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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[December 6, 1968] Wince of an audience (Star Trek: "Wink of an Eye")

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by Janice L. Newman

Star Trek has occasionally been dabbling in New Wave-style science fiction in the third season, but what we got last week was an episode based on solid traditional SF concepts. But if you're going to write a hard-SF story, you need to make sure the science backs it up. When the story you write isn’t even internally consistent—when it doesn’t play by its own rules—it’s not good storytelling and it’s not good SF.

The story opens with Kirk and a team investigating a distress signal. Strangely enough, even when they stand right where the signal is coming from, there’s no sign of the distressed parties. Even more strangely, one of the team vanishes before their eyes after sampling the local water.


A victim of post-production editing…

After they return to the ship, the Enterprise suffers a series of mysterious malfunctions, each corrected almost immediately, but nevertheless concerning. This sequence isn’t bad, as it builds the mystery of what’s going on. By the time Captain Kirk concludes, “Something has invaded the ship,” we are fully ready to agree. When Kirk and Spock discover that an alien device has been connected to the ship’s life support system, they have tangible proof of the invasion, though they cannot touch, disconnect, or destroy the device.


"Have these been put in all of the restrooms, Spock?"

Kirk returns to the bridge. He touches his mouth as though puzzled, and when he isn’t looking, his coffee bubbles for a moment. He takes a sip and everything and everyone around him seems to slow to a stop. Suddenly he’s on the bridge with a bunch of statues—and a beautiful woman who wasn’t there before.


"Again with the kissing!"

This is where the episode begins to fall apart. Deela, the woman, explains to Kirk that he’s been ‘accelerated’. She and her fellow Scalosians were exposed to a substance that caused them to live at a speeded up rate relative to humans. They’re so fast that humans can’t see them at all, and can only perceive them as an insect-like buzzing.

Kirk tries to shoot her with a phaser and she casually steps out of the way of the slow-moving beam. Wait, don’t phaser beams move at the speed of light? Does this mean that she’s moving faster than the speed of light? There are quite a few reasons that shouldn’t and can’t work. For one, the Scalosians wouldn’t be perceptible as a high-pitched whine. Wouldn’t they be followed by sonic booms everywhere they moved? How would they even touch anything without crushing it?

Well, let’s set that aside. Maybe phaser beams don’t actually travel at the speed of light. Maybe they fire some glowing plasma substance.


"Missed me! Now you have to kiss me!"

Moving on, Deela tells Kirk that he will soon grow docile and happy with the situation. When they encounter the missing crewman, Compton, this appears to be true. Compton declares that Kirk is no longer his commander and that he’s working for the Scalosians now.


"That's mutiny, Mister!" "Yes sir.  It is."  "NOT ON MY SHIP!"

This effect of the acceleration is never explained. Perhaps rather than docile and accepting, the people who have been captured and enslaved become hopeless and filled with despair. Not only are those who’ve been accelerated prone to die after the slightest injury—as we see when Compton dies and his body ages rapidly—but after being held by the Scalosians for a time they would realize that their friends and family must be aging and dying without them.

But no such poignant explanation is forthcoming.

Instead Deela details a horrific plan that will turn Captain Kirk into breeding stock and keep the rest of the crew of the Enterprise in suspended animation until such time as they will be used as breeding stock as well (at least, the men will. It’s not clear what will happen to the female crewmembers).

As all this is going on, the crew begin working to discover what happened to Captain Kirk, correctly deducing that it had something to do with the coffee he drank.


"Some sort of Benzedrine derivative is indicated…"

Kirk manages to leave an explanatory message tape in the medical lab. Then, stalling for time, he sabotages the transporter and seduces Deela (or perhaps more accurately, agrees to be seduced by her). To show the passage of time and, er, other activities, Kirk is shown pulling his boots on afterward. Quite suggestive for television!


"Sure glad to get that rock out of my shoe!"

Meanwhile Spock figures out what the ‘whine’ they keep hearing is by speeding up the message tape of the distress call until the images are a blur and the sound nothing but a high-pitched buzz. McCoy discovers Kirk’s message tape and brings it to the bridge where the bridge crew watch it together.

Rael, Deela’s subordinate, finds her with Kirk and takes a swing at the captain. Deela stuns him before he can hurt Kirk. Up until this point her behavior has come across as childish, but she delivers the next lines with a maturity and a gravity that earn the episode a whole extra star from me:

I don't care what your feelings are. I don't want to know that aspect of it. What I do is necessary, and you have no right to question it. Allow me the dignity of liking the man I select.


"And grow up, or I'll shoot you again."

After Rael leaves, Kirk pretends to be docile, then manages to steal Deela’s weapon.

In the lab, Spock and McCoy have apparently been working together amicably to craft a ‘cure’ for the acceleration—something Deela claimed was impossible. (Maybe she was lying? McCoy had to have come up with it incredibly quickly given the time scale of this episode.) Once Spock is relatively sure the cure will work, he drinks the Scalosian water and accelerates himself.

Kirk and Spock encounter each other on the way to the Life Support section of the ship. It’s a nice moment, as neither of them seem surprised. Together they destroy the unit that would have turned the Enterprise into a giant deep freeze. Then they send the Scalosians back to their planet, presumably soon to die out as a race, or at least, so Deela thinks. Once the invaders are safely off the ship, Kirk drinks the ‘cure’, which fortunately works. Spock stays accelerated a little longer in order to effect repairs and fix all the things the Scalosians changed. The bridge crew reacts with startlement and awe as their equipment almost seems to magically repair itself.


"Did Spock take care of my leaky faucet, too?"

After Spock returns to normal time, Uhura accidentally presses the button to display the distress call they received. Kirk bids goodbye to the Deela on the screen.

Written out like this, it sounds like an exciting episode. The problem was, the time scale never quite lined up, either visually or in terms of plot. His crew were completely frozen from Kirk’s perspective. Scotty is perpetually in the doorway of the transporter room across multiple scenes, apparently not having moved at all. (This could have been solved by having him standing behind the console, as though waiting for orders. By having him perpetually in transit, it ruined the illusion entirely.) Even if we arbitrarily say that one minute passes in normal time for each hour that passes for the Scalosians (a 1:60 ratio), either the crew had to have worked very, very fast or the Scalosians spent a lot more time on the ship than was shown or implied. Even if all of the bridge scenes, receiving Kirk’s message, and the development of the ‘cure’ took place over the course of only a single hour, that’s still 60 hours, or two and a half days, of accelerated time.

In the end, we're left with more questions than answers: Why didn't the transporter detect an anomaly when it beamed up at least four extra people (Deela, Rael, Compton, and the girl Compton fell for)? How did the Scalosians time the sending of their distress call such that they weren't years older by the time the Enterprise received and responded to it?

A lot of the same plot effects could have been accomplished by simply having the Scalosians as ‘out of phase’ with our reality, able to affect it but not be affected by it. This would have allowed things like Kirk and Spock getting shoved away from the deep freeze device without the audience asking, “why didn’t they smash into the wall?” (Think of shoving a person standing still while you’re on a speeding car and you’ll see what I mean.)

I could say even more about why the episode just doesn’t quite work, but I need to leave some room for my fellow contributors.

2 stars.

By Any Other Name


by Gideon Marcus

A lot of folks have complained about the reusing of plots this season.  That doesn't really bother me as often the "remakes" are better than the originals (viz. "…and the Children Shall Lead" vs. "Miri"; "Day of the Dove" vs. "Wolf in the Fold.") This time around, we've got a remake of "By Any Other Name", which wasn't terrific to begin with, and this one does not do the theme justice.

Sure, there are cosmetic differences, but ultimately, it boils down to five people (three men and two women, one of them a blonde who romances Kirk).  We have jealousy between the blonde and the head man.  We have a takeover of the Enterprise, and I think there was an indestructible gizmo in "By Any Other Name", too.  Maybe the episodes are just so similar that I'm conflating them.  We have the same empty hallways, but the dodecahedronizer was a much more chilling method of accomplishing that than time shift.  And really, the corridors should have been filled with frozen crew that Kirk and the Scalosians had to dodge around.

The tape Uhura was tracking must have been about a month long for it to be going all the way from discovery through the beam down of the landing party.  How she couldn't tell it was a recording is beyond me and a bit insulting.

There's plenty of nonsense in this episode, which my colleagues are covering, but the worst is that, for a story that deals with super-speed, it sure moves awfully slow.  When Kirk started narrating what we'd just learned five minutes before, taking about five minutes to do it (I recognize the narrative necessity, but that scene could have been three seconds long), I began pounding the floor in frustration.


"Captain's Log, supplemental: in lieu of a formal report, I will simply read the script again from the beginning… 'These are the voyages of the…'"

I did enjoy two scenes, however.  When Deela confronts Kirk after the latter has broken the Transporter, Shatner plays it cute and coy, which was a lot of fun.  Also (as with Janice), when Deela tells Rael to stop being a prude and ordering her around; she's a grown woman, a queen no less, and she at least should get the privilege of liking the person she chooses for breeding stock.

Other than that, though, the direction is pretty feeble.  Nimoy speaks too loudly and woodenly, particularly in the first scene.  Shatner hams it up for the first time this season (except for the other Jud Taylor story, "The Paradise Syndrome".  Everyone else is given precious little to do, particularly Scotty, who gets to stand in a doorway for three days.

Two stars.

Blink a few times—it'll still be there


by Lorelei Marcus

Rarely does an episode start with so much promise and then fails to deliver so badly.  "Wink of an Eye" wastes no time jumping into action, a new technique of Season 3 episodes I'm enjoying a lot, and it continues at a breakneck speed.  Some of the setup information is thrown around so fast, it really is blink and you'll miss it.  Respite comes at the point of beam-back to the Enterprise, which would be fine, except, like the incessant buzzing in the crew's ears, it never ends.

I don't mind an episode that likes to take its time, but this show just drags on and on.  I think partly it's a psychological thing: the time dilation causing the characters to move through time slowly also makes us perceive the slow moments of the show more acutely. The length of an exchange between Kirk and Deela is quite exacerbated when Scotty is stuck stock-still in the background.  How are we supposed to expect the plot to move when the characters themselves can't?


Madame Toussaud would like her Doohan back.

This episode also suffers from a bit of the Land of the Giants syndrome, where the special effects take precedence over every other aspect, to the overall detriment of the show.  I suspect some of the stiff, uninteresting staging and poor pacing are symptoms of trying to stimulate the time dilation.  Scenes could not easily be shot on a rolling camera or from multiple angles for fear of slowed crewmen jumping around to slightly different spots in editing.  Even with all the care, the effect is still internally inconsistent as anyone's speed is relative to whichever scene they're in.

I think I've also given director Jud Taylor too much credit.  Between "Paradise Syndrome" and "Wink", it's clear he has trouble reining in Shatner's eccentricities, and he consistently has difficulty with pacing.  I suspect "Wink" would have been a much more compelling episode with someone like Ralph Senensky directing it.  Imagine a rolling camera leading Kirk as he marches briskly through the hall, crewmen stock-still in comparison all around him.  Then, more static, but creatively staged dialogy shots, where Kirk always remains in front of a slow-moving crewman who is doing the same three motions such that, in post, the actions are seamless and consistent.  I think with a little more vision, it could have worked. [They actually do this in the scenes on the bridge and in the confrontation with Compton, but the corridor walk would have quite effective, similar to what they did in "By Any Other Name" (ed)]

Sadly, this is the version we received.

Two stars.

Brief Lives


by Joe Reid

“Wink of an Eye” is the latest episode of Star Trek from the good people at NBC.  I have a few thoughts on what I just witnessed, and I feel it is best this week to lay my cards on the table before I explain how I arrived at my conclusions.  First, it was intelligently written up to the point that intelligence became inconvenient to the narrative.  It had intelligent characters up to the point that the desired conclusion was endangered.  Lastly, it had a credible threat that lost all credibility when examined.  If I were to provide a one sentence summary for this entry, it would be “Pride, lust, and expedience bring ruin”.

The episode started with a mystery.  Kirk, McCoy, and Spock, along with some others are on an uninhabited alien world, where they expected to find people who were in distress and in need of help.  There were no people to be found, but plenty of invisible insects.  The insects turned out to be the baddies of the week: a small group of people that move so fast that they are invisible to those moving at normal speeds.  After capturing and converting a sole crewman to their side, the beautiful queen of the aliens, Deela, captured Kirk because she was enamored with him.  Speeding him up to her own speed, she traps him in her accelerated world while she and her countrymen carry out a plot against the crew. 


Also, who could compete with these stylish outfits?

At the beginning this plot and the thinking behind it seemed smart and inscrutable.  How in the world could Spock and the others defeat an enemy that moved a hundred times faster than them?  As the episode progressed the narrative kept switching back and forth between the people moving at accelerated speed and the people moving at normal speed, and that is where the problem lay.  An advanced alien race moving so fast that they rendered normal people as statues would always have the advantage.  Spock and crew would never be able to mount a defense against a threat from them.  The notion that the crew of the Enterprise would be able to fight back against such a threat, to provide a way for the good guys to win, weakened the story.

My second thought was regarding Deela and her people.  She was prideful and calculating.  She had every right to be.  Deela possessed an overwhelming advantage over the crew, and she reveled in it.  She even allowed Kirk to shoot at her with his phaser to prove the utter futility of his situation.  She loves that Kirk, fighting as he did, could not overcome her well-thought-out plan.  A plan which was short circuited not only by the aforementioned plot device which allowed the crew to fight back against a much faster enemy, but also by Deela’s lust and desire for Kirk.  She kissed him repeatedly before he even started moving at her speed and kissed him passionately at their first meeting.  Her irrational feelings for Kirk allowed him to manipulate and sabotage her plans to the degree that it allowed the crew the months of subjective time needed to mount a defense against them.

Lastly, there was the credible threat posed by Deela to the crew: that they would be frozen to be used at human chattel for the aliens when needed.  The device that was installed on the Enterprise was unable to be touched when defended in person by the aliens but was easily blown to smithereens when Kirk and Spock shot it with their space guns.  This third and final failure of this story to save the narrative left a story that started so strong and intelligent as a sad, weak, and uninspired tale turning Deela from a prideful and powerful queen to a horny teen that let a boy trick her into a tryst that ultimately defeated her people.

At the end of the day, the crew should never have been able to outrun an enemy moving a hundred times their speed.  Also, the aliens should have lived such brief lives that they would have never met in the first place.

Two stars

[Come join us tonight (December 6th) for the next thrilling episode of Star Trek!  KGJ is broadcasting the show live with commercials and accompanied by trekzine readings at 8pm Eastern and Pacific.  You won't want to miss it…]




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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[September 26, 1968] Brain drain: (Star Trek: "Spock's Brain")

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[Star Trek is back for its third season!  Accordingly, we've devoted a great many inches to this rather uneven debut….]


by Janice L. Newman

This week we gathered all our friends together to start off a new season of Star Trek. We served dinner, then put our little portable color set outside and everyone enjoyed the lovely late summer night.

Well, everyone except me, that is. I was stuck inside with a VERY nasty cold that, oddly enough, no one else wanted to share with me. It made watching Spock’s Brain a lonely experience, but it did give me space to focus on the episode without being distracted by gasps, groans, or laughter—except my own, that is.

With the recent threats of cancelation and huge fan response, I expected NBC to put their best foot forward starting the new season. For Season 2 they knocked it out of the park with Amok Time. Could they do it again?

In a word, no.

Spock’s Brain had a lot of good elements. The set up was interesting, if fairly typical by now. An unknown alien vessel confronts the Enterprise. An alien woman appears on the bridge and knocks everyone out with a gadget worn on her wrist. When the crew awakens again, they are horrified to discover that Spock is missing. Then, in a twist I could not have predicted, they find that Spock’s body is in Sick Bay, but his brain has been carefully removed!


Kirk's brain doesn't pass muster…

Somehow Spock’s “incredible Vulcan physique” (McCoy’s words, not mine) allows him to survive without a brain until McCoy can get him on futuristic life support. However, they must get back Spock’s brain within 24 hours, McCoy tells Kirk, or they won’t be able to reconnect it.

Kirk, furious and terrified, orders the navigator to follow the trail of the other ship. When it dead ends in a known system, they must determine which of the three planets has Spock’s brain. Playing a hunch that the audience knows will be correct, Kirk chooses the one that seems the least likely.

The surface of the world is cold and barren, populated by all-male tribes of primitive humans. Beneath the ground, women live in luxury and comfort. But both groups are strangely childlike. Neither understand what Kirk wants when he demands “Spock’s Brain”.

The away team consists of Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, and Mr. Spock—or rather, his body, controlled remotely by McCoy with a little gadget. He is even more inexpressive than usual, and little ticking sounds are heard whenever he moves. If it sounds ridiculous, that’s because it is.


Own your own clockwork Spock!

The team is captured, escape, and eventually make their way to where Spock’s brain has been hooked up to the machine controlling the entire complex. His autonomic functions have been repurposed to control the air, water, heating, and so on. It’s not a new idea in SF—Anne McCaffrey’s The Ship Who Sang did something similar if I recall correctly—but it was one of the more interesting plot points in the episode.


Spock's brain after getting the Sargon treatment

The team learns that the childlike people occasionally get temporary boosts to their knowledge by wearing a funny helmet with pins sticking out of it. This is how their leader was able to remove Spock’s brain. When they force her to again partake of the forbidden knowledge, however, she refuses to help them. If Spock’s brain is removed, the machines will cease to function and her people will die.

McCoy, left with no other choice, dons the helmet himself, receives a temporary boost in knowledge and skill, and proceeds to reattach Spock’s brain. The knowledge runs out before he can finish, but fortunately he’s able to connect Spock’s vocal cords, and the Vulcan is then able to guide him through reattaching the rest.

Kirk, meanwhile, tells the leader not to worry her pretty little head, because soon the women and men will be living together like they should have been all along, and the Federation will ‘help’ them.

Spock is unusually garrulous as the episode ends, lecturing them all on Ancient Rome as the theme swells triumphantly.


Spock is all better now—he didn't even muss his hair!

The frustrating thing about Spock’s Brain is that there’s so much good in it. The acting is very good. Kelley, Shatner, and Nimoy feel like they’ve really started to slot together as a team. Their banter is smoother than ever, Kirk’s over-acting is kept to a minimum, and they deliver the most nonsensical lines with absolute sincerity and straight faces. For that alone, they all deserve Emmys.

Added to that is Marc Daniels’ excellent direction, with interesting angles and innovative camera work. The music, too, was new.

Yet none of it mattered, because the fundamental plot was such schlock that it was impossible to take seriously. Every time McCoy screamed out, “Where are we going to look for Spock’s brain?” or Nimoy robotically walked across the screen as little ticking sounds followed along in the background, I was thrown right out of the world of Star Trek and into a bad B-movie. It was funny. It just wasn’t Star Trek.

Hopefully next week the studio will have something better to offer us.

Two stars.

A Sow's Ear from a Silk Purse


by Amber Dubin

This episode started with promise, the way the scantily clad, mysteriously powerful alien women that smoothly and silently dispatches the entire crew harkens back to the hostile takeovers we’ve seen in other episodes like Norman from “I, Mudd” or the Kelvans from “By any other name.” We expect, then, the plot to follow a similarly cerebral path where this new species of alien demonstrates how their improvements upon humanoid society have allowed them to surpass us in power while sacrificing one very human trait whose immense value they’ve forgotten. That would be following a tried and true formula of an episode that, while banal, can still be entertaining. It is seemingly from this scaffold that this episode attempts to reach to higher heights, without recognizing that it never truly took the time to support itself beforehand.

This reach is visible in the beautifully presented viewscreens, the dramatic "behind the captain's chair" camera angle they debut in this episode, the smooth score, matchless acting and the shiny new svelte uniforms they've adorned the cast with. They took a step backwards with Scottie's new haircut, which is so devastatingly unflattering that it makes Chekov's Monkees wig look tolerable, but it's a small misstep when compared to the unforgivable sin of completely forgetting to attach these shiny tassels to an intelligible script or plot.


For once, Chekov's hair looks better than Scotty's…

The most obvious problem with the plot is the concept of removing Spock's brain. Spock has had his body hijacked countless other times but the insistence of using the removal of his physical cerebral organ this time, instead of just his consciousness, makes all the subsequent actions ridiculous. Also, the fact that none of the Imorgs even seem to know what a brain is is absurd. This leads me to my second biggest problem with the episode, and that is that the alien societal structure is incredibly poorly designed. Ostensibly, the species is segregated across gender lines with the females (the Imorgs) living underground, most likely for their own protection as the males (the Morgs) seem to have descended into violent, brainless savages. The most interesting implication I find with this structure is that Imorgs are described by the Morgs as “bringers of pain and delight.” This implies, to me, that their society must survive by the Imorgs periodically returning to the surface, not just to discipline the Morgs, but also to.. ahem.. milk them of their genetic material for reproductive purposes.

While this is a comical concept, the explanation for this setup makes no sense. It is explained that they became so advanced and so comfortable that their species' intelligence gradually atrophied like an unused muscle, thus requiring the externalization of said intelligence in the archival brain-training headset that certain members of society can put on to receive the combined knowledge of the ancients at their intellectual peak. Yet this raises the question: how did their loss of intelligence happen so slowly that it was unavoidable and yet so quickly that they were able to see it coming in order to store it externally to be used later? Perhaps there was a brain-eating disease that only spared the less intelligent? Yet this does not explain how McCoy's readings picked up evidence of a gradual degradation and does not explain how the best solution that these highly intelligent beings could come up with is to turn their habitat into a body controlled by a physical cerebral organ sustained for 10,000 year periods; meanwhile the remnants of their species are left to crawl around said body mindlessly like ants in a glass-bound ant hill.

As absurd as this premise makes the episode, it introduces what I see as its most redemptive quality: the positive sexism. As often as this show strives for portraying women as valued members of an advanced society, it's my personal opinion that it falls short too many times. This episode seeks to bend the needle at least a little bit in favor of a 'women being smarter than men' narrative, and I am a fan. The Imorgs, while dumb, are no more dumb than the Morgs, and I am quite fond of the fact that their highly intelligent ancestors chose the females as the more reliable receptacles into which to download the collective knowledge of their species. I also enjoyed that, while graced with the knowledge and basically the consciousness of the ancients, the Imorg priestess is successfully able to out-smart Kirk and is completely immune to his powers of persuasion. I find it infinitely refreshing that Captain Kirk doesn’t once again save the day by aggressively teaching the femme-fatale the value of love. Although when said woman decries that they can’t control the men without systems of punishment and reward, Kirk does sneak in a snide “there are other ways.” I could be reading too far into it, but the way he delivered the line made me think he was more than willing to provide instructions as to techniques that women can use to get men to do what they want (maybe he’d even suggest a hands on approach to the milking process).


"How about some lessons in healthy sexual relations?"

Despite this episode's obvious flaws, which there are many, I wouldn't overall say this is a bad episode. It's a testament to the commitment of the actors that they're willing to deliver solid performances of the sometimes silly lines with depth and sometimes deadly seriousness (Nurse Chapel’s 10 second fall alone is Oscar-worthy). In general, the characters appear much more polished than we've seen in some other episodes; and the lighting, which I think is a little too severe for Shatner's face in a couple of scenes, was an interesting departure and a bold choice. What the episode lacked in structural continuity, it tried to make up for in fluid pacing, an exceptional score, and special effects opticals that I believe have vastly improved from even the last season. Ultimately, however, the failure of editors to cut the obvious silliness out of the script makes all the high quality elements feel like lipstick on a pig.

They say you can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear but apparently you can make a sow’s ear from a silk purse. This episode makes for one very stylish pig, but if it’s just going to dunk its head in the mud, I don’t see the point of the wasted effort.

Three stars.

The Mental Divide


by Joe Reid

Star Trek has returned for a 3rd season!  I've missed our weekly sneak peek into the future as well as that regular glance into the mirror of our present.  “Spock's Brain” is the name of this entry.  Spock's brain is the apparent focus of this episode, at least on the surface.  As I stated before, Star Trek is sometimes a mirror to show us who we are or may become.  In “Spock's Brain”, we don't look good.

Watching shows like Star Trek, we see ourselves as the heroes.  We picture ourselves as Kirk.  We are Uhura.  We are Chekov.  From a narrative standpoint, we are actually the silly characters that the crew of the Enterprise are fighting, kissing, lying to, or helping each week.  This week, we are the inhabitants of Sigma Draconis 6.  What do the people of this planet tell us about ourselves?

The people of Sigma Draconis 6, which I will call Sixers from here forward, were divided by sex.  The Sixer males were ignorant of relationships with the females outside of knowing them as the ones that bring pain and pleasure.  Similarly, many men in our world don’t understand women.  We sometimes reduce women to being instruments of pleasure, which if not handled correctly might lead to intense pain.  Of course, it doesn’t help at all if men are uneducated and uncultured.  Such men are reduced to seeing women in the context of either, “Heavens!  She makes me feel good!”, or “Dammit! She is a pain in the neck!”


Women gain the upper hand in the battle of the sexes.

The Sixer women, being physically weaker than the men, and as ignorant as them, defaulted to using instruments of pain and pleasure to get what they wanted from men.  Although the episode didn’t offer what pleasures were given to the men, I myself am intimately aware of the pleasures that today’s women use to get their way from a man and of the pain some of them inflict when they are not satisfied.  Bill Shakespeare wrote about the fury of a woman’s scorn.  I find myself questioning which is better—the long deep pain caused by a woman who hurts your soul or the short and intense pain of this episode’s futuristic torture device.  Both seem equally bad ways of dealing with the opposite sex, based on an utter lack of compassion.

This portrayed male/female struggle, although interesting, was not a perfect mirror to our culture in that it gave no example to the pain that men have caused women today and throughout history.  Also giving no notion that men could bring pleasure to women outside of what they can physically provide through their labor. In the end, "Spock's Brain" shows us that there must be more to successful human relations than simple Pavlovian techniques.

Another key lesson of the episode involves Spock’s brain and how it was to be used on Sigma Draconis 6.  Sixers females could only continue their way of life if a controller was there to run their world.  Without a controller, the females and males would have to rely on each other in a different way.  This may seem far from reality, but I think this lesson should be taken as a warning rather than an indictment of our society.  We should be wary of any leader, religion, philosophy, or machine that promises to take care of our needs or manage our lives to such a degree that it reduces our interdependence with those around us.  Women and men need each other to survive, but all are better served through understanding and love over pain and pleasure.  Families need each other in the same way.  As do neighbors.  Coworkers.  Citizens of a country.  People of a planet.  Dependence on a solitary thing to care for us may lead to retardation of how we relate to one another.


Why think for yourself when you can just be force-fed knowledge?

For this exciting and thought-provoking episode of Star Trek, I offer 4 of 5 stars.  It told a compelling and suspenseful yarn laced with relevant social commentary and caution—exactly what one wants from science fiction.

Four stars

Third Season Drinking Game


by Erica Frank

Take a drink every time you spot bad science, male chauvinism, Federation cultural supremacy, or the Enterprise crew pretending that an alien culture has human needs, interests, and abilities. …For this episode, make them small drinks. Sips only. Optionally, take long drinks; you may bypass a few others while you're raising your glass.

I'm leaving it to others to discuss the computer technology (take a drink), the womens' clothing (take a drink), and Kirk's ethics (take another drink), so as to focus on the split communities: Women living underground in the warm, computer-controlled facility; men living without technology on the frozen surface.


How are they making their clothes with "no sign of industrial development?" Those are awfully straight seams for hand-worked leather!

They have lived this way for thousands of years, long enough to have long forgotten why, even if they had attempted to keep records. They seem mostly content (or at least resigned): The men fear the women, but they do not band together to attack them; the women see no reason to change anything until they need a new "Controller."

(I have no idea how children happen. They're aliens. Maybe they lay eggs and the Controller keeps them in an incubator.)

But we are probably supposed to believe they are human-like, just split into communities so separate they don't even have words for sex or gender. Are we to believe these people, human-like enough to prefer buildings that are well-suited for our crew, wearing clothing that seems designed for human cultures, have no concept of human-like relationships? Of course not!

We have plenty of examples of what kind of relationships humans have, if you segregate them by sex: sailors, military forces, and even nunneries have a long history of homosexual behavior.

Of course, the residents of Sigma Draconis 6 won't have "gay" relationships that look like modern human ones: They have no notion of "husband and wife." They don't raise children together, don't have one employed partner and one housekeeper. (The men probably need every able-bodied person working for survival; the women's physical needs are all met by the Controller.) So their relationships – which may not be limited to pair-bonding the way that child-raising couples tend to be – would be mostly invisible to casual, short-term visitors like Kirk and his crew.

When the Morg realize that Spock is Kirk's oath-bonded partner, his assault on the women's complex will make so much more sense to them!

Two stars – mostly for the fascination of "how does that work?"; bump it to three if you've been drinking enough to put yourself in a pleasant fog.

Anything but Star Trek


by Lorelei Marcus

I think we're entering a new era.  The music feels different, as if it's finally finding its groove after many years of experimentation.  The politics are different, too, with black delegates trying to sit at the convention (and a young Julian Bond making a plausible run for Vice President!), and a weird match-up between two Vice Presidents.

Most of all, the TV is different.  It's all in color, and there's just so many shows, most of them new.  From Julia to The Mod Squad, everyone's jumping to be the fresh, hip thing.

Except, apparently, Star Trek.

It's ironic that this show, which broke new ground on television in not just science fiction but ethnic diversity chose to take such a step back into the past for its Season 3 debut.  "Spock's Brain" felt like a plot straight out of the '50s.  The society separated by men and women, the spooky science beyond our understanding, and even the new, tighter-fitting uniforms made the episode feel right at home next to Forbidden Planet.

What's worse, this quaint exploration of an alien society clashed sharply with the actual Enterprise and crew.  For instance, the (excellent!) scene in which the bridge crew decide which of the three Sigma Draconis planets to investigate in search of Spock's brain feels like a scene from another show—and might as well be: the sentient races on the other planets never become relevant to the episode.


The bridge becomes the briefing room in one of the best scenes of the episode.

I didn't actually have much problem with the whole "brain removal" element of the plot, just how it was executed.  A lot of the lines felt forced and corny, particularly Spock's indifferent voice-overs.  His dialogue should have been the highlight of the episode, not the drag.  Also, the surgery montage at the end of the episode was cheap, taken straight from Ben Casey or maybe even General Hospital.  I was laughing too hard at that point to care whether or not the brain restoration surgery was a success.

Don't get me wrong.  I did enjoy the episode at the time, and the actors salvaged what they could with the lines they were given, but it ultimately left a bad taste in my mouth.  I'm disappointed that "Spock's Brain" was chosen to be the debut of Season 3.  Perhaps a tongue in cheek episode like this (assuming the camp is deliberate) could have been fine midseason, but putting it front and center feels disrespectful to the show and characters, not to mention the audience.  I don't regret writing all those letters to Mort Werner to keep Star Trek alive, but I fear the result may be a degraded, less sophisticated program.

Let's hope this episode is a fluke and not representative of the rest of the season.

Three stars

Minority Report


by Gideon Marcus

I'm going to go out on a limb here.  I enjoyed this episode.  Perhaps it was the endless summer over which I was starved for new Trek.  Maybe it was the terrific giggles I got out of every time one of the gifted cast had to seriously pronounce the words "Spock's Brain" (usually preceded by variations of "Where are we going to look for…" and "Give back…")

The story didn't bother me.  Was it rushed with intriguing concepts left undeveloped?  Sure, but that's par for the course.  There are only 50 minutes each week with which to introduce a plot and resolve it.  The rest must be done with shorthand.  Indeed, the episode wastes little time, clanging into action with a red-alert signal.  And while Kirk does destroy a 10,000 year old society with no compunctions, he's done so before, under similar conditions ("Return of the Archons" and "The Apple"), and the Federation has specialists to help clean up the ensuing mess.  Plus, in this case, it was personal—they'd taken (chortle) Spock's Brain!

Speaking of plots we've seen before, Spock's Brain (guffaw) is really just the inverse of "Return to Tomorrow".  In that episode, three disembodied brains want Spock's Body (and those of Kirk and Dr. Ann Mulhall).

Of course, in the cold light of day, when I can't be swept along by the superb pacing, the new scoring, the slick new uniforms, the beautiful Daniels-shot bridge (how about those lovely viewscreen shots?!), getting to see all of the B-team doing their jobs, Scotty's disaster of a new hair style (did Jimmy's new wife Anita approve of this?), I can see there are issues with the episode.  For instance, the idea of snatching a brain to power a society is fine.  The notion of finding the best brain for the job makes sense.  But Sigma Draconis had three class M planets in it.  Surely there were scholars on Planet 3 or scientists on Planet 4 who could have done the job.  (Also, Planet 4, with a technology grade of "G" or 2030 A.D. presumably has space travel and perhaps even warp drive—why hadn't they settled/explored Planet 6?)

Also, all this gas about "ion propulsion" being the cat's meow made no sense.  Ion propulsion is something we use today, which I talked about in my article on the (failed) satellite ATS 4.  It is a low thrust , economical drive that uses the constant ejection of cesium atoms to propel a spacecraft.  Maybe Scotty's "ion propulsion" means something different, but it sounds goofy without further explanation.  It's why Trek moved from "lasers", which are new but well known, to "phasers", which are made up but sound cool.  Call it "muon" propulsion or better yet (to make up a word) "buon" or something.


"She's steam-powered, Cap'n!  Far beyond what we can do with antimatter…"

All that said, I want to think that this rather silly script was Trek's essay at deliberate camp, sort of how The Trouble with Tribbles and A Piece of the Action were deliberate comedy and Catspaw was deliberate Halloween creepiness.  In any event, the episode accomplished the main goal, which is that I'm eager to see what's on next week…even if it means I have to stay up past my bedtime to watch the furshlugginer thing, now that they've moved the air time to 10 P.M.!

3.5 stars




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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[March 22, 1968] (Two Things Only the People Anxiously Desire, Star Trek: "Bread and Circuses")

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Strange New Worlds?


by Janice L. Newman

In the first season of Star Trek, we saw the crew visit plenty of “strange new worlds”. From the rocky planet where they met The Man Trap to the caves of The Devil in the Dark to the green and deceptively-pleasant planet This Side of Paradise, they took us to places we’d never been and introduced us to thoughtful, interesting ideas. Even when sets were more familiar locales (Miri, Tomorrow is Yesterday, and The City on the Edge of Forever come to mind) the stories were usually fresh and interesting.

In the second half of the second season, we’ve been seeing a new trend, perhaps based on ideas first introduced in “Miri”: planets which have, for one reason or another, evolved to look almost exactly like Earth at some point in history. A Piece of the Action took us to Prohibition-era Chicago. Patterns of Force brought the crew to Nazi Germany. And this week’s episode took us to a ‘modernized’ version of ancient Rome.


The story opens with the Enterprise seeking out the survivors from a ship that was hit by a meteorite six years ago. They track the trajectory of the debris back to a planet and Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beam down to seek out any survivors. They immediately encounter a group of escaped slaves, members of a sun-worshiping cult, who agree to help them. Before they manage to get near the city, though, they are captured and imprisoned. They’re greeted by Merik, the captain of the lost vessel and now “First Citizen”, and Proconsul Claudius Marcus, who knows much more than he should about who they are and why they’re there.

Claudius tries to force Captain Kirk to call down the crew of his ship. When Kirk refuses, Claudius orders Spock and McCoy thrown into the ‘arena’ for a televised battle. The set is a fun merging of modern culture and ancient Roman aesthetics. As Kirk watches with helpless frustration, Spock unwillingly fights against the gladiator assigned to him while McCoy is fortunately assigned Flavius, a “Brother of the Sun” who tries to refuse violence, even as he is “encouraged” to fight by a guard wielding a whip. The “Amok Time” fight theme is well-integrated here, and it makes for an exciting scene. In the end Spock defeats his opponent and rescues McCoy by giving Flavius a Vulcan neck pinch to knock him out.

Spock and McCoy are returned to their cell, where Spock visibly agonizes over their separation, repeatedly trying the bars and looking for a way out. McCoy sheepishly tries to thank Spock for saving his life, which Spock responds to with replies clearly meant to needle and annoy the good doctor. It’s nice to see their roles reversed for once, with Spock doing the deliberate antagonizing. McCoy responds by getting in Spock’s face and hissing out a pointed jab at Spock’s vulnerabilities. Spock’s quiet response, which manages to combine acknowledgement and defiance in two words and a lifted eyebrow, is a work of art. This is my favorite scene in the episode, and one of my favorite scenes in all of Star Trek so far. All of the ‘old married couple’ arguing and mutual antagonism we’ve seen in prior episodes between the ‘heart’ and ‘mind’ of the Enterprise come together to shape this moment of intense intimacy.

Meanwhile, Kirk is brought to a luxurious bedchamber and offered the use of an eager female slave. He doesn’t refuse.


Ah, there's Roddenberry's influence

Claudius returns to Kirk a few hours later in a rather nice transition and tells him he is to be executed on national television. Scotty, who has not been idle on the Enterprise, delivers a careful blow to the city’s electrical system, blacking everything just long enough for Kirk to get away and return to the prison (where he tells his two officers that their captors ‘threw him a few curves’, haha). Merick redeems himself by tossing Kirk a communicator, and the three men beam back to the Enterprise in the nick of time, leaving the Roman planet behind.


Credit where it's due–the escape scene is masterful

And so it’s all over but the shouting, or rather, the final pun: the sun worshippers don’t worship the sun, they worship the son – as in, the son of god. Cue smiles from some of the Christians in the audience and an eyeroll or two from the Jewish and non-religious viewers.

Did I like this episode? There were many things to like, starting with the scene between McCoy and Spock, which is a five if taken by itself. There were definitely some things to dislike, such as the ‘sun/son’ setup and Kirk’s unhesitating willingness to take advantage of the attractive female slave offered to him. Overall, though, the cinematography, use of library music, and use of sets and props was a cut above the usual. The episode was well-paced and exciting, and Shatner’s acting was more understated than usual. Despite a couple of things dragging it down, I give it four stars.

The Unbroken Planet


by Joe Reid

We tend to think of heroes as powerful people who use their powers to right the wrongs of the world.  Star Trek has provided us with heroes that always right wrongs.  When Jim Kirk gets to a new world and finds something amiss, he will do everything possible to make sure that baddies are struck down and peace is restored.  This has been especially true when the cause of the disturbance on a planet was a human, or even worse… a Klingon!  This season we had two examples of Starfleet people purposefully taking control of native populations for their own benefit.  In “Patterns of Force”, John Gill literally turned the inhabitants of one planet into Nazis in order to “help” them.  Then, in “The Omega Glory”, we had Ron Tracey ruling over one faction of humans to eradicate another in order to gain immortality.  Both stories took place on Earth-like planets which boasted histories divergent from our own.  Each story ended with Captain Kirk dealing with the corrupting influence and setting the cultures back on course. 

This week’s “Bread and Circuses” started off much the same as the mentioned episodes.  Some Starfleet person was stuck on a very Earth-like planet with a divergent history.  The crew had a similar obligation as before; to get the space people off the planet before they ruin the people of that world and pervert their development.  Here is where the similarities end.  “Bread and Circuses” turns that recurrent theme on its ear.  Instead of the inhabitants of a planet having to contend with a strong and smart human dominating them, this time it was the weak human, Captain Merik of the SS Beagle, who was dominated by the strong and intelligent Proconsul Marcus.  Marcus overpowered Merik’s mind and will, causing him to sacrifice most of his crew to gladiatorial games in order to save himself.


Puppet and master

Previous episodes on this theme had Kirk seeking to find an alien titan like himself and remove them from power.  This world already had a home-grown titan, who corrupted and broke the man Kirk was looking for.  There was nothing for Kirk to set right on this world.  The humans were the victims, not the victimizers this time.  Kirk found himself outmatched by Proconsul Marcus.  He was captured, threatened, and made powerless by Marcus, just like Merik was before, although Kirk put up more of a fight than Merik did, earning some degree of respect from Marcus.  Marcus was eventually going to break him, as well, given enough time.  The mission ended with Kirk, Spock, and McCoy fleeing for their lives and Merik dying from a knife to his back after a last-minute act of failed heroism. 

This was the one time where the captain of the Enterprise could not fix the problem on a world.  It’s mainly because there was no problem to fix, at least none that he was legally allowed to fix. The society on the planet was progressing down its natural evolutionary path.  Human intervention didn't topple the wagon.  Humans ended up run over by the wagon, which carried on unabated.  “Bread and Circuses” had a subversive twist on what had preceded it in the other episodes.  It felt original, even though some themes started off appearing reused before the twist came about.  In total, the costumes, acting, sets, camera work, and story were all done well.  It was pretty good. 

4 stars

Don't throw back the throwback


by Gideon Marcus

David Levinson, who tends to write letters in after the fact rather than contribute directly to our Trek coverage, noted recently that he was starting not to care if the show got renewed for a third season. We had run into a pretty dire patch of episodes, after all. But between last week and this week, his faith is somewhat restored.

Mine, too.  I observed early on that "Bread and Circuses" felt more like a first-season episode than any of its second-season brethren.  Perhaps it was the copious use of outdoor settings, or Shatner's return to first season form.  Maybe it was Ralph Senensky's crisp direction (he may well supplant Marc Daniels as my favorite on the show).  Maybe it was the collaboration of the two Genes, Roddenberry and Coon, who reeled in each other's excesses rather than adding to them.

I also absolutely adored the fusion of gladiatorial games and modern television.  It was subtle satire in the Sheckley or even Pohl/Kornbluth vein.


Not much different from a boxing match or football game

The one missed opportunity was setting the planet on a near-Earth rather than an exact duplicate, a la "Miri."  I've always liked Lorelei's idea that the galaxy is largely populated by Earth-clones (for some unknown reason) and that's why we get these close parallel history episodes.  Having a completely different planet evolve humans, let alone 20th Century Romans, beggared the imagination.

On the other hand, as our newcomer, Blue Cathey-Thiele explains, maybe it's not so implausible after all…

Four stars on my end.  There are some hiccoughs in the episode, but they're lumped early on, and you've forgotten them by the conclusion.

Bread, Circuses, and Laurel Leaves


By Mx. Blue Cathey-Thiele

In "Bread and Circuses", McCoy comments that the Romans had no sun worshippers. He may need to brush up on his history – or even just ship logs! Earlier this season in "Who Mourns For Adonais", the crew met Apollo on Pollux IV, and while many Roman deities shared traits but not names with their Greek counterparts, the god of music and the sun was known as Apollo to both cultures.

And this raises an interesting question: could the wayward god have stopped over at this planet on his way to Pollux IV? It would go a long way in explaining its many similarities to both modern and ancient Earth. Whether he visited alone or with the rest of his pantheon, his powers would have been enough to leave a lasting impression. A world built to suit the needs of a deity who thrived in Greece and Rome close to two millennia ago, by the time the Enterprise shows up. In fact, a better question might be, why would Apollo ever leave?

Perhaps it was not him, but one of his cohort. He was the last of his kind, and while he said that gods do not die the way mortals do, they fade. Per his account, one of the goddesses spread herself thinner and thinner until she was gone. Could some part of her have found this world and influenced its development? Remained there as things like the industrial revolution came along, the invention of television, while her diminished presence ensured that the Roman Empire kept a firm grip on society?


The ex-senator explains why he no longer worships Apollo

The inhabitants even spoke English! Having a lingual origin of Latin would greatly increase the chances of a language developing with even a slight similarity to the form of English currently spoken. Who better to serve as a source of this language than someone who was there when the people around him used it on a daily basis? Apollo (or his shadowy companion) would be a living dictionary.

We can even guess about the stirrings of the "Son (not sun) of God". Apollo stayed long enough on Earth for belief to fade in him and his fellow gods of Olympus. He would have been around to hear of an emerging belief system, particularly one that was in competition to his own status. Apollo was hardly shy about sharing his own history, and if he mentioned this Earth faith, someone, somewhere would take interest.

To this viewer, a powerful visitor leaving a lasting influence on the planet seems far more likely than running across yet another example of "Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planetary Development" in such a short span of time.

4 stars.




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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[January 18, 1968] I Would Advise Yas ta Keep Watching (Star Trek: "A Piece of the Action")

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by Tam Phan (Secret Asian Man)

It’s hard to contain the joy that this episode brings to my heart. I’m a sucker for gangster films, like “Ocean's Eleven” and “Bonnie and Clyde”, but I have to admit, I’m always wary when a film does time travel. Period pieces tend to get things wrong one way or another, but “A Piece of the Action” somehow gets it all wrong in exactly the right way. This episode is chock full of amusing interactions that will engage you if for no other reason than it being delightfully fun.

Earth-like alien planets with humanoid populations have awkwardly made their way into Star Trek (e.g. "Miri", "A Taste of Armageddon"). This time, we finally get a plausible explanation for one. In this week's episode, the Enterprise is ordered to report to Sigma Iotia II. The spaceship Horizon went missing about 100 years earlier and is suspected to have contaminated the culture of the planet. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beam down to the planet’s surface to meet with a Mr. Oxmyx to see what they can do about the contamination.


Let the contamination begin!

They are greeted by armed men wielding Tommy guns in an old-fashioned city suspiciously similar to America in the 1920s. Our landing party is escorted to see Oxmyx and discover that the Horizon crew left an old Earth book called “Chicago Mobs of the Twenties” on the planet. It was mentioned that the Iotians are imitative, which would account for their desire, given a blueprint, to emulate our past. It explains the culture and style, but it's clear the mimicry is skin-deep, which makes sense if they only have one book to go on. For example, during their negotiations, Oxmyx haphazardly shoots billiard balls around the table, and in the next scene when the henchmen are playing poker, it’s not any version that I’ve ever seen. It’s convincing until it’s not, but it’s convincing because it’s not.


"Don't tell me how to play Old Maid!"

Kirk interrupts their game to show them fizzbin (a fictitious game in which Kirk improvises the rules). It’s so absurd that he contradicts himself while explaining the rules of the game. Do you want a third Jack or not? Only Kirk knows. While the henchmen are distracted, Spock and McCoy clobber their captors and successfully escape to the radio station. Kirk decides to split off to find Oxmyx and is captured by Krako’s men. Typical.

Krako, Boss of the south side territory, is seen awkwardly throwing darts over his shoulder before Kirk enters, escorted by Krako’s men. He attempts to negotiate a deal with Kirk that would make Krako top Boss. Kirk isn't necessarily opposed; his aims aren't actually that different from that of the Iotians: Each Boss wants to take enough territory to become top Boss and Kirk thinks a unified government is a good idea, too. The difference is method–Kirk wants negotiation to determine the top Boss, not war. The deal falls through, of course. Krako doesn’t seem like the type to negotiate, stating that, “the book tells us how to handle things.”

A wild series of events ultimately gives Koik the perfect excuse to play a hunch. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Koik and Spahck don the local garb and comically make their way back over to Krako’s place. The deal is that the Fed is takin’ over and he’s offered a piece of the pie, but little does he know, Koik’s got other plans. They put the bag on all the mob bosses while Krako’s on ice, ya see. Koik shows a small display of power and negotiates a deal to have Oxmyx be the head of the Syndicate with Krako as his lieutenant. The Federation gets a 40% cut.


What happens when you mess with the Federation.

This episode gives us a lighthearted look at the mob and a unique perspective on how an alien species might mimic a culture. Without minor details to guide them, it’s understandable that they wouldn’t know the rules to 9-ball, poker, or darts. Shatner’s Shatnerisms played well in this setting, and it was fantastic to see Spock have every logical reason to not object to Kirk playing a hunch. Not only that, but he gets to deliver the best line in the episode (adapted to title this article). The supporting cast was wonderful, and I’ve got no beef with this episode.

Five stars.

Against the Odds


by Lorelei Marcus

I will be the first to admit that, despite all it accomplishes, Star Trek has some major recurring flaws. Any show, particularly one that presents a world technologically beyond anything we can understand today, requires a modicum of suspension of disbelief. Such suspension becomes tested as increasingly outlandish claims are thrown around by the characters (particularly our beloved Captain Kirk) and such theories become the basis of the solution for an entire episode. Think Kirk divining the original purpose of the Doomsday Machine, or Jack the Ripper's ghost haunting across space-time (seriously THAT'S the most logical explanation for a series of interplanetary murders?) Sometimes the setup itself can destroy one's immersion, like "Miri" beginning with a planet completely identical to Earth. Or maybe it's a contradiction of preestablished rules in the universe that breaks an episode; Kirk seems to conveniently forget about the Federation's noninterference clause in "The Apple" and "Return of the Archons".

"A Piece of the Action" does everything I've mentioned above, but it does it right. I had my doubts when I first saw the preview for this episode. The Tommy guns and pinstripe suits made me expect another time travel jaunt like "City on the Edge of Forever". Instead, the explanation for the 20s gangster background is quite reasonable and SFnal: a hundred years ago the Federation tampered with a preindustrial planet, and the society of that planet has been modeled around the information the Federation left for them, including a textbook on gangs in the twentieth century. How concise and satisfying an explanation! And it also provides reason for why the Federation later implemented the noninterference clause – to avoid situations like this.


Imagine what they might have found if the Horizon had left the Bible…

This is the cue for Kirk, in his cowboy Kirk fashion, to decide that the structure of the society is not up to his personal moral standards and therefore he has the right to change it. Except this time it makes sense. As Kirk explains the episode, the anarchist state of this planet is the Federation's fault, and in this special case the noninterference clause has limited application because they have to fix the damage they've caused.

Even then, they try to minimize contact between the natives and Starfleet's advanced technology to allow the society to progress and mature on its own course. This has the added bonus of leading to some rather amusing fistfights.

Finally, while the solution of the episode does rest on Kirk's hunch, this too is set up in advance. Kirk both consults the ship's computer and Spock to suss out a logical course of action to save the planet. Only when both sources fail to give him answers does he decide to act on instinct instead. And when he finally carries out his plan, it actually makes sense! He manages to unite all of the gangs into a central government by posing as a larger, more threatening authority. All it takes is Shatner's progressively more dramatic Chicago accent.

I couldn't give this episode higher praise. It elegantly evades the pitfalls of Star Trek while also telling an engaging, funny, and science fiction story.

Five stars.

Embracing the Absurd: A Motto


by Andrea Castaneda

Truth be told, I had a difficult time formulating my thoughts for this episode. At first, I wanted to discuss the themes of authoritarianism. Then I was tempted to look at the governmental structures of a “lawless” society. But the more I thought back on the episode, the more I realized I was overthinking it. “A Piece of the Action” had me laughing with delight rather than putting me in deep thought. And perhaps that was the intention: a lighthearted way to play “cops and robbers” through the world of Star Trek. But even if one can peel back the layers, one can glean a simple lesson: when you find yourself standing in absurdity, embrace it.

First and foremost, I have to commend the writers for playing to Shatner’s strengths. From the comically over the top accent to donning a pinstripe suit, you could tell Shatner was having a gas the entire time. If I were a betting woman, I would wager good money that he was bouncing up and down in his chair as he read the script. Spock, meanwhile, did an excellent job at playing the “straight man” to Kirk’s ostentatiousness. His rigid and awkward attempts at playing a mobster not only highlighted how ridiculous the situation was, but also gave us some great deadpan deliveries.

As for the story itself, well, we’ve established how absurd the premise is. In fact the show explicitly states that there are no logical solutions out of this, shown when Spock goes through his various computer simulations. So, what can the crew of the Enterprise do? The only “logical” thing: outdo the absurdity. And that’s where the episode shines.


"What's the computer suggest, Spock?" "I've…got…zilch."

A mobster henchman foreshadows the concept at the start of the episode, telling Kirk, Spock, and McCoy “that innocent act don’t work on me.” And as predicted, their attempts at peaceful diplomacy only get them into more trouble. But their luck starts to turn when Kirk realizes the mobsters, in all their bluster and moxie, are pretty easy to manipulate. Playing to their sense of stubborn pride, he makes up a card game and flatters them enough to get them to drop their guard. When dealing with the bosses, he learns to come down to their level, framing concepts like taxes into terms they understand. Finally by the end of the episode, Kirk has smooth talked his way into becoming the head honcho of this cartoonish cabal of bosses and wise guys. It’s ludicrous, but still plausible enough to work.

This episode could have very easily become inane, puerile, and flat out stupid. But the self awareness from the writers and actors alike, combined with Shatner’s enthusiasm, gave it a charm that had us laughing along with them the entire way.

If I were one for clichés, I could say that embracing absurdity is a lesson we all can benefit from from time to time. But being realistic, I would say the writers wanted a palate cleanser for what appears to be a much heavier episode next week. We’ll see. In the meantime, I’ll be rummaging through my closet to see if I have anything pinstripe.

Four stars.

Pinch-hitting


by Gideon Marcus

Last week, I noted that the usual show runners had gone AWOL, to the detriment of the episode's quality.  This week, I was made trepidatious by the unknown names "David P. Harmon" (writer) and "James Komack" (director).  Moreover, the previews had led me to believe that this was going to be another silly time travel episode.

In fact, what we got was not only a thoroughly entertaining second-contact story, but one of the best made episodes of Star Trek we've seen in a while.

The editing and cinematography is some of the crispest and original we've seen to date.  There's nary a flat moment, thanks to the quick cutting and innovative camera wrangling.  Even the music, which I think was entirely from the library, fit the episode to a "T" – from the lilting strains lifted from "The Trouble with Tribbles" to the bombshell introduction tune from "Mudd's Women".

The director did an excellent job of reining in Mr. Shatner this time around.  While many of his favorite tics were on display, they did service in differentiating "Koik the Boss" from "Kirk the Captain."  And while Shatner often shone, he did not steal the scene.

Part of that was the snappy writing that put truly funny and effective lines in the mouths of Bones, Spock, and Scotty.  Part was the performances Komack elicited from his stars.  Even Uhura, though she gets very few lines, is memorable; the smile she gets when she realizes what Kirk has planned for Jojo Krako is just delightful.

Speaking of which, how about those guest stars?  Anthony Caruso (Bela Oxymyx) is an old hand, of course, and Vic Tayback, who is everywhere these days, and who does a creditable impression of George C. Scott in The Yellow Rolls Royce, is fantastic as Krako.


George C. Tayback

Finally, the sartorial touch of giving each gang's henchmen different headgear (fedoras for Oxmyx, straw hats for Krako's, bowlers for Tepo's) was brilliant.

Five stars!

This week, the Enterprise will be fighting the paramecium of doom!

Join us tomorrow at 5:00 PM Pacific (8:00 Eastern) or at 8:00 PM Pacific (11:00 Eastern)!



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TV

[November 16, 1967] Star Trek: "Metamorphosis"

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by Lorelei Marcus

What Ever Happened to Commissioner Nancy?

The tomfoolery of "I, Mudd" was a delight, but I'm personally more of a fan of the serious episodes that delve deeply into the drama and science. The preview for this week's episode presented a new planet, mystery, and even new characters–how exciting!

"Metamorphosis" begins with Kirk, Spock, and McCoy on a Galileo shuttle craft, escorting a civilian woman back to the Enterprise. The woman is Nancy Hedford, Commissioner for the Federation, who was acting as a diplomat to prevent war between two colonies before she was pulled from her task after contracting a rare but deadly disease. She must be treated within the next twenty-four hours or she'll die.


Commissioner Hedford, after her promotion from the city council of Mayberry

I'm always pleased to see new competent female characters on Star Trek, and here's one that isn't set up to be a love interest for Kirk. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like her character is going to last long. Almost immediately, the shuttle craft is hit by a strange energy beam and is pulled towards an asteroid with its own atmosphere, almost exactly like that of Earth's. Spock theorizes that the planetoid is a fragment from a larger planet that's been split apart. That still doesn't explain how such a small celestial body could retain its own atmosphere, but perhaps there's some supernatural reason for it that they will explain later.

Hedford understandably begins panicking and orders Kirk to put the craft back on course. It's a fascinating contrast to see her civilian reaction compared to the coolheaded and seasoned Enterprise crew. Unfortunately, despite Kirk's best efforts, the craft is still forced to land on the asteroid, and thanks to a powerful dampening field, cannot take off again.


The Galileo Four

Soon after they land, something – or someone – calls to the party and begins to approach them. It turns out to be a young man in a jumpsuit, reminiscent of the Federation uniform, but clearly older in style. The man is amiable, and he seems relieved to see other people again. He recognizes Spock as a Vulcan, but he takes particular interest in Hedford because she is a "beautiful woman". Hedford, twenty-three hours away from death and stuck on an asteroid in the middle of nowhere, brushes off the advance irritably.


Disdain at first sight

The man takes the party to his home, a building he apparently built with the scraps of his ship which was pulled to this planetoid like the Galileo craft. Except, it's revealed, that his ship crashed 150 years ago and he's actually Zefram Cochrane, the original inventor of warp drive! Cochrane explains that at age 87 he took a ship into space to die, but he was discovered by an alien being which drew him to this asteroid and forced him to live there with it. The alien, which he calls the Companion, restored his youth and stopped him from aging, and he's since built a life here with his newfound immortality. (And he was able to grow crops to sustain himself, despite the asteroid's soil comprising almost entirely nickel and iron, but perhaps the Companion had something to do with that).

Kirk's craft was brought here because Cochrane told the Companion he would die of loneliness without other humans in the hopes of being freed. Instead the Companion brought the humans to him, and now refuses to let them leave. Hedford's fever worsens, and she breaks down hysterically, disgusted by the idea of being trapped and forced to be someone's consort.


I wouldn't be too happy, either.

Forced into action by Hedford's deteriorating condition, Kirk begins to think of a plan. The Companion is intelligent and can communicate with Cochrane fairly fluently. It also appears to be composed of raw electricity, and possesses great healing properties if Cochrane's de-aging is any example. Of course the only way to deal with a one-of-a-kind, sentient, all-powerful creature like that… is to kill it! (What is that speech that Kirk gives in the intro? Something about seeking out and exterminating new life and new civilizations? I can never remember.)

Spock conveniently pulls out his electric impulse scrambler (I can only guess where he keeps it), and their attack on the Companion goes about as well as you might expect. Kirk and Spock almost die and are saved only by Cochrane's intervention. McCoy gently suggests to Kirk that perhaps they could try negotiating with the alien instead of hurting it. Kirk agrees that the negotiation sounds like a good idea, and he orders Spock to adjust their universal translator to work on incorporeal beings.


Yes, maybe talking is the better option.

One cut later, and Spock's magically gotten the translator to work. Kirk explains that the alien's voice from the translator will be interpreted as however the creature perceives itself; what a surprise when the voice that comes out is female. Cochrane is dumbfounded, "how can that be possible?"

Kirk makes the point that male and female are universal concepts that apply to all living creatures, and obviously this creature is just female. (I guess he forgot about his basic biological studies and the numerous asexually reproducing living creatures: single celled organisms, plants, certain lizards, Talosians…)

Anyway, because of the Companion's newly discovered sex, Kirk makes the completely baseless assumption that the creature is romantically in love with Cochrane and that is why it sustains him. Cochrane, despite having the wisdom of two entire lifetimes, and living the better part of that time with this creature, finds the possibility of being loved by an alien absolutely disgusting, and he completely rejects the Companion.

Just then, Hedford cries out, and everyone remembers that she exists. On the verge of death, she makes a moving speech lamenting that though she lived an accomplished life with a successful career, she will never get the chance to love romantically or be loved. How selfish Cochrane is, for receiving such a pure form of love and then rejecting it because of his own biases.


I never had time for love because I stop wars for a living.  What's his excuse?

Kirk tries to negotiate with the Companion one last time, in the hopes that it might possibly free them to save Hedford's life. Except, instead of actually discussing a deal and offering the Companion literally anything, Kirk pulls his Kirk logic on the alien and convinces it that the only way for the Companion's love and Cochrane to coexist is for the Companion to be human. I think it would've been simpler to ask if the Companion could just let McCoy and Hedford go so they could save her life, and then he and Spock would stay behind to keep Cochrane company until the Enterprise could return and sort things out. Just me?


The Garden of Zephrem.

Of course the Companion disappears, and then shortly after a completely healed Hedford appears, restored by the Companion who has now occupied her body. Hedford walks towards Cochrane and explains with the Companion's voice that if not for the alien's intervention, Hedford would have ceased, but now they coexist inside her body and are both there, and are both in love with Cochrane. Cochrane instantly gets over his xenophobia now that his lover has a female body, and they decide to stay on the asteroid and live happily ever after together. Oh yeah, and by possessing Hedford's body, the Companion gave up her immortality and Cochrane's with it, and also she can't leave the asteroid because it's the source of her life force, so they are actually stuck there for the rest of their lives. But now they can spend the next 100 years planting fig trees and having sex, so it all works out.

And what about the intergalactic war that Hedford was supposed to stop? Well, in the words of Captain Kirk, "I'm sure the Federation will find some woman, somewhere to stop it."

This episode was so frustrating because it started with so much promise, and then failed in every regard at the ending. I was intrigued to see how they would handle the psyche of a 200-year-old man, and also the relationship between a human and a non-humanoid alien. The writer and Glenn Corbett's performance did neither of these subjects justice. Shatner's performance was particularly stilted, to the point where I had trouble following what he was saying at many points. The pacing started off sharp, but began to meander as the characters made stupider and stupider decisions, and the focus jumped to fun but unnecessary scenes on the Enterprise. But what bothers me most of all is the tragedy of Hedford's character framed as a happy ending.


Not necessarily a happy ending.

The companion speaks for Hedford at the end, and while it claims that both of them are there in consciousness, there is no evidence to justify it. All of Hedford's personality, her tenacity, her drive to complete her duty, and her anxiousness to return to her very pressing work, are gone after she is possessed. Presumably, she really did die on that asteroid, and all that remains are her body and her memories, which the companion takes advantage of to its own end. Or perhaps more horrifyingly, Hedford is still there, but so overpowered by the Companion that she is imprisoned in her own body, doomed to be the slave of this alien and its lover.

I can only hope that this type of story is a fluke, and will not become a standard for Star Trek.

Two stars.


by Joe Reid

Who’s Fooling Who?

It is often the case that at the end of an episode you are left with all of the answers to the questions that were posed in the show and a reasonable conclusion to the adventure of the week.  The intelligent heroes are drawn to a place.  In that place they discover a mystery.  They use the powers and abilities at their disposal to solve that mystery and are rewarded.  The rewards are treasure, or freedom, or their own safety, or that of the ship.  It’s been a reliable formula that I’ve never had reason to doubt, until this week’s episode.

We never doubt what we have seen, because Kirk and Spock directly tell us exactly what is or has happened.  In “Mirror, Mirror”, Kirk told us that the crew has traveled to a parallel universe.  In “The Changeling”, Spock told us the origins of the space robot named Nomad.  “The Doomsday Machine” had Kirk telling us that the giant space funnel was an ancient planet killing weapon that got out of control and destroyed its creators.  How in space did he know that?  More importantly, what if Kirk was wrong in some of his musings?

We ascribe superior intelligence to characters in sci-fi: they are smarter than us, and smarter than whatever baddy they face.  What if this time, instead of our heroes understanding, and outsmarting the baddy, it was the creature who outsmarted the members of the crew?


One smart lady.

“Metamorphosis” featured a powerful entity.  “The Companion” finds an 87-year-old man, Zefram Cochrane, who may or may not have been dead when she found him.  She rejuvenates him to the prime of youthful manhood, feeds him, and keeps him from going insane for 150 years.  She communicates with him in a physical way, enmeshing herself among his very cells.  She must have been pretty advanced to do that.

When the Companion discovered that “the man”, Cochrane, needed female companionship, she reached millions of miles into space and located a vessel containing a dying human woman which would provide the means for her to personally meet the needs of the man.  She grabbed the moving shuttle craft, and by power of force drew it several millions of miles to be stranded on her little asteroid.  If that wasn’t powerful enough, when the Enterprise started to search for the lost shuttle, they discovered a trail from the shuttle to follow.  The Companion, millions of miles away, made the trail vanish.  This creature possessed the ability to manipulate living and inanimate matter on a cellular level from a vast distance. 

As our heroes attempted to communicate with the companion, we thought we were shown a creature that demonstrated the intelligence of a child in her understanding of humans.  A creature that they had to guide to an understanding of humanity using their superior intellect.  What we really saw was a creature so smart that it guided the heroes down a path where they felt accomplished, but it met its own agenda.  All without threatening the Enterprise or killing anyone.

In the end the Companion was able to convince a 230 year old man to love her, everyone else that she was not a threat, and she convinced a dying, love-starved woman to allow her to possess her body.  This episode posed a challenge to the assumption that we understand the story as it is portrayed on the screen.  “Metamorphosis” gave me the satisfaction of doubt at the conclusion.  I liked it.

Four stars.

Boring Sex(es)


by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

As I watched "Metamorphosis," I found myself thinking of fig wasps. In my evenings and weekends, I run a small community garden on a church campus; a volunteer fig tree grows long and tall between the fence and the tool shed. When Mr. Cochrane mentioned wanting to plant a fig tree, I figured he was referencing this line:

"But they shall sit every man under
his vine and under his fig-tree;
And none shall make them afraid;"
(Micah 4:4, Tanakh, New Jewish Publication Society of America; a similar quote can be found in 2 Kings 18:31-32 Christian Bible, Revised Standard Version)

The thing about fig trees is they require pollinators. Trees can't ask other trees on dates – or kidnap them for 150 years to flirt with them in incomprehensible energy being ways – so they rely on wind or other species for reproduction. Many trees are self-fertile, meaning the adventuring pollinator need only traipse from one blossom to the next on the same branch, finding different reproductive parts at every turn in a complex mosaic. A few dioecious trees segregate these roles tree-by-tree, but most are self-fertile and don't break into easy categories like "male" or "female."

In general I find, the more I know about plants and pollinators, the less concepts like "male" and "female" mean anything at all.


"Yes. The matter of gender could change the entire situation."

Take figs, as Mr. Cochrane so clearly wants to. Figs can only be pollinated by a tiny wasp who crawls through their fleshy outsides to get to tiny flowers inside, sometimes ripping its wings off in the exercise because the fit is so tight, and spreading pollen as it goes. You see, the fruity flesh we love to eat on toast or in jams is not actually a fruit, botanically speaking, but mushy flowers. The wasp repeats this journey from flower to flower until, exhausted, it lays its eggs and dies inside the fig, to be consumed by those flowers. One portion of the baby wasps – once they metamorphosize from eggs to adults and mate with their own siblings – will live and die without ever leaving that fruit, spending their entire lives carving tunnels for the other portion to escape and continue the cycle.

I don't know about you, but very little of the above sounds like human sex to me, whether the act or the category.


"The idea of male and female are universal constants."  Really?

Still, human scientists often slap labels like "female" on the wasps that climb into figs and "male" onto those who never leave them. They even do so for other pollinators for whose societies those categories fit even less well, like European honeybees, who have at least three clear reproductive roles, and for whom scientists have weirdly assigned "male" to two of (drones and workers) and "female" to the third (queen). The nature I work with every day is vastly more creative and varied than "male" and "female" – a fact which Jewish scholars know well, as the Talmud references up to eight sexes (zachar, nekevah, androgynos, tumtum, aylonit hamah, aylonit adam, saris hamah, and saris adam).

What about an alien society with three sexes, or eight, or none at all, or one who relies on star-blown space ships for their own reproduction? What if Hedford's death had been framed as part of the life-cycle needs of the energy being and not the pale nothing it was?

Now that is science fiction I would love to watch.

As Lorelei points out, this episode had so much promise. While I don't expect television writers to love the complex realities of Earth's natural world in the way that most gardeners do, I do expect them to do even the most basic of research about the world we all share every day, rather than slapping labels on alien life in ways that limit our imaginations rather than expanding them.

Two stars.

The next episode of Trek is tomorrow! Apparently, we're going to meet Spock's parents…

Come join us!



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TV

[February 22, 1967] Where some (super)men had gone before (Star Trek's: "Space Seed")

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The Best of Tyrants, The Worst of Tyrants


by Janice L. Newman

Eugenics—the idea that people can be ‘bred’ to emphasize certain desirable traits the way breeders do with animals or botanists do with plants—is an interesting concept in a science fiction setting. So it’s not surprising to encounter an episode of Star Trek built around the concept. What is a little surprising is that the narrative doesn’t do more to condemn either the concept or the practice.

Space Seed begins with the Enterprise finding an ancient Earth vessel with no crew except a group of men and women in cold sleep, their bodies held in stasis. The arrival of the away team triggers the ship, which is suggestively named the “S.S. Botany Bay”, to awaken one of the sleepers.


Sleeping Beauty

After nearly dying during the revival process, the man is brought aboard the Enterprise. He proceeds to threaten Dr. McCoy (who responds with such chutzpah that I think it’s my new favorite scene with him). McCoy neglects to mention the threat to Captain Kirk, who gives “Khan” access to the ship’s libraries and implicit access to his crew. Khan takes full advantage of both, reading up on the ship’s structure and defenses as well as aggressively seducing and manipulating the ship’s historian, Lieutenant Marla McGivers.

Eventually research reveals that “Khan” is “Khan Noonien Singh”, who was, as Mr. Spock says, “From 1992 through 1996, absolute ruler of more than a quarter of your world. From Asia through the Middle East.” Khan and the rest of his crew were the product of eugenics experiments that succeeded in making men and women who were stronger, faster, and smarter than the average human. A group who were, or at least who were raised to think they were, the next Caesars, Alexanders, or Napoleons.

The conversation between Mr. Scott, Doctor McCoy, Captain Kirk, and Mr. Spock that follows this revelation is…odd, to say the least. Scotty admits to a secret admiration for Kahn. Kirk calls him “the best of the tyrants” (WHAT?) Even McCoy notes that there were no wars under him unless others attacked first. Only Mr. Spock expresses shock and repugnance at “this romanticism about a ruthless dictator”. There is some suggestion that the others are teasing Spock, trying to get an emotional reaction out of him, but there’s also a note of sincerity in their words that made me intensely uncomfortable.


"C'mon, Spock.  We're just pulling your ears!  You do have to admit, though, that the Nazis had some spiffy uniforms."

Captain Kirk puts a guard on Khan’s quarters, but Khan easily breaks out and, making use of McGivers, he revives the rest of his own crew and easily takes control of the Enterprise. When he enacts a brutal rule, first suffocating the bridge crew when they refuse to give up the vessel to him, then threatening to kill them one by one unless they work for him, McGivers turns on him and saves Captain Kirk’s life. Together, Kirk and Spock take back the Enterprise.


"Who's the superman now, huh?"

Kirk chooses to leave the “supermen” alone on a harsh planet, to try to carve out a colony of their own. McGivers chooses to go with them. I suspect her life with a group of people who believe that she is too inferior even to be good breeding stock will not be a happy one.

As with several other episodes where an arrogant or violent man has gone after a woman, Khan’s relationship with McGivers isn’t particularly romanticized, which I appreciated. He’s shown to be brutal, controlling, and extremely manipulative, which had the majority of the audience in our group revulsed, shouting to McGivers that he wasn’t worth it.


To be fair, Khan is an excellent hairdresser.

On the other hand, the narrative does romanticize eugenics to a distressing degree. Even the concept that the eugenics experiments were actually successful in breeding a group of superhumans is one that is both scientifically implausible and morally disgusting. The very existence of Kahn and his group within the context of the story says that such experiments are not only possible, but that they could work. But even those with only the most basic understanding of dog breeding, for example, know that emphasizing one trait can often lead to other, undesirable ones. [It might be possible to control "breeding" at the cellular level, as is done in Herbert's The Eyes of Heisenberg; that seems a more plausible explanation (ed.)]

Add to this the fact that most of the leadership of the Enterprise seem enamored of the idea of these faster, stronger, better men and women, with only Mr. Spock being the (derided) voice of reason. Even at the end, Kirk says, “What a waste to put them in a reorientation center.” And so they are explicitly sent to the planet not because they are too dangerous to house on a penal colony, but because it would be a “waste” of their strength and potential to do so. This group repeatedly said they were superior to humans. They were arrogant, cruel, condescending, and incredibly dangerous. Yet it would be a “waste” to try to retrain them and to teach them empathy? Wouldn’t attempting to make them productive members of society who don’t believe that they’re superior to everyone else be a better use of their potential?

Space Seed was a well-made episode, and Ricardo Montalbán was excellent as Khan. But the inclusion of genetically-created “supermen”, and the framing of them as anything other than the tyrants and dictators they were, knocked my rating down a little. I give the episode three and a half stars.

Not My Superman


by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

When Mr. Spock (or any Vulcanian) sees a Romulan, he can safely think, there but for the grace of logic go I. In "Balance of Terror", he describes the relationship between his homeworld and the people of Romulus:

Spock: And if Romulans are an offshoot of my Vulcan blood, and I think this likely, then attack becomes even more imperative.
McCoy: War is never imperative, Mister Spock.
Spock: It is for them, Doctor. Vulcan, like Earth, had its aggressive colonizing period. Savage, even by Earth standards. And if Romulans retain this martial philosophy, then weakness is something we dare not show.


Spock's distant cousins, the ones we don't talk about

Warfaring, brutal, brilliant, manipulative, brave, self-superior, male-dominated – that describes both Khan Noonien Singh's comrades and the Romulans we have met. In both episodes, we had the pleasure of viewing the crew of the Enterprise meeting their match; struggling, failing, and ultimately overcoming the putatively superior foe. Even the temporary betrayal of Dr. McGivers – under deeply disturbing coercion by Singh – resolves when she frees Captain Kirk.


The historian's equivalent of "the Spock pinch"

Perhaps this comparison is why Spock reacts so quickly and so strongly to the maybe-teasing of the crew about Singh and his comrades. As Janice notes, that scene was uncomfortable, particularly when it immediately followed the brutal conversion of Dr. McGivers to Singh's way of thinking. Just as there was no romance in that scene, like Spock and like Janice, I would have preferred less romanticization about the Eugenics Wars.

But where Spock seems secure in his people's relationship to Romulans as well as confident that unmodified humanity is superior to overbred and overweening demi-tyrants, there is an insecurity humming under the interactions between the humans on the ship and Singh's cadre. Perhaps that is why Kirk does not even try to hold them accountable for their violence against the crew of the Enterprise or integrate them into their society.

I prefer Spock's dismissiveness to Kirk's initial admiration; aside from pretty looks, I didn't find much to recommend Singh as a leader or a "superman."


Not my Clark Kent

Since long before Nietzshe set quaking pen down to yellowing paper, a certain style of man has yearned for the emergence of what have been called übermensch, or supermen. One of my favorite innovations of our century has been the re-working of that concept in comic books like Captain America and of course, Superman. In those, sure, the title characters are as Kirk describes "[s]tronger, braver, certainly more ambitious, more daring." But they are made heroic not by those differences of species and medical intervention, but by Steve Roger's commitment to fighting for the little guy, for defending democracy and freedom, and Clark Kent's dedication to doing anonymous good. Values I cannot see Singh being guided by. Likewise, I cannot imagine Clark Kent – who would easily best any of Singh's cohort in a fist fight with his laser eyes blindfolded and one bullet-proof hand tied behind his back – taking over entire continents of people as Singh did in the far-off 1990s.


A real Superman

A humble reporter; an artist and friend. These are the übermensch I grew-up with. Like Spock, I do not see the value in men like Singh.

But I did value the chance to see this corner of future history so thoroughly explored. I hope, if we ever see Singh again, he will be singing a different tune – maybe something about "truth, justice, and the American way."

Four stars.


by Andrea Castaneda

We all love a good villain. They neither ask permission nor forgiveness as they break the rules, challenging the hero in an effortlessly charming way. Khan is such a villain. And in his short time aboard the ship, he was able to seduce, manipulate, and deceive his way into controlling the Enterprise. This feat, combined with Ricardo Montalbán's phenomenal performance, is what made him such a compelling character. In fact, it would appear that his magnetism not only affected the crew, but also the writers themselves. 

There’s a scene midway through the episode that illustrates this point. When we learn this 20th century guest was actually a former tyrant from his original time, Scotty admits– in an almost giddy way– that he admires him on some level. Kirk echoes this, saying he was in fact the best, though he adds it's what makes him dangerous. It’s a very human sentiment. And I think many of us have fantasized about what it is like to relinquish the restraints of civilized society, taking what’s “ours” as we please.

With that said, I was relieved to see Spock’s shock and horror at how his colleagues romanticized the autocrat. A part of me wonders if Leonard Nimoy’s Jewish heritage played a role in how his character reacted. After all, the very real tyrants from our time, who terrorized the world and sought to wipe out the Jewish community, are not ghosts from very long ago.

It seems that with the buffer of time, we as a society tend to sanitize the actions of bad men from yesteryear. We still acknowledge that a man like Attila the Hun was ruthless. Yet we saw Anthony Quinn play him in 1954, alongside the beautiful Sophia Loren, portraying him as an alluring leader and formidable foe against the Romans. Then we have men like Blackbeard, once considered a dreaded and despicable outlaw of the high seas. Yet today, the pirate has been rehabilitated for family consumption, via Disneyland’s upcoming attraction “Pirates of the Caribbean” (opening next month).


The nicer pirate

I’m not trying to be a party pooper and say people aren't allowed to enjoy those things. Nor am I saying villains should be bland and one dimensional. But it does make me wonder if we will treat the villains from our time, such as Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin, with the same sanitized view. It’s a paradoxical standard we seem to return to, where we condemn them for their merciless ways, yet admire them all the same for it. As Kirk put it, “We can be against him and admire him all at the same time.” But it’s important to ask ourselves if we’d feel the same way if those very tyrants placed a boot upon our neck, not once letting up.

Despite my philosophical quandaries, I give this episode four stars. It had its imperfections, but it captivated me all the way through. The audience loves a good villain, and Khan is a great one. I only ask, both to the writers and ourselves, do we condemn these men for the harm they’ve caused or condemn them because they– in the end– lost?


by Gideon Marcus

On the Third Hand

Kirk ended "Space Seed" looking awfully generous.  After all, Khan had just tried to turn him inside out in the vacuum chamber, threatened his true love (the Enterprise), and didn't even thank the captain for sharing his limited stock of Windex.  Yet, instead of sending Khan and his troupe of Hollywood Palace acrobats to Tantalus for rehabilitation, or kicking the problem upstairs to Commodores "Mendez or Stone, Kirk exercises his broad authority to maroon the "supermen" on a rude, backwoods planet.


"We've got this bell; we gotta get some use out of it!"

I don't think this was done as a courtesy or an amelioration of sentence, however prettily Kirk puts this to his prisoners.  The fact is, Khan and his people are dangerous.  They can't be killed–there's only one death penalty on the books.  They probably can't be rehabilitated–Khan's nature is clearly deeply ingrained–and given his magnetic effect (on women and men), chances are they'd just launch a revolution from wherever they were stashed.

So Kirk, instead, used his discretion (and McCoy notes that it's a rather extreme interpretation of his powers), to sweep Khan (and McGivers) under the rug where they can't do any harm.  No muss, no fuss!  It's actually rather brilliant.

However much I admire this creative thinking on Kirk's part, I can't say "Space Seed" was my favorite of episodes.  I quickly grew fatigued of Khan and his imperious nature (not helped by seeing Mr. Montalbán just two days later as a heavy on Mission: Impossible).  I enjoyed Mr. Spock and the 1990s history lesson, but beyond that, the episode left me curiously cold.

Three stars.

It looks like Kirk is traveling to modern Babylonia this week. 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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