with what we believe will be a man versus machine parable, with Kirk versus the computer of the Enterprise. Instead we end up with man versus man: Kirk versus Finney. I feel like if Marc Daniels had followed through with the theme "don’t trust machines on everything", I would have happily rated this episode above a four.


Computers–who needs 'em?

My biggest issue is with Finney being alive. It raises many unanswered questions. What was Finney’s plan after Kirk got indicted? How did Finney manage to change the computer without being spotted? How did Finney even get out of the pod before it was sent off? How did messing with the data stored in the computer also mess up Spock’s chess programming?

In the end, I was just disappointed and annoyed. While the story started off strong, it ended up crashing in the climax, leaving a sour taste in my mouth. That’s why I rate it 2.5 stars.

Our Perception: what can and can’t we trust?


by Andrea Castaneda

I agree with my colleague, Abby, though perhaps the premise saves this episode a little more for me. “Court Martial” was, to me, one of the more intriguing episodes in the show of the series. We’re presented with high emotional stakes, see a more vulnerable side to Captain Kirk, and take a deeper look into how StarFleet operates. But what I liked most about this episode was how it analyzes man’s perception in contrast to the cold hard evidence of the machine.

The courtroom scene reminded me a lot of Sidney Lumet’s “Twelve Angry Men”. In that film, eleven men of a jury believe a man guilty of murder, but one juror still wants to discuss how there can be doubt. The film goes on to dissect how one’s perception can be warped by emotion, physical limitations, personal beliefs, etc. In the end, they conclude the provided evidence is insufficient, and the defendant is spared from the electric chair.


Twelve Angry Men, perhaps the seminal courtroom drama of the last decade.

This episode shared similar themes. Kirk starts out unwavering in his confidence. But when presented with seemingly damning evidence, he’s shaken. With a defeated tone, he says to himself “but that’s not the way it happened.”

But unlike “Twelve Angry Men”, Spock subverts the idea that man’s memory is inherently flawed. When the prosecution asks him how he could know Kirk did the right thing if he didn’t see him, he states that one doesn’t need to observe him at all times to know he did. Just as one doesn’t need to see a dropped hammer fall to know it has in fact fallen. And while he does concede that this is– at the end of the day– his opinion, his confidence in Kirk is what prompts him to prove the computer is wrong. And of course, he tests the system via chess.

Where the episode missed an opportunity, however, was how they chose to end it. I was hoping that once Spock proved the computer was faulty, it would lead the court to reevaluate the evidence and/or rule that the man’s death was due to a programming glitch. But instead, it’s revealed that the dead man was alive the whole time, and that this was all part of a half-baked revenge plot. He and Kirk wrestle while the Enterprise is set to crash, but Kirk once again saves the day. And with that, what started out as a sober courtroom drama winds up as a James Bond movie.

Ridiculous as that ending was, I still thoroughly enjoyed the mental analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of one’s perception. It gives me as a viewer something to think about once the episode ends. Unfortunately, the conclusion of events– including Kirk’s unprofessional kiss with the prosecution lawyer– compels me to declare “Court Martial” a mistrial.

Three stars.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics


by Lorelei Marcus

"Court Martial" is the second trial-centered episode we've seen on Star Trek, though unlike "The Menagerie" (and many other episodes) there are no God-like aliens or other fantastical features. Which is why "Court Martial" is one of my favorite episodes: because of its focus on technology and its ability to straddle the line between implausibility and familiarity.

The source of conflict in this episode is the malfunction of the ship's "computer". The show portrays this computer as a piece of machinery so complex it can recognize verbal commands, act as an archive of all human knowledge, and even play chess! Yet it's so small that it can fit into a panel console [I think those are just the teletype terminals. Cogley's law computer seems self-contained, though. (Ed.)] This is far more advanced than anything we have today, or anything that could conceivably be developed in the next 50 years.


"Computers. I know all about them."

However, the audience is not totally disconnected from this incomprehensible device because the computer represents more than itself. When Kirk first meets his defense lawyer, he is startled by the lawyer's reliance on paper books over computer banks. In the Star Trek future, physical books are an antiquated and nearly extinct form of information storage. While this is a rather extreme (and grim) prediction, the situation does reflect a trend toward a reliance on technology over physical media happening in our society today.

Rather than read the paper or a novel, we increasingly watch the news or a Western on television. We've long since switched computation work at NASA from "computers" (actual human beings doing calculations) to IBM's metal monsters. It isn't a stretch to see a future where the development of computers alters the very way society operates and exists, eschewing personal bonds of trust and the evidence of the human eye. Someday, we may even leave justice to the computers themselves – after all, they cannot lie, can they?

Except, of course, they can. Because people can, and computers are still, even in the far future, servants of people. That, I think, was the point of the episode, and a good one.

Four stars.

The measure of a man


by Tam Phan (Secret Asian Man)

It doesn’t always feel good to do the right thing, but there’s something to be said about having complete confidence in your integrity when it’s under scrutiny. Kirk walks confidently into most situations as if he always has the right answers. Ben Finney is not Jim Kirk. Without even getting to know him that well, it’s still abundantly clear that the infraction that he received wasn’t the real reason he wasn’t a senior officer.

As the records officer, Finney seemed to be doing just fine. After all, he was an officer aboard the Starship Enterprise. It’s not clear if there are many other starships, but as far as we know, the Enterprise is a very important one. [Last episode, it was revealed "there are only twelve like it in the fleet" (ed.)] If Spock’s and McCoy’s commendations aren't enough to tell us how much prestige is represented in the ship's crew, Kirk’s commendations practically flaunt it. I assume that Finney’s service record must be relatively strong to serve on such a ship, but his actions in “Court Martial” tell us everything we need to know about why he’s not captain of his own starship.


Captain material?

Finney’s ability to sabotage the ship shows us that he’s clearly competent, but his plan lacked any forethought; a trait that is expected in leadership. What did he think was going to happen once Kirk was court martialed? Life couldn’t go back to normal for Benjamin Finney. He was on record as being jettisoned and presumed to be dead. It’s not as if he could return to being Enterprise’s records officer. At the very least, he’d have to escape the Enterprise and go into Richard Kimble-style exile. He didn't even manage to do that!

In short, he didn’t have the fortitude to move on from a decade-old perceived personal slight, instead developing a grudge. He didn’t have the integrity to own his mistakes, and so he blamed Kirk. He failed to weigh the possible consequences of his actions, either in the past or of his current half-baked scheme. But I don't condemn Finney for this. For all of his flaws, Finney is a perfectly understandable character, a human character. I get him, even if I don't grok him, and his relationship with Kirk was poignant and interesting.

In the end, no one is perfect: not the records officer nor the computer he works on.

4 Stars

The Little Black Box


by Janice L. Newman

As a fan of mysteries, I really enjoyed Court Martial. The episode did a good job of building tension throughout, even making the audience second-guess ourselves. One thing that I thought was an interesting touch was the recordings made of the events on the bridge and played back later for the purposes of the trial. We saw something similar in "The Menagerie", but in that case the playback was facilitated by the aliens. In Court Martial the implication is that the recordings are done automatically, presumably for circumstances like those in the episode.

This year (1967) regulations are going into effect that state that all planes must have a ‘black box’ installed—that is, a flight recorder that can help explain the cause of a crash after the fact. Having cameras on the bridge that record everything is a natural extrapolation of this new technology and makes perfect sense. And when the audience ‘sees’ Captain Kirk push the wrong button at the wrong time, even many of us are fooled for a moment, wondering, ‘Maybe he just made a mistake?’


A Soviet flight recorder – a "red box"?

It’s not a perfect episode. The denouement, where Captain Kirk is permitted to face the man who has a personal vendetta against him and engage in fisticuffs, didn’t make much sense. Nor did Finney’s plan: did he plan to hide out for the rest of his life? Was he going to get Harry Mudd to make him a false identity? What about his daughter?

Despite these caveats, I liked the mystery and the story overall, and particularly found the dramatic scene where each person’s heartbeat was screened out to be nail-bitingly effective. It was also refreshing not to be dealing with godlike aliens. I give this episode four stars.

The Return of Shirtless Kirk


by Erica Frank

Other viewers have covered the plot, the characters, and the nuances of the legal system. I'm going to focus on something more fun: The clothing, and occasional lack thereof.

We never meet the people who design Starfleet's uniforms, but they must be very influential. There's so much variety! You'd think people living on a spaceship would have limited resources, but no: everyone has uniforms in several colors and styles.

A trial is a formal event, which calls for formal apparel. Naturally, Starfleet's fashion designers rise to the occasion. First, we get Kirk in his side-wrap shirt, while he meets with Commodore Stone to discuss the accusations against him. This seems to be more formal than the normal pullover uniform.


Kirk's wraparound green uniform


The Commodore's outfit is similar to the Enterprise crew's standard ones, but his insignia is a sparkling flower brooch. Very nice.

Kirk changes back to his gold pullover to meet with an old friend; she's in a wild pink-and-green paisley gown. Later, in the courtroom, she wears a red minidress, very similar to Uhura's outfit, only with another flower brooch. I might have mistaken it for mere jewelry if I hadn't seen the same on the Commodore earlier.


This is what lawyers in Starfleet wear when they're not in court.

Dress uniforms—which is what I assume the officers are wearing in court—are satin, with gold trim, and the insignia is an array of triangular gemstones. They seem to open down the front; I approve of Starfleet's apparent policy that the more formal the outfit, the easier it should be to remove. (I'm glad someone in Starfleet is focused on practical issues.) As one would expect, the Commodore has more sparkles than a mere captain, even considering Kirk's impressive record.


Which of Kirk's triangles is the Grankite Order of Tactics? Is the thing on the side the Prantares Ribbon of Commendation? (Do enlisted personnel just have one or two little triangles?)


He can fight a Gorn on a planet full of gemstone rocks and not lose a thread, but when he's up against anyone he knew at the Academy, he loses clothing. He must have been terrible at strip poker.

This episode raised some questions, like: Why must Spock win at chess to prove that computer records can be altered? But I am willing to look past quite a few loopholes to see Kirk half-undressed and on his knees.

I'm not quite as shallow as that sounds. I'm just aware that we viewers often put more thought into the worlds and societies than TV writers have time to develop. I watch this show to have fun; I enjoy the science fiction elements as best I can, but when they're a bit weak, I am happy to be distracted by petty pleasures.

Three and a half stars. I know too much about the law to give it four.

Week before last, it was I Dream of Jeannie.  Now, it looks like the Enterprise crew will be on Wild, Wild West!  Come join us tomorrow at 8:30 PM (Eastern and Pacific).

Here's the invitation!



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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[January 26, 1967] Cold-blooded murder (Star Trek: "Arena")

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Before we dive in, here's a couple of photos we just got back from the Fotomat, taken right before we watched the episode!

Captain Kirk and the Myth of Empty Land


by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

This week’s episode opens with Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy happily discussing the promise of a lush dinner for the crew of the Enterprise on the Cestus 3 colony, “out of the edge of nowhere,” after they were invited to a sumptuous visit by the local human Commodore.

When the team beams down they find destruction, death, scorched earth, and a lone and bloodied survivor. The crew takes fire from unseen enemies who Mr. Spock determines are sophisticated, cold-blooded, humanoid creatures.

Captain Kirk brings the survivor aboard the Enterprise before ordering the delightfully competent Lieutenant Sulu to follow the “alien” ship they believe is responsible for the massacre. Then follows a chase, like we saw in The Balance of Terror, during which the survivor explains to Captain Kirk that the the colony was suddenly attacked several days before, unable to defend itself.

Again and again, he asks Captain Kirk, voice rising in panic and distress: “Why did they do it? Why?”

Kirk decides the unnamed, unidentified enemy’s motivation was “invasion” and convinces Spock that the only option they have is to destroy the “alien” ship.

Eventually, a godlike species ("The Metron", yet another in a long series on this show) intervenes in the hunt, identifying the “alien” enemy ship as the "Gorn" and forcing Captain Kirk into a mano a mano fight with the alien captain on a planet where they must make their weapons off the land. Captain Kirk finds heaps of diamonds, sulfur, potassium nitrate, coal, and sturdy wood. As he freely takes of them to build a hand cannon to kill the Gorn captain, the formerly voiceless alien speaks. He explains to Captain Kirk that his ship attacked Cestus 3 because:

Gorn Captain: “You were intruding! You established an outpost in our space!”
Captain Kirk: “You butchered helpless humans –”
Gorn Captain: “We destroyed invaders!”

Observing this exchange through the magic of Metron, Spock and McCoy realize perhaps “[w]e were in the wrong” and “[t]he Gorn simply might have been trying to protect themselves.”

The makeshift gun works. Crouching over the Gorn with the alien's own chipped obsidian blade, Kirk decides to spare his life, thus surprising and delighting this week’s all powerful watcher species. Back on his ship, Captain Kirk feels proud of himself for declining to kill the Gorn captain, ending the episode with a warm smile.

The plot of "Arena" hinges on the myth of empty land, the 19th and 20th century colonialist theory that whole sections of our human world were uninhabited before Europeans arrived. Many of us descended from Europeans learned this myth in our homes and schools. Many people who lived in those lands since time immemorial learned of this myth at the muzzle of European guns.

To give a specific example, let’s consider a childhood book of my mother’s: American First: One Hundred Stories from Our Own History by Lawton B. Evans (1920). The first chapter (“Leif, The Lucky”) tells the story of Leif Erickson arriving and finding a land full of bounty, the kind of place a sensualist like Dr McCoy would enjoy: it is full of grapes and food and sturdy wood. It continues to tell the story of his brother, Thorwald, who arrives expecting a lush and welcoming land but instead, “Indians attacked his party one night, and killed Thorwald with a poisoned arrow.”

I can almost imagine Thorwald asking his crew: “Why did they do it? Why?”

Because, as the Gorn captain said, Leif and his Norsemen were the invaders. The land they came to was not empty, just as Cestus 3 was not empty. And just as Captain Kirk explained to (if he did not quite convince) his first officer, sometimes people protect themselves by cutting invaders off at the pass; in both this week’s episode and America First's first chapter, that tactic worked. At least for a time.

The stories in America First continue, from “Daniel Boone” and his handmade weapons to “Dewey At Manila Bay” and his hoards of coal. They share elements of this week’s episode: an initial erasure of indigenous people; coveting of resources; exploitation of those resources; horror at violence done to invaders (while remaining silent on violence done to those invaded); and finally, a pat ending that makes the reader feel good about his and her ancestors’ role in the story.

I read and watch science fiction to be given more than patness and comfort. I want us not only to reach for the stars, but reach into our own hearts, to give us tools to understand our complex histories, and sit with the realities of the violence that underpins many of our histories. I want to see our heroes do more than fight their way out of problems.

I am glad the episode takes a stab at addressing the "empty land" myth, and at the same time disappointed that its hero does not. In the end, Captain Kirk seems to have some realization of the Gorn captain’s perspective, but the episode ended before we saw any true change of heart. I want to see real attempts at understanding the “alien” perspective for longer than the time it takes to put down a knife.

Three stars.

A Weak Echo


by Erica Frank

This episode was obviously inspired by Frederick Brown’s 1944 story, “Arena.” In both stories, aliens have attacked human settlements and space battles follow. In both, a near-omnipotent being interferes, reducing the conflicts to a single contest: One representative of each, placed on a barren world, instructed to fight. The godlike entity will then remove the loser’s contingent.

The two stories have some crucial differences, however.

Most importantly: In the original, the human is naked. (The alien probably is, but it looks like a giant red beach ball.) In the Star Trek episode, Kirk is not only not naked, his shirt doesn’t even get torn. (Despite fighting an alien with fangs and claws! Did the budget department object to constantly replacing his uniforms?)

In the original, the stakes were much larger: The nameless cosmic entity will eliminate the loser’s entire species; in Trek, “the Metron” only says he will destroy the loser’s ship. (He seems annoyed that they’ve brought their petty squabble to his region of space.) Brown’s “Arena” mentioned prior battles, skirmishes leading toward a full-scale war. In Trek, this is the first time they’ve met, which makes Kirk’s instant hostility seem arbitrary and contrived.

Just last week, Kirk insisted they were peaceful explorers, not warriors. Now he’s jumped to “alien invaders seeking conquest—kill them all” without considering any other options. He chases the alien ship, ignoring Spock’s requests for diplomacy, pushing the Enterprise nearly to breaking… until the Metron stops both ships and places both captains in their arena.

Brown’s human protagonist—Carson—and his alien are separated by an invisible force field, unable to attack each other directly. Their battle involves wits and endurance, not brute strength. Kirk throws rocks.

Unlike Kirk, Carson attempts to negotiate peace with his enemy; it “replies” with a mental wave of hatred and bloodlust. Unlike the Gorn, there will be no diplomatic relations in the future. Instead, Carson must find a way to kill his enemy—with the entire human race as the stakes of the battle.

I won’t ruin the story for you, but the result is predictable. The question is not “who wins,” but “how?” In this, it is again much like the Star Trek episode: We do not wonder whether Kirk (and his ship) will be destroyed, but how they will prevail.

The original is much more satisfying than the Trek episode. Carson’s explorations and growing understanding of his situation make sense; Kirk has more resources but ignores technological options (including fire) until his rocks fail to kill.

However, this episode of Trek was not without points of interest: the Gorn was an intriguing alien, and the Metrons use their immense powers to enforce peace in their area; they don’t treat “less advanced” species like toys for their amusement. I hope to see both of them again.

Three stars, even though Kirk remained fully clothed throughout.

Will the real civilization please stand up.


by Andrea Castaneda

This episode exemplifies what happens when a good idea isn’t executed well. I appreciated how this "Arena" explored the idea of barbarism vs civilization. But the way the storyline unfolded left me with some conflicting messages.

Throughout the episode, we’re presented with three different tiers of civilized society: the allegedly barbaric Gorns, the more rational Humans, and highly advanced Metrons.

When the Gorns are introduced, they're framed as violent aliens who attacked Cestus III unprovoked and showed no mercy. Then we have the humans of the Starship Enterprise, who we can identify as the more rational species. But as Captain Kirk's desire for vengeance shows, we can be prone to our own bloodthirsty tendencies. Then we have the Metrons, a species so advanced, they command the laws of physics at will. And while they claim to be the epitome of what a truly civilized world looks like, they still deemed a trial by combat the best course of action rather than, say, a civil trial (even Trelane offered a trial!) But then again, had they chosen that option, we'd have been robbed the spectacle of Bill Shatner fighting a man in a rubber lizard suit.

I was particularly struck when, after much rock throwing, a brief chemistry lesson, and lots of underwhelming stunt choreography, Kirk finally defeats his opponent. The impressed Metron suddenly shows up (dressed as if a cherub from a renaissance painting appeared on the cover of Vogue) to commend Kirk on his display of mercy, yet in the same breath offers to destroy the Gorns anyway!

At this point, I wondered whether the Metrons were really as advanced as they claimed. After all, by declaring the crews of both ships guilty by association, they could have potentially killed many innocent lives. At least with Captain Kirk, who had much more emotional investment in the outcome, he realized when to hold back.

I suppose the moral this episode left me with is that no society, no matter how advanced, is immune to the perils of barbarism.

Three stars.

Fight or Flight


by Tam Phan (Secret Asian Man)

I have to say that I’m really enjoying Star Trek so far. “Arena” isn’t the best episode for reasons that others have already expressed, but the last few episodes of Star Trek have left me with questions of what the Enterprise’s goals are in seeking out new life and civilizations.

We’ve seen that Kirk takes exploration seriously in “The Galileo Seven”. He stops to explore a quasar while transporting lifesaving medicine to a waypoint for a colony in need. He’s battled and bluffed his way through confrontations in space and has also shown prowess in hand-to-hand combat, but are humans exploring the galaxy just to get into fights? It’s understandable that conflicts are sometimes unavoidable, but at times, it seems as though Kirk is just looking for a reason to arm his photon torpedoes. I’m not saying that it’s unheard of for explorers to be capable of defending themselves, but it does seem a bit odd that Kirk’s approach to alien life tends to be confrontational and aggressive.

Kirk goes boldly where no man has gone before, but when does bold become brash? Seeking out new life seems dishonest when it often results in unnecessary conflict. He’s almost immediately opposed to General Trelane’s behavior in “The Squire of Gothos” and now, without asking any questions, he immediately chases after a fleeing ship with the intent to destroy it. To be fair, they did destroy a colony full of seemingly innocent people, but if Enterprise’s role is mainly to explore the galaxy, it’s not clear based on Kirk’s actions. At no point did the Enterprise's captain even try to communicate with the Gorn. Initiative was left to the other party, who reached out to him, explained his viewpoint, even offered his version of mercy.

I think Kirk just got lucky in the end. It made no sense for him to spare the Gorn and there was little indication that he should. What bothers me is that it’s yet another arbitrary standard enforced by a supposedly morally superior alien. Kirk’s mettle was subjectively assessed to be passable using a lousy test that was barely passable in its own right. This would have been a more interesting episode if Kirk’s mercy was rewarded with peace between humans and Gorn rather than a heavy-handed pat on the head by an almighty alien. Good boy, Kirk. You’ve shown mercy. If only there was another way a superior alien could coax a human into showing mercy than a gladiatorial contest.

3 Stars

Ineffective effects


by Janice L. Newman

Thus far, Star Trek has proven itself a cut above just about all other science fiction shows currently playing in the USA. The stories are often sophisticated, the alien menaces sympathetic, there are questions of morality and nuanced plotlines that you simply do not get in, say, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. The special effects, too, are often innovative and surprisingly convincing. The ship made of lights in "The Corbomite Maneuver" stands out, but even effects used across multiple episodes like the glitter of the transporter or the beam of a phaser just work, never jarring the viewer out of the story with how fake they seem. The salt monster in "The Man Trap", despite being the quintessential ‘man in a suit’, managed to be scary rather than ridiculous, and the bulbous-headed alien in "The Corbomite Maneuver" looked fake because, in a brilliant twist, it was.

"Arena" proved to be a disappointment in this, well, arena.

The first half of the episode is interesting. The ‘warzone’ that Captain Kirk and several of his crew find themselves in works well enough, using explosions combined with clever light effects similar to those used for the phasers. However, when Kirk is sent to confront the ‘Gorn’, we encounter one of the first special effects that threw me out of the story entirely.

The Gorn is a man in a suit. It’s a very good suit: well-designed and detailed. It’s clearly meant to be intimidating, with lots of teeth, faceted eyes, and big muscles. Unfortunately, it’s painfully obvious that the poor person inside the suit can barely move. The Gorn is slow, lumbering, and stiff. I can handwave some of this away. Maybe the Gorn’s planet has different gravity, or properties that give its particular bodily development an evolutionary advantage. Yet when Kirk fights the Gorn almost in slow-motion, giving time for the Gorn to swing back, I couldn’t help but immediately be reminded of every cheesy children’s sci-fi show and every low-budget sci-fi movie where a man in a suit tries to be convincingly scary.

They did their best. Kirk uses his speed to his advantage, darting around the rocks while the Gorn plods after him, convinced its superior strength will win in the end. It should be compelling, but as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t engage with it. I just couldn’t see the Gorn as anything but a man-in-a-suit.

There’s also the point that a supposedly advanced race that ostensibly values mercy and peace set up this “Arena” with the components of gunpowder and other tools available such that the two leaders can brutally kill each other, with the lives of their respective crews hanging in the balance. But others have already made that point.

Three stars.

Nothing if not consistent


by Gideon Marcus

I'm going to be the contrary one today.  Everyone else, for various reasons, has given "Arena" some flavor of three stars.  I'm going to give it a lot more.

Jessica makes a valid point.  The episode neatly brings up the "empty land" myth.  But unlike Jessica, I feel the showrunners did their job.  Indeed, they did it twice.  For it is not just Gorn land that was trespassed, but that of the Metrons.  If the Gorns (and by extension, the Skraelings of Vinland) are justified, then surely the Metrons are also justified in whatever actions they want to take to rid their space of the noisome invaders.  That their morals don't necessarily match ours is not surprising; "advanced" is a loaded term.  Kirk and the Gorn were the equivalent of two roly-polies unwanted in a garden.  The Metrons simply put the two of them in a little dish to see what would happen.

Personally, I don't believe the Metrons ever intended to kill anyone (or let anyone die), similar to Balok in "The Corbomite Maneuver".  They were just having fun and teaching us a lesson at the same time: Don't barge into unknown space without knocking.

As for Kirk being a lousy diplomat, point conceded.  But his actions are nothing if not consistent.  In "Balance of Terror", he dithered over engaging the Romulans despite a crystal clear course of action.  In "Arena" he is determined not to make that same mistake again even though, as Mr. Spock points out, the circumstances are not necessarily the same. 

And Mr. Spock, what a gem you are.  In "The Galileo Seven", he consistently finds solutions that result in the least loss of intelligent life, regardless of species.  Here he tries repeatedly to do so again, to the point that he is curtly silenced on the bridge by the captain.

We are frequently given to believe that Kirk is a brilliant commanding officer, someone to be admired.  But more and more, Star Trek is showing us who we really should root for.  Not the headstrong captain who is starting to favor his guns to his communicator, certainly not the overemotional McCoy, who seems to exist only to tease Spock about being an alien.  No, it is the cool, rational (if not always "logical" in the way Jessica would define the term!) Mr. Spock.  And maybe Mr. Sulu.  He was pretty nifty this episode, too. 

And Uhura.  That officer's got some good pipes on her.

Four and a half stars.

It looks like the Enterprise is going to meet Major Nelson this week!

Come join us tonight at 8:30 PM (Eastern and Pacific).  Here's the invitation!



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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[January 18, 1967] Temper tantrum (Star Trek: "The Squire of Gothos")

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by Lorelei Marcus

The incomprehensible versus the inconceivable

Alright, I admit it.  My love affair with Star Trek is on the rocks.  I think what hurts the most is that I wanted to love this show.  Everything was stacked in favor of a whirlwind romance: A science fiction premise, a multi-racial cast, serious plot lines, and a high budget.  But ultimately, there's one fatal flaw standing between me and complete commitment.

I can't stand fluffy science fiction.

In other words, I like stories about complex futuristic societies, spaceships, aliens, and wild scientific discoveries, as long as there's some explanation to how it all works!  Books like The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, World of Ptavvs, and Earthblood, to name a few, have given me that satisfying extra layer of realistic depth that I love.  And Star Trek…hasn't.

Sure, there are hints about the operation of a larger universe, and crumbs of detail about how certain technologies work, but for the most part, strange happenings are explained away as "psionic powers" or "extremely advanced technology"

"Shore Leave" was particularly egregious.  The crew stumbled about the whole episode while a third party is teased in the background as being the orchestrators of the situation with the use of some interesting technology.  In the end, we do not meet this third party, but of course, their machines are "beyond human comprehension" and we get no further explanations or analysis of this entirely new alien race.

With all this being said, you may be surprised to find that I did love the most recent episode of Star Trek, "The Squire of Gothos", a story that features psionic powers, hyper-advanced technologies, and not much explanation about how any of it works.

This is entirely due to the subtle difference between the inconceivable and the incomprehensible.  I will explain in a moment.  But first, a summary for those who missed it:

Cruising across a star desert, the Enterprise happens upon an unexpected planet.  Before they can investigate, Captain Kirk and Mr. Sulu disappear from the bridge.  After a quick scan from the ship's sensors, it is determined that the planet's atmosphere is toxic, composed largely of methane, and unbearably hot–normally uninhabitable by human life.  Mr. Spock decides to beam down a party anyway.  I really appreciated this first scene, because it sets up the mystery of Gothos well, and also throws in actual scientific detail.  It also addresses that commanding officers shouldn't be assigned to landing parties (a problem this show has had numerous times).  Spock refuses Scotty's request to be sent down with the party, and he, of course, stays on the ship as well.  Little things, but important ones.


Scotty makes an admirable but inadvisable request to search for the Captain

The landing party quickly groups up with Kirk and Sulu in an 1800's-style house (finally a set other than foam rocks!), which resides in a small portion of the planet with an Earthlike climate.  The entity behind this anomaly presents himself as retired General Trelane (William Campbell), a man in ancient garb who speaks in archaic idiom.  Trelane has been studying Earth from afar, but as one crewmember points out, his information is 900 years out of date–the time it would take light to reach Gothos.  Yet another scientific detail that crucially adds to the story and also, happily, allows us to extrapolate that Star Trek takes place sometime in the 28th Century. [The events of "Miri" suggest Star Trek occurs in the 23rd Century.  Someday they'll get it straight… (ed.)]

Kirk, disgruntled at being taken from his ship by force, demands to be sent back with his crew, but Trelane ignores this request entirely, continuing to play with them.  Thus ensues a long game of cat-and-mouse with Kirk leaving and returning to Gothos three times in the course of the episode.  The Enterprise seems to escape twice only for Trelane's power to prove overwhelming.  Even when they destroy what seems to be the source of Trelane's ability to convert energy to matter and back again, the Squire ensnares them. 

Hoping to at least save his ship, Kirk agrees to a one-on-one game of Hunt with Trelane, so long as he promises to free the Enterprise in return.  Trelane agrees, though at the point of victory, he announces his plans to renege.  With his sword pointed at Kirk, two heavenly beings shimmer into existence to reprieve the captain and reprove their…son?


"Oh hi, mom, dad."

Trelane's posh demeanor falls away, and it is revealed that he is actually much younger than we initially thought (in maturity, at least).  It's a twist, I'll admit, I did not see coming, and which reframed the entire episode.  This is one of the few I'd like to catch in summer reruns knowing what I know now.

So what makes this episode so great?  As hinted at before, it's the little things.  Here's one: when Trelane first meets the landing party, he extrapolates their extractions by their last names and greets them with stereotypes of their nationalities.  When he bows to Sulu, the helmsman scoffs, "You gotta be kidding."  (We all know Sulu is French.  Just watch "Naked Time").  I also appreciated that, when Trelane bows condescendingly to Sulu again later on, it's his fellow (white) crewman that angrily attacks the Squire.  I appreciated that, in the future, racism is both ridiculous and not tolerated–by its targets nor their allies.  The only other show where I've seen this kind of progressiveness is I, Spy, another Desilu production.


DeSalle won't stand for Trelane's bigotry.

Beyond this, this episode never failed to surprise me.  First Spock uses rational thinking to extract the landing party.  Then, when he and his team are captured again, Kirk uses deductive reasoning to determine that Trelane is not infallible, and that his power must be coming from a machine, not the Squire himself.  He maneuvers the situation such that he can destroy it and thus makes an escape.  In any other story, this would have been the end of it.  The hero outsmarts the villain and saves the day.  But Kirk's guess is wrong, or at least incomplete.  In the end, he is saved seemingly by chance alone (though it does seem Trelane's "parents" may have been monitoring their little brat.)

I think it is this twist of orthodox storytelling that gets to the heart of my point.  In most other episodes, the enemy is "inconceivable".  We are told that their powers or their technology is beyond our understanding and there is nothing to be done about it.  In "The Squire of Gothos", we are shown that while some of Trelane's powers can be reasoned at, they are "incomprehensible"; we still cannot understand them enough to defeat him by human means alone.  Paul Schneider, the screenwriter for this episode [and also "Balance of Terror" (ed.)], gives us just enough details to make Trelane believable, even if he is unbeatable.  That's good writing and good science fiction.

I give this episode 4.5 stars.  There are a few flaws, mainly in the drawn-out ending, which also misses an opportunity to expand on the alien race.  There are logical inconsistencies: Trelane doesn't know what food tastes like, but he knows what music sounds like.  Still, I enjoyed it, from the acting to the costumes.  It has restored my faith in Roddenbery's show just a little longer.

Perhaps there is still a chance for my romance with Star Trek after all.


by Gideon Marcus

All the old, familiar faces

I'm still trying to parse my thoughts about this latest outing of the good ship Enterprise.  In many ways, it feels like a patchwork of things I've seen before.  Kirk and crew finding an uninhabitable world, with a terrestrial habitat set up by an enticing but ultimately deadly alien menace, calls to mind Uranus in The Seventh Planet.  The improbable, out-of-time nature of the villain (and good on Trek for landing a guest appearance by Liberace!) seemed straight out of a Lost in Space episode.  The moody cinematography, somehow lending an objectively goofy episode more gravitas than any outing of Nelson's Seaview, as well as the revelation of Trelane's true nature, felt very Serling-esque to me.  And, of course, the Squire of Gothos ("Bothos" according to my paper) appears to be a close cousin of Charlie Evans, who the Enterprise team met in "Charlie X"."


Liberace's latest tour: The Sahara, the Hollywood Palace, and Gothos!

I did feel Kirk could have been more diplomatic at the beginning (his job is to seek out new life and new civilizations), and Trelane's ranting at the end was about twice as long as it needed to be.  It's an episode that shouldn't work, but the professionalism of the Starfleet officers, as well as the actors playing them, sees it through.  And the planet, as seen from orbit, was stunning.  As one 'zine lettercol writer noted, it's like something Chesley Bonestell might have painted.

Three stars.


by Elijah Sauder

Through the eyes of a child

"The Squire of Gothos" explores an interesting concept: how the human species looks to an outside observer. In "Gothos", we see humans (and a human/Vulcan hybrid) through the eyes of a super advanced immature child. I feel this idea could be explored in greater depth.

If there were something, living or otherwise, that could observe us, what would their thoughts of our civilization be? Would it focus on the outward facing, publicly praised bravado and gregarious exploits of our luminaries and stars, or would it take notice of the simple home life? Would it, as the episode suggests, focus on the military exploits and gallant behaviors of the famous members of our species, or would it become fascinated with the social, educational, and working life of the general populace? We may never, nay probably will never know; however, I feel inclined to side with the writers of this episode in that they (this hypothetical super advanced thing) would focus on the glamor and intrigue of the people who have made names for themselves. Maybe that is my humanity talking, but it is what makes the most sense to me.

To me, the introduction of this idea alone is one of this episode's saving graces–I was not partial to the conclusion of the episode, which focused on the immaturity of the antagonist of the episode. As a whole, I feel this episode scores 2.5 out of 5.

Again? That Trick Never Works


by Erica Frank

While Trelane's appearance and setting were unique, I had the distinct feeling we'd met him before… several times. Star Trek keeps revisiting the plot, "someone with godlike powers decides that the crew of the Enterprise is a set of living toys for them to play with; no amount of force or reason can change his mind; instead, a combination of luck and deus ex machina interventions saves the day."

I will set aside, for the moment, the nonsensical background of this episode–an alien who studied humans enough to create a historical house complete with ancient weaponry, but failed to notice that peaceful exploration missions exist. Perhaps Trelane truly is that oblivious, or perhaps he understands that war isn't what humanity is about–but it's what interests him, so he's going to pretend all humans he meets are warriors.

However, I'm growing very tired of near-omnipotent aliens (or humans with alien powers) who somehow have the manners of a bratty five-year-old who's been told he's not getting ice cream after dinner. The recurring message of "with great power comes great vice and great pettiness" is really starting to annoy me. I'd like to believe the future, alien worlds, and exotic technology can bring out the best in people, not just their worst. But aside from that–it makes for a boring story.

We've seen "powerful person decides to ignore both law and local customs, and lacks any shred of empathy" several times: in "Charlie X," in "Where No Man Has Gone Before," in "Dagger of the Mind," and in "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" None of those are bad stories in themselves… but that's almost a third of the show taken up with minor twists on the same theme: "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

I do hope Star Trek starts showing more variety in its super-powered beings. The alien in "Shore Leave" was a nice start; I'd like to see more like him. I'd like to see less like Trelane, who reminded me of Eros from Plan 9 from Outer Space–I almost expected him to start yelling "Stupid!" at Kirk for not sharing his love for war history.

One and a half stars. Kirk got into a sword fight and didn't even get his shirt ripped.

Diplomacy, Even When It’s Hard


by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

I wanted to dive into one small, but I think important part of this episode: Captain Kirk’s complex commitment to peace. We’ve seen an odd mish-mash of military and scientific hierarchies on the Enterprise that don’t clearly mesh with any modern civilian or martial system I’m familiar with. My current best guess is that whatever broader organization built the Enterprise and manages the vast resources necessary to maintain her and her crew is similar in structure to something like the U.S. State Department, with Foreign Service Officers who hold titles directly equivalent to military ranks, or the U.S. Public Health Service, whose commissioned medical officers serve in uniform but are not under another branch of the military.

It is clear to me that while the Enterprise may be armed like a warship, its crew does not think of her as one. As Captain Kirk says in this episode: “Our missions are peaceful, not for conquest. When we do battle, it is only because we have no choice.”

Later in the episode, we see Captain Kirk do battle twice precisely because he has no choice. Up until that point, he avoids direct confrontation as consistently as he can, engaging in diplomacy with a being that seems to have no concept of the idea. (Perhaps if Trelane idolized Napoleon a little less and Benjamin Franklin a little more, he would have understood more of Captain Kirk’s strategies).

But while Trelane is ignorant of diplomacy as a method of connection and conflict resolution, Captain Kirk is not naive to the allure of violence. First in the Hamiltonian-duel and then in the sword fight, he eggs Trenlane on, encouraging him to become more violent, particularly towards Kirk’s own person. As he says: “Then vent your anger on me alone.”

One does worry about Captain Kirk’s habit of inviting violence towards himself. It seems that Kirk’s commitment to peace is institutional and systemic, but not necessarily personal. To put it more simply, the Enterprise’s missions may be peaceful, but Kirk won’t always be.

There are significant limits to standing in front of bullets to hope the other person stops shooting. As Erica mentions, the resolution of this episode was a somewhat formulaic deia and deus ex machina, and one wonders what Kirk’s plan was if Trelane’s parents hadn’t removed him. Keep fighting forever? Keep surviving by what Malcom X (citing Frantz Fanon) would call “any means necessary”? One struggles to imagine Captain Kirk just laying down and dying, particularly not if his crew was still in danger. But we don’t really know what his system of ethics is. As Lorelei notes, we just don’t get much more than hints about the broader universe, the broader way of life that Kirk is reacting to or operating under.

A U.S. Consul serving in an embassy abroad has the same rank as Captain in the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Surgeon General is a three-star Admiral, but I would no more expect a Consul to take up arms than a three-star Admiral to write a peace treaty. But I could see Captain Kirk doing both. Trelane was wrong to assume all humans were war-loving, but there does seem to be some room for violence in Captain Kirk’s “peaceful missions,” if only when it is directed at himself.

I’ll be interested to see more of this world as it develops.

Three stars.

We may get a nice glimpse of a larger world in the next episode tomorrow at 8:30 PM (Eastern and Pacific)!

Come join us!



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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[January 4, 1967] Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast (Star Trek: Shore Leave)

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by Erica Frank

We join the Enterprise on Stardate 3025. The crew has had a rough few months and desperately needs some downtime. Fortunately, they have found what seems to be an ideal uninhabited planet for shore leave.

While the planet seems almost fairy-tale idyllic, with open meadows and pastoral lakes and meandering paths, it is soon clear that something strange is afoot. McCoy sees what he is sure is a hallucination: A man-sized rabbit holding a pocketwatch, muttering "I'm late" before hopping out of sight.


Not what we expected on an alien planet.

But the scan results are clear: No animal life found on the planet. No birds, no mammals, no insects.

Nobody asks why there are paths through the woods and around the lake, if there are no creatures to make them. Nobody asks why there are tree stumps. Nobody asks what's pollinating the flowers. …Nobody notices the antenna that tracks their movements.

A Grin Without a Cat

They split up to investigate, and Kirk finds someone who cannot possibly be here: Finnegan, a fellow he knew from the Academy. Finnegan was a practical joker who targeted Kirk all the time.


He looks like a fun fellow. (This looks like the ship's uniforms, but it's sparkling silver. How many outfits does Starfleet have?)

Finnegan immediately throws a punch at the Captain, but their fight is cut short when other crew members are in danger—Kirk rushes off to protect Barrows from Don Juan. Then Sulu gets chased by a samurai while the other team hides from a tiger. Spock beams down into this mess, and they discover their phasers aren't working and communications are down: they'll have to deal with the planet's problems on their own.

McCoy decides, "This is all hallucinations," and gets himself stabbed by a charging knight. It seems McCoy has forgotten every hallucination-inflicting alien they've encountered so far, starting with the salt vampire: The lance may be a hallucination, but the damage is real. If he thinks it's all hallucinations, why did he encourage Yeoman Barrows to swap her uniform for the princess dress they found? Is he happily imagining that she's actually wandering around naked?

While the team looks for answers, Finnegan reappears. Kirk, never one to skip out on a fight, chases him. Finnegan is tricky and tough, but Kirk refuses to give up.


I like Finnegan. He can punch the shirt off strapping young captains.

Kirk fights better once his shirt is torn. (I think Kirk gets special tear-away uniforms to enhance his fighting skills.) He eventually overcomes Finnegan, as he never could as a student, and grins. Spock, bemused that Kirk enjoyed the fight, realizes what's happening: Something is reading their thoughts and providing them the exact experiences they're seeking, even if those are dangerous.

They need to warn the others and figure out how to stop it. But first: They must escape the tiger and an airstrike! (Did the producers just have some airstrike footage they wanted to use? The samurai wasn't dangerous enough?) Kirk and Spock dodge for shelter together, pulling each other to safety as they dodge dangers from land and sky.


I'm sure this embrace was very relevant to the plot.

The surviving crew members meet back at the Glade. A very angry Kirk demands they stand at attention, not even thinking, while he looks around for… something, someone.

A man in a green robe walks out to greet them. He's the caretaker of this place, a kind of amusement park: Anything you imagine can be your exciting adventure here.

Kirk points out that adventures are substantially less fun when people die—but it turns out nobody is dead; McCoy was healed in their underground facilities. No harm done, all in good fun, and so on.


The druidic version of Mr. Green Jeans remains nameless.

Kirk asks the caretaker who his people are, but he demurs: "Your race is not yet ready to understand us." However, he welcomes them to enjoy the planet. With communications restored, Kirk orders the other teams to beam down for their shore leave.

This was a delightful episode. I believe this is the first time we've encountered godlike telepathic and technological powers that are not used to threaten and control people.

I hope to see more aliens like this, an advanced race that uses its abilities for peaceful, benevolent purposes. They aren't going to share their technology with still-warlike humans, but they open their vacation resort to those who need a break from their busy lives.

Five stars. Fun to watch, a return of Shirtless Kirk, and an immensely satisfying conclusion.

“Drink Me”


by Janice L. Newman

This was a fun and rollicking episode. At the same time, I found it unsettling.

In order for the story to work, the crew have to behave in ways that are out of character for a military crew. Not only do they not seem to notice the discrepancies Erica noted above, but they allow themselves to be distracted, separated, and discombobulated throughout the story. When Kirk meets his childhood sweetheart, he can’t take his eyes off her, unable to finish his sentences even as he’s having an important conversation with a member of his crew. Yeoman Barrows has no hesitation about changing into a fairy-tale dress she randomly finds, and McCoy has no hesitation in urging her to do it. When Sulu finds a gun under a rock, he picks it up and starts firing it.

These are not the actions of trained specialists.

The only thing that really makes sense is to assume that the planet has a built-in relaxing effect on the mind. Whether there’s some sort of drug in the air or something even more sophisticated — perhaps some sort of ray along the lines of what we saw in “Dagger of the Mind”, except this one causes mild euphoria instead of forgetfulness — it’s a little disturbing.

It’s perfectly logical that such a planet might have “something in the air” intended to help its visitors let go of their cares and worries. The people and things they encounter aren’t real, after all, and this might have a dampening effect if one thinks about it too hard (Kirk’s first love was nothing but a complex robot, yet even knowing this, he doesn’t hesitate to take his own shore leave at the end of the episode, very clearly looking forward to enjoying her charms). Some kind of ‘euphoria effect’ that helps the attendees of this planet-sized amusement park suspend disbelief in order to enjoy themselves seems almost a necessity.

However, the crew encounters and is influenced by whatever it is without any chance to say ‘no, thank you’. Even at the end, Kirk tells the Enterprise to start beaming people down, presumably with the intent of informing them of what kind of planet it is, but never mentions the euphoria effect. Do the crew even realize their minds have been affected? Will they recognize it after they leave?

As someone who values her ability to think in a straight line, I found the idea of being drugged without my knowledge disconcerting at best, and outright violative at worst. Not to mention, we don’t know how far the effect goes. Could it become addictive over time? Could it have other long-term consequences?

The existence of the euphoria effect is all extrapolation anyway, so maybe it shouldn’t bother me so much. But the alternative, that the crew just behaved unprofessionally and out-of-character for no reason at all, is even worse! Either way, it knocked the episode down for me a little, bringing it to three and a half stars.

”Pleasure Planet”


by Tam Phan (Secret Asian Man)

When we think of science fiction, we don’t often consider what entertainment will look like in the future. Our technology is so advanced that it’s hard to imagine what we might be able to accomplish in our lifetimes, let alone in the distant future–and so often, science fiction focuses on the advanced ways we might harm each other. But how about how we might please each other, or ourselves? Color television is the pinnacle of modern entertainment, and it seems that, in every episode, with marvelous plots and better special effects, Star Trek keeps pushing those boundaries.
“Shore Leave” conceives an entirely new level of entertainment.

Currently, Disneyland is the only thing that comes close, and if you’ve ever had the chance to visit, you’ll understand the boldness of that statement. But where Disneyland brings one man's imagination to life (that of Walt Disney, sadly gone from this world as of last month), "Shore Leave" presents an entire planet designed to grant your every wish. Maybe calling that an amusement park is an understatement, but there’s no better way to describe the way my head is still spinning with all the things that I would love to do if granted that opportunity.

Though, with all its ability, it seemed that the planet required a bit of suspension of disbelief on the part of the participants to be fully engaged. Maybe the planet was causing the landing crew to be less restrained. It’s not too much of a stretch to believe that the planet was also able to put people’s minds at ease. The vision is really what’s important. The point was to create a pleasure planet, and they accomplished that.

We, the audience, know that it’s not real. Even the emotional McCoy eventually determined that it wasn’t. It didn't keep him from being run through with a lance, but that’s beside the point. Of course, McCoy wasn’t permanently harmed in the process of fulfilling any fantasies, but he also couldn't fully enjoy himself until he let go of his inhibitions. It wasn’t until Kirk gave into his desire to “beat the tar out of Finnegan” that he was able to take full advantage of the planet’s capabilities. It was never made clear as to why the crew was acting a bit strange, but maybe this is just a reminder that suspending my own disbelief might make this a more enjoyable experience.

If entertainment comes anywhere close to this in the future, we’re in for a treat. Until then, I’m looking forward to the next episode of Star Trek on my color television.

Four stars.

Getting to know you


by Gideon Marcus

We've gotten hints of Captain Kirk's background before "Shore Leave"–we knew he was a stack of books with legs in his Academy days.  That he almost married a blonde woman Gary Mitchell steered his way.  And that he suffered on Tarsus IV under the iron hand of Governor Kodos. But for the most part, the history of James Kirk has been a mystery.

In one swell foop, we get confirmation that Kirk was "positively grim", we learn that he once deeply loved an older woman (the "blonde"?), that he was hounded by an upperclassman named Finnegan.  We also find out that the Captain enjoys an occasional Vulcanian backrub; I imagine Spock has special nerve pinches for tight lumbars.

Also fleshed out is McCoy, who finally gets to carouse after his traumatic "reunification" with a former flame back in "The Man Trap".  The doctor is quite charming, really, and I can see why he caught the eye of Yeoman Barrows (though I have to wonder if this relationship would have been kindled elsewhere than in the befuddling airs of the Shore Leave planet).

And finally, we're learning something about the universe as a whole.  There are three types of science fiction universe: those with lots of aliens, those with few aliens, and those with only humans.  Star Trek clearly takes place in the first of those types of settings.  We have seen almost as many races as we've watched episodes.  Most of them are indistinguishable from humans, but the Talosians, Vulcanians, Romulans and Thasians make clear that there are far out aliens as well.

So numerous are the aliens, and so familiar are the forms of many of them, that I suspect there will be some kind of explanation for the phenomenon.  "Miri" already has suggested one.  I look forward to the revelation when it happens.

In any event, a poll of our usual watching crew has elicited a wide range of appraisals for "Shore Leave", from 3 to 5.  For myself, there was never a moment I was not thoroughly enjoying the episode.

Five stars.

And come join us watching the next episode tomorrow at 8:30 PM (Eastern and Pacific):

Here's the invitation!



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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[December 14, 1966] (Star Trek: The Conscience of the King)

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Shakespearean Tragedy


by Erica Frank

Twenty years ago, on stardate 2794.7, a tragedy occurred on the fledgling colony of Tarsus IV. A fungus had infected most of their food stores, and there was not enough left for the colony to survive.

Faced with a crisis, Governor Kodos invoked martial law and made a shocking decision: Instead of waiting for slow starvation to destroy the entire colony, he attempted to assure partial survival by killing half of the colony's people. While this might be the kind of "hard decision" any planetary leader might face, Kodos earned himself the title "the Executioner" for it. This was likely less because of the choice he made than the way he implemented it: He did not draw random lots, nor did he have a computer calculate the best odds of survival based on the colony's needs for personnel. Instead, he personally decided who would live and who would die—killing parents and leaving children alive in some cases, and the reverse in others.

When the supply ships arrived earlier than expected—earlier enough to have saved everyone, had Kodos only waited—they found Kodos's body, burned beyond recognition. That was believed to be the end of the Tarsus IV tragedy… until 20 years later. Tom Leighton, a scientist and one of the few survivors who had met Kodos in person, recognized his voice in a group of Shakespearean actors.

Leighton called for Kirk (under some false pretences) to help him verify this, as Kirk was one of the few people who had also met Kodos. Leighton believed Karidian, the lead actor and head of the company, was Kodos. So this week's episode begins.


Kodos the Executioner (left) and Karidian (right)… could this be the same man?

In the course of checking Leighton's claims, Kirk discovers some odd details about the acting company… and Leighton is murdered.

Kirk, never one to call in external authorities or discuss plans with his talented command staff, decides the best way forward is to bring the company onto the ship, tell no one what he suspects, and…

At this point, my logic fails me. I'm not sure what the actual plan is, other than, "If Karidian is not Kodos, we'll just travel 8 light years out of our normal route and drop them off at their next scheduled planet." In the meantime, Kirk makes very friendly with Karidian's daughter, Lenore, who is never seen in the same outfit twice.


Lenore appears on the bridge of the Enterprise wearing what appears to be a furry pillowcase held in place by a furry scarf and a brooch.

It turns out that only nine people have seen Kodos in person, and most of them died when the Karidian company was nearby. In fact, only Captain Kirk and Kevin Riley are still alive.

…Do you remember Kevin Riley? He caught the alien virus in The Naked Time, locked everyone out of Engineering, and sang Irish songs over the intercom. He's recently been promoted, but Kirk busts him back down to Engineering alone—presumably, to keep him safe, but nobody tells him that. Kirk doesn't tell Spock why he's demoting the Ensign, either.

Spock does put the pieces together and demands to know why Kirk is risking his life. (That's rich, coming from the man who hijacked the Enterprise to haul it to the one planet with a death penalty for visiting.) Kirk tells Spock to leave his personal life alone. Spock very politely does not point out that 400+ crew members unknowingly traveling with a potential murderer is a bit outside the scope of Kirk's "personal life."

Isolating Riley doesn't help—someone manages to poison him. But since he was on the intercom at the time, asking his friends to talk to him (and Uhura to sing to him), they hear him call for help and whisk him away to sickbay just in time. However, when he overhears McCoy talking about the possibility that Karidian is Kodos, Riley sneaks off, grabs a phaser, and heads for the production of Hamlet.


"He murdered my father! My mother! I know that voice. That face… I know it!"

Riley is about to shoot Karidian, but Kirk stops him just in time. However, Karidian hears him, and is distressed that he recognizes the voice. Uness Riley is much older than he looks, he must've been, at most, a young teenager at the time; it's strange that Karidian would recognize it.

Backstage, Karidian talks with Lenore, in an intense, emotion-fraught speech about guilt, past decisions, and facing consequences. But no, Lenore assures him, he will never face the consequences of what he's done… because she's been killing the ones who might report him. Karidian/Kodos is horrified—he'd thought she was the one "pure" thing in his life, the only part untouched by his dark history. She is unrepentant, insisting she "would have killed a world to save him." To prevent them from being arrested, Lenore grabs a phaser and points it at Kirk. He points out that she'll never get off the ship.


"It will become floating tomb, drifting through space with the soul of the great Karidian, giving performances at every star he touches…"

She takes a shot at Kirk, but her father jumps in the way—and crumples before her, dead. She cannot accept this, cannot cope with what she's done, and her mind breaks. She is eventually taken to an institution, and believes that her father is still performing while traveling between the stars.

My notes contain the phrase, "lots of meaningful emotional monologuing that I tuned out." Lenore and Karidian were certainly both very dramatic. Perhaps their words would have more impact if I'd ever seen Hamlet performed.

I loved the look into Kirk's history, Karidian's sense of guilt (while still being too selfish to turn himself in), and the return of Riley. However, nobody lost a shirt in this episode, not even actors changing backstage.

3½ stars.

The Lady Doth Protest Too Much


by Tam Phan (Secret Asian Man)

Before I say anything about “Conscience of the King”, I just want to tip my hat to DeForest Kelley for one of my favorite scenes to date. McCoy’s casual demeanor while conversing with an agitated Spock was a delightful contrast to the usual stone-faced Spock vs. the emotional McCoy. With a drink in hand, McCoy masterfully navigated Spock’s concerns. It seems that this is a reoccurring dynamic between these two, and let’s just say that I wouldn’t be disappointed if they made a few Spock and McCoy centered episodes.

The rest of the episode wasn’t nearly as good. It played around with themes that didn’t seem to go anywhere. Man vs. machine, computers vs. emotions, logic vs. feelings. These ideas were brought up throughout the episode, but in the end, nothing came of them. There were no decisions being made by man nor machine—if any decisions were made at all. Kirk’s emotions didn’t play a role, and all his toiling over the computer and its logic made no difference. It felt as though there was an underlying message or moral that we were supposed to learn, but the message got lost. This episode might have been great if it had stuck to a single theme and followed through on it.

I really appreciated how light it was on the Shakespeare…until it wasn’t. I get that Shakespeare is famous and everyone loves anything to do with Shakespeare, but I find incorporation of Shakespeare in stories is often heavy handed. I think I groaned out loud at the very first scene because I thought I was about to endure Star Trek: Where Shakespeare Has Never Gone Before, but I was relieved to see the Bard actually play a very minor role in the episode. That all ended abruptly in the final scene. Closeups of Lenore’s contorted face forcing out lines of Shakespeare for nearly ten minutes was like a nightmare come true. She was relatively stable and seemingly aware of her decisions to murder innocent people until she suddenly wasn’t. If she had accidentally killed her father before losing her mind, that would have made sense, but the episode wasn’t over yet and there was still Shakespeare to be had. It’ll be too soon if I never see another Shakespeare themed episode of any show ever again. Did I mention Shakespeare?


"Are you bringing me in for genocide?" "No, you've exceeded your Shakespeare quota"

3 Stars

Detached Devices and Sensitive Spock


by Gideon Marcus

There is a lot to like about this latest episode, but also much that annoys.  On the one hand, we got some lovely background on Kirk (and Riley!  Childhood chums?) and a bit more color to the universe at large.  We saw a new planet (suspiciously similar to the one in "Mudd's Women") and heard about another ship (the Astral Queen) and learned that even centuries from now, theater is still a coveted art form.  A nice human element in a mechanized society.

So what didn't I like?  It certainly seems like they took a half hour story and expanded it to an hour format.  Kirk runs yet another test that determines Karidian is likely Kodos.  Spock urges Kirk to take action.  Kirk is uncharacteristically indecisive, worried about condemning an innocent man.  This cycle happens at least four times.

Nimoy's performance is all over the place this episode: chatty, dramatic—it feels like early Spock again.  Maybe it's another out-of-order episode.  Though even odd Spock has an, ah, dramatic impact on the young women in our group who watch the show.  One in particular could not help but sigh appreciatively throughout the show.

If Spock was off, Uhura was decidedly on.  I loved her musical interlude, which felt perfectly natural, and was also a delight to hear.  It was also nice to see Riley again, who is clearly destined to be a semi-regular like Sulu (with whom he has good chemistry). 

But the star of the show was the ship's computer, who finally got to shine.  I am used to science fiction computers either being helpful robots a la Robby from Forbidden Planet or the donut-head from Lost in Space, or they are giant sentient machines with human emotions, a la Agnes from that horrible Wally Cox Twilight Zone episode.

This time, we see what a future computer might actually be like—an extremely vast database with voice-active search and correlation functions.  The mainframe also has time-sharing capabilities; I bet every crewmember could access the machine at the same time with little loss in program efficiency.  Lord, what I wouldn't give for a setup like that!

In the end, I think that's what sets Trek apart from other television.  Lots of shows have good stories, engaging actors, compelling cinematography, etc.  But Trek incorporates real science and technology into the show.  It feels like the future, in a non-flashy way.

"Conscience of the King" is not a great episode, but it presents a rich galaxy, one whose beginnings I hope to live long enough to see.

3 stars.

A Glance at Captain Kirk’s Psychology


by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

In this week’s episode, we learned that Captain Kirk is a survivor of genocide. The traumatic impact of that experience will inform how I understand him as a character, so I wanted to spend a moment diving into what it could mean to survive something like Tarsus IV. (NB: I am certain that some readers have experienced genocide personally or through their family memories, or may have family currently suffering it in the Biafra state in Nigeria or Indonesia. If you need to, please take care of yourself and feel free to skip this review.)

Since the word “genocide” does not appear in The Conscience of the King I would like to start with the United Nations’ 1951 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines genocide as:

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

  1. Killing members of the group;
  2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
  3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
  4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
  5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Governor Kodos’s regime’s actions on Tarsus IV appear to satisfy 1), 2), and 3) from the United Nations’ definition, if we assume there was some amoral logic to his group selection. Dr. Leighton in particular seems to have suffered “serious bodily” and “mental harm,” though it is possible the symptoms of his survivor’s syndrome are just more visible. In Leighton’s short scenes, he shows an intense focus on Governor Kodos, his memories of Tarsus IV seem to remain alive and present for him, and he has a thousand-yard stare I associate with someone with shell shock.

Lieutenant Riley seems to have no memory of Tarsus IV until he hears Governor Kodos’ voice, at which point he becomes violently agitated and attempts to murder him. This looks like repression, followed by the explosive reactions that can result from long-term suppression of traumatic memories.

Captain Kirk’s reactions are more complex. On the surface, he treats the threat of Kodos’s return lightly, declaring “Kodos is dead” without much clear consideration. Erica rightly points out that Kirk’s plan in the second half of the episode makes little sense, given what he says his motivations are. But under the surface, something motivates him to use every power at his resource as a ship’s captain to seek out the truth.

Something is driving him with the same intensity of focus as Dr. Leighton showed. Something is brewing under that stoicism—perhaps it is actually a more refined brand of the repression that Lieutenant Riley shows. Kirk is of course a fictional character, but if he were a real person who survived the starvation, eugenics experiments, personal violence, and mass violence that happened on Tarsus IV, we would continue to see these effects. I’m curious how it has impacted his relationship with food, with social science, with companionship, and with his role as a leader making life-and-death decisions for those around him.

For more on the individual psychology of mass trauma, ask your local reference librarian for the translated writings of Dutch psychiatrist and Auschwitz survivor Dr. Eliazar de Wind, particularly what he calls “KZ Syndrome.” Also keep an eye out for publications from Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen survivor Dr. Henry Krystal on “Mass Psychic Trauma,” based on the proceedings of the 1962-1965 workshops of that name at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI.

The Conscience of the King might have been my favorite episode, not the least because (unlike Tam) I adore anything to do with Shakespeare. I loved the chance to get more psychological depth on Kirk. I suspect it will pay off later down the line.

Five stars.

(The next episode of Star Trek looks amazing!  Join us tomorrow night at 8:30 PM (Pacific AND Eastern — two showings)!!)

Here's the invitation!



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TV

[October 26, 1966] Star Trek: "What are Little Girls Made of?")

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Fun with Binary!


by Lorelei Marcus

I'm loving this new show called Star Trek.  From innovative effects to nuanced plots to interesting characters, Star Trek has often been raising the bar for television's best from week to week.  Sadly, I missed the past two episodes due to scheduling conflicts (catching up through our fanzine's weekly episode recap and review).  But this week, I ensured that my sacred viewing time would not be overtaken by any babysitting jobs or midterm study sessions.

I sat down in anticipation, the dark viewing room hushed despite the several people who had joined me to watch.  Excitement thrummed through me as the thrilling, other-worldly theme started to play…

And in the end, "What are Little Girls Made of?", the seventh episode of the new show Star Trek, was a complete DISASTER!

…but I liked it anyway.

If you happened to miss the broadcast, I will do my best to recount the episode's plot for you, even though it is already rapidly receding from my memory:

Opening on the bridge of the Enterprise, Captain Kirk and Nurse Chapel (Majel Barrett), whom we first saw in Naked Time, stare worriedly at a blue planet.  We are informed that Dr. Roger Korby (Michael Strong), Chapel's fiancé, has been trapped on the planet for the past five years, presumed dead because the planet's surface has become too cold to sustain life (the system's sun is dying).

Shortly after this remark is made, Korby's voice comes over the radio, requesting that Captain Kirk beam down to the planet, alone, to witness an amazing discovery he's made!  Who could have foreseen this?


"Can Nurse Chapel come too?"  "Christine?  Oh sure.  She's a recurring character; that should be fine."

Kirk and Chapel are beamed down into an underground tunnel system where Korby has apparently been living.  Yet Korby is nowhere to be found, so Kirk orders down two security guards and heads off with Nurse Chapel to find her fiancé.


"Hey Matthews, you think anything bad will happen to us?"  "How could it?  My retirement's next week!"

Before long, they run into Korby's assistant, Dr. Brown, who decides that the most effective way of introducing himself is by standing in front of a giant stadium light.  This is one of the many instances of odd editing.  Brown turns off his giant headlight, Chapel recognizes him (now that she can see again) and Brown offers to take Kirk and Chapel to see Dr. Korby.  Oh, and Guard #1 (Matthews) mysteriously falls off a cliff in the hall and dies.  Who could have foreseen this?


Dr. Brown in front of the Bat Signal.

After a brief interlude where security guard #2 dies to a hulking alien creature (that looks like it just finished washing dishes at the Addam's house), we finally get to meet the man of the hour, Dr. Korby.  What proceeds is a grueling back and forth that consists of Korby rambling about how he must show and explain his discovery to Kirk, followed by continuous worried glances exchanged between Kirk and Nurse Chapel.

So what is Korby's amazing discovery that the whole episode has been building up to?

Completely lifelike androids!


Meet Andrea, one of Korby's androids, whose purpose is a complete mystery and not at all obvious.


For someone who has an important point he wants to explain, he sure takes a long time getting to it.

It turns out Korby's assistant has been an android all this time.  (Maybe he was standing in front of the headlight to recharge?) In a sudden scuffle with Kirk, he is shot by a phaser, exposing his circuits.

Korby doesn't seem too perturbed at the loss of his assistant, though.  He has Ruk instead (played by Ted Cassidy).  Ruk is an even more advanced android built by the old aliens who left the android-making machinery Korby's been studying and using for the past five years.  And not just to make sexy secretaries.  He can even entirely replicate a human being!  And he's going to show Captain Kirk how it's done.

Cut to Shatner lying completely naked strapped to a turntable.


"Good thing I wore my tear-off uniform today.  It made this transition much faster!"

If my summarization seems a bit disjointed or abrupt, it's because this is an absolutely faithful rendition of the pacing of the episode.  Anyway, Korby's experiment succeeds, creating an exact copy of Kirk, one that obeys Korby's orders.  Copy-Kirk beams up to the Enterprise to take control of the ship.

At this, you may gape.  What?  The kind, not-suspicious-at-all Korby had ill intentions all along?

The plot runs deeper.  Korby explains to Kirk that he has the technology not just to copy a person, but to transfer their soul into an immortal mechanized shell.  A shell that can be programmed and controlled to perfection, Kirk points out, refusing to help Korby with his plan.  Korby's plans rapidly fizzle out anyway.  When Kirk's mind was being transferred into copy-Kirk, he'd recited to himself a message he would never say: "Mind your own business, Mr. Spock — I'm tired of your half-breed interference, do you hear?"  It is delivered at the first encounter between copy-captain and First Officer.

Spock, a veteran of dealing with duplicate captains at this point, gets the message loud and clear and beams down to the planet's surface…with armed escort.


Ah, there's an evil duplicate of the captain on the ship?  It must be Tuesday."

Finally, we hit the climax.  After seemingly failing to win Andrea as an ally with a kiss, Kirk convinces Ruk to disobey his programming and attack Korby.  The doctor, without a second thought, zaps his thousand year old android with a phaser, poofing him from existence.  Then Andrea zaps copy-Kirk because he won't kiss her like real-Kirk did, and he disappears.  Then Kirk tries to wrestle the phaser from Korby and accidentally shoots Dr. Korby's hand, revealing him to be…an android all along!  Who could have foreseen this??!

Andrea walks in and kisses Korby.  The doctor, horrified that he has become more machine than man, and that Andrea has become more woman than machine, zaps both of them from existence. 

The end.

Well, that was an experience.  The editing, pacing, and writing for the episode were a complete mess.  Still, there were elements that I absolutely loved. The costuming and sets were gorgeous.  An expert combination of clever camera angles, colorful pink and purple lighting, and creatively designed walls really made you feel that the characters were in an otherworldly cave. 

Everyone on the planet's surface shared an interesting motif in their clothes, and Andrea's outfit was so daring, I wouldn't be surprised if they needed a censor on set while filming!  Still, my favorite costume was Ted Cassidy's — between his ominous makeup and his puffy sleeves and high collar, he really felt like something alien.

I also appreciated the acting, even if the actors didn't have much to work with.  All of the android characters had a slightly flat affect to their deliveries that made them seem not quite human.  Cassidy, as always, did a fantastic job.  Shatner was weaker without any of his crew members to play off of, but he still did well differentiating between real Kirk and android Kirk.

Finally, the special effects were topnotch as always.  We got the transporter effect and a few phaser beams, which never fail to amaze me, but we also got some incredibly effective split screens which actually made me forget the two Kirks were played by the same person!

So overall, I would say that this episode wasn't just bad, but hardly really felt like an episode at all.  The premise and logic were completely internally inconsistent, and the main plot points don't hang together at all.  However, I still enjoyed the show, because though the parts refused to fit together properly, they still had a lot of value on their own.

Three stars.

Wasted Potential


by Janice L. Newman

This episode was all over the place in terms of pacing. First, the mad scientist teases Kirk (and the audience) with some grand revelation, then the episode cuts directly to Kirk spinning naked on a giant turntable. Kirk’s message to Spock is cleverly done (and one of the best parts of the episode), but in the end, it makes no difference: Kirk convinces the androids with ‘logic’ and they mostly destroy each other after that point before Spock and his team can even arrive.

It’s a shame, because robot stories have a lot of potential. Between Asimov’s Robot stories, the recent deconstruction of same in Lester Del Rey’s A Code For Sam, and the use of robots in one of the current Space Patrol Orion episodes, metal men are a hot topic right now. Some of the nuanced takes from the early Star Trek episodes would have been interesting and welcome. For example, are the androids capable of independent thought and emotion? What are the moral implications of killing the androids, especially Ruk, who has been on the planet for centuries and is the last representative of a dead race? The androids’ plan to replace humans was obviously not desirable, but could the technology have been repurposed and used to better humankind?

Unfortunately, we didn’t get any thoughtful questions like these. Instead, we got a story in a traditional pulp mold with a newish villain: no bug-eyed aliens, but instead sinister machine-men. I can’t help but hope that the writers go back to storytelling that focuses on the gray areas instead of slam-bang black and white.

Two and a half stars.

Same ol', same ol'


by Gideon Marcus

I think my biggest problem with this episode is that we've seen so much of it before.  Eccentric scientist on a remote planet shacked up with an alien being who doesn't want to be found?  Check.  Two Kirks?  Check.  A bleak, frigid planet festooned with styrofoam rocks?  Check.  Even the score seemed largely recycled from previous episodes.  Added to that, the clunky pacing and the shallow treatment of potentially thought-provoking topics really dragged this episode into the lower tiers.  It's not offensive, it's just not very good.

Kudos where they are deserved: lovely costume design (though I kept expecting Hoss Allen to come out and host The Beat!!! what with the blue and green motif.

The split-screen effects were particularly good, especially with the slanted table.  Patty Duke could learn a thing or two (oh wait — she's been canceled). 

Ted Cassidy was quite effective as Ruk, easily the most interesting part of the episode.  Though I did keep expecting him to give his signature, "You raaang?" when he appeared. And I appreciated how quickly Spock deduced an imposter was on board.  Coming on the heels of "The Enemy Within", there really would be no excuse otherwise.

So, better than "Mudd's Women", which I would have rated two stars.  Let's call it two and a half, on par with "Where No Man Has Gone Before".

Distinguishing Features


by Erica Frank

In this episode, we see alien fashion disasters, two crewmember deaths, and a return of Shirtless Kirk. (Hurray!) We also get android love (or at least android emotions; it's all very confusing) and the continuation of the " barren landscape; underground dwelling with lumpy stone walls" motif for alien planets.


Let's make sure we cover the important parts of the episode.

My observations from this episode: Nurse Chapel seems like an open-minded, free-love kind of woman. Just a few episodes ago, she was declaring her deep and sincere love for Mr. Spock, and now we discover she's been engaged — and searching for her fiancé — this whole time! If Spock had been part of the landing party, she might've had some very interesting conversations with the both of them.

We did, however, get double shirtless Kirk. Double naked Kirk, in fact, when Doctor Korby throws him into the Carbon-Copy-o-Matic android machine and makes a copy of him, right down to his thoughts and memories.


Which one is the android? Spock will need to know; I'm not sure I care.

Other people have spoken about the plot, the characters, the pacing… which leaves me to mention the lighting, which was excellent, and the fashion choices, of which I have already provided the best in the show.

The lighting and scene direction was clear, showed faces well without obscuring the underground facilities, and made it very easy to follow what was happening. This is a nice change from episodes where it's either pulled back so far that you can't tell where the action is, or focused on two heads that might be anywhere, or dim and shadowed so you can't tell what's going on. The cinematography was excellent in this episode.

The costuming, though… Now I know why the crew members' uniforms change all the time. (Uhura's in red this week.) Obviously, the Terran government is trying to avoid whatever pitfalls destroyed the long-extinct alien races, and while they can't be certain that the aliens' taste in fashion was part of their destruction, they are taking no chances.


This, THIS, is supposed to be a representative of a race that conquered the very building blocks of matter and thought? They could create a whole society of whatever skills, talents, and physical abilities they needed, and this is how they chose to dress them?

Ruk's outfit isn't the only problematic one on the planet. Andrea-the-android was presumably clad to appeal to Dr. Korby. She wears a blue-and-black dress (if that's the word) that barely covers enough body parts to be legal to show on television. Really, this should've been the Enterprise crew's first clue that something was very wrong: unless they were sweltering in their uniforms, she should've been uncomfortable with that much skin showing.


Since it turned out the Korby we met was an android who cannot feel love or baser human urges, this must've been a remnant of the original Korby's interests.

Once we're all done reeling from the… interesting… clothing, we get to deal with the rest of the plot: they're all androids; Korby's gone mad and wants to take over the universe with more androids; Andrea's developing an unseemly level of emotions; Ruk is chasing Kirk through the caverns with intent to kill him, as he did with the two unsuspecting red-shirted crewmembers at the beginning of the episode.


Kirk hids from Ruk while holding a makeshift, err, weapon he's found in the caverns.

In the end, Kirk charms Andrea into turning on her associates; the power of Kirk Kisses is apparently stronger than android programming. Spock, of course, quickly identifies Robot Kirk and incapacitates him. By the end of the episode, all the androids are gone, and for reasons unknown, the Enterprise leaves with no mention of either acquiring or deliberately avoiding the amazing copy-android technology.

I would expect them to report the discovery to Earth to be studied by people less prone to become megalomaniacs. Even if the process cannot create a "soul," I would expect many people in similar circumstances to Korby — near death, badly injured or disabled — to have an interest in technology that could give extended life to their thoughts and memories. If nothing else, it would allow people to record their memoirs, complete their research projects, give messages to loved ones, and so on. I was surprised Kirk abandoned the machinery; I can imagine many good uses for such a device, and I expect that's exactly the kind of thing his "five-year mission" is intended to discover. Perhaps it was reported, and another crew, more scientifically oriented than set on exploration, will return to the planet to find out if it can be used without succumbing to the temptation to take over planets.

I agree with the comments above that say the episode was scattered. The action scenes were well-done, but the overall story and pacing jumped around too much. However, it was visually stunning, didn't involve evil mind-control, and brought up some interesting questions about the nature of humanity and the mind. Four stars: Three for the plot, characters, and direction, plus half a star for each naked Kirk.

(Join us tomorrow at 8:30 PM (Pacific AND Eastern — two showings) for the next exciting episode of Star Trek!)

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[Oct. 20, 1966] Crimes against Humanity (Star Trek: "Mudd's Women")

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My kind of scoundrel


by Erica Frank

Let’s start at the beginning: the Enterprise is pursuing a smaller ship as it careens into an asteroid field. Captain Kirk orders his crew to protect the ship, burning out nearly all of their lithium crystals, and then beam the crew onboard. Mister Scott first beams over a man who initially introduces himself as "Leo Walsh". Then Mister Scott beams over three women — Eve, Ruth, and Magda — who pose elegantly on the transporter pad.

"Walsh" shows up wearing some kind of swashbuckler's outfit with a bejeweled earring just a little smaller than a golf ball. He says the three lovely women he's escorting are not his crew but his "cargo." He quickly explains: he's delivering them to their husbands-to-be on a mining colony.


Introducing: Leo Walsh, matchmaker from the stars

Right away, we can tell there's something sketchy about him. He smiles too widely, brushes aside questions, and tries to sneak away to talk with the women. They're all terrible liars, so it quickly comes out that his name is not "Leo Walsh" but Harry Mudd… in more ways than one.

Mudd's got a rap sheet: He's wanted for crimes like smuggling and counterfeiting, not for anything violent. He lies; he cheats; he steals; he runs away and does it again at the next port. He swindles people out of money, but he's not trying to ruin lives; he's just trying to enjoy his own.

Sure, he's trying to scam the potential husbands for the three ladies he's escorting (more on that shortly), but the women are planning to be good wives, to be partners and helpers to the men they marry, and they're willing to live in a very isolated place for that.


Eve, Ruth, and Magda, wearing the only clothes they own after being rescued

While Mudd and "his" women are involved in some kind of scam that the crew is trying to figure out, the ship itself is having problems. It's out of lithium crystals and can't travel faster than a slow crawl. Fortunately, there's a lithium mining planet with — as luck would have it — exactly three men, all single and desperate for wives. The three women immediately agree to abandon their former betrotheds (whom they'd never met) to latch on to these new, closer, wealthier strangers.

By the middle of the episode, we have a tangle of conflicting interests. Mudd wants to get paid (needs to get paid; his spaceship was destroyed) and would really like to stay out of prison. The three women would like husbands who can keep them in the type of luxury they'd enjoy. The Enterprise needs crystals or it's dead in space. Captain Kirk would like to know what the scam is so he can deal with his prisoner appropriately. The miners would like wives, and would be especially happy with beautiful, alluring wives. Doctor McCoy would like to know why every man on the ship (except Spock) acts like they're being enthralled. (This is difficult when he himself is subject to their charms.) The cops presumably would like Mudd behind bars for his past crimes.

I was worried this was yet another "mind control powers" episode, and was delighted to discover it was not. Mudd's been giving the women "the Venus Drug" which makes them beautiful and sexy. All three women are homely, unable to find husbands because they are so ugly. Their plan was to get married on a remote planet; by the time they ran out of the drugs, their husbands would be stuck with them and Mudd would be long gone.


As you can see, his name really is Mudd.

Kirk throws Mudd in the brig while he tries to figure out what's going on. However, in accordance with standard Enterprise security, the women are free to come and go as they please, visiting officers at work, breaking into Kirk's cabin, and coordinating to help Mudd. Mudd can't leave the brig, but they can not only visit him, they can bring him a communications device. He contacts the miners and arranges a deal for his own freedom.

The lithium miners must have a powerful union, almost as strong as the fashion industry: Mudd, not Earth (or starship command, or whomever Kirk reports to), tells Kirk that he's not only to be set free, but delivered safely to another planet after the women are settled. Presumably, Kirk verifies this with his superiors instead of just taking Mudd's word for it, but I'm never sure how much anyone on this ship pays attention to chain of command.


The crew beams down to the mining planet. Even when the plot is hokey, Star Trek's visual impact is breathtaking.

Eve has second thoughts about the whole thing. She runs off into a sandstorm, gets rescued by the head miner, and winds up telling him the whole truth. At first, he rejects her because she's ugly; eventually, after some shenanigans between Kirk and Mudd, both she and the miner realize that the drug isn't (entirely) what made her enticing — it may have removed a few wrinkles and added a bit of sparkle, but it's her own actions that made it effective: She was beautiful because she believed she was.

Kirk tells her: "There's only one kind of woman–" Mudd interrupts him to say, "–or man, for that matter," and Kirk finishes with, "you either believe in yourself, or don't."


Childress, the head of the mining colony, and Eve, the woman too ugly to find a husband on her home planet

They decide to make a go of it, and so do the other women, thus avoiding the likely violent reaction to the truth if the change had happened without giving them a choice. Hurray. The women get husbands who are willing to accept them as they are; the men get wives who are willing to put up with the isolation of a mining planet; the Enterprise gets the crystals it needs to function; and Harry Mudd gets a presumably fair trial.

Harcourt Fenton Mudd is obviously a conniving, selfish liar and con artist, but he's not trying to hurt anyone, and he's devoted to a life of leisure and flamboyance. That's hard to manage as the captain of a tiny ship drifting between the stars. It's not mentioned in the episode, but he must spend some of his time managing the ship and addressing its technical needs, and much of the rest looking out of viewports into the inky blackness of space.


Would you buy a used spaceship from this man?

Mudd's a ruffian, a scalawag, a scofflaw: a criminal to his bones… but he's relatable (we all know someone like him) and has managed to stay mentally sound, to be optimistic even, in a setting that could drive men mad. Humans are social creatures; we need each other to survive. Any sailor will say that ocean life is lonely; a starship is even more isolated — and yet Harry Mudd rejects companionship on his journeys.

It takes a strong will to maintain enough social skills to wheel and deal with those who are planetbound — and an even stronger one to be a maverick, obviously not following society's rules or moral standards, but in a way that says "I'm a rebel outlaw" rather than "I've been living alone for so long I've forgotten which fork is used for ice cream." 

I don't know that I'd like Harry Mudd in person, but I am certainly entertained by him at a distance. I admire his dedication to his chosen lifestyle, and the skills and mental strength he must have to pull it off.

Three and a half stars. It would be four, but there are no shirtless men in this episode.

The Message


by Robin Rose Graves

The introduction to "Mudd’s Women" is ripe with promise. Action and intrigue. How did these three otherworldly attractive women end up traveling with a space pirate like Mudd? And what makes them so irresistible that even a crew of professional men can’t help but gawk? These questions ensnared my initial interest, filled my head with theories. I was ultimately let down.

“Confidence is beauty” is the moral of the story upon the revelation that the pills did nothing to change the normal human girls’ appearances, but instead gave them confidence, leading to them being perceived as supernaturally beautiful. While I don’t disagree with the message, I was nonetheless disappointed. Confused, even, at how the show decided to depict the beauty of the women. Under the influence of the Venus pills, the girls have glamorous makeup and clothes. Once the pills wear off, the women are stripped of their make up and they, along with those around them, act as if they are appallingly homely looking. Otherwise, they appear the same as before, particularly to me, who still found the actresses chosen to play the parts to be attractive.


Disheveled, maybe… but ugly?

The overall message feels out of place in a science fiction world. It’s one that felt unchallenging compared to the better episodes we’ve seen thus far. The final act of the episode feels as if it could have happened in any mundane situation comedy program. I’m not opposed to science fiction tackling issues of our society (in fact science fiction at its strongest does) yet I felt this episode didn’t go far enough. Compare it to a favorite Twilight Zone episode “Eye of the Beholder” where the plot differs greatly, but the question answered remains the same – “What is beauty?”

“Eye of the Beholder” subverted expectations. The episode built you up to expect the main character to be as ugly as everyone around her treats her, only to reveal her face looks like ours but everyone around her has large noses, sunken in eyes, and puffy lips – what is considered attractive in their universe. Twilight Zone went to greater lengths than “Mudd’s Women” to challenge the beliefs of their viewers, and six years before Star Trek. I expected more from a show that has at its best moments challenged modern television programs, and the way the episode began promised more than what was delivered.

3 stars.

Clear as Mud


by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

Many moments in "Mudd’s Women" beg us to ask: are Eve, Ruth, and Magda property or people?

The episode follows a fairly simple structure: a chase, passengers rescued at great cost to the Enterprise necessitating an emergency refueling using fuel which Captain Kirk can only attain by trading the passengers’ lives, which he does. Or does he trade valuable cargo to the lithium miners of Rigel 12, with the cargo's willing consent?

The women explain what drove them from their home planets: hardship, unequal treatment, and a lack of hope for a real future. But we are not getting the whole story:

We discover that Mudd is supplying them with “Venus drugs,” that seem to alter the women’s appearances and charisma for a short time. Or do they? Towards the end of the episode, Kirk gives Eve a placebo pill without her informed consent and it has the same effect as the real thing. We are left to wonder: were the women’s transformations like those in The Man Trap, where Nancy Crater’s face aged depending on point of view? Or were these women actually aliens with a natural talent for appearing, as Erica described it as we watched, to have undergone a four hour hair and make-up treatment within moments of downing a sparkling pill?

Setting aside for a moment these mixed-up metaphysics, Eve, Ruth, and Magda clearly believe they need the drugs that Mudd controls access to. There is a harrowing scene where he goofily searches for more pills as the women rot and wither around him, bodies wracked with discomfort and with physical changes they believe they are powerless to control. This desperation and enforced dependency must color every other statement we hear from them about their consenting to their impending futures.

On Rigel 12, Mudd offers to trade Eve, Ruth, and Magda for his own freedom and crystals to fuel the Enterprise. What follows are several deeply upsetting scenes where Captain Kirk first refuses, and then — without any on-screen consultation with Eve, Ruth, or Magda — agrees to Mudd and the miners’ demands. Kirk transports them down to the mining camp to become wives of the miners. On the surface, we see a party where Magda asks a man to dance and men fight over her; a man asks Eve to dance and she says no, after which he publicly shames her for not consenting. Furious and distraught, Eve shouts: “Why don't you run a raffle and the loser gets me?” before running into a deadly sandstorm, with men baying after her.

Seven hours later, the miner who tried to shame Eve has her in his cave, where she is cooking for him. They fight, and he lays hands on her, only to growl: “I didn't touch her” when Captain Kirk and Mudd materialize, looking for lithium crystals. Moments later, Kirk gives Eve the placebo. Then he lectures her on womanhood and the importance of self-confidence before leaving.


“I didn't touch her.”

The episode ends without us seeing what became of Magda or Ruth. But we do see Kirk abandon Eve on a remote mining post with a violent man, taking Harry Mudd along with him for trial.

If Eve, Ruth, and Magda are “cargo,” then there is nothing wrong with Captain Kirk, Harry Mudd, or the miners’ actions. You cannot bruise a sexy automoton. Its tears have no meaning. It has no will or sense of adventure or right to privacy. It cannot yearn for freedom. But if Eve, Ruth, and Magda are people, then Mudd was cruel to withhold medical care they believed they needed; Captain Kirk was cruel to trade their bodies and lives for fuel; and the writers are cruel for writing a narrative that expected us to go along with it.

All in all, the metaphysics and the intended humanity of the women in this episode were as clear as mud.

One star.

(Will the next episode be better? Join us tonight at 8:30 PM (Pacific AND Eastern — two showings) to find out!!)

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