All posts by Amber Dubin

Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[February 28, 1969] We Reach (Star Trek: "The Way to Eden")

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The Corrosive Threat of Antidisestablishmentarianism


by Amber Dubin

US-world relations have been growing increasingly concerning as we venture cautiously into the first couple of months of 1969. From never having quite gotten back on the right foot since last year's Tet offensive (and with this year's edition currently ongoing) to the aftermath of the Pueblo incident, to the newly renewed Moon Race, it sometimes feels like America is standing on the world stage with shaky legs. It is easy to react to these uncertain times by pining for a prelapsarian epoch in human history.

It’s rather apropos, then, that Star Trek writers have once again turned to the often-referenced biblical Garden of Eden. Here, however, I'd argue that “The Way to Eden” approaches this subject in an unique way by suggesting, as Spock does here, that all advanced societies “hunger for an Eden, where spring comes.”

two screen shots, both title cards over the Enterprise zooming toward the camera: the first says The Way to Eden, and the second says that the teleplay is by Arthur Heinemann, the story by Michael Richards and Arthur Heinemann
What happens when you set transporter coordinates for Haight/Ashbury

The episode opens on a familiar scenario where the Enterprise is hotly pursuing a stolen vessel that is overheating its engines to alarming levels. They manage to beam over the occupants just before the fleeing vessel explodes, and the crew of the Enterprise is confronted by a motley crew of ragamuffins. Kirk greets the strangely dressed, wild, love-and-peace-preaching, anti-authoritarian naturalists by informing them that they were only spared consequences for stealing and destroying a Federation ship because the wayward son of a political figure is among them.

screen shot of Kirk in his uniform looking flummoxed facing Tong Rad, a purple-haired space hippie with a high forehead
"Don't trust the Fuzz, man!"

They respond to Kirk’s mercy without gratitude, disrespectfully requesting that the Enterprise act as a ferry in their quest to reach a planetary Eden and relocating to sickbay with extreme reluctance.

Meanwhile, Ensign Chekov discovers that a lovely dark-haired Russian beauty from his Starfleet Academy days is among the band of miscreants. Irina Galiulian and Chekov lost touch when she dropped out of Starfleet to chase nebulous and flighty pursuits, a choice that Chekov deeply disapproves of. They have an angry, yet charged, discussion which resolves nothing before she returns to her more amiable family of choice.

screen shot of Chekov in uniform and Galilulin in a revealing, flowery two-piece, talking in a corridor as another crew person watches
Is Chekov going through captain's training? Because I thought it was Kirk's job to be so enamored of the pretty lady that he forgets to protect the ship.

Back in sickbay, the situation has descended into chaos. The group’s leader, ex-research engineer Dr. Sevrin, has been determined to be a carrier for a superbug that is both incurable and created by the advanced sterilization techniques used to sustain Federation environments. He is thus quarantined and isolated from his flock, an action against which the rest of the group protests heavily.

Acting as both the snake and the snake charmer, the now deemed insane Dr. Sevrin spurs on the rest of his group to break him out of isolation and seize control of the Enterprise, knowing their musical seductions and rapscallion ways will cause the crew to lower their defenses and underestimate any hidden, nefarious intentions.

screen shot of an Enterprise room where four space hippies perform, one playing a sort of space age guitar without a box
Tonight on Hullabaloo!

Furthering this goal, Irina isolates Chekov and effortlessly steps into the role of femme-fatale, doing little else other than batting her lashes and breathing lightly on Chekov’s lips to get him to spill his guts about every single operating mechanism of the ship’s security and navigational systems. Next, the group minstrel, Adam, begins a pied piper act, strumming and singing his way through the whole ship. He even convinces Spock to display his instrumental talents in a seemingly impromptu concert that gets broadcast over the ship’s speakers, in a very effective misdirection campaign that covers for his comrades as they disable ship security and free their leader.

Now in control of the Enterprise, the group barrels into Romulan space towards a planet that ship’s scanners have defined as Eden, setting a trap to disable the crew and allow them time to escape. There is a brief pause where members of the group try and fail to dissuade the power-mad Dr. Sevrin from making this trap fatal for the Enterprise crew, but thankfully this is the one part of their plan that the crew is able to disrupt before succumbing to those permanent consequences.

screen shot of the Enterprise bridge, Sulu, Lieutenant Palmer, and someone else all unconscious at their stations
Asleep on the job

The band briefly appears victorious in the acquisition of their fabled garden, but find the paradise hostile to humanoid life, and the bare-footed hippies literally get burned by the acid-coated plants growing in an Eden that was supposed to welcome them. Faced with the devastating failure of his quest, Dr. Sevrin willfully consumes the deadly fruit, very plainly demonstrating that the insanity brought on by his dual lust for anarchy and power was fatal.

screen shot of Dr. Sevrin, a bald, puffy eared man in a tree holding a fruit with a bite taken out of it and looking stricken
The metaphorical apple (still much better than "The Apple")

I think boiling this episode down to “the one about beatniks in space” is both simplistic and disrespectful to the subtlety of the message it’s trying to convey. I see how, on its face, it could appear that the plot of this episode is a ham-fisted attempt to judge the reactions of the Enterprise crew when introduced to hippies from our time, but I’d argue their role here is to demonstrate the corrosive nature of antidisestablishmentarianism. I think the fact that such a small group of humanoids, with no greater powers of intelligence or manipulation than any other aliens we’ve met so far, was able to so swiftly and effortlessly take control of the ship, speaks to the power of hiding in plain sight.

Rather than the loudly chanting overtones that kindness can be fatal, the more subtle message here is that these intruders merely awakened seeds that were pre-sown into the mind of every being in known society. The unspoken fear that our zeitgeist whispers, is that every established system only functions as long as the seeds of hedonism, anarchy and sedition do not grow to destroy it. It is the reason power fears the rhetoric of communists, cultists and anarchists; why it tries to silence the rabble-rousers, quell the mobs, round up and isolate the dissenters, and burn the witches.

The wolf is efficiently hidden in sheep's clothing when love-drunk, starry-eyed hippies prove themselves not to be peaceniks –but weapons. Weapons so effective that, in a matter of hours, they reduce an advanced, peaceful, orderly, military vessel to the plaything of a handful of gleeful, half-naked, singing fools.

screen shot of a security guard with eyes closed in rapture just before being thumbed unconscious by Tong Rad, one of the hippies, while Dr. Sevrin, a bald, puffy-eared male, watches from behind the force field in the brig
If only they let Bob Hope tour the Enterprise, the crew wouldn't be so starved for entertainment.  Then again, they might…

This episode very effectively warns against the dangers of what can happen when a charismatic, silver-tongued leader sinks his fangs into the impressionable minds of restless sycophants. It demonstrates how powerful that sharp-witted leader can become when he knows how to wield such universally disarming weapons as pleasant music, a righteous and honorable cause, and the promise of affection and approval from smiling, scantily-clad, untamed youths.

Despite its disarming façade, this episode is not a light romp. It is a cautionary tale; and in my opinion a particularly well-woven yarn.

5 stars.

Space Hippies


by Erica Frank
We only see six of the Edenites, but they must be part of a larger movement: Spock knows their greeting and their philosophy, and "reaches" them well enough to be the ship's liaison with them. Either they are very numerous, or very influential, or both.

screen shot of six space hippies sitting in the transporter room
Clockwise from center: Dr. Sevrin, a brilliant engineer; Adam, a musician; Tong Rad, son of the Catullan ambassador, who plays drums; nameless blonde musician who plays the stringed wheel; nameless brunette woman; Irina Galliulin, Chekov's former girlfriend.

Spock respects their goals even when he recognizes that Sevrin is manipulative and deceitful. At least three of them are well-educated, talented, and lauded in their fields; we have no reason to suspect the others are random dropouts. These aren't people who have failed at mainstream society and are chasing myths to make up for their inadequacy–rather, they have judged the Federation and found it wanting in soul and harmony. As Spock says, "They regard themselves as aliens in their own worlds… a condition with which I am somewhat familiar."

They have lost their leader and their Eden, but four of them remain, and they need not give up their quest for a peaceful community, away from a technological, regimented society.

We've seen at least two places they could go: One where people can live a mellow and gentle life, but slowly lose their drive for creativity. And one where they could have fantastic adventures, but none of it would be real. Or they can keep searching for a tropical paradise planet that's not full of acid and poison, although any of those in Federation space are likely to be populated ("exploited," I'm sure they'd say) unless there's some reason not to go there.

…Maybe paradise planet is being used as a retirement facility now, and is too commercialized for the hippies. Maybe the Shore Leave planet is restricted – the aliens who run it don't want the Federation trying to figure out their technology. So perhaps they need to look for somewhere else. But on their quest, they can visit other planets and find people looking for a simpler, gentler life.

screen shot of the space hippie, Adam, lying dead on the ground with a half-eaten apple lying next to him
They'll need to find a new lead guitarist.

Five stars (but I'm probably very biased). I loved the music, and that the ending, although touched with tragedy, wasn't "it's all ruined." There's room for hope that someday, they will find their Eden.

Back to the Beginning


by Gideon Marcus

Remember first season Star Trek?  When Kirk was a "a stack of books with legs", stiff and Hornblower-like?  When Spock was cold on the outside, hot on the inside?  When other members of the cast had lines?  When the Enterprise halls were filled with crew members and guests?  When music was a fundamental part of the show?  (viz. Uhura singing in "Charlie X" and "The Conscience of the King")

There are many reasons to like "A Way to Eden", and they are well-represented in the above entries by my colleagues.  But what I loved about the episode the most was that it felt like a return to the Trek I liked best.  After so many episodes in which the characters acted contrary to their nature, when plots were half-baked, when technology was inconsistent, when our favorite vessel seemed sterile and incomplete—finally, the Enterprise feels alive again.

You can even see the relief in the crew.  The fellow guarding the brig was mesmerized listening to that (quite excellent) jam between Spock and the exquisite and talented Deborah Downey.  He must have been just parched for entertainment.  No wonder they all were so susceptible to the influence of One.

screen shot of Spock playing the Vulcan lytherette alongside a zaftig blonde woman in a blue sundress playing what looks like a bicycle wheel
I'd watch this episode of Jazz Casual any day…

Spock's heart-wrenching expression of support of the Edenites' quest, his solidarity with their feeling of alienation within utopia, was worth the price of admission all on its own.  The space hippies weren't characterized as naive, pampered rich kids who didn't know what was good for them.  They are the free spirits for whom middle class American values just don't wash.  A key message of this episode: surely, the Federation must be big enough for them, too.  Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combination, ¿qué no?

And finally, if Charles Napier and Deborah Downey ever release an album of their performances on this show (I can absolutely buy that Adam's space guitar provides perfect acoustics and amplification for his voice), I will be the first in line.  Also, if anyone's started a Deborah Downey fan club, I want to be a charter member.  Otherwise, I might have to make one myself…

Four stars.

[Come join us tonight (February 28th) 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

[Nov. 22, 1968] Bound to thrill (Star Trek: "The Tholian Web")

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The Tholian Threads


by Amber Dubin

This is the episode that fully cemented season 3 in my mind as the highest quality season so far. The special effects were impressive, the costumes were simply spiffy and the pacing and audio were smooth and well-balanced. My only frustration is that it lacked one major connecting thread in the plot, which left it with inconsistencies great enough to turn this otherwise seamless Tholian web into a loose and fraying net.

In a masterful opener, we are dropped in the thick of the action from the very beginning, with the crew staring in concern at all the viewscreens, as they are informed that they have entered a region of space "that appears to be breaking apart." I would have loved an explanation as to what readings led Spock to that conclusion, but everyone else seems to take Spock’s assessment with no further elaboration. Their attention is swiftly caught by the appearance of a marooned Federation Starship, one that Captain Kirk identifies on sight as the U.S.S. Defiant. Wasting no time, he rushes to beam onto it with nearly all the highest ranking officers (you’d think he’d learn that effectively decapitating the chain of command before even assessing the nature of the fate that befell an adrift starship is something he should be a bit more cautious about doing, but it seems he prefers learning the hard way yet again). When Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Chekov beam over to the other starship, we see that they have at least learned to take the small precaution of contamination reduction suits this time.


But they don't decontaminate them when they come back to the Enterprise—well, perhaps that's part of the transporter beaming now.

In a sequence of events that should surprise no one at this point, the danger that annihilated the Defiant's crew begins to affect the away team right away. Just as we saw just two weeks ago in “Day of the Dove,” Chekov starts being influenced by a violent murderous madness, and just as the ensign did in “The Naked Time,” he tells no one of his symptoms before bringing a contagion back to the ship with him. Meanwhile in the Defiant’s sickbay, Dr. McCoy makes an immediate and even more disturbing observation when crewmen and objects on the ship phase out of existence as he tries to touch them. Thankfully, Kirk at least treats this threat with the appropriate level of alarm, and immediately orders a retreat to the Enterprise, but it appears to be too late, as whatever forces seem to be affecting the dissolution of the Defiant cause the ship to disappear while the captain is separated from the away team, mid beaming sequence.


The chicken-soup dispenser has become a tricorder device.

The focus now shifts to the delicate dance of keeping the ship in close enough proximity to the Defiant to make another attempt at retrieving the captain while managing to keep the ship in one piece as it withstands the conditions of this volatile section of space. Confusingly, Spock attempts to explain what's happening with vague multiphasic pseudo-science. He says the computer can calculate the pattern in which our universe and the Defiant's overlap with enough regularity that he speculates that the defunct ship will reappear in two hours. Here, he muddies the waters by throwing in noncommittal statements like “the dimensions are totally dissimilar and any use of power disturbs it,” that made me so frustrated with his vagueness that I agreed with Chekov's violent outburst that interrupted it.


"The science in this episode is too confusing!"

The writers decide here that the episode needs even more tension, choosing this moment for the Tholians to zoom into view. Seeking, too late, to guard this unstable portion of space, an alien ship containing beings calling themselves the Tholians hails the Enterprise demanding an explanation for their trespassing and requesting they leave the area immediately. Spock negotiates the calculated amount of time he requires to interact with the Defiant again. When Spock’s calculations prove erroneous, the Tholians swiftly open fire on the Enterprise, feeling as if they were maliciously deceived. Following a brief fire-fight, the Enterprise and the Tholians end up disabling each other, and the Tholians retreat and enact a new strategy to defeat the Enterprise, gathering reinforcements and using several ships to slowly build a web of energy beams.

As if there wasn't enough going on with this intergalactic battle, at the same time, McCoy is engaged in a battle of his own against the interphasic space madness affecting Chekov and the crew. He sets about the monumental task of medically creating an internal shield to barely comprehensible degradative forces, much as we've seen him do in “Miri” and “The Deadly Years.”


"Physician, heal thyself!"

Spock takes this lull in the immediate external danger to officially declare Captain Kirk dead, and he holds a brief, ship-wide funeral service for him. Dr. McCoy drags Spock very reluctantly to an audience with Kirk’s recorded Will and rather unnecessarily takes an opportunity to try to bully, insult, and squeeze an emotional reaction out of Spock. It seems as if this is another one of their typical disputes, but when Kirk’s voice rings out through his tapes, counseling them to stop bickering, it feels as if he’s reaching out from beyond the grave to bring home the gravity of the situation they are in. McCoy immediately apologizes, noting, "It hurts, doesn't it?" In the tense silence where Spock replies softly "What would you have me say, Doctor?" The scene is suddenly imbued with a surprisingly beautiful tenderness that only the shared grief that the loss of a captain and dear, true friend could elicit.


"I can't leave you two alone for five minutes!"

In yet another tonal shift, we find that it's Uhura who helps solve the mystery of their still interdimensionally traveling Captain, as she is first to see his “shadow” phasing in her mirror. One by one, the crew begins sharing in what Uhura had thought to be her own personal hallucination, and they realize Kirk is still alive on a plane of existence that is erratically phasing with ours. Here, the plot seems to completely unravel for me. Apparently a phaser beam punched a hole through the dimensional veil and Kirk got through and somehow also another hole is about to open in the Tholian Web that the Enterprise can slip through while also scooping up Captain Kirk in one fluid movement. Also McCoy discovers the cure for the rabid space sickness (which, truly, why does that matter if they are all about to leave this space in 20 minutes?) and Scotty takes it to his quarters to drink it down like it’s a cocktail mixer rather than an anti-interdimensional-radiation medicine.


"Subtle, yet bold!"

The rest of the episode rushes to a “just because” conclusion, only necessary because they had loaded the story up too much in the beginning. If the SFnal concepts had been more simplistic like “colliding space eddies,” and they hadn’t re-used the space madness subplot so soon, or even if they had taken another moment to acknowledge how emotionally compassionate it was of Spock to make time for a memorial service in the midst of a crisis out of deference to his human subordinates, the episode could have come to a more settled conclusion. Instead, the final scenes collide and coalesce into a sudden messy slop.


The Enterprise escapes the Tholian web 'with a mighty leap.'

In total, the quality of this episode's elements was excellent, but could have stood to benefit from a couple more minutes of editing. Maybe a few more threads woven into web of this plot would have been enough to ensnare my full endorsement of it

4 stars.

Tangled up in Interspace


by Trini Stewart

“The Tholian Web” completely enveloped me in its tense atmosphere this week, largely because I had to watch helplessly as my favorite character, our dearly beloved Spock, faced nearly insurmountable challenges as captain. Spock had to defuse so many high-pressure situations simultaneously that were overwhelming just to imagine, and each aspect of Kirk’s complicated rescue was painfully resolved on the thinnest of ice (to no fault of Spock’s careful guidance).

Other than the strain of having to hinge everyone’s lives on multiple close calls, perhaps the most problematic facet of Spock’s predicament was McCoy’s aggressive response to Spock’s leadership. Acting as a foil to Spock’s calm and focused responses, McCoy persistently questioned and blamed their dire straits on Spock, who had to spend precious time defending his decisions as he urged that they press on. I’ll be the first to admit that, if it were anyone else besides Spock in charge of weighing the risks of Kirk’s rescue, I too would insist that we save the crew while the ship could still leave.


Spock—the best man for the job.

Still, I couldn’t tell if McCoy was just completely distraught by Kirk’s being lost, or if he was influenced by the interspace deterioration to some degree, but I was hurt to see Spock at odds with a partner he can usually trust when he needed him most. My bias will ultimately lie with Spock’s reliability to make the best decision available in any given situation, and I wish that despite the intense circumstances, McCoy had at least conceded to work together with Spock once the ship was down. It was a pretty low blow to assume Spock meant to endanger everyone to secure his captain status, especially after Spock explained his reasoning perfectly.

Thankfully for everyone, Kirk had predicted exactly how the two officers would interact, and he gave them just the sobering insight they needed to cooperate peacefully. I loved that Spock was reminded that McCoy was there to help when matters couldn’t be resolved by his best judgment alone. It was equally sweet (and satisfying) to see Kirk remind McCoy that Spock could make human mistakes too, right after McCoy made a rude remark about Spock’s Vulcan half.

All in all, I loved this entire episode with its suspenseful atmosphere, satisfying characterization, and well-earned resolution. I can only imagine how long-time fans must have enjoyed this episode knowing the characters’ history with one another!

4.5 stars.

Our Little Vulcan’s Growing Up


by Andrea Castaneda

It has been a while since I've caught an episode of Star Trek. In fact, the last episode I watched was “Amok Time”, in which we saw a glimpse of Mr. Spock’s vulnerable side. So I'm glad the show I finally found time for was “The Tholian Web”, featuring our favorite Vulcan in a leadership role. I was happy to see another glimpse of this stoic character. And indeed, compared to how he was in season one (which I got to see fairly regularly), we’ve seen a lot of character growth in how he leads a mission and communicates with his crew.

We first saw Spock’s role as a leader in season one’s “Galileo Seven”. In it, he and other crew members were sent to scout a newly discovered planet. Through twists of fate, they are left stranded, alone, and facing a hostile native species.

When one crew member dies, Spock insists they spare no time to respect their fallen comrade, focusing on finding a way home. It’s logical to him, but it sparks ire amongst the crew members, thus sowing seeds of discontent. As they search for a way back, the crew continues to be uncooperative and critical of his orders, save for Scotty. Here, it’s Spock’s lack of understanding human emotion that jeopardizes their mission. Despite the “illogical” nature of the situation, his crew members want their grief respected. And while we, the audience, understand Spock does what he thinks is best, one can understand why the crew sees him as “cold”.

By season three, he seems to have learned from this experience. In “The Tholian Web”, while he remains calm and collected when faced with Kirk's death, he chooses to spend a moment to hold a brief but effective memorial service. It is done very much in Spock's way, but it shows how the Vulcan first officer is able to empathize with his crew. And the gesture pays off. Despite one crewmember going mad during the service, it seems to solidify Spock's position as new leader. The members of the Enterprise— save for McCoy– respect his orders, call him "Captain", and do not question him, showing how much he’s earned their trust.


Spock, having learned from experience, foregoes the traditional comedy monologue.

Another stark contrast is how his attitude shifts from “saving the village above all” to “no man left behind”. In “The Galileo Seven”, after scrimping together repairs to get their shuttle into orbit, Spock states that the crew should go on without him if he is compromised. And inevitably, Spock is incapacitated right as the shuttle lifts off. The surviving crew members rescue him despite his insistence to go on. It’s a heroic act, but one that costs them their window of opportunity to leave. Because of that, he scolds them for it and they respond with frustration. (But worry not; they make it to the Enterprise in the end.)

In “The Tholian Web”, Spock seems to take the opposite approach. When faced with the prospect of losing Kirk, he risks the Enterprise’s escape window for the chance to save Kirk. I should note that one can interpret this as Spock making a special exception for their captain. But I choose to believe Kirk’s ideals have rubbed off on him. Right on cue, he receives much criticism from McCoy, who is being particularly prickly even for him. Their banter serves as a good vocalization for what the audience might be thinking. But it was interesting seeing the logical Vulcan take the riskier approach. I will say, Spock’s choice does endanger the rest of the crew–the very thing he was trying to avoid in “Galileo Seven”. But once again, I think it shows how much Kirk has influenced him.

In the end, the gamble pays off. Kirk is rescued, the Enterprise escapes, and everyone goes on to explore another day.

Indeed, this episode can be interpreted as a better evolved version of the “Galileo Seven”. The stakes were higher, there were more plot elements in play, and the alien species they faced was more threatening. The story kept me guessing and didn’t have predictable moments (despite the ending being a tad bit convenient.) It was a delight to see how Spock not only survived but thrived as a leader. I very much look forward to seeing how Spock will continue to develop, both as a leader and as a true friend to the Enterprise.

Five stars

Behind the scenes


by Gideon Marcus

Back in the first season, the Enterprise was a living, breathing entity with 430 varied souls on board.  Over the course of the show, the focus has shifted sharply onto The Big Three (viz. last episode, in which the starship might as well have been the personal vehicle of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy a la Peter's woody in The Mod Squad).

This week, we saw a bit of the old Enterprise, the kind we haven't seen since "Balance of Terror", really.  There were some 30-40 people at Kirk's (premature) funeral, lots of people in engineering, McCoy's lab, on the bridge.  There were enough people that department heads could, rightly, not spend all of their moments doing hands-on work.  Uhura got to take a few minutes off, which we haven't seen since her impromptu concert with Spock in "The Conscience of the King" (the enforced hiatus in "The Changeling" doesn't count).

Interestingly, this actually turned Lorelei off a bit, so used is she to the more-than-one-braid-on-their-sleeves stars and co-stars doing all the work.  But I'll never criticize a show for getting things right.  Now if they can just get some trained Marines to beam ashore instead of the ship's senior complement…


A Tholian spins its web.  Note: not to scale (this is supposed to be "out of phaser range".)

Anyway, I loved this episode, from beginning to end.  It took a bunch of somewhat familiar elements, mixed them with some new ones, and tied them all together with the thread of Spock's first real command.  It reminded me a bit of a second-season Burke's Law episode where Captain Amos Burke goes on vacation, and the rest of his team have to solve a case without him.  Kirk's absence gives "The Tholian Web" room to breathe (even as he suffocates).  This enhances the poignancy of his taped final orders to Spock and Bones.

I loved getting to see Sulu cradle Chekov's head after the navigator goes mad (they do love to hear him scream).  I loved seeing Uhura mourn for the Captain, seeing her in her quarters!  And we see Spock's quarters again, too.  Scotty, McCoy, and Spock enjoy a drink together before the engineer takes the bottle of cure away to share it with someone else—probably Kevin Riley.

And I always love getting to see another starship, even if they are inevitably in distress.  Somehow, each has its own unique flavor, even though they always use the same sets.  Finally, I loved meeting the Tholians, an attempt at a true alien race.


In Communist Red, no less…

Never mind the brilliant special effects, the superlative acting, the real tension, even knowing Kirk was going to live (as he must, and as we saw in the preview; this was a negative point for Lorelei, too).

Thus, I can give this episode no less than five stars.  Frankly, Season 3 has been, so far, my favorite season yet.

[Come join us tonight (November 22nd) 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

[November 8, 1968] A Diplomatic Tiger by the Tail ("Day of the Dove")

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by Amber Dubin

As a Captain, James T. Kirk has always been known more as a soldier than a diplomat. In the same way that Captain Kirk was forced to move past his initial, violent, problem-solving instincts in "Spectre of a Gun," here, yet another great and powerful alien species drops the crew of the Enterprise into direct contact with a combative, unreasonable opponent, making him take a "diplomatic tiger by the tail" that Captain Kirk must use every tool in his skill set to tame.

The setup is masterfully crafted from the very beginning by what appears to be a solitary alien made of pure energy that presents as a wheel of twinkling lights. Twinkling alien energy, who I will refer to from now on as TAE, is not invisible, but takes pains to silently hover just out of direct line of sight from every group of combatants it takes interest in. The Enterprise does not notice TAE on its first appearance when they beam down to an uninhabited planet, searching for what was supposed to be the ruins of a recently destroyed colony described in a distress signal. Chekov remarks, in confusion, that his readings indicate that there was no evidence of a colony nor an attack. Before the crew has time to process this information, Sulu chimes in over the communicator, warning him that a Klingon ship is approaching. Said ship immediately starts showing signs of distress, quickly becoming disabled by internal explosions to which the Enterprise made no contribution.

Commander Kang, the Klingon starship captain, makes no attempt to understand his situation; he beams down and decks Captain Kirk, yelling that since the federation has committed an act of war against the Klingons by killing 400 of his crew and disabling his ship, he is owed command of the Enterprise. TAE glows a menacing red color, apparently delighted with the increase in hostility. Thus the stage is set before the first credits roll of this episode.


The episode's opening salvo

Captain Kirk displays his newfound diplomatic skills, engaging in dialogue with someone whose assault just knocked him flat on his back. When Kang again demands that Kirk cede control of the Enterprise, our captain calmly replies, “go to the Devil.” Kang smoothly retorts “We have no Devil, Kirk, but we understand the habits of yours,“ whom he intends to emulate by torturing crewmen until Kirk hands over control of his ship.

Suddenly, a strange look comes over Chekov’s face and he jumps at the Klingon commander, practically volunteering to be first on the torture block, incoherently yelling about needing revenge for his brother, Pyotr, who had been killed on the colony they never found. In another clever manipulation, Captain Kirk gets Kang to agree to cease torturing Chekov by promising to beam the Klingons aboard the Enterprise, assuring him that there will be no tricks once they are on the ship. Of course, phrasing it like this left a loophole where he wouldn’t be lying if beaming the Klingons up was the trick—they are stuck in stasis until guards can round them up. Back on the Enterprise, Kirk quarantines the angry Klingon landing party with their distressed ship's remaining crewmen stranded.


A gaggle of steaming-mad Klingons

Before our heroes can figure out what’s going, the Enterprise crewmen start falling one by one under the same spell of violent madness that seized Chekov down on the colony site. Unlike with the Klingon crewmen, this wave of violence is very out of character for the Enterprise crew, and they turn on each other using racist, species-ist and otherwise highly offensive rhetoric against each other, the likes of which hasn’t been used on earth in centuries at this point. Chekov even goes on a slathering rampage where he outright defies Captain Kirk and goes to attack the Klingons to avenge his slain brother. This strangeness becomes particularly significant when Sulu declares that Chekov doesn’t even have a brother, as he's an only child.


Chekov disobeys a direct order.

Captain Kirk does the best job of fighting through the madness in order to refocus each crewman one by one towards finding out the root of the issue at hand. It is eventually surmised that TAE is on board, spurring the crewmen to fight and feeding off the negative emotions when its manipulations work and they get at each other’s throats. It is soon discovered that TAE is even more dangerous than originally feared, as it not only can influence the memories and emotions of its victims, but it also has the ability to warp reality itself, healing the scars of the wounded and turning nearly every object at everyone’s disposal into swords, deliberately making every weapon just inefficient enough to prolong conflict and minimize potential fatalities.


Bread and circuses, redux.

In typical Kirk fashion, the seriousness of TAE’s threat doesn’t fully hit him until a female is affected; Kang’s wife, his ship's Science Officer, gets separated from the rest of the group and is set-upon by a completely rabid Chekov. He rips her clothes, but thankfully is interrupted by Kirk and the bridge crew before he can go further. Kirk is justifiably horrified that TAE would be more than willing to push his crew towards that kind of violence. After incapacitating Chekov, Kirk entreats Kang’s wife to join him in uniting her husband and the rest of the Klingons against the real enemy; and it is with great difficulty that he does finally change Kang’s mind and get him to call the rest of the Klingons to a truce. In the end, it’s Kang’s words that finally eject TAE from the ship, as he taunts ”we need no urging to hate humans… only a fool fights in a burning house”


United in defiance.

While it is obvious to see that this episode is once again making a political commentary of our time, this one doesn't rub me the wrong way because the character foils have been fleshed out enough to be likable. Straw men have a tendency to be hollow and weak, but Kang and his wife Mara are anything but that. The Klingons may be violent and aggressive on their face, but they justify their actions with a strong moral backbone and end up proving themselves capable of being reasoned with. Michael Ansara's tremendous presence of voice and body does a phenomenal job of making Commander Kang a formidable yet worthy foe. No slouch herself, Mara shows that she is a leader in her own right, making Kirk work almost as hard to change her mind as her husband's, along the way making some very solid points about Klingon foreign policy. If anything, the Klingons are made to be anti-heroes rather than villains, and in constantly having to take their side against his own men, Kirk shows us the value of humanizing one's enemy, even when that enemy is not human at all.

5 stars.


by Janice L. Newman

When entertainment takes a stance on politics or morality, it’s often a recipe for a bad story. There are plenty of classic parables and fables, of course, but when popular television gets involved in such things sometimes the lesson feels shoehorned in or the plot feels warped around the ‘message’ the writer wanted to send. For example, The Omega Glory and A Private Little War were both attempts to make a point about current political situations, and both were subpar episodes.

“Day of the Dove”, on the other hand, does it right.

This is not a subtle story, yet it maintains a clever mystery plot and dramatic tension right up to the end. The denouement carries a powerful message that I found both shocking and welcome. Shocking, because I didn’t expect to see such blatant anti-war sentiments expressed on prime-time TV. [Janice doesn't watch the Smothers Bros. (ed)] Welcome, because I feel the same way.

There are plenty of intense moments throughout the episode, but the message can be summed up in a few lines of dialogue:

KIRK: All right. All right. In the heart. In the head. I won't stay dead. Next time I'll do the same to you. I'll kill you. And it goes on, the good old game of war, pawn against pawn! Stopping the bad guys. While somewhere, something sits back and laughs and starts it all over again.
MCCOY: Let's jump him.
SPOCK: Those who hate and fight must stop themselves, Doctor. Otherwise, it is not stopped.
MARA: Kang, I am your wife. I'm a Klingon. Would I lie for them? Listen to Kirk. He is telling the truth.
KIRK: Be a pawn, be a toy, be a good soldier that never questions orders.
(Kang looks at the weird light, then throws down his sword.)
KANG: Klingons kill for their own purposes.

(Transcript courtesey of chakoteya.)

There is so much conveyed within these few lines. In the context of the rest of the episode, they inspire all sorts of thoughts and questions:

“Question orders.” “Is it wrong to participate in unjust wars?” “Who is benefitting from our wars?” “Who stands to profit and has a vested interest in keeping a war going?” “Are the people with a vested interest also in authority? Do they have control over those in authority?” “Refuse to fight if a war is wrong.” “War may always be wrong.” “Total pacifism may be a possible path.” “If we do not stop hating and fighting, the hating and fighting will not stop.”

These are messages which, if spelled out clearly in almost any other kind of television show, would be unlikely to be allowed on the air. At a time when young men who choose to flee the country rather than accept being drafted are being convicted of treason, telling people to question orders and refuse to fight is risky. Yet the futuristic setting provided by science fiction makes it possible to convey these ideas without the hidebound network pulling the plug or insisting that it be changed. I’m just stunned that Gene Roddenberry let it through, especially after his reputed heavy influence on the script for A Private Little War. I’m not saying I want Star Trek to turn into a ‘message’ show, but I wouldn’t mind a few more episodes like this.

Five stars.

A Third Party


by Lorelei Marcus

As Janice put it, “Day of the Dove” is a ‘message episode’. It’s there to tell you something about life today under the guise of the possible future. Yet unlike my compatriots who saw a cautionary tale of ceaseless fighting in Vietnam and the larger Cold War behind it, I saw a different war entirely.

Star Trek has rarely shown racial tensions between humans and aliens of the Federation. When it is done, it’s for a very specific purpose, like Kirk aggravating Spock in This Side of Paradise. Even the Federation’s disdain for the Romulans and Klingons has less to do with xenophobia and more the fact that neither will agree to reasonable peace terms. Hence why the blatant hatred between not only human and Klingon, but also human and Vulcan, is so jarringly effective in this episode.

Star Trek is the ideal, bigotry-free future—Uhura and Sulu and even Chekov on the bridge are proof of that—but “Day of the Dove” is the closest it gets to reflecting the ugliness of racial tensions in our own world. Cloaked in the veneer of alien and human terms, I saw the hostility and lack of compromise inherent to the Democratic Convention this year, the hatred from man to man over superficial traits.


A scene from the Democratic convention—taken from the Nixon ad that aired during the episode.

Most of all, I saw small prejudices being stoked and inflamed by an outside force, turning anger boiling hot until it nearly exploded into bloody violence. I know that too well. Every step towards peace and equality we take gets slid back when another Wallace or Nixon comes along. Every injustice we commit against the Black man is another reason for him to take a rifle to the streets. Every school that fails to integrate is a generation of Whites who can’t see past the color of skin. And yet, that’s just how Wallace and his ilk want it. They benefit from it.


Wallace preaching hatred from the pulpit.

Perhaps that’s the scariest part: at least in the show, the alien seems to be fomenting hatred out of a need to feed, a necessity. Our politicians do it in the complete service of self-interest. And with the results of the election, tragically, we seem to be dancing right in the palms of their hands.

I often see shades of our world reflected in Star Trek, but never so viscerally. 4 stars.

Go to the Devil


by Joe Reid

“Day of the Dove” was this week’s episode of Star Trek.  On first reading that title it evoked religious themes in my mind.  I wondered if Star Trek was getting preachy again, the dove being the Christian representation of the Holy Spirit.  Like in “Bread and Circuses” where the crew was jubilant that the people of the planet worshiped the son of God.  When TV shows try to pass on spiritual virtues, they tend to do it in a ham-fisted way.  “Day of the Dove”, although not perfect, does a decent job passing on two themes that I learned in my own religious training.  One from the book of Ephesians, chapter 6, verse 12.  The other from First Peter, chapter 5, verse 8.  So permit me to put on my chaplain's robes as I explore the religious themes I saw in “Day of the Dove”.

Ephesians 6:12 says, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” The crew of the Enterprise and that of the Klingon ship were made to think that they were enemies.  Expertly manipulated and set upon by another, with the intent to have them fight.  The real enemy was the outside force.  A powerful alien entity that understood the fears, thoughts, emotions, and technology of each side to create opportunities for conflict.  This scripture I quoted explains that no flesh and blood human is your enemy; we are all victims of outside forces that use us against one another.  As hard as it was for Kirk and Kang to see that they were being used, it is so much harder for all of us to see that we are literally killing ourselves when we raise arms to harm others.  All that does is satisfy the real enemy, that of our very souls.

The second verse that came to mind in this episode, 1 Peter 5:8 says, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour”.  At the start of the episode, Kirk told Kang to “Go to the devil!” when Kang slapped Kirk, accusing him of crimes, claiming the Enterprise.  As they left that planet, we saw that Kang didn’t have to go to the devil, because a space devil went back to the ship with them.  The alien, always near the action, remained just out of sight.  It stalked the crew, looking for minds to twist to meet its ends.  Kirk displayed powerful sobriety, breaking free from the influence of the alien.  Although he could not see the alien, he was able to know of its presence and resist its influence.  The message for us is that it takes sober vigilance to prevent wrong actions that may damage other’s lives.  It was awareness of the enemy that helped Kirk stay disaster; it may be awareness that people are not the enemy that may help us.


Kirk prepares to preach to the choir.

This episode read like a sermon.  One that encouraged brotherhood over bitterness.  Which brings us to the close of the episode and yet another verse that came to my mind watching it.  That was James 4:7. “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” This was the method Kirk and Kang used to get rid of the unwanted alien influence.  They stopped giving it what it wanted, stopped seeing each other as the enemy and told their dancehall mirror ball devil to leave the ship.  With both Kirk and Kang saying GO to their devil.

In conclusion, “Day of the Dove” was well acted.  It had great costumes and good characterizations of all characters.  Sadly, the dialogue at one point was filled with exposition, explaining to the audience what the alien was even though no one explained it to them, which I never love.  It caused me to knock the score down a couple of points, but that is to be expected when TV shows—and reviewers—get preachy.

Three stars

Only in the movies


by Gideon Marcus

Despite being a show set in the far future of the 22nd Century, Star Trek has always employed themes from our current era.  This has never been truer than in episodes involving the Klingons, the chief adversary of the Federation for which Kirk's Enterprise is employed.

In Errand of Mercy, we saw Commander Kor and Captain Kirk stand shoulder to shoulder, united in their defiance of the superpowerful Organians, who had the temerity to deprive them of their "right" to fight.  The threat of the Organians to demolish both adversaries should they escalate their conflict to a general war, was very much a metaphor for the atomic bomb—specifically the newly minted concept of "Mutual Assured Destruction."

Thus, "The Trouble with Tribbles", "Friday's Child", and "A Private Little War"—the Klingons and Federation now fight proxy wars, engage in cloak and dagger exploits, and occasionally skirmish one-on-one.  That last title was very much a product of last year, when it looked like we might "win" in Vietnam.  Kirk asserted that the only way to prosecute the conflict on the planet of Neural was to arm the hill people so they remain at parity with the Klingon-aided townsfolks.

Contrast that to "Day of the Dove".  Kirk and the Klingon commander (beautifully portrayed by "Mr. Barbara Eden", Michael Ansara) once more stand back to back, but they are resisting the urge to fight.  It is a beautiful bit of synchronicity that LBJ the night before airdate announced a full bombing pause on Vietnam after three years of incessance.  I watched the episode with tears in my eyes: for once, the hope matched the reality.  Maybe we were going to stop the cycle of violence after all.


Would that it could always be this easy.

But Trek is science fiction, and we still live in the real world.  Dick Nixon won the election this week, South Vietnam has retracted its willingness to participate in the Paris peace talks, and the beat goes on.

This is the second episode in a row (the first being "Spectre of the Gun") that has featured a new Kirk, a diplomat first and a soldier second.  I like this new Kirk.  I worry that he will run afoul of his superiors, increasingly conflicted, as John Drake was when working for MI6, ultimately becoming The Prisoner.  But at least he's fighting for peace, a fight I can 100% get behind.

It's not a perfect episode, a little heavy-handed in parts, but boy did it resonate.

Four stars. 

[Come join us tonight (November 8th) 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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Movies

[June 22, 1968] The Devil, you say (Rosemary's Baby)

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by Amber Dubin

It seems appropriate to mention expectations when discussing a film with such a pregnant subject matter (pun intended). Mine were fairly low to start because I am not a fan of horror movies. This is because the scares from horror films usually suffer two major foibles: the ridiculous and the cliché. Outside of Halloween festivities, I have little patience for silly looking, poorly costumed monsters. I also dislike when a film relies too heavily on violent/grotesque imagery to get a rise out of its audience. It was through this biased lens that I viewed Rosemary's Baby; though I went in expecting disappointment, predictability and lack of inspiration or fear, I was proven wrong on all counts. Rosemary's Baby has a spine chilling relatability that creeped into my psyche and won me over, despite my pessimistic attitude toward it. It has the uniqueness and incontrovertibly high quality writing that give it all the makings of a timeless horror classic.

The slow boil of discomfort begins as we open to an off-putting lullaby, mournfully serenading the viewer as we zoom into a gloomy, dismal, old city skyline. The first couple of scenes increase the viewer's sense of unease by limping along at a clunky and awkward pace into a world that just barely makes sense. The young newlywed couple at the center of the story, Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and Guy Woodhouse (John Cassavetes), are introduced as they enthusiastically acquire an apartment even though it's clearly run down, overstuffed and not move-in ready at all. Their reactions continue to be disjointed from reality in the subsequent scenes as we are introduced to their old and new friends. They proceed to have very awkward and/or inappropriate conversations with each of them, starting with Hutch (the family friend who brings up some very odd subjects over dinner) and ending with a first meeting with their neighbor Terry (who wastes absolutely no time launching into her sordid past of drug abuse with someone she has not even known for a full hour over laundry with Rosemary). The couple proves to have similar lack of social grace around each other, when their first night they spend at their creepy new apartment, they are eating off a blanket on the floor because they have no curtains or furniture and Rosemary awkwardly declares, "Say! Let's make love" completely apropos of nothing. Personally, I think the subsequent silent disrobing and intertwining of bodies to be not only shocking, but (and deliberately) decidedly un-sexy.


Not the models for marital bliss

It comes to pass that all this awkwardness is by design, as it serves to innure the viewer for strangeness that piles on with every scene and every new character introduced. Like the proverbial frog that gets cooked alive in slowly boiling water, both Rosemary and the viewer are slowly made comfortable with painfully uncomfortable circumstances, and we don't realize what's happening until it's too late.

In the first shock of the movie, the couple go on a late night stroll in order to avoid over-hearing what sounds like chanting coming through the paper-thin walls. As they return from their ramble, they are shocked to find a crowd surrounding the bloody corpse of Terry, the overly chatty girl Rosemary met earlier at the laundry. The elderly couple that Terry was living with react normally to her sudden "suicide" at first: expressing shock and grief when they introduce themselves to the Woodhouses as their neighbors, the Casavets. The next day, however, when Mrs. Casavet appears at Rosemary's door, her behavior is anything but normal. The older woman barges into Rosemary's place and goes through it like she owns it, speaking in nonsensical run-on sentences that are off putting and yet Rosemary doesn't react at all. Yet most unnerving is when she casually mentions having Terry cremated and bequeaths Rosemary with Terry's foul-smelling "good luck charm" that must not have been lucky enough because Terry was still wearing it when she died.


Dead women's necklaces make great house-warming gifts

It is with this bizarre house-warming gift that the Casavets begin their campaign to integrate themselves into every waking moment of Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse's lives. Guy is initially reluctant to even meet them, but once he and Mr. Casavet bond over cigars they become fast friends. Bizarrely, Guy becomes so close with the septuagenarian at one point that he begins going over their neighbor's house even without Rosemary with him. It is important to note here that, for me, the most upsetting part about this movie is the way the Woodhouses talk to each other. Like many couples, they at first appear to be hopelessly in love, but as you get to know them throughout the film, their relationship is rotten to its core. Guy proves himself to be a selfish, mean, horrible man. Rosemary, in her desperate attempt to justify her continued adoration of him, consistently makes excuses for his bad behavior. The most egregious example of this dynamic comes when they decide to start trying for a baby (basically so that Rosemary will have something to do when Guy is off auditioning for roles). By apparent coincidence, the first night they are set to start trying, Rosemary's neighbor gives her a homemade dessert that makes her almost collapse afterwards.


If you ever find yourself waking up like this, it's time for a divorce

The following night Rosemary is in a fitful sleep where she dreams of being assaulted by the devil while all of her neighbors stand around her naked and chanting. She wakes up naked and sore with her back scratched up and when questioned, her husband says he 'didn't want to miss the baby-making night.' I had an almost identical level of revulsion as Rosemary when faced with the realization that her husband would take such liberties over her body without her knowledge or consent. It turns out that night marked the conception of a very difficult pregnancy, one which not only sees the steep decline in their marriage, but also Rosemary's sanity and health, while she slowly becomes completely subjugated by the incessant presence of the Casavets in her life. Bounced between her husband and her intrusive neighbor, her self-esteem is whittled down to nothing as she is constantly insulted and isolated from her own family and friends. Her husband refuses to look her in the eye for weeks, and when she gets an adorable haircut to feel more fashionable, the first thing out of his mouth is "You look horrible! This is the worst decision you've made." Ever the non-supportive, selfish man she married, Guy uses her new "hideous" hairstyle to ignore her even more as her pregnancy progresses, throwing himself into his acting career as if nothing else matters.


Despite being thoroughly mod, this look deeply displeased Rosemary's husband

Rosemary's husband and neighbors add insult to injury when they convince her to change the doctor she goes to for regular check ups, and he repeatedly ignores her pleas for help when she has unusual pains, telling her every concern she has is in her head. At one point, she rebels, throwing a huge house party with friends she hasn't seen in years, against the wishes of her oppressors. Her friends are appropriately horrified to see what she looks like, seeing how pale she is and how sunken her eyes. Breaking down into tears, she confesses that she's been in horrible pain since the beginning of her pregnancy and can't believe this level of agony is normal.

Her friends literally lock her husband out of the room and validate all of her fears, telling her how her husband and Doctor are treating her is not at all normal and she needs to get out of there as soon as possible. It appears to already be too late, however, as when the pain lessens the next day, she second-guesses her friends and settles into the routine set by everyone else in her life. The way this party resolves reveals itself to be the first in a trend of stranger and stranger happenings in the background of Rosemary's pregnancy. Little by little, every contradictory voice in her life is silenced, beginning with the party go-ers and ending with Hutch the family friend from the beginning.


A desperate call for help that goes unanswered

Hutch's re-entry into Rosemary's life triggers a headlong fall down a rabbit hole of conspiratorial theories and occult explanations for the increasingly bizarre behavior of Rosemary's doctor, neighbors and husband. Within hours of his visit to Rosemary's house, he vows to do research on her neighbors and then almost immediately falls into a coma he never wakes up from. Speaking from beyond the grave, he wills her a book about witches, filled with secret messages implying that the Casavets belong to a well established coven that's been in the area for ages. Thus ensues a Rosemary's frantic bout of research, which leaves the viewer wondering whether she's actually figuring out what's going on or completely losing her mind.

The moment of truth comes when she finally presents her findings to a new doctor, only for him to turn her over to the custody of her original doctor and her husband, as a raving lunatic. She is instantly proven right in her suspicions, though when she gets home and the entire coven is in her apartment and descends upon her, pinning her to her own bed by sheer force of numbers. Horrifyingly, she is induced into a coma by her mad-scientist doctor, and when she wakes again she is told she birthed and lost the baby. Because she rightfully believes no one around her at this point, she starts deceiving her captors by pretending to take the "medicine" they feed her and feigning ignorance as to why they take her breast milk "to be thrown in the trash." After days of placating them, she arms herself with a huge kitchen knife and follows the crying noises she's been overhearing sporadically through the walls. She finds an entrance to the neighbor's apartment in the back of one of her closets and stumbles into a room full of people gathered for a baby shower that she wasn't invited to.


Mia Farrow out-doing herself

In the performance of a lifetime, Mia Farrow approaches the black curtained bassinet adorned with an upside down cross in the center of the room. Leaning over its side, her eyes absolutely bulge out of their sockets in an expression of pure, abject terror. Recoiling, she screams, "what did you do to its eyes?!" The gathered crowd enthusiastically exclaim that her child has its father's eyes and erupt into a cacophony of "Hail Satan"s. Dazed, Rosemary stumbles around the room, receiving no comfort from the callous scheming coven as they alternatively mock and jeer at her. Her husband even has the nerve to come up to her and tell her why he signed them up to this whole situation, explaining that "it'll just be as if you lost the baby" and "this will be so good for my career." I believe Rosemary speaks for all of us by promptly spitting in the man's face and shutting him up. In the end, she tentatively approaches the bassinet again because one of the other party guests is shaking it too hard and causing the infant within to cry. You can see the heartbreaking mixture of confusion, fear and motherly love play across Rosemary's face as she resigns herself to some level of acceptance of this situation and the same creepy lullaby that began the film croons over us as we fade to black.


A movie for the ages

This film had so many iconic moments and scenes. If this isn't Mia Farrow's break-out role, then I know nothing of quality acting. I expect great things from her in the future. The script, score and plot were also a cut above. I began my viewing thinking it bizarre and ungrounded and within 15 minutes, I was enthralled, on the edge of my seat and just as anxious to find out what fresh Hell Rosemary was going to be subjected to, even as I was disgusted and disturbed by what she had already endured. Rosemary's Baby is a true tribute to the horror genre and made a believer out of this skeptical critic.

5 stars.




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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[April 4, 1968] Time and time again (Star Trek: "Assignment: Earth")

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by Amber Dubin

Time travel is a concept which every science fiction show must one day address. Yet, unlike the plausibly possible science of navigating space-travel, successfully representing time-travel comes with much greater risk, not only of straining credulity, but of destroying continuity: tearing a time-line—or in this case a plot line—to ribbons. "Assignment: Earth", the last episode of Star Trek's second season does a better job of avoiding the pitfalls of "Tomorrow is Yesterday" and "The City on the Edge of Forever," though it is not without its foibles.

We begin with the announcement that the crew has used the technique they discovered by accident in "Tomorrow is Yesterday" to travel to the past, on purpose this time, to the year 1968 in a cultural observation mission. This mission starts going off the rails pretty much immediately as the ship starts to shake violently. Attention is drawn to the transporter room, where it is found that the transporter pad is intercepting a transporter beam of unknown origin.

Upon the pad materializes Robert Lansing as Gary Seven, a mysterious, cat-carrying, super secret agent sent from a distant "advanced civilization" in order to save planet earth. Captain Kirk is immediately suspicious of the man and the tiny silver-collared black cat, and he orders him to surrender himself for observation while they verify his lustrous claims. Seven briefly appears to comply, despite his insistence that he must be allowed to continue to beam down to the planet, or face the annihilation of earth and life as they know it. He suddenly changes his mind and he and the cat, who he refers to as Isis, launch into an attack where he puts down an entire room full of officers and repels even Spock’s Vulcan nerve pinch before being subdued by the stun of Kirk's phaser.

It then follows that Gary Seven possesses powers to back up his claim as earth's clandestine savior. He easily manages to free himself from the brig using a wand that both deactivates force fields and causes officers he targets to fall into very pleasant-looking slumbers.


It beats being judo chopped!

As he's forging a path to his escape as easily as a knife through butter, the senior officers obliviously discuss the plausibility of his claims and the risks to allowing him to carry out his mission. The dilemma, of course, is the paradox faced by all time travelers: not knowing if one's interference will derail or cause the events meant to occur in history as they know it. On the one hand, Seven could be telling the truth and by detaining him they could be dooming humanity to destruction in 1968. On the other hand, coming back to this moment could be a fated occurrence that prevented a lying, intergalactic criminal alien from destroying the earth in the same way. The opinion of the crew seems split down the middle and the discussion goes nowhere. It's worth noting that Isis is completely underestimated throughout, getting cuddled by Spock and allowed to freely roam the ship, despite it being very obvious to this viewer that she is no ordinary feline.


"A most curious creature, Captain. Its trilling seems to have a tranquilizing effect on the human nervous system. Fortunately, of course, I am immune to its effect."

While the crew is distracted, Gary Seven and Isis manage to escape to beam down to their original destination. The episode then shifts from a typical Star Trek episode to a cross between Mission: Impossible, Get Smart! and Mannix, complete with secret agent gadgets, a wise-cracking super computer and a lovely human secretary named Roberta, who's just as charismatic and whip-smart as she is goofy and unique.


At home in the Seven cave.

The supervisory secret agent checks in to his mission to discover that it's all gone wrong and Roberta is there because the agents who hired her and were supposed to be completing the mission were senselessly killed in an automobile accident before they could bring their plans to fruition.


Gary Seven has Roberta Lincoln give dictation to her typewriter.

Thus ensues a cat-and-mouse game between Seven and Isis (who are trying to complete their mission to sabotage a rocket carrying an orbital nuclear bomb) and Kirk and Spock (who are pursuing trepidatiously, not entirely sure whether they should be helping or thwarting the oddly capable team). Roberta's meddling aids both teams in their conflicting missions, culminating in a nail-biting scene where Kirk makes the last minute decision to trust Seven in the end, and the agent swiftly causes a nuclear warhead to detonate harmlessly in mid-air, thus scaring the world out of participating in a fatal arms race.


A genuinely gripping face-off.

The Enterprise's crew then confirms in their history banks that the time-line has been restored and their interference was actually predicted by the details of the event as recorded in history. This episode does not suffer from a rushed nonsensical 'it was all a dream' ending like "Tomorrow is Yesterday," nor did it have the dissatisfying 'they were never there' conclusion of "The City on the Edge of Forever." Instead, this explanation reflects my favorite and most plausible time travel theory: that contamination is impossible because all actions successfully completed by time travellers were fated to occur because they have always occurred and will always occur exactly as they did.

Overall, I'd say this episode passes muster. I only had two personal arguments with it: First, it seemed like Nimoy was the only actor on set who knew how to hold a cat. The cat seemed to begrudgingly tolerate Lansing but it was only purring in Nimoy's arms (I agree, cat). Second, the fact that they chose 1968 as the "most volatile in earth's history" was clearly an arbitrary decision to make a more comfortable crossover with Lansing's backdoor pilot set in modern times.

I'd say in the Star Trek time-line, the Eugenics Wars/WW3 seem like a much more volatile time in earth's history, and I'd argue that they could gain much more insights from directly observing WW1 or WW2. I didn’t like how the author just left a naked bias towards the particular year chosen which I felt could be easily covered up using an easily fictionizable event.

4 stars for the above reasons, and also because I thought downgrading the sentient cat to a humanoid alien woman at the end was disappointing and unnecessary.


Teri Garr is disappointed, too.

Inhumanly Perfect or Perfectly Human?


By Mx. Blue Cathey-Thiele

This episode ties up neatly and happily – on the surface. How much of what we saw is as it seems, though? Gary Seven didn't cause a world catastrophe, and indeed, may have averted one! But the question of who and what he is remains. He claims to be a human, an agent from a planet that is still unknown in the time of the Enterprise. The Kelvans in "By Any Other Name" also scanned as 'perfectly human' and were decidedly not. He's also immune to the Vulcan neck pinch…

And what of Isis? Is this a cat who can turn into a humanoid being? A woman who can turn into a cat? Or a completely separate alien species altogether? Are they partners, or is there a command structure? Perhaps Isis is Gary's handler.

Beyond this, if Gary was part of the same program as his two lost agents, he would be (according to his own description) a descendant of humans taken from Earth six thousand years ago, all raised and trained to operate on a planet that is no longer a home to them. And as Gary told Isis, they don't intend to stay long. Whether he means in the year 1968 or on Earth, the here and now is something he finds almost unlivable. After generations of living away from Earth, would any agent feel at home there? One wonders if he really does have "lots of interesting adventures in store."

A nice bit: while waiting with Spock down in mission control, Kirk’s supplemental log says he has never felt so helpless. Unlike when he followed McCoy to the 30s, he isn't here to correct a problem and set the path of history to right. As heartbreaking as it was to follow through when told "Edith Keeler must die," he was reacting and preventing a worse outcome. A known quantity, as far as he was aware. Unlike then, he doesn't know what, if any, action is necessary – and in that moment there isn't anything in his power that he can do to change things. All that knowledge, technology, and will… and he is left to watch.


Our heroes, helpless.

The whole reason the Enterprise traveled back in time was to observe a time period so tumultuous that either lack of records or sheer incredulity has the crew wondering just how we make it through. Roberta, however, doesn't have the security of hindsight, saying, "We wonder if we're gonna be alive when we're thirty." It's a bleak thought. Kirk may be reliving his history books, but Roberta is there as they are being written. She's frightened and caught off-guard by the strange people and happenings around her, but even so, she adapts. It may hinder Kirk, Spock, and Gary, but over the course of the episode she tries at least three times to get outside help. When she recognizes that Gary has to be lying and is interfering with dangerous things, she tries to talk him out of it, and puts herself in harm's way to physically prevent him from taking action. If Gary is in a spy thriller, Kirk and Spock in an historical drama, then up until nearly the end, Roberta is cast in a horror. Despite this, she manages to stay a cheery person. Surrounded by both normal—as normal as the current world can be—challenges and time travelers, she does her best. She's out of her depth but she still tries.


Roberta takes control of the situation.

Ultimately, the crew of the Enterprise is left with only their original mission to fulfill: they watch. This isn't their time, and they have neither the responsibility nor the means to change it. On the bridge, Lt. Uhura monitors the channels and hears military powers across the globe preparing to respond. Kirk and Spock are equally powerless in the control room as they are in front of Gary Seven's computer. All they can do is listen to Roberta, and step back to allow Gary to finish what he started. The only way out is through.

There was little action from my favorite crew, but within the context of the story, that fit. Gary, Roberta, and Isis were interesting new characters and I would enjoy seeing them again.

3 stars

Colonel Savage


by Lorelei Marcus

I have seen Robert Lansing star in many other shows, from Twelve O' Clock High to the shortlived The Man Who Never Was and even The 4D Man. I have always been charmed by his grave and understated performances. “Assignment: Earth” was no exception; it was delightful to see Lansing as a mild-mannered, cat-petting spy from outer space. My only grievance with the character is that he must live and die within a single Star Trek episode.


Gary Seven, Secret Agent (hey, better than Amos Burke!)

To a degree, the Star Trek setting is a strength. Gary 7 expands the Star Trek universe further beyond the Enterprise, introducing an alien world and beings that even Kirk and Spock can’t find. There is also fun in seeing different SF worlds collide. Two years ago I received audio tapes from England and reports of the new Doctor Who, an ongoing SF show on TV across The Pond. Gary 7 reminds me strongly of the Doctor, with his space-traveling machine and his plucky young human companion. (There are notable differences, of course, like his cat and stun-gun pen gadget, which feels more out of a spy flick than SF). Seeing our space-faring heroes encountering a being reminiscent of the Doctor and witnessing the adventures that ensued was quite amusing. (And sounds like a story I might have to write for the next issue of The Tricorder!)

The tragedy is not just that we only get to see Gary 7 once, but the very limitation of his screen time means his actor doesn't get quite enough time to breathe. Lansing thrives in a starring role where he can mold the show around him to his mood and level. His portrayal suffered for having to split the spotlight with the regular Trek heroes, leaving only glimpses of the potential of what he and the character could have been in their own show. I mourn the loss of what could have been, but for giving me anything at all, I give the episode five stars.

That's a wrap!


by Gideon Marcus

This was the first episode we got to see secure in the knowledge that there will be another season of our favorite science fiction show.  I will say this for it—it's different!  Sure, we've seen the Enterprise go to past Earth before, and we've seen lots of period pieces (this episode must have been particularly cheap), but the intersection of two powerful races, and the focus for much of the episode on an independent guest star, made for a very unusual experience.

I'm not sure how I feel about it.  In some ways, it dragged down the pace of the episode, reducing Kirk and co. into a bunch of bystanders.  On the other hand, that's how life is sometimes—you're not always the star.  In the end, I'd say this was a successful experiment, but one not likely to be repeated…unless Trek turns into a true anthology show, which I would not necessarily be opposed to.

Some things the show did extremely well.  The integration of the very recent Apollo 4 launch was particularly good.  I also appreciated the incorporation of Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) technology.  This is absolutely accurate, though I think only the Soviets actually are testing such a system.  Several of their "Kosmos" tests have actually been launches of nukes on rockets that sail into space and then deorbit before completing a first orbit, thus allowing them to land anywhere.  It's a terrifying development, and one I hope will be banned if the superpowers update last year's Outer Space Treaty.


We'd probably use a Titan, not a Saturn, but this is a divergent history.

As for how "Assignment: Earth" serves as an ending to Season 2, well, it's kind of an odd duck.  It doesn't hit any of the main subjects we've seen thus far—no Klingons or Romulans, no Vulcan notables; just a joyride through time.  I feel that the show might have been better served ending on a more Trek-ish episode, something like Mirror, Mirror or Journey to Babel.  Instead, we got the 22nd Century's equivalent of Wild, Wild West.

Well, I guess it fits in alright.  After all, like the season as a whole, there were high points, low points, but overall, we enjoyed the experience.  Moreover, we got to see Robert Lansing, which is appropriate given that Trek cribbed the iconic "Enterprise theme" from Lansing's show, Twelve O' Clock High.

3.5 stars.

Live long and prosper, and we're looking forward to resuming Trek coverage in September!




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[Feb. 2, 1968] All creatures great and small (Star Trek: "The Immunity Syndrome")

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"Beyond our Experience"


by Amber Dubin

Only the best of science fiction challenges us to question the laws of physics and our reality. In this, "The Immunity Syndrome" does not disappoint. This episode takes a similar phenomenon as was seen in "The Doomsday Machine" and "Obsession" where a mind-numbingly dangerous sentient entity is found cutting a swath of destruction through space and the Enterprise is sent to find a way to stop it. This time, however, the nature of this space organism is so far beyond our experience that it has stunning implications for both the nature of humanity and for life itself.

We open on an already exhausted crew heading toward a well deserved break before they are yanked off course by a Priority 1 distress signal. As they are being informed that Starfleet has lost contact with an entire solar system and the Vulcan-crewed star ship that was sent to investigate, Spock nearly collapses onto his console. Teeth gritted in agony, he exclaims that the Intrepid and every member of its 400-strong Vulcan crew is dead.

We soon find out that Spock was right, that both the Intrepid and an entire solar system has been wiped out under mysterious circumstances. In sickbay, McCoy inquires as to how Spock could possibly have known the moment it happened and he replies with what is probably my favorite line in the entire show: "I've noticed that about your people, Doctor, you find it easier to understand the death of one than the death of a million. You speak about the objective hardness of the Vulcan heart, yet how little room there seems to be in yours."

A now more somber and grief-rattled Spock returns to the bridge and the crew resumes investigating the source of this massacre. They soon stumble on a starless patch of space that appears to be a hole in the viewscreen. Being unable to gain any knowledge from a probe launched towards it, Captain Kirk decides to take the ship closer to get a better look. With a sudden piercing noise, the ship finds itself fully enveloped in this absence of stars. Immediately half the crew collapses, their life forces suddenly drained. Scottie informs the bridge that the deflectors and power cells have suffered a similar fate. Eventually it is surmised that the Enterprise has been ensnared in a spider's web of some kind, a negative zone of energy created as a consequence (deliberate or otherwise) of a massive creature's movement through space. This creature is apparently structured like a single celled organism that consumes energy in order to reproduce and expand its influence across the universe, like a bacterial cell would as it infected a host body.

After a lot of scrambling and trial and error, the Captain and crew discover that the only way to find this creature's weakness is by sending a shuttle inside of it. This leaves Captain Kirk in the unenviable position of having to choose which of his two best friends, Spock or McCoy, will pilot the shuttle and likely never return. With a heavy heart, he chooses Spock, and even McCoy has a hard time making light of the situation the way he usually does, reluctantly watching as Spock makes his funeral march to the shuttlecraft.


Spock and McCoy: a no-win decision.

Of course the crew narrowly eke out a win, the organism is killed, and the trio is reunited in the end; yet it is the questions that arise from the existence of this creature that linger on past its demise: "Where did it come from?" "Is this the beginning of an invasion?" "Is the universe itself an ecosystem with perceivable edges?" "Did this creature come from beyond those edges?" "Is the universe itself alive when viewed with a large enough lens?"

On a smaller scale, we are given another compelling morsel of mind-taffy in the new knowledge that Vulcans feel the dying minds of their own kind. A fascinating implication is that a genocide would be impossible on Vulcan because Vulcans literally feel pain when large amounts of their kind are slaughtered. McCoy echoes the sentiment of many audience members that humans do not envy this ability: "Suffer the death of thy neighbor, eh Spock? You wouldn't wish that on us would you?"

Spock sagely replies, "It might have rendered your history a bit less bloody."

Yet here I must disagree with Spock. Spock claims this Vulcan ability to avoid massacres gives them a survivalist edge over humans, yet it is this lack of experience with societal trauma that left them vulnerable in this case. They could not conceive that the annihilation of the Intrepid was even possible, and thus they literally died in disbelief.

This episode has the cleanest script I've seen in the series so far, and it gave my brain something to chew on with a rather satisfying crunch…5 stars


by Tam Phan (Secret Asian Man)

A Stoic’s Guide to Vulcanianism

“Damn your infernal Vulcan logic!” A sentiment expressed all too often by Dr. McCoy, but is it truly the logic that is so infuriating to the prickly old doctor? Spock’s virtual lack of emotion seems to be characterized as having stemmed from his dedication to logic, but we see logical decisions made by the captain even in his most emotional states. Even his hunches, acted on with no strong emotional component, are based on an assessment of the situation. He may not have a clear explanation at the ready, but those decisions are not made on a whim.

At the same time, we have seen Spock display genuine emotion. For example, in “Amok Time” when he exclaims, “Jim!” upon discovering that he is alive, and again at the very beginning of “The Immunity Syndrome”, whether it is grief, despair, or agony, when he is clearly suffering from the sudden death of 400 Vulcans. He would probably explain the phenomenon as pain, but I do not buy it.

Having been sent to sick bay, Spock is questioned by McCoy as to how he knew the Vulcans had died. As far as he knows, in order for Spock to know what someone or something is thinking, he had to have contact. Instead of answering the question in his usual way, Spock lashes back with what sounds like anger. As a result, it may be the most unclear he has ever been. When McCoy questions him further, he resorts to insults.

There are other occasions in the episode where Spock lets his feelings out, but this is not to nitpick about whether he has or displays them. The idea that emotion equals irrationality and a lack of emotion equals rationality is a dichotomy that has major issues even aside from the fact that it is not a true dichotomy. We know that Spock has emotions. Whether they come from his human side is not really important, but the idea that lacking emotion is somehow more logical is flawed. He is no more or less logical than anyone else on the ship. Rather, he has a clear understanding of what and why, and he carries out his duties with little excitement and characteristic coolness he calls "logic".


Lack of emotion does not equal logic.  Emotion does not mean lack of logic.

It would be unfair to expect anyone to recognize this philosophy of virtue and ethics, but what the show presents is not a lack of emotion, or "logic", but Stoicism. Spock’s resistance to desires and fears and living with the virtues of wisdom, temperance, justice, and courage are classic tenets of Stoicism.

Taking a look at his demeanor, we start to see how Stoicism plays a significant role in the way he approaches the world. Being the chief science officer on the Enterprise, Spock is a truth seeker. He is an observer that accepts what is presented to him in his exploration of the universe. There is no expectation of what the universe should or should not be. He has faced the fear of death on numerous occasions stepping in to save his friends and colleagues. Kirk relentlessly demands to be given answers. Spock responds with the only correct answer in that situation (“insufficient data”) rather than speculation. Spock carries out his duties on the shuttle craft despite a likely fascination and a desire to study this new discovery. We can imagine McCoy acting in self-interest, but it never even crosses Spock’s mind. He has no judgments about the organism that killed the 400 Vulcans. It would be understandable if he had a sudden desire to seek revenge, but instead, he continues to carry out his duties on the ship.

McCoy’s frustrations with Spock are blamed on his logic, but so often it is merely his discipline and self-control that irritates the good doctor. What McCoy understands is that Spock keeps his feelings inside. It is not that he does not have them. He just infrequently acts on them. They both care for each other, but Spock would rather sacrifice himself for the ship. Thankfully McCoy is not having any of it. So “shut up Spock! We’re rescuing you!”

Five Stars

Amoebic Anatomy 101


by Joe Reid

This week on Star Trek we got a bit of an elementary school biology review, as the creature of the week was a humongous protozoa.  What type of protozoa you ask?  Well, there are actually 20 types of protozoa and this was a giant space monster on a weekly sci-fi show.  Although, if I were to guess based on my general knowledge of actual science, this creature best resembled the amoebic variety of protozoa.  I think they even called it an amoeba at some point in the episode.  Let’s talk about how this giant twelve-thousand-mile-long amoeba compares to the amoeba that we learned about when we were children.


A real amoeba, at least, so Trek tells us.

In the interest of keeping this a reasonable comparison and not sounding ridiculous, we are going to completely ignore the following elements.  The size difference.  The ability to make pockets in space without starlight.  The powerful attractive force that draws starships to their doom, and vacuum of outer space, which no protozoa known to modern science could survive.

The amoebas that we might find in our local pond water are single-celled living organisms that have the following structures: a nucleus, containing 13 chromosomes; an outer membrane, to hold in the gelatinous cytoplasm.  In the cytoplasm there are various organelles.  Along with the nucleus, you have a contractile vacuole, which helps in motion and fluid exchange, along with multiple food vacuoles to digest food.  Mitochondria and other organelles also exist inside of amoeba.

The giant nemesis in “The Immunity Syndrome” had a nucleus, but this one had forty chromosomes.  That’s six fewer than what humans have and a fair bit more than our microscopic analog.  There was a cell membrane, but the Spock and Bones called the substance inside protoplasm.  This is technically not completely wrong.  Protoplasm refers to all living matter of a cell–including the cell membrane, cytoplasm, nucleus, and the organelles.  All that said, the crew called the substance protoplasm when they should have called it cytoplasm.  As, respectively, a doctor and a scientist, I expected better from Spock and McCoy.

Also, an amoeba that you look at under a microscope has a method of locomotion that involves creating pseudopodia by extending portions of its membrane to move itself about.  Our space monster didn’t demonstrate this type of motion and it wasn’t mentioned in the episode, so I cannot count that against the accuracy of details.  Outside of the nucleus, membrane, chromosomes and “protoplasm”, no other parts of the amoeba in the episode are called out by name.  Did they exist?  Perhaps.  The crew was focused on finding the most efficient way of killing the dangerous monster before it caused any more harm and before it reproduced.  Which in tiny amoeba can be done in two ways.  A process called cellular fission, where the nucleus splits in two before the amoeba breaks off the rest of its parts and the membrane pinches off creating two daughter cells.  Also, sporulation… but I digress. 

Outside of the cytoplasm/protoplasm substitution, the number of chromosomes, and the space monster powers, the writers of this episode gave a passable representation of the anatomy of an amoeba.  Is it enough to pass your Biology 101 quiz in school the next day?  Heavens no!  You need to hit those books, kiddo!  This was good enough to not pull you out to the moment when watching what overall was a good episode of Trek with great acting, a decent plot, and dramatic tension.  I liked it!  I can even forgive the crew’s strange decision to fly right into a dark blob in space that had already killed another ship.

Four stars

The next episode of Trek is TONIGHT! You won't want to miss it:

Here's the invitation!



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[December 8, 1967] You're a Big Girl Now (Star Trek: "Friday's Child")

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"Episodus Interruptus"


by Amber Dubin

Every episode of Star Trek is 51 minutes long, with nine minutes left over for ads and bumpers.  And while this week's episode, "Friday's Child", doesn't clock in any shorter than usual, you may finish the hour feeling like you've missed something.  It's a show very much in a hurry, and it cuts a lot of corners to get where it's going.

We open on a bridge crew meeting in which they are discussing the best way to approach mining treaty negotiations with the 7 foot tall, war-like, tribal people of Capella IV. This routine excursion immediately goes off script when Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Officer Grant greet the Capellan representatives. A Klingon accompanies the Capellas. Before anyone can stop him, Officer Grant draws his weapon on the Klingon, forcing a Capellan to neutralize the threat. Grant collapses into Kirk's arms, a weapon buried in his chest. Thus, the first death of the episode occurs before the opening credits can even run.


Trigger-happy Grant, we hardly knew ye.

When the landing party finally gains an audience with the king (Ti-er), it becomes clear that there is unrest in the royal tent over who should be given mining rights between the Federation and the Klingons. The current Ti-er, Aka-ar, seems to side with the Federation, due to their honesty and respect for the Capellan planetary autonomy. On the other hand, Ma-ab, who claims to "speak for many" favors Kras the Klingon, whom he thinks has values that more easily align with his macho, Darwinian survivalist, Capellan traditions. Aka-ar offers to fight it out, but Ma-ab retreats, claiming it should be the choice of the Ti-er.

Meanwhile, in space, a ship claiming to be a Federation freighter lures the Enterprise, Scottie in command, away from the planet. That Scottie does so without alerting the landing party, nor determining why they do not answer his hails, I find suspect…to say the least!


"Let's go, lads. After we answer the phony distress call, maybe we can do some last minute Christmas shopping."

In one of the wildest cuts of the episode, we find ourselves back on the planet, the entire village erupted into civil war. In short order, Ma-ab emerges victorious and claims the throne. The issue at hand soon becomes removing the threat posed by the previous Ti-er's pregnant wife, Eleen. All agree that she must be executed to prevent the birth of her child, except Captain Kirk, who snatches her away from the blade about to plunge into her body. The pregnant widow then declares her right to see Kirk executed, as "no man may lay hands on the wife of the Ti-er." The condemned are taken to a tent, from which they promptly escape, dragging the reluctant widow with them.

The landing party retreats into the mountains, using clever traps and inhospitable terrain to keep the Cappellan pursuers at bay. McCoy exercises his prerogative as a doctor, tending to Eleen's arm and checking on the progress of her pregnancy. The Ti-er's widow takes poorly to this, and a slapping match ensues. Rather than becoming upset, Eleen is impressed with McCoy's cheek, tenderly taking his offending hand in hers. Spock witnesses this part of the exchange. McCoy snatches his hand back, but not before receiving a raised eyebrow from the Vulcan.


To be fair, this is about the only acting Nimoy gets to do this episode.

With this permission to touch her thus established, McCoy is able to help deliver her son, but in trying to get her to want the child she hates, McKCoy inadvertently claims ownership of the child. Logically, she then knocks McCoy unconscious and leaves him with 'their' infant to rejoin the Cappellan pursuer. It turns out this is actually to save their lives; she tells her countrymen that she killed them.

But the Klingon is dubious. He demands to see the bodies of the Earthmen himself. When Ma-ab expresses affront at Kras' doubting the word of a Ti-er's wife, Kras goes berserk, slaughtering his former allies. Ma-ab sees he was wrong to trust this Klingon and relinquishes his right to the throne, staying the widow's execution in exchange. He then offers his life to the Klingon to distract him while Ma-ab's second in command gets in position to finally strike the Klingon down.


"Klingon!  I challenge you to a jumping jacks contest!"

Extremely late to the party, Scottie and a huge troop of security officers emerge from the shadows, revealing that after he determined the distress signal to be a Klingon deception, he bypassed a conflict with a Klingon vessel offscreen and beamed down an entire party–without contacting Kirk first or getting any idea what kind of situation he'd be beaming his troop down into. Bolstered by this show of force, McCoy reveals the newborn Ti-er. He instructs the infant's new mother how to care for her child and the hastily settled coup somehow doesn't cause any hindrance to the mining treaty that is quickly signed off screen. Cue a final laugh line (the child is named Leonard James Aka-ar) and finis.

My biggest problem with this episode is how poorly the pacing of the two storylines blends together. With the intricate culture of the planet and the cat-and-mouse game in space, there's simply too much for just one episode. It's as though "Friday's Child" was planned as two episodes, but allotted just one. The editing required to fit results in two thirds of a story–or perhaps a whole story, but with vital scenes missing almost at random. Hence, we get endless scenes of Scotty and the bridge crew figuring out the Klingon deception, but no depiction of its resolution. What's left remains solely to break up action on the planet's surface.

The storyline on land isn't without inconsistencies either, the first of which lies in the quick acceptance of Grant's death. When Kirk drops his body to the ground, Doctor McCoy makes no move to dislodge the weapon or check his life signs or make any attempt to revive him. Kirk then laments that Grant was "young and inexperienced" in order to distance himself from the fallen officer's behavior. But why bring a young, inexperienced, trigger-happy security officer to a delicate diplomatic situation? It's also never made explicit why the widow hates her child, and her subsequent about face is similarly mysterious. And while I'm glad to see a woman in charge (Eleen is made regent off screen), I find it hard to believe that such an unstable political situation could have been resolved so quickly. But they needed a quick, happy ending.

There's a lot here to like: a second brush with the Klingons, a challenging diplomatic situation, some excellent interactions both on the planet and the Enterprise. Had the episode been fully developed, it could have reached five stars, but whatever was left on the cutting room floor took my full endorsement with it.

Four stars.

The Cultural Aspect


by J.M. North

This episode impressed me in a number of ways, primarily with the writers’ ability to create a deep and unique, primitive culture at the core of a dispute between two galactic superpowers, and secondarily with the Federation and the Kling-on’s dedication to their rivalry with one another. Even after the Enterprise is briefed about the peace accord in place on this planet and the sensitive nature of this delegation, the action begins after a Federation red-shirted mook instinctively goes to shoot at a Kling-on on sight.

The 10 Tribes society that governs the planet Capella, like the Corridians in the episode prior "Journey to Babel", are an adolescent race not yet introduced to advanced technology, much less even to bows and arrows. They are mostly decentralized, but still elect a representative ‘Teer-akar’ that acts as king but who can be lawfully challenged and usurped at any time. Theirs is a culture that values strength and victory alone; we can see evident parallels to the Freemen from Dune in aspects like their native sovereignty, tribal structure, and in their cultural behavior; honor and ordeal by combat.


Tuesday on Capella.

With the speed that civil war breaks out after the sitting Teer-akar is challenged to single combat, one could assume that these tribal wars are not uncommon on Capella. It is difficult to ignore the covetous and self-advantageous nature of the Kling-on and the Federation who, embroiled in their own cause to gain advantage over one another, precipitate this civil war among Capella’s natives and end up killing a large number of them, and in no shy way at the end does the Federation celebrate getting to conveniently install a puppet-Teer-akar who will deal in favor of them for its lifetime after defeating the pro-kling-on Teer Maab in the final fight.

One sequence I most enjoyed was how Julie Newmar’s character Eleen struggled with her own perceptions of reality, culture and duty. She burns her arm early in the episode and spends a long time conflicted over allowing McCoy to treat it. She is immediately and convincingly impressed by modern medicine but evidently still nervous about it. Later when McCoy suggests that he can save her life, despite her constant protesting, she concedes briefly that “It is always preferable to live..”; after she delivers the baby, her dedication to her duty and to tribal society leads her to attack McCoy and abandon the Earthmen she fled with. It appeared to me that her decision to spare them by telling Maab she had already killed them was only convenient for her and not really her original intention when she abandoned her child with McCoy.

Overall, 4 stars–minus one only because of the number of short-cuts in the plot.

A chance to shine


by Gideon Marcus

In a newspaper clipping I was mailed over the summer, DeForest Kelley talked about how pleased he was to have been given an "also starring" credit in the second season credits.  He noted mildly that it was sometimes difficult to stand out when playing opposite such scene stealers as Nimoy and Shatner.  We've seen Dr. McCoy take center stage before: "The Man Trap" was definitely his first season standout.  But it was also the first episode of last season, and since then, while he has certainly had plenty of prominence, he's never been the star of the show.

Well, "Friday's Child" was a 'Bones' episode, through and through.  From his first briefing to the officers of the Enterprise, to his delivery of Eleen's daughter, to his literal upstaging of Kirk when the captain threatens to make a hash (yet again) of diplomacy, McCoy is at the hub of the story.  Kelley's chemistry with Newmar is excellent, particularly the slapping scene and the "the child is mine" scene.  One can really see that the actor is an old pro, effortlessly selling each moment without mugging or scenery chewing.


"Definitely a ten-pin ball in there…"

To his credit, Shatner isn't bad either.  He doesn't inject so much of himself into Kirk this time, though he does keep his hands raised after the security guard dies from a case of trigger-happy-itis for about ten minutes.  He also does that characteristic "sauntering into a monologue" thing at least once.  But at least he's consistent.  He broods over the loss of a crewman; he's a soldier, not a diplomat; and when he chews McCoy out, he later apologizes.

Left on the cutting room floor are all of Nimoy's great moments.  I don't think he even speaks until fifteen minutes in, and then he doesn't get very much (though his silent exchange with McCoy on the hilltop speaks volumes).  We do get a number of scenes involving the B-list on the Enterprise, reminiscent of "Metamorphosis", but with a bit more purpose.  It makes me wonder if we shouldn't just have two shows–one starring Scotty and co., and the other involving the Big Three going on intragalactic adventures.

Anyway, while the show suffers for its skeletal form, it does hang together.  Three and a half stars.

A giant among women


by Lorelei Marcus

If there's anything I love, it's babies. I could watch babies do their funny little baby things all day long, and I certainly want a few of my own someday. I was pleasantly surprised that this week's episode featured a newborn, and while most of the time it was played by a bundle of cloth, every so often we got an adorable shot of its sleeping, slightly frog-like face. I was also pleasantly surprised to see Julie Newmar grace the Star Trek stage as a featured guest this episode. Considering Newmar's previous roles, I think it was a good fit.

I'm a bit of a Julie Newmar fan, which is unusual because I don't much care for her acting. In whatever role she plays, she always has a very flat affect that makes her portrayal of the characters feel a little "off". She also has a subtle accent and often stilted delivery which made me wonder if she might have struggled with a hearing impairment growing up. All of this was actually to her benefit as the humanoid robot in My Living Doll, but it didn't serve her as well in the Monkees, or even Batman. What she is good at, though, is physical comedy. Her background as a trained dancer (and perhaps also her experience as a concert pianist) has given Julie Newmar expert bodily control, which she excels at using to emphasize the humor of a moment.


"Don't get fresh with me, Mac-Koy!"

This is where she truly shone in today's Star Trek episode. Her massive height alone made her the perfect choice for a seven-foot tall alien, and she does a very convincing job of appearing encumbered by the weight of a pregnant stomach. The way she avoided being touched by people was also very funny, between her petulant delivery of lines and her slapping at people's hands or even McCoy's face! In a way, her unusual speech patterns also aided in her appearance as an alien, or at least a humanoid used to a different language. Her intentional butchering of McCoy's name always got a laugh, and her misunderstanding of who her baby belonged to also seemed very plausible.

Overall, I think Newmar did a wonderful job in this episode. Despite her shortcomings as an actress, there's something very endearing about the giant beauty who keeps much of her brilliance just below the surface. Whether it be another guest star role or perhaps her own show, I will definitely be looking out for her name in the TV guides again.

In addition to Newmar, everyone else did a great job of acting in this episode. The premise was fascinating, and the new alien culture very interesting; it would have been a five-star episode if (as Amber notes) the editor hadn't left half of it on the cutting room floor.

Three stars.

The next episode of Trek is tonight!  Plus, a little before-the show treat.

Come join us at 4:30 PM Pacific (7:30 Eastern) or at 6:30 PM Pacific (9:30 Eastern)!



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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[November 10, 1967] Mudd in the computer (Star Trek: "I, Mudd")

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"And Thereby Hangs a Tale"


by Amber Dubin

"I, Mudd" follows the tradition set by three other episodes we've seen so far, in which the crew of the Enterprise has to out-logic a robot ("What are little girls made of," "Return of the Archons," "Changeling"). Even though this episode recycles many of the same themes we've seen in those episodes, it offers enough unique elements to make it my favorite of its kind.

We open on a hallway conversation between the ship's doctor and chief science officer where the ever-cynical medico's instincts lead him to correctly identify an interloper on the ship in the form of the newest crewmember, Lieutenant Norman.


"What did he call me?"

Unfortunately, Spock rebuffs Dr. McCoy's theory (logically) because his reasoning points out Norman's inhuman behaviors, many of which overlap with those of Spock himself. McCoy insists that "the ears make all the difference" but the damage is clearly done as the supposedly unemotional Spock abruptly extricates himself from the conversation with an acerbic retort.


"I mean, you're one of the good ones."

McCoy is immediately vindicated when Norman's next move is to hijack the ship. He single handedly dispatches two security teams, all of engineering including Scotty, rigs the controls to blow if the ship deviates from the course he assigns it, and barges straight onto the bridge to explain the now-captive crew's new situation. Norman presents Captain Kirk a "choice" to either go on a four day voyage to an unknown destination or face the immediate destruction of the Enterprise. Ever cool under pressure, Kirk demands to know the nature of his attacker. Norman responds only by peeling back a panel under his shirt to reveal an android abdomen full of wires.


An android's navel–note that these robots don't use integrated circuits…

Further inquiries over who sent him are met with "I am not programmed to respond in that area" before he immediately shuts himself off. So confident is he in his power play (pun intended) that Norman leaves his unconscious body standing in the middle of the doorway to the bridge. Apparently no one disturbs him for four days as the crew seems startled from their normal activities when Norman abruptly awakes and makes further demands. He acts as if he's giving the crew another choice as he requests a set of personnel to accompany him on the planet they're now orbiting, but again refusal means certain death. At least he said “please” this time.

It soon becomes clear why Norman was reluctant to reveal who sent him, because we next open up to a throne room centered around none other than the illustrious Harcourt Fenton Mudd. Undeterred by Mudd's declaration of newfound sovereignty, Kirk charges at him and commences a delightful volley of banter where Mudd catches the crew up on what he's been up to since they last left him in custody for his transgressions. Surprising no one, Harry's made a mess of every situation he's been involved in and has found himself marooned on this planet of 200,000 androids while fleeing the consequences of his actions. Through much childish bickering on Harry's part, Kirk manages to wrench the truth out of the scoundrel, soon discovering that Mudd is just as much a prisoner of the androids as the Enterprise crew is.


"They won't let me go!"

A strange detail comes into play when the crew is being led away and stumbles upon the shrine to Stella, Mudd's wife. It seems odd that Harry would be so sentimental as to make an exact replica of the nagging shrew he gratefully abandoned galaxies away. It must follow that either the loneliness of being the only human on an android planet compelled Mudd to seek security in the familiar or he is such an adversarial man that the ability to make a version of a nemesis he could program with an off button proved to be an irresistible temptation. The most ironic element of that situation is that Stella may be shrill and harping but with a husband like Harcourt, the audience can't help but be squarely on her side.

Unsurprisingly, the androids reject Mudd the second they have any other humans to compare him to, and devote themselves to providing everything the crew wants so they can better serve humanity. They explain that serving humans gives the androids renewed purpose and protects humans by taking care of their every need to save them from themselves. Elements of the gilded cage they're presented with tempt each of the crew members in turn, but whenever a wish contradicts the terms of their captivity, the crew begins to notice that the androids balk at the paradox by freezing in place, their ID necklaces flashing until the conflict is resolved. It is subsequently discovered that the androids are part of a partial hive-mind directed by Norman and that they defer to him to avoid overloading individual units when logical computation is stalled. Thus ensues a campaign to confuse and overload as many androids by whatever means possible. Fake music, subterfuge, logical fallacies, play acting and flat-out lies become weaponized against the unsuspecting computers; each crewman performs their ridiculous acts admirably, especially Spock, who befuddles several androids all by himself.


"Sorry, ladies.  I'm just too good for you."

The episode reaches a delightful climax as the crew's play-acting for Norman finally causes literal steam to billow out of his ears and he admits humans are too complex to be managed by anyone but other humans. In the even more satisfying conclusion, after reaching a peaceful solution to coexist with the androids, Mudd's punishment is revealed to be exile on the android planet so they can help him rehabilitate his nefarious ways. Mudd initially rejoices in this reward of a punishment, until the crew unveils his personal attendants: 500 copies of Stella, this time without her off switch.

Not one line of the script is superfluous and every crewman is at their most efficient and capable as they execute every plan flawlessly. The script, plot, performances and design of this episode click together as seamlessly as the gears powering a well-constructed android.

I am a self-confessed, dyed-in-the-wool robot-a-phile. It is thus inevitable that I give this episode…

5 stars

The Shrew in the Ointment


by Janice L. Newman

I’ll admit, the preview for this episode had me worried. “Mudd’s Women” had some good elements, but was overall one of the weaker episodes of the first season. Happily, this episode was much better than that first one starring Mudd. There was just one problem that took it down a star for me – a fly in the ointment, if you will.

It was an old, old, joke even when Shakespeare did it: the harridan wife and her ne’er-do-well husband. Despite the fact that the audience knows that Harry Mudd’s perspective is unreliable, and thus his version of his wife may not represent the real woman, upon seeing the cartoonishly-awful “Stella” android we can’t help but be repelled and thus sympathize with the charismatic Mudd. Yet a moment’s thought makes one realize how nonsensical it is in the context of Star Trek. This is the future. Is it really so hard to get a divorce if one is unhappy with one’s spouse? If two people are so miserable together, is it truly necessary for one of them to flee into outer space? And sure, another moment’s thought is all it takes to realize that Mudd likely married his wife to gain some kind of monetary benefit, and that if we were in her place, we might be shrill, too. Still, Stella isn’t particularly funny, and for me, even Mudd’s comeuppance was poisoned by her sour, nagging presence.


If Harry Mudd put you in a closet, you'd make this face, too.

The rest of the episode is great, though; one of the best “break the computer” ones we’ve seen. Four stars.

A little bit of Vaudeville


by Gideon Marcus

Something I love about the stellar anthology show, Star Trek, is how versatile it is.  One week, we're getting political commentary, with ramifications right from the headlines of today (e.g. "A Taste of Armageddon"), another we're getting a Halloween-themed piece ("Catspaw").  An episode might be a rendition of a classic war movie ("Balance of Terror") or a retelling of Hamlet ("Conscience of the King").

"I, Mudd" takes place almost entirely on a spartan subterranean set, and largely features entertaining characters conversing with each other.  It's like an extended Hollywood Palace sketch.  It really shouldn't work, but it does.

From Kirk's masterful exchanges with Mudd (with Kirk displaying just the right mix of exasperation, anger, and amusement) to Chekov's lively Cossack dances, to the halting…yet endearing…cadence of…the androids, to Uhura's silky mock betrayal (she really is getting a chance to shine this season!), to the grand finale filled with pantomimed absurdity–it's a stage-bound pageant of comedy.  Interestingly, the avante garde Marc Daniels was tapped to direct rather than the more stagey Joe Pevney.  You see his surrealistic influences particularly during the dance scenes.


No caption required.

That the story is actually pretty good is a bonus.  If the show doesn't quite reach five star status for me, it's because while I enjoyed the show thoroughly, it was a bit too frivolous to feel like "real" Star Trek–essentially the same complaint I had about "Catspaw", but with an execution that makes me all but forgive the lapse.

Four stars.

Tonight's episode seems like it will be more of a serious affair.  At least we'll find out what happened to Glenn Corbett after he left Route 66…

Here's the invitation! Come join us.

Also, copies of The Tricorder are still available — drop us a line for details!




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