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[January 8, 1967] So-So Historical, Delightful Doctor (Doctor Who: The Highlanders)

January 8, 2022 Jessica Holmes 1 Comment

By Jessica Holmes

Happy new year, everyone! The last year of Doctor Who brought us some pretty big changes. Companions came and went, there was a musical episode (please tell me I didn’t hallucinate that), and we even saw a change of Doctor. Where shall we go next, I wonder?

The first story of the year (and the last of last year) is The Highlanders (written by Elwyn Jones and Gerry Davis), a historical tale set in… well, the Highlands of Scotland, funnily enough. Lovely place, though perhaps not so lovely in the time period of the story, 1746, at the tail end of the Jacobite rebellion.

SOME HALF-REMEMBERED HISTORY

How to quickly sum up the Jacobite uprising? Once upon a time, there was a king of England and Scotland called James. James II/VII if we’re being precise. James wasn’t very popular for complicated religious and political reasons, so he lost his job. He did at least get to keep his head, which is more than a lot of deposed monarchs can say. A few years down the line, his grandson Charles Edward Stuart, a.k.a. ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ started an uprising to reclaim the throne for his father, with the support of the Highland clans of Scotland. It did not go well. The British crushed Bonnie Prince Charlie’s army at the Battle of Culloden, and that was the end of that.

Here we pick up just after that fateful battle, when the dust is still settling…

EPISODE ONE

The Doctor and his companions arrive amidst the aftermath of the Battle of Culloden, where they almost immediately get themselves captured by a couple of Highlanders. The Highlanders bring them to a cottage, where they’re hiding with their wounded Laird (the Scottish equivalent of a Lord, played by Donald Bisset). These are Jamie McCrimmon (Frazer Hines), the Laird’s piper, and Alexander, the Laird’s son, who dies about five minutes in so we don’t need to waste any more words on him.

The Highlanders, believing the Doctor and company to be English spies, are about to kill them all when the Laird’s daughter Kirsty (Hannah Gordon) intervenes, hoping that the Doctor can help heal her father. The men are reluctant, until Ben snatches up a gun and threatens to finish the old man off if they won’t let the Doctor help.

Interesting bedside manner.

Polly disarms the Scots and goes off with Kirsty to fetch water, and then Ben proves himself to be absolutely rubbish at gun safety. This being the period where guns were just as likely to blow up in your face as they were to actually shoot your target, he accidentally makes it go off, attracting the attention of some nearby Redcoats, led by Lieutenant Algernon Ffinch (Michael Elwyn). Yes, two Fs.

The Redcoats burst in, killing the Laird’s son, and the Doctor has a brief panic over what nationality to fake to maximise his chances of survival, eventually settling on a terrible German accent. He introduces himself as Doktor Von Wer. Doctor Who? Yes, exactly.

Unfortunately, the Redcoats are going to kill them all anyway.

Elsewhere, a well-dressed figure surveys the battleground. This is solicitor Grey (David Garth), and his part in all this is his scheme to ship the survivors off to the colonies and sell them into slavery.

Charming chap.

On their way back from fetching water, the women spot the Redcoats preparing the gallows for their prisoners. Polly lobs a stone at them, attracting their attention. Rumour has it that the Prince has escaped in the guise of a woman, so Ffinch decides to pursue them.

Luckily for the prisoners, Grey soon arrives to put a halt to the hanging. In addition to being very dodgy, he’s also the commissioner of prisons, and has the paperwork to give him charge over all rebel prisoners.

And also money. Money helps.

Still pursued by Ffinch, Polly and Kirsty hide in a cave Kirsty’s clan uses for cattle-raiding. While deciding what to do, there’s a bit of tension when Kirsty balks at the idea of selling her father’s ring in order to buy supplies. Polly turns a little nasty, and Kirsty responds by pulling a knife on her. Have they checked that this ring isn’t holding the essence of some ancient evil that corrupts all who attempt to possess it? Just a thought.

Calling her a stupid peasant (manners, that’s the daughter of a Laird you’re talking to!), Polly goes off in a huff, and promptly falls into an animal trap. Serves her right for being rude if you ask me.

EPISODE TWO

In trying to help Polly out of the pit, Kirsty falls in too, and it’s not long before Ffinch catches up to them. After Kirsty gets a bit of sulking out of her system, she and Polly manage to lure Ffinch into the pit and rob him of his pistol and his money.

Polly and Kirsty blackmail Ffinch into helping them, given that it would be a bit of a setback for his career if his commanding officer was to find out that he got captured and robbed by a couple of girls.

Meanwhile in Inverness, the Doctor and company are languishing in a rather wet gaol. Everyone’s thoroughly miserable, except for the Doctor, who is starting to enjoy himself. The Doctor treats the Laird’s injury, though he has to invent some quackery to prevent the Scots calling his credentials as a physician into question. While doing so, he discovers that the Laird is carrying the Prince’s personal standard, and he holds on to it for safekeeping.

And then something truly horrible happens.

I can hardly bear to write it.

…He pulls out the recorder.

The rebels start singing along to the Doctor’s tune, attracting the attention of the guard. The Doctor, claiming to be a loyal subject of the King, demands to be taken to Grey.

Grey is a little busy at the moment, conspiring with an unsavoury fellow by the name of Trask (Dallas Cavell) to smuggle the prisoners aboard his vessel, there to be delivered to the Caribbean. Once Trask leaves, the Doctor baits the greedy Grey with the Prince’s standard, claiming he can help him track the rogue royal down and claim the bounty. Grey lets his guard down, and the Doctor wastes no time in relieving him of his weapon, and using the flag to gag him for good measure.

People are very careless in this story—always losing their guns.

Grey’s clerk, Perkins (Sydney Arnold), arrives a short time later, but the Doctor is able to distract and pacify him with some free medical care. He’s very attentive, asking the poor chap—between slamming the man’s head against the desk—if he happens to suffer from headaches.

On the one hand, I want to complain at this feeling grossly out of character for the typically non-violent Doctor. The days of trying to bash in people’s heads with rocks are long behind him.

On the other hand… it’s funny.

It’s really, really funny.

After committing assault and battery, the Doctor moves on to nick some food from the scullery, and then (as one does) dresses like an old woman. While in disguise, he spots the prisoners being escorted out and down to the jetty. There’s not much he can do about it yet, so poor Ben and Jamie have no choice but to board the waiting ship…and the only way off is in a shroud.

EPISODE THREE

Down in the hold of the ship, the other prisoners don’t take too kindly to Ben’s English accent, until the Laird intervenes on his behalf.

Meanwhile, Polly and Kirsty get themselves some new clothes and oranges so that they can pose as orange sellers. The Doctor spots them at the inn, but before he can make contact with them, the Sergeant from the earlier group of Redcoats also recognises them, and it’s only with Ffinch’s begrudging assistance that they manage to get away.

Ffinch points them in the direction of Grey, but as it turns out he’s busy giving the prisoners a choice about how they’d like to spend the rest of their lives: as a snitch, a slave, or at the end of a rope.

Ben tears up the contract, forcing Grey to go and get a new one, and earning him a nasty bang on the head.

At the inn, the girls are about ready to leave, but Grey’s clerk has found them, and he’s proving hard to shake. It seems that there’s more to this fool than meets the eye.

Luckily, there’s a friendly old wench nearby with a stolen gun.

The Doctor leaves with the girls, warning Perkins not to follow.

Don’t worry—the gun isn’t actually loaded. I think that would be a step too far. The Doctor and the girls discuss how to go ahead with rescuing their friends, but first things first, the Doctor wants a nap.

I think he’d better make it a quick one. Grey and Trask are almost ready to leave, but there’s a troublesome Englishman to be dealt with first.

One quick nap later, the Doctor’s gone and robbed the arsenal, and also realises something about that probably evil ring of Kirsty’s. It’s actually the Prince’s ring! Better than that, it’s bait.

The Doctor had best make haste, because Trask has just tied Ben up and chucked him into the sea. Ben had better be good at holding his breath.

EPISODE FOUR

Trask throws Ben overboard, but when the time comes to haul him back up, there’s nobody on the end of the rope. Ben’s a regular Houdini!

As he catches his breath on the shore, he gets accosted by an English sentry…or so he thinks. Yes, it’s the Doctor in yet another disguise. I think he’s really enjoying himself.

The group come up with a plan to rescue the Highlanders—though the women have to fight to be included.

On a stolen boat, Ben delivers the Doctor to the ship, where he adopts his Doktor von Wer ruse again. He shows Grey the Prince’s ring, and tells him he’s discovered the Prince is hidden among the Highlanders on the ship. Apparently Grey’s brain turns off when he sees something potentially valuable and shiny. He takes the bait, allowing the Doctor to lead him down into the hold…

Where the prisoners are all pretending to be asleep, Polly and Kirsty having handed them weapons through the porthole.

A lengthy fight ensues, with Jamie throwing Trask overboard in the ruckus. Trask’s crew surrender following the loss of their captain, and Grey and Perkins give themselves up.

Perkins is most certainly not a fool, and his desire not to go to prison outweighs any loyalty to (or fear of) Grey. As he happens to speak the language, he offers to join the Highlanders as they escape to France (a long-time ally of Scotland, and a supporter of the Jacobite cause).

Grey doesn’t take it well.

As the Highlanders sail off into the fog, Jamie accompanies the Doctor and company as they begin making their way back to the TARDIS (with Grey as a hostage). Unfortunately Grey escapes on the way, and the group needs another hostage to get past the English guards.

Poor Ffinch. This really isn’t his day, is it?

On their merry way once again, the group inform Ffinch of Grey’s nefarious dealings. However, they arrive back at the Laird’s home to find that Grey has beaten them to it, and he’s got some soldiers with him.

Grey claims that the whole business with transporting the prisoners was perfectly legal, but surprise, surprise, he can’t produce the appropriate paperwork. An outraged Ffinch orders him arrested, and it seems all’s well that ends well.

But what happened to the contracts Grey made the prisoners sign? That’s easy. The Doctor nicked them.

Having nowhere else to go, Jamie joins the TARDIS crew, and off they go, on to the next adventure.

Final Thoughts

Something that struck me about this serial is how violent it is for Doctor Who. We’ve got Ben holding people at gunpoint, Polly committing armed robbery, the Doctor himself getting his hands dirty, plus all the inherent violence of the setting. I am in two minds about all this. I had always liked how the Doctor and company usually solve their problems with their wits rather than with their fists. It’s a much better example to set for the children.

Oh, dear. I must be getting old.

On the other hand, I cannot stress enough how funny Troughton is. I can’t very well wag my finger when I’m too busy rolling on the floor.

Take the scene where the Doctor ‘examines’ Perkins’ head. Played straight, it would be a horrible act of violence, but the thing to bear in mind is that Troughton doesn’t drop the absurd faux-German accent throughout the entire spectacle. The dialogue and comic timing are impeccable, though they feel like they came from a different script altogether. It’s like the Doctor is in a different serial to everyone else. To be clear, I like the Doctor’s side of things a lot better. The rest of the serial is mostly just stuff I have to watch to get back to whatever funny thing the Doctor is doing.

The humour in itself is a problem, however. Don’t get me wrong, I like it and I wish more of the serial was this funny– but it creates a real tone problem. It’s something we’ve seen before, and the historical stories tend to be particularly prone to this tonal issue. On the one hand, they contain some of the most sinister subject matter in Doctor Who (slavery, civil war, murder), but on the other they’re often dotted with moments of incongruous humour. Or just plain WEIRD stuff like musical narration.

Still, it’s an enjoyable enough serial, and it’s fairly interesting, plot-wise. It’s rather light on the educational content and historical context, but as I think I probably said the last time we had a historical story, this programme has long since given up any pretense of trying to teach children anything. Jamie seems like a nice chap, and he’s certainly very capable, so I’m sure he’ll do well in the TARDIS. Hopefully we won’t have another Katarina situation. I wonder where they’ll end up next?

My rating: 3 out of 5 stars

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

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

January 4, 2022 Erica Frank 5 Comments

by Erica Frank

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

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

Not what we expected on an alien planet.

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

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

A Grin Without a Cat

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The druidic version of Mr. Green Jeans remains nameless.

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

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

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

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

“Drink Me”

by Janice L. Newman

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

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

These are not the actions of trained specialists.

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

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

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

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

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

”Pleasure Planet”

by Tam Phan (Secret Asian Man)

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

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

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

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

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

Four stars.

Getting to know you

by Gideon Marcus

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

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

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

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

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

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

Five stars.

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

Here's the invitation!

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[December 24, 1966] Unquiet on the Romulan Front (Star Trek: "Balance of Terror")

December 24, 2021 Gideon Marcus 4 Comments

Déjà vu

by Gideon Marcus

Under a blanket of unwinking stars, a lone vessel patrols on the trackless expanse between civilizations. A distress call is heard: one, two, now three voices stilled in the night by an unknown raider. Not long ago, the enemy had been defeated but not broken in war, and it seems the old adversary has returned. Now, the navy ship probes out an unseen predator, cloaked in darkness, wielding torpedoes of death.

"The Enemy Below" (1957) Gregory Peck, Kurt Jurgens, 4:30 Channel 4

Er…strike that.

"Balance of Terror" (1966) William Shatner, Mark Lenard, 8:30 Channel 9

It has always been hinted that the Enterprise, the featured ship on Star Trek, is a military vessel. Indeed, its role seems not unlike the frigates of the 19th Century, showing the flag at ports of call, projecting power at critical junctures, providing relief when requested. But in this latest episode, we see Kirk and crew in a full-blown military situation, fighting a tactical battle with huge strategic ramifications.

"Balance of Terror" succeeds best at the big-picture stuff. All at once, the burgeoning Earth civilization has at least one border. Prior to this outing, there had been just one contact with a spacefaring race, and that ("The Corbomite Manuever") a particularly asymmetrical one.

With the introductions of the Romulans, Earth now has an adversary of roughly comparable strength and abilities. And what an intriguing adversary! Mark Lenard, who I've seen on various other TV shows, gives a fine turn as the Romulan commander, war-weary but canny We also learn a bit more about the Vulcanians, and that their peaceful, logical ways are a comparatively recent development. I would love to see the Romulans return as a regular foil for the Enterprise crew, though that may prove logistically impractical. After all, the two nations are separated by a large Neutral Zone, and communication between them is explicitly limited.

The brooding cinematography of "The Man Trap" is back on display, and it is attractive ("Miri" director, Vince McEevety is also back). Shatner is once again compelling in his role as commander, though there are not too many contributions from the ensemble this outing (though Kelley is awarded a few good scenes). I appreciated that men and women are not only shown serving side-by-side effectively on a warship, but that they are also allowed to have human relationships, even to the point of getting married. A far better future than the one envisioned by Dr. Richardson a decade ago, when he opined that spacefaring would be an all-stag operation, one which women would partake in only as prostitutes to satisfy the inevitable male urges.

Where "Balance of Terror" falls down, although not too often, is the tactical end of things. Uncomfortable gymnastics are required to stuff Trek into a destroyer vs. sub plot. Do the crews really have to stay silent to avoid being heard across thousands of kilometers of vacuum? Why do the Enterprise's phasers shut down after their first salvo? What, exactly, was the purpose of the two ships lying dead silent next to each other for half a day if Spock was just going to accidentally push the ping button on his console anyway? Better if that had been a deliberate action.

Also, while I appreciated the anti-bigotry message that pervades the episode, it seemed odd that Stiles and Sulu would immediately suspect the presence of Romulan spies aboard the Enterprise—before we even saw that Romulans looked like Spock. Given that it had been a century since humans and Romulans had had contact, and that neither side had ever seen each other or spoken directly to each other, how would the Romulans have a chance to infiltrate themselves into Earth space, and aboard a military vessel, at that?

Finally, why the hand-wringing over whether to engage the enemy or not? The Romulans were the clear aggressors, they were on our side of the Neutral Zone, and the Enterprise specifically dispatched to investigate. I can see Kirk worried about losing his vessel and his crew, but I'm not sure why he, and Sulu and McCoy, were advocating holding back for fear of starting a war. After Pearl Harbor, were we (America) really concerned about making the Japanese mad by fighting back?

On the other hand, we've learned over the past half season that McCoy will always advocate the opposite of whatever Spock endorses. If Spock had turned around and suggested retreat, McCoy would have urged for the attack. Those two…

Anyway, it's a good episode, a promising one, but pacing issues and a derivative plot keep it at four stars.

A Dangerous Game of Peekaboo

by Tam Phan (Secret Asian Man)

It was about time that we finally got to see some bigger conflicts in the final frontier. Until now, all we’ve seen is petty squabbles between humans and the occasional alien. This episode marked the first time we find Kirk in a position where making even a single poor decision could have catastrophic repercussions that land him on the wrong side of history. Will Kirk be a hero, or will he allow the Romulans to start a war?

We’ve seen some of the ship's combat capabilities and some interesting tactics in past episodes, but not until “Balance of Terror” have we seen Kirk use the Enterprise in combat. In truth, I was interested in seeing how Kirk fared in battle. It was a thrill to see both captains make mistakes that the other capitalized on. They learned and adapted, and there’s just something beautiful about that dance between experts.

This was one of the more exciting episodes of Star Trek, but “Balance of Terror” fell short for me by turning Stiles into a revenge driven maniac and Kirk into a timid commander. Stiles was right: the Romulans had crossed over the neutral zone, destroyed several science stations, and were sneaking back across to report to their home planet, yet Kirk hesitated. It is lazy writing to have a leader who has every reason to act, but chooses not to because it creates more drama.

But Stiles was right the way a stopped clock can be right. The way that he conducted himself was out of line. Stiles' bigotry is a deep-seated family affair. He didn’t even know what the Romulans looked like before he suspected Spock, the only alien aboard. Subtle hatred turned into fully-realized racism as soon as the Romulan captain was revealed. Kirk’s attempt to rein in his navigator with “their war, Mr. Stiles” did little to dispel his hatred.

Stiles’ mindset is unfortunately not uncommon. It’s all too familiar to me as a Vietnamese man. There are very few of my race in the United States, and I often get mistaken for a Japanese or Chinese man. There’s no doubt that I share some common ancestry with those nationalities, but it would be like mistaking an Dutchman for a German…or a Vulcanian for a Romulan. We are not the same, even if we look the same (to less discerning eyes). I appreciate Kirk’s repeated expressed opposition to bigotry. I am also glad that, in the end, Stiles learned the error of his ways. There is no place for bigotry on the Enterprise, especially when one considers that the fellow who plays Sulu (the best crewman) likely was imprisoned just for his race just twenty years ago.

I enjoyed the sniping interaction between Spock and McCoy in the last episode ( "Conscience of the King"), but it was just out of place here. McCoy’s objections to battling the invading Romulan seemed contrarian for no reason other than to continue the Spock vs. McCoy theme. I know the writers are capable of writing more complexity into this relationship, and I hope they do so. Still, I'm glad that Spock and McCoy's bickering has no racial basis; sometimes family just has to argue over everything.

Quibbles aside, I enjoyed the show. I hope to see the Romulans again and to see Kirk return to form.

4 Stars

Mirror images

by Andrea Castaneda

Andrea Castaneda here, news photographer extraordinaire.

Truth be told, I don't consider myself a huge Star Trek fan. I appreciate the show, yes, but it’s not something I've specifically sought out. But with “Balance of Terror”, I can now see why Star Trek is already beloved, even groundbreaking.

There are two things I love in a show: well established emotional stakes and sympathetic antagonists. And this episode did a great job at showcasing both.

I appreciate how the show opens with a wedding ceremony. It’s a simple one, with the couple in uniform with only a white fascinator in the bride‘s hair. Captain Kirk seems genuinely moved by the young couple’s love. It's a nice moment of calm before the storm, and it sets emotional stakes for the episode that parallel the larger, political ones.

I also liked the organic way in which Kirk explained the Neutral Zone to his crew. It feels believable that there may be many on board who don’t understand the specifics, and the show explains it succinctly enough to clue the audience in without boring them.

Then we encounter the Romulans. We learn about their military philosophy, how they descended from the Vulcanians, and how their technology is a force to be reckoned with. We meet the commander of the Romulan ship, coiffed with a haircut reminiscent of Julius Caesar. He comes across as a shrewd man, but not a cruel one. And after learning more about the Romulan philosophy, one can understand why he thinks he’s doing the right thing.

And this is where I enjoyed the show the most.

The commander is a savvy military man, meaning Kirk must step up. Kirk shows his military prowess, observing the enemy, consulting with his crew, and anticipating the Romulans’ next move. Yet Kirk does not revel in his victories. Instead, he expresses concern for his crew, self doubt over what happens “if he’s wrong”.

Meanwhile on the Romulan ship, their commander is simultaneously impressed and frustrated by Kirk’s outmaneuvering. After gaining the upper hand, he becomes torn between his duty and his desire to go home; duty wins out and compels him to move forward.

In the end, the Enterprise’s crew prevails, and the audience celebrates with them, yet I felt for the defeated commander. Yes, he initiated the attacks on Earth’s outposts. But the way he yearned for home was relatable, inspiring sympathy.

It’s what made the final exchange between him and Captain Kirk so memorable: “You and I are of a kind. In a different reality, I could have called you friend.”

It’s a fitting end for the antagonist, though I did wish we could see more of him.

Something that wasn’t made clear was why the Romulans were attacking in the first place other than a vague national desire for military conquest. I hope we see some diplomatic fallout over this incursion in a future episode. Also, I was disappointed in the resolution of Stiles' bigotry. Spock had to risk his life to prove that he's "a good person", relieving Stiles of actually examining his own prejudices.

Nevertheless, the episode created a great sense of vulnerability and concern for the characters and the intergalactic relations in general. And thanks to the earlier wedding scene, the one death of a lesser crewmember had a much more emotional impact.

Four stars.

A First True Trekian Tragedy

by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

I think this episode was the first true tragedy in Star Trek and I deeply appreciated the depth it added to both the characters and the worlds they live in. In the episode, we see both sides of a conflict, shown through two commanders contesting their wills, driven by their cultures, their own personalities, and each holding within them their own tragic flaws. We already know one of Kirk’s major flaws, laid bare in The Enemy Within: he can be indecisive in the face of conflict. As Tam notes, the Romulan commander does not share this flaw. But he tends towards aggression, to the point of self-destruction. He seems to imply this is a cultural characteristic, in addition to a personal one:

Romulan Commander: When he attacks, we will destroy him. Our gift to the homeland, another war.

He continues critically, describing what he thinks his and his crew’s lots are:

”Obedience. Duty. Death and more death. Soon even enough for the Praetor's taste. Centurion, I find myself wishing for destruction before we can return.”

He certainly gets it.

The question rises for me, whether this episode could be a Greek or a Shakesperian tragedy. It would be interesting to contemplate the extent to which Dr McCoy is serving as Greek Chorus, commenting on the main action, speaking for the Gods who desire more peace and less death; but, to me and asking Tam’s forgiveness for bringing up the Bard again, it feels more Shakesperian. We see “two households, both alike in dignity,” fighting and hiding along a functional demilitarized zone. The Romulan Commander has Othello’s battle smarts and there is something of Prince Hal’s early relationship with Falstaff in his conversations with his Centurion. The Commander’s death – drawn out, with a monologue, intrinsically tied to his tragic flaw–feels ready-made for the wooden stage of the Globe.

But Kirk and the Romulan Commander’s tragedy is not the only one in Balance of Terror. The story begins with a wedding and ends with a funeral. We see no tragic flaw in Angela Martine or Robert Tomlinson, unless it was his obedience. To me, that makes his senseless death and her bereavement feel like a modern tragedy: one with no purpose, no pat lesson, just the reality that after death and destruction, we need to get up and keep going. Angela’s expression as she gives the last line of the episode, telling Kirk “I’m all right,” reminded me of the expressions of thousands of widows of the soldiers, airmen, marines, and sailors killed in Vietnam this year on all sides.

Five stars.

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[December 18, 1966] The Manchurian Colonel: Space Patrol Orion, Episode 7: "Invasion"

December 18, 2021 Cora Buhlert 1 Comment

by Cora Buhlert

Tragedy in the Aegean Sea

On the North and Baltic Sea as well as on the Mediterranean Sea, dozens of ferries shuttle people, vehicles and cargo across the waves every day. By now, they have become such an integral part of the transport network that envelops Europe that we often forget that these ships are not without risk.

On December 7, 1966, the ferry SS Heraklion left the port of Chania on Crete, Greece, en route to Piraeus. In spite of harsh winds and heavy weather, it was to be a routine trip for the seventeen-year-old vessel and the 264 people aboard.

The Heraklion is a so-called roll-on/roll-off or RoRo ferry, i.e. it has been fitted with two doors in the hull, allowing cars and trucks to drive via a ramp directly into the hull. This is much easier than hauling vehicles on board by crane and allows for quicker loading times. However, such vessels have the drawback that there are large cargo doors in the hull near the water line, which can easily sink a ship, when not properly secured and watertight. And it was this feature which doomed the Heraklion.

According to witnesses, one of the vehicles aboard the Heraklion was a refrigerated truck. The truck was late to arrive and was loaded hastily and likely not properly lashed. Due to the heavy storm, the truck tore itself loose and shifted around inside the hold, until it banged against one of the cargo doors. The door failed, the truck fell into the ocean and water flooded the cargo hold, causing the Heraklion to capsize and sink within thirteen minutes.

The crew sent out an SOS and began passing out life vests and lowering the lifeboats, but several boats could not be lowered due to the vessel's heavy list and mechanical problems. There are also reports that the captain abandoned the ship early contrary to tradition. Furthermore, the heavy weather impeded the rescue efforts. In the end, only forty six of the 264 people aboard survived. Ironically, the refrigerated truck which caused the disaster was found floating in the Aegean Sea the next morning.

SS Heraklion lifeboat — A lifeboat carrying survivors of the SS Heraklion disaster.

This is not the first time a RoRo vessel has sunk in heavy weather. In 1953, the British ferry MV Princess Victoria sank during a storm with the loss of all 133 souls aboard and one year later, typhoon Marie sank five RoRo vessels in Japan, causing the loss of more than a thousand lives. RoRo vessels are practical, but we will need to rethink their safety, particularly during storms.

Disaster in Space

"Invasion", the final episode of series 1 of the West German science fiction TV series Raumpatrouille – Die phantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffs Orion (Space Patrol: The Fantastic Adventures of the Spaceship Orion) also starts out with a desperate SOS call. The space cruiser Tau en route to the outpost Gordon is battered by a severe lightstorm, and the crew are about to abandon ship. The Tau is a ship of the Galactic Security Service GSD, and on board is none other than GSD head Colonel Villa (Friedrich Joloff) and his staff.

Commander Lindley of the GSD cruiser Tau

Just before the crew abandons the Tau, Colonel Villa manages to send a message to Commander McLane (Dietmar Schönherr) and General Wamsler (Benno Sterzenbach). Villa believes that Tau did not fall victim to an ordinary lightstorm but to alternating gravitational fields. Something similar happened to the Orion 7 in episode 1 during a run-in with the Frogs. Contact with the Tau breaks off and all on board are believed lost.

Villa aboard the Tau — Colonel Villa (Friedrich Joloff) aboard the Tau

At the Starlight Casino, McLane and security officer Tamara Jagellovsk (Eva Pflug) raise a glass to the memory of Colonel Villa, "a pacifist among generals", as McLane calls him, when they receive word that Villa and his staff have been found alive, though the crew of the Tau perished.

Tamara and McLane — Tamara (Eva Pflug) and McLane (Dietmar Schönherr) raise a glass in memory of Colonel Villa

What Happened to Villa?

McLane is summoned to a meeting with the general staff to discuss the fate of the Tau. Colonel Villa remarks that he and his staff were lucky to survive the lightstorm that destroyed the Tau. McLane points out that Villa himself reported that the Tau was attacked by alternating gravitational fields.

Colonel Villa, however, claims not to remember any alternating gravitational fields. He also claims to have been suffering from shock – a diagnosis confirmed by psychiatrist Dr. Requardt (Konrad Georg) – so he may well have been babbling nonsense.

Dr Requardt — Psychiatrist Dr. Requardt (Konrad Georg) confirms that Villa is suffering from shock.

Regular viewers know that Colonel Villa is not given to babbling nonsense. Not to mention that he seemed completely sane when he sent the final message from aboard the Tau. And so McLane is sceptical of Villa's explanation and requests permission to take the Orion to Gordon to investigate. However, he is denied permission and the Orion is ordered to do routine maintenance work on the sensor satellites of the early warning system instead.

Orion reflections — Mirrored generals: General Wamsler (Benno Sterzenbach), Colonel Villa and their reflections.

It is difficult to make "talking head" scenes visually interesting – and Orion has a lot of those. However, this particular boardroom scene is brilliantly shot with Villa's face reflected in the glass conference table, creating a mirror effect and making Villa appear sinister. Many West German directors working today are still influenced by the expressionist cinema of the Weimar Republic era and Space Patrol Orion uses the visual techniques pioneered forty years ago to great effect.

Suspicious Minds

Just before the Orion 8 is due to launch, their order is cancelled. A GSD vessel will perform the maintenance of the sensor satellites, even though this falls outside their scope of responsibility.

Orion McLane and Tamara — Tamara informs McLane that their mission has been cancelled.

The Orion crew laughs, because resident womanizer Mario de Monti (Wolfgang Völz) has just been rejected by a young lady as "too old for her". Mario is not amused.

Tamara and McLane share a drink at the Starlight Casino, where they meet Colonel Mulligan (Wolf Rathjen), the officer in charge of the undersea launch bases. Mulligan had been commended for his exemplary service only days before, but now he was relieved from duty without any warning. Instead, the GSD will take over control of the launch bases.

Orion Colonel Mulligan — Tamara and McLane meet Colonel Mulligan (Wolf Rathjen)

All this is very suspicious. Why does an intelligence agency like the GSD suddenly take over routine but vital tasks like maintaining the sensors of the early warning system or controlling the launch bases for space fleet vessels?

"If I didn't know better…" McLane muses, "…I'd say that Villa was planning a coup."

The idea that the staunchly loyal Colonel Villa might be planning a coup seems ridiculous. On the other hand, Villa has been acting strangely ever since his return from Gordon. And there are unanswered questions about how Villa and his staff managed to survive the disaster that destroyed the Tau. What if Villa was captured and brainwashed by the Frogs, like Alonzo Pietro in episode 4?

These suspicions are disturbing. But luckily, McLane has a direct line to the GSD in the form of Tamara. And so he asks Tamara – who clearly was hoping for something more exciting from an evening in McLane's bachelor pad than discussing conspiracy theories – to go to Villa and request a meeting for McLane. And while Tamara is already at GSD headquarters, she can take the opportunity to snoop around a little.

Spy Trap

Tamara is not happy about spying on her boss, but she agrees to do it for McLane's sake. Villa seems his usual self and also agrees to see McLane, which is a good sign. Villa also implies that he knows that the relationship between McLane and Tamara is no longer purely professional, but then Villa is smarter than the average general in this show.

After her meeting with Villa, Tamara sneaks into an empty office and calls up the files from Villa's trip to Gordon on the computer. However, before she can access the files, Villa's face suddenly appears on the screen. He knew all along what Tamara was planning and let her snoop around to see what she and McLane know. As I said, he is smarter than the average general.

Orion Tamara — Tamara is caught while snooping around GSD headquarters

Tamara is arrested and interrogated. "So it's true?" Tamara exclaims, "You are planning a coup." In response, Villa laughs and it is a truly bone-chilling laugh. "Coups are for little boys and military officers," he replies, "I have much bigger plans such as an invasion, so Earth can finally be ruled by truly intelligent lifeforms." These truly intelligent lifeforms are of course none other than the Frogs.

Villa and Tamara — Villa and one of his subordinates interrogate Tamara.

Over the past seven episodes, we have come to know Colonel Villa. During the many scenes featuring the general staff, Villa was invariably the smartest person in the room. Thankfully, he also had a conscience. When war-mongers like Sir Arthur (Franz Scharfheitlin) and Marshall Kublai-Krim (Hans Cossy) wanted to shoot first and ask questions later, Villa was truly "a pacifist among generals" to quote McLane.

Evil Villa, on the other hand, is terrifying. He is still as smart as ever, but utterly without scruples. When his subordinates want to kill Tamara, he icily orders them to lock her up instead, because she might still be of use as leverage against McLane.

Brainwashing and turning a previously loyal person into an enemy agent is one of the great fears of our age, expressed in works such as Richard Condon's 1959 thriller The Manchurian Candidate and its 1962 film adaption or this year's brilliant science fiction thriller Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany. Orion already addressed this theme in "Deserters", but for "Invasion" the show dials up the paranoia inherent in such tales.

We watch Villa and his robot-like staff discussing the invasion plans, which involve disabling the deep space sensors, disrupting communications with Space Patrol headquarters, recalling all space cruisers to Earth and blowing up the undersea launch bases, so no ships can start.

A Traitor on Board

Villa and McLane — Villa meets with McLane.

In order to maintain his cover, Villa meets with McLane and also authorises him to take the Orion to Gordon. Moreover, Villa helpfully sends along the engineer Kranz (French actor Maurice Teynac) to equip the Orion with a forcefield to protect it against Frog attacks.

Orion Kranz — Engineer Kranz (Maurice Teynac)

However, Villa also informs McLane that Tamara will not be along for the mission, since she is attending a training course. McLane is once again suspicious, for Tamara never mentioned a training course.

On their way to Gordon, Helga Legrelle (Ursula Lillig) detects a fleet of Frog ships headed for Earth. The Orion attempts to hail Space Patrol headquarters to warn them, but due to Villa's machinations neither the Orion nor any other space cruiser can reach them, because all calls are rerouted to the GSD.

Orion Helga — Helga Legrelle (Ursula Lillig) makes an alarming discovery.

Orion Frog fleet — A Frog invasion fleet is headed for Earth.

McLane also disarms Kranz – just to be on the safe side. One of his calls finally reaches Colonel Villa's office, but of course Villa is now working for the Frogs. He orders McLane to relinquish all weapons to Kranz or he will kill Tamara. "And just in case you're thinking that the greater good justifies some sacrifices…" Villa says chillingly, "…I will order my men to use the HM3 gun which will cause a particularly painful death."

If the past six episodes have shown one thing, it's that McLane's first priority is always saving lives, especially when someone he cares about is in danger. Nonetheless, McLane does not make the decision alone and asks his crew for advice. Everybody immediately agrees to surrender and save Tamara – even Helga, who doesn't particularly like her. This scene illustrates better than anything how Tamara's role on board has changed since the first episode. She is one of the crew now and they will do everything in their power to save her.

Spring-Brauner to the Rescue

While Villa threatens Tamara, she manages to press the intercom button, so that Villa's conversation with McLane is broadcast directly to Space Patrol headquarters. General Wamsler's aide Liteutenant Spring-Brauner (Thomas Reiner) is dozing on duty, but the word "invasion" wakes him up and he raises the alarm.

Wamsler sends a squad led by Spring-Brauner to arrest Villa and his staff and rescue Tamara, but it is too late. Villa's plan has entered the next phase. His goons have recalled all space cruisers to Earth and also blow up the undersea launch bases in an impressive special effect. The Supreme Space Command can't launch any ships to stop the invasion.

Meanwhile, the Orion is still on course to Gordon, but now under the control of Kranz. "It will be like falling asleep," Kranz describes the fate that will befall the crew on Gordon, "And when you wake up, you will see everything in a completely new light."

Kranz may be an engineer, but he has no experience with space drives. And so Hasso Sigbjörnson (Claus Holm) fakes an engine problem that requires the Orion to fly at half speed.

Stop the Orion

Back on Earth, the assembled generals, Spring-Brauner and Tamara watch the invasion fleet closing in. Automated ray gun batteries decimate the fleet, but there are still too many Frog ships and Earth has no way to stop them.

Orion frog invasion fleet — Automated ray gun batteries cannot stop the Frog fleet

Eventually they realise that the Frog ships are powered via a beam from Gordon station, which is why they don't deviate from their course even when faced with heavy fire. Take out Gordon station and the invasion fleet will be left adrift.

However, the only spaceship which has a fighting chance to reach Gordon is the Orion and she is still under Kranz's control. Tamara notices that the Orion is flying at half speed and deduces that Hasso must have sabotaged the drive to stall Kranz. A distraction would give the crew the chance to take out Kranz and regain control of the ship.

So the space cruiser Hydra under the command of General Lydia Van Dyke (Charlotte Kerr) is ordered to attack the Orion and provide that distraction. The ploy works, too, because once the Hydra fires on the Orion, McLane and his crew use the confusion to overpower Kranz. The Orion heads for Gordon and destroys the outpost with the Overkill device, which was introduced in episode 4.

Happy Endings

The episode ends as it began, with a meeting of the general staff. Luckily, only Villa and his staff, Kranz and the Gordon crew were under Frog control, but psychiatrist Dr. Regwart has no idea how to fix them. And though the invasion was repealed for now, the Frogs are still out there, waiting and biding their time.

However, the first series ends on a hopeful note. Due to his repeated heroism in fighting the Frogs, McLane's demotion is rescinded and he is assigned to the Fast Space Fleet Command under Lydia Van Dyke again. Even better, McLane has been promoted to Colonel, as General Wamsler gleefully lets McLane know, though he is clearly loath to lose his best man.

The generals file out of the conference room and the Orion crew heads to the Starlight Casino to celebrate McLane's promotion with Wamsler and Lydia Van Dyke. Only McLane and Tamara linger behind. For now that McLane has his old job back, there no longer is any need to assign a GSD officer to the Orion to keep him in check. However, to McLane's surprise – though not to anybody else's – McLane does not wish to leave Tamara behind. She is part of his crew now… and more than that.

McLane and Tamara discuss their initially rocky relationship, while McLane declares that he will not accept his promotion unless Tamara can stay aboard the Orion. They also address the kiss they shared on Chroma back in episode 5, when they thought they were about to die, a kiss never mentioned again afterwards. However, it was a good kiss, so McLane promptly kisses Tamara again.

Their smooching is interrupted, when the big viewscreen in the conference room activates and Helga's face appears. She informs McLane that she bet with Mario de Monti (Wolfgang Völz) that McLane wouldn't even wait until they'd left the general staff's conference room to kiss Tamara. Helga has won a crate of champagne, though she still thinks McLane is a scoundrel. Mario is disappointed as well – after all, he lost his bet.

McLane and Tamara don't care; they kiss again.

West Germany Makes its Mark on Science Fiction

Raumpatrouille Orion is certainly the best work of filmic science fiction I have ever seen come out of West Germany. Not that this is a high bar, for until now West Germany produced very little in the way of science fiction.

However, Raumpatrouille Orion is also one of the best works of filmic science fiction I have ever seen, period. Maybe Doctor Who or the new US show Star Trek will eventually eclipse it, but for now Orion is my favourite science fiction TV show of all time. I love everything about it – the visuals, the actors, the characters and their interplay. Who would have thought that West Germany was capable of producing something this good?

TV seasons are shorter in West Germany and so the first series had only seven episodes. Though unlike many other TV shows, which tend to forget what happened only a week ago, Orion actually refers to previous episodes and works as a serialised whole.

So far, there has been no word if there will be a second series of Raumpatrouillle Orion, but I hope that we will see the Orion 8 and her valiant crew again. After all, series 1 ends with so many questions unanswered. Will Earth ever fully defeat the Frogs? Will Colonel Villa be restored to his old self? What adventures will the Orion have, now they are part of the Fast Space Fleet Command again? And how will the relationship between McLane and Tamara develop?

I hope the answers will soon come to a TV set near me.

An amazing capstone to a great series.

Five stars

Bravo Pieree Brice 1966 — How will you celebrate the holidays? Maybe with French actor Pierre Brice, star of the Winnetou movies, seen here on the cover of a teen magazine Bravo.

Fix and Foxi Christmas 1966 — Or maybe you'd rather celebrate with comic characters Fix and Foxi?

James Last Christmas Dancing — How about some swinging holiday music courtesy of James Last (real name Hans) and his latest record, "Christmas Dancing"?

Weihnachten mit Rudolf Schock — Or maybe your taste runs more towards the traditional such as Christmas with tenor Rudolf Schock (my father calls him rabbit face).

My Aunt Metel from East Germany sent me the record Weihnachten im Erzgebirge (Christmas in the Ore Mountains) and I will certainly give it a listen.

Jacobs Kaffee Christmas ad — But however you celebrate, always make sure to have enough Jacobs Coffee at hand.

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

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

December 14, 2021 Gideon Marcus 8 Comments

Shakespearean Tragedy

by Erica Frank

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3½ stars.

The Lady Doth Protest Too Much

by Tam Phan (Secret Asian Man)

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

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

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

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

3 Stars

Detached Devices and Sensitive Spock

by Gideon Marcus

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3 stars.

A Glance at Captain Kirk’s Psychology

by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

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

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

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

Killing members of the group;

Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Five stars.

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

Here's the invitation!

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[December 12, 1966] An Explosive Ending (Doctor Who: The Power Of The Daleks [Part 2])

December 12, 2021 Jessica Holmes 1 Comment

By Jessica Holmes

Welcome back, everyone! We last left the Doctor in pretty dire straits: Polly’s been kidnapped, he’s found himself embroiled in a murder mystery, and there are Daleks running about the place! Is there any hope for the Doctor, or indeed humanity itself? Let’s find out, as our second Doctor’s first story comes to an explosive conclusion.

EPISODE FOUR

What with all the chanting about their evilness, Lesterson starts to wonder if maybe, just maybe, the Daleks might be bad news. Better late than never, old chap. Unfortunately, stopping the Daleks is not quite as simple as turning off their generator. There are other factors to consider, such as Janley.

Janley still needs the Daleks for the rebellion, more than happy to keep aiding them while Lesterson slides into a nervous breakdown over their growing power.

The Doctor and Ben listen in on a rebel meeting, where Janley demonstrates the Daleks’ firepower. Understandably, the others are a bit hesitant to trust what are essentially guns with minds of their own.

Bragen’s happy with them, though, revealing himself to the Doctor’s surprise. Ben’s too unconscious to notice, having had the bright idea to try taking on a roomful of rebels single-handedly. It didn’t go well.

Bragen has the Doctor locked up with Quinn, able to blame the real Examiner’s death on him. It looks like things are pretty dire for the Doctor and company, but it’s about to get much, much worse.

Lesterson discovers that the Daleks are conspiring with each other, and upon investigating their capsule, he learns the true severity of the situation. They’re not just building a couple more Daleks… they’re churning them out on an assembly line!

This episode is a bit of a slow point in the serial. It’s not intolerably dull, but it’s markedly less exciting than the episodes preceding and following it. It’s a ‘setting up dominoes’ sort of episode; one that’s not as much fun on its own, but is vital if you want to bring everything crashing down in the future.

EPISODE FIVE

Horrified, Lesterson attempts to deactivate the Daleks, but learns that simply turning off their power won’t work any more; they’ve learned how to store it. This sends him into what I think is meant to be a fit of terror, but really he constantly seems on the verge of laughing. I doubt there will be any scenery left by the time he’s done chewing it. Unfortunately this is all he does for the rest of the story, and it does get rather grating.

He bursts into the prison, blissfully interrupting the Doctor, who was making a really annoying noise with a glass of water. You see, the Doctor’s prison cell is apparently unlocked by a specific audible tone, and he’s trying to reproduce it. At least, I think he is. He might just be messing around. It’s impossible to tell.

Bragen comes to the prison before Lesterson and the Doctor have much of a chance to talk, and Lesterson can’t convince him that the Dalek threat needs to be dealt with.

Too bad, because the Daleks are preparing the next stage of their takeover. In order to freely move about the base without needing to recharge, they begin laying down power cables.

The Doctor manages to unlock Quinn’s cell door with that confounded recorder of his, so I suppose it came in handy after all. I still want to shove it up his nose all the same. However, he doesn’t get out of prison fast enough to save the poor Governor…

The Governor arrives back in his office to find there’s been a change in management, and that his guards no longer answer to him. Bragen offers to allow the Governor to retain his title, in exchange for all the power that accompanies said title, but the Governor refuses. A principled move, but perhaps not a smart one, given the armed Dalek in the room. It doesn’t hesitate to dispatch him.

Fascinatingly, the Dalek is curious as to why humans kill other humans. Daleks are after all omnicidal maniacs, but I don’t believe we’ve seen one Dalek kill another Dalek. I’m still not sure they have the moral high ground on us, but I suppose they’re at least ethically consistent.

Quinn and the Doctor rescue Polly from the lab, immediately making a run for it as a Dalek comes out to accost them.

And then comes the single funniest thing I have ever seen in Doctor Who. It’s so audacious I can only admire its brilliance.

Pay close attention to the Daleks in the background of the group shot pictured above. Is it me, or do they look a little…flat?

Yep. They’re cardboard cutouts. And they’re not even trying to hide it! Well, you have to stretch the budget somehow, I suppose. It's been done before but never quite so blatantly.

Anyway.

Quinn and the Doctor find the Governor dead at his desk, and the killer isn’t far away. Bragen promptly throws the Daleks under the bus, blaming them solely for the death of the Governor. Until the threat is dealt with, he’s declaring martial law.

If he wants a fight with the Daleks, they’ll be only too happy to oblige…

You can see the cutouts in this shot, too– they look even dodgier from this angle!

EPISODE SIX

The revolution might be over and done with, but that won’t bring an end to the bloodshed. Aware that his rebel allies could turn against him just as easily, Bragen plans to have them killed– all except Janley, who is uneasy about the idea.

So too is one of said rebels, Valmar, who overhears the discussion.

The Doctor, Quinn and Polly find Ben, but don’t get much time to catch up as the Doctor rushes off again, not explaining himself as usual.

Fighting breaks out between the humans and the Daleks, but as you’d expect it’s rather one-sided. Valmar has the bright idea to try and turn the Daleks against Bragen with a control wire, and he’s joined by Janley, who has also changed her mind about Bragen.

Seeing the carnage, the Doctor hurries back to his friends, and they’re left with no choice but to flee out the window from the encroaching Daleks.

You’ll be shocked, SHOCKED, I say, to know that Valmar and Janley’s bright idea of using the Daleks against Bragen doesn’t go anywhere, with their Dalek ‘allies’ happily firing on anything human shaped.

It doesn’t take long for this foolishness to get Janley killed.

Bragen begins to panic as he loses contact with the other sections of the colony– it’s a massacre out there. Quinn confronts him in his office, ordering him to summon his guards from the interior. They’ll draw the Daleks away so that the Doctor can carry out his plan– assuming that he has one.

Pretending (I think) to join the Daleks, Lesterson distracts them long enough for the Doctor to do some of his technological wizardry. Unfortunately for him, Daleks have no sense of gratitude to the man who gave them life, so they kill him. His sacrifice (whether deliberate or not) enables the Doctor to do what he does best: pull levers and push buttons at random in the hopes of it doing something useful. Luckily for him, it does.

The colony’s electrical circuit overloads, flooding the Daleks with more voltage than their little tin bodies can handle. They blow up! Rather spectacularly, I might add. I think all the money saved by the cardboard Daleks went into the pyrotechnics. A fair trade, in my opinion.

Though I’m not convinced the Doctor did it entirely on purpose.

In the Governor’s office, things come to a head when Bragen attempts to murder Quinn, but Valmar arrives in the nick of time, slaying his former ally where he stands. Serves him jolly well right, too!

So, with that all done and dusted, it’s time for celebration, right? Ah, no. Besides the innumerable dead, the Doctor completely destroyed the colony’s power grid. Without getting so much as a ‘thanks for saving our lives’ the Doctor and friends beat a hasty retreat before anyone tries to hand them the bill for damages.

It’s not as if he didn’t try to warn them. Then again, as Ben says, the Doctor does not exactly have the same commanding aura he once did. He’s not a man who seems to have the slightest idea what he’s doing. Perhaps he never did– he’s just not as good at hiding it as he used to be.

Final Thoughts

There’s a lot going on in this serial, isn’t there? The Doctor’s renewal (and subsequent question of ‘Is this really the Doctor?’), the murder of the Examiner, the rebellion, the discovery of the Daleks, the Daleks’ subterfuge, and probably something else I’ve forgotten to note. It’s all at once a political thriller, a murder mystery, a cautionary tale about unchecked curiosity, and a science fiction romp. You’d think it’d be too much, and yet it works.

I had been a bit worried that the rebellion subplot might have been getting a bit too complicated for kids to really follow, but I think there’s more than enough Dalek action to keep them happy. I appreciated the slightly more mature storyline, with everyone having their own agenda. It made things more interesting, and gave the Daleks a chance to do something other than run around screaming and shooting people. They had the opportunity to show off their intelligence and cunning, which they never seemed to have much of in previous appearances.

There’s a lot of characters running around, and admittedly there were none I particularly liked, but their intricate dynamics made them more interesting to watch, Janley probably being the most interesting of the bunch as she balanced her scheming with the rebels with her alliance to Bragen.

I have most certainly warmed to our new Doctor (not that I was ever really cold to him in the first place), who I think still has the brilliance of the old one, if buried a little deeper. Or he’s a tremendously lucky clown. One of the two.

All in all, a jolly good first outing, I think. Exciting, suspenseful, and all around fully entertaining. I look forward to seeing where our new Doctor ends up next!

4 out of 5 stars

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[December 6, 1966] Welcome to the Space Prison: Space Patrol Orion, Episode 6: "The Space Trap"

December 6, 2021 Cora Buhlert 2 Comments

by Cora Buhlert

A New Government and Ghosts of the Past

Since December 1, West Germany has a new government and a new chancellor after the coalition government between the conservative CDU/CSU and the liberal party FDP broke apart in October.

The new chancellor is 62-year-old Kurt Georg Kiesinger, an unremarkable and not very intelligent man. What makes his election problematic is that Kiesinger was not only a member of the Nazi Party, but high-ranking official in the foreign ministry during the Third Reich. Considering that West Germany was not very thorough about purging former Nazis from public life, having an ex-Nazi occupying the highest office in the land sends a disastrous signal.

Ludwig Ehrhard and Kurt Georg Kiesinger — The new West German chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger (on the right) with his predecessor Ludwig Ehrhard (left).

We can only hope that this government will not last long, because it is a so-called great coalition between the conservative CDU/CSU and the social-democratic party SPD, whose political aims are normally diametrically opposed. Besides, two SPD members of the new government, foreign secretary Willy Brandt and secretary for inner German issues Herbert Wehner, were driven into exile by Nazi persecution. I can't imagine them putting up with a former Nazi chancellor for long.

Space Spores and Droning Bores

Compared to the political situation in West Germany, "Die Raumfalle" (The Space Trap), the latest episode of Raumpatrouille – Die phantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffs Orion (Space Patrol – The Fantastic Adventures of the Spaceship Orion) was much more enjoyable.

Space Patrol Orion episode 6 — Paperwork is the bane of McLane's life.

The episode starts with Commander Cliff Alister McLane (Dietmar Schönherr) receiving his latest orders from General Wamsler (Benno Sterzenbach). It's yet another routine mission (and we all know how well those tend to go for the Orion 8): Collect space dust in order to investigate the panspermia theory, which causes Wamsler's aide Spring-Brauner (Thomas Reiner) to drone on and on about the panspermia theory, i.e. the theory that life did not originate on Earth, but is distributed through the universe via spores hitching a ride with space dust, asteroids, meteorites, etc… The theory is the brainchild of Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius, who also developed the theory of a global greenhouse caused by industrial carbon dioxide emissions, which played a role in the Orion episode "The Battle for the Sun". One of the writers is apparently a fan.

"Are you sure you want us to go on this mission?" McLane interrupts Spring-Brauner's monologue, "After all, we might disprove the theory and what would you talk about then?"

Raumpatrouille Orion episde 6 — Lieutenant Spring-Brauner (Thomas Reiner) drones on about the panspermia theory, much to the annoyance of General Wamsler (Benno Sterzenbach) and Commander McLane (Dietmar Schönherr)

General Wamsler has another mission for McLane as well. Science fiction author Pieter Paul Ibsen (Reinhard Glemnitz), winner of the Utopia Award (no reference to the Hugo Awards, alas), wants to accompany the Orion on a mission. And since Ibsen is the future son-in-law of the secretary of interplanetary affairs, he gets his wish. McLane is as thrilled about this as you can imagine.

Raumpatrouille Orion — The Orion 8 receives clearnace for take-off by a traffic control officer (Christine Isensee).

An Unwanted Passenger

Raumpatrouille Orion episode 6 — Ibsen meets the Orion crew.

No one aboard the Orion is keen on having Pieter Paul Ibsen – nicknamed Pie-Po by the crew – along for the ride. Hasso Sigbjörnson threatens bodily harm should Ibsen enter the engine room, and Atan Shubashi (F.G. Beckhaus) complains about Ibsen's novels, where no one lands on planets anymore, they just de- and rematerialize. I wonder if this is a reference to Star Trek's transporter, though both shows probably debuted too close together to have influenced each other.

Only Helga Legrelle (Ursula Lillig) seems quite taken with Ibsen and flirts with him. And once security officer Tamara Jagellovsk (Eva Pflug) notices McLane's reaction, she decides to join in to make him jealous. The kiss between McLane and Tamara at the climax of episode 6 is not addressed in this episode, though the relationship between these two has noticeably shifted. General Wamsler remarks that the Orion crew believes that Tamara is a sophisticated android, but her behaviour towards McLane suggests that she is a lot more human than that.

Ibsen wants to pilot one of the Orion's Lancet shuttles. After all, he has completed a training class. Worse, Ibsen insists on flying alone without backup. McLane is not happy about this, but finally relents. Besides, Ibsen's flight will be controlled by a guide beam, so what could go wrong?

Everything, it turns out. To begin with, Ibsen switches off the guide beam, insisting that he can fly the Lancet on his own, and promptly drifts off course. Worse, spatial disturbances interrupt communications between the Lancet and the Orion. Finally, Ibsen is forced to land on a barren asteroid. He tries to take off again twice, but each time, the Lancet cannot leave the asteroid's gravity field. Ibsen leaves the craft to determine what's wrong and is promptly captured by armed men.

Meanwhile, the Orion is desperately trying to contact Ibsen, while back on Earth, General Wamsler and Lieutenant Spring-Brauner are desperately trying to hail the Orion to satisfy the secretary of interplanetary affairs (Hans Epskamp) who is worried about his future son-in-law.

He is absolutely right to be worried, too, for when we next see Ibsen, he is tied to a chair, being interrogated by an unseen voice and threatened with two glass bulbs emitting so-called "omicron rays" on either side of his head. The unseen voice is very interested in the Orion and her crew. Ibsen, who is not the sort of person to withstand interrogation for long, spills the beans. He is then ordered to hail the Orion, tell them that he was forced to land on the asteroid Mura and ask them to pick him up.

Prison Asteroid

The Orion crew are relieved to hear that Ibsen is alive and well, but surprised that he ended up on Mura, because he was nowhere near Mura when they lost contact.

However, picking up Ibsen will pose a problem, because the only ships authorised to land on Mura are supply ships and the vessels of the Galactic Security Service GSD. Luckily, McLane has a member of the GSD on board in the form of Tamara who authorises the mission. McLane's brief conversation with Tamara not only demonstrates that McLane is still jealous of Ibsen, much to Tamara's amusement, but also gives us some additional worldbuilding details.

Mura, it turns out, is a prison asteroid, which is why it's off limits to everybody except the GSD. McLane is appalled at banishing people to a barren asteroid for the rest of their lives, whereupon Tamara replies that Mura is really quite humane. After all, they used to imprison or execute offenders, so Mura is surely an improvement. McLane asks if the inhabitants of Mura are all criminals; Tamara replies that a lot of them are malcontents and some actually used to be celebrities.

The opening narration of every episode (courtesy of veteran actor Claus Biederstedt) presents Space Patrol Orion as a utopian fairy tale from the future, but this brief conversation between Tamara and McLane adds some anti-utopian notes. For not only is the Earth government perfectly willing to let its own citizens die, as demonstrated in episode 2, and willing to launch a preemptive strike against anybody they perceive to be a threat, as seen in episode 6, they also dump malcontents, criminals and troublemakers on barren asteroids in deep space. Combined with the hints last episode that Earth suffered widespread environmental devastation, these new revelations put some wrinkles in the image of a democratic utopian future.

Unfortunately, the episode promptly undermines these hints that life on Earth and its space colonies in the year 3000 AD is not as pleasant as it has been presented so far by making the prisoners on Mura irredeemable villains. For at least the prisoners we see are no mere malcontents, but criminals and murderers.

Behind Bars

As soon as the Orion lands on Mura, they receive a call showing them Ibsen strapped to a chair and about to have his brain fried by omicron rays. The same sinister voice that interrogated Ibsen informs the Orion crew that Ibsen will be killed unless they surrender.

Ibsen is a pain in the backside and no one aboard the Orion likes him, but as McLane points out, they can't just let him die either. So the crew surrenders and is immediately surrounded by armed men and taken to the command center. The male and female crew members are locked up in separate cells, while McLane is taken to meet the leader of the prisoners.

This leader – and unsurprisingly also the owner of the sinister voice we heard before – turns out to be a man called Tourenne, a scientist who developed a devastating weapon known as paralysis rays, and decided to test it on human subjects, killing countless people. Tourenne is utterly unrepentant of the crime which got him exiled to Mura. In many ways, Tourenne is reminiscent of the Nazi scientists who conducted experiments that killed hundreds of people and were still allowed to continue their work after the war.

But while Tourenne may not be repentant, he is certainly furious at the Earth government that sent him to Mura. Therefore, he and his followers plan to hijack the Orion and defect to the Frogs. McLane is horrified; surely not even an archvillain like Tourenne would side with the Frogs against humanity. Tourenne, on the other hand, hates the Earth government so much that he would side with the devil himself.

The Return of Dr. Mabuse?

So far, Space Patrol Orion hasn't offered any memorable villains. The Frogs usually remain off stage and are only briefly glimpsed. She, leader of Chroma, was not a villainess but rather someone whose legitimate aims collided with those of the Earth government. Indeed, the closest thing to evil we've seen in Orion so far are unscrupulous generals like Marshall Kublai-Krim or Sir Arthur.

Tourenne, on the other hand, is not only memorable, but also a true villain. Played by Wolfgang Büttner with a sinister air, Tourenne is a monster who delights in inflicting pain and wants to kill the entire Orion crew. In his megalomania and sadism, Tourenne reminded me of Dr. Mabuse, the supervillain who starred in eight films between 1922 and 1964. The cinematography with its sharp black and white contrasts, which keeps Tourenne in the shadows with only part of his face visible, is reminiscent of the heyday of German expressionism in the 1920s and makes the Mabuse parallels even more notable. And considering that Dr. Mabuse is a malevolent spirit who jumps from body to body, it's quite possible that Tourenne is his latest host.

Though strapped to a chair, McLane tries to persuade Tourenne that killing him and the rest of the Orion crew would be a big mistake, because no one but the crew can fly the ship. Tourenne reveals that there are space fleet officers incarcerated on Mura, including a commander who murdered his astrogator in a fit of jealousy.

McLane insists that technology has progressed so quickly that even a spaceship commander won't be able to make heads nor tails of the Orion's controls after a few years on Mura. Tourenne, however, isn't buying it. He threatens to murder Ibsen in front of McLane's eyes, because he certainly doesn't need a science fiction writer. Then he'll kill Tamara, who as security officer isn't required to fly the Orion either. And then Helga and so on…

Women in Prison

Meanwhile, Tamara and Helga find themselves locked up together in a cell. Both initially assumed that they were the reason the prisoners captured the Orion, since a prison asteroid will have a severe lack of women. The look on Tamara and Helga's faces at this prospect suggests that they found Robert A. Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress as unappetising as I did. But since they haven't been sexually abused yet, Tamara notes that the prisoners appear to be more interested in the Orion than in any of her crew.

Raumpatrouille Orion 6 — Locked up: Helga and Tamara on Mura

However, the chronic lack of women on Mura gives Tamara and Helga an idea. And so Tamara hides out of sight, while Helga proceeds to hail the guard on the intercom system to flirt with him and also to inform him that Tamara has escaped. When the guard enters the cell to investigate, Tamara and Helga overpower and disarm him. Thus far, the two female members of the Orion crew have often been shown at odds with each other, so it's good to see them working together. Furthermore, Helga, who has often been sidelined, gets plenty to do in this episode.

Tamara and Helga force the guard to open the cell in which Hasso, Mario and Atan have been imprisoned. Together, they make their way back aboard the Orion. Hasso hails Tourenne and informs that he has overloaded the energy system. If Tourenne does not release McLane and Ibsen, Hasso will blow up the Orion and Mura along with it. There are shades of the recent Star Trek episode "The Corbomite Maneuver" in Hasso's bluff, but Hasso manages to sell it convincingly, because few people manage to put more contempt in the word "swine" than Claus Holm.

Tourenne seemingly relents and lets McLane and Ibsen go, but of course he still has an ace up his sleeve. For once the Orion tries to take off, it is pulled down to the surface of Mura again. The same thing happened to Ibsen's Lancet earlier. The prisoners have set up a magnetic dome, which absorbs any energy that is deployed to break through it.

Reaction and Counterreaction

A gloating Tourenne hails McLane and demands to be let aboard the Orion. He also informs McLane that his men took all weapons, so the crew are helpless. The crew still has the one ray gun that Tamara took from the guard she and Helga overpowered, but Tourenne forces McLane to relinquish the weapon, after he threatens to strip-search the crew, "which the ladies would find quite unpleasant".

So McLane is disarmed. He gives coded instructions to his own crew, while keeping Tourenne and his men in the dark. And because the Orion crew are so well attuned to each other, they understand just what McLane plans. Mario launches a Lancet against the magnetic dome, briefly breaking open the dome and allowing the Orion to escape. The ship is badly shaken and the crew uses the resulting confusion to take out Tourenne and his men with impressive judo skills. Helga and Tamara actually hold their own better than their male comrades.

Once all the villains are sedated, the Orion makes her way back to Earth and also calls space patrol headquarters who have been frantic to reach them. The secretary for interplanetary affairs immediately demands to talk to Ibsen, only to be informed that Ibsen got so drunk when the Orion crew celebrated their escape that he can't talk right now. The secretary is indignant and we suspect his daughter, Ibsen's fiancée, will be furious. Let's hope it's not to late to call off the wedding.

A Prison Thriller in Space

I know I'm repeating myself, but Raumpatrouille Orion really keeps getting better with every episode. If the final episode of this series manages to keep the promise set by the first six, it promises to be stellar.

Star Trek and Raumpatrouille Orion have no way of influencing each other due to airing too close together, but both shows tackle similar themes. And so Star Trek had a space prison episode with "Dagger of the Mind" some three weeks before Orion followed suit with "The Space Trap".

Though very different, both episodes managed to comment on the ethics of prisons, punishment and rehabilitation. I suspect that two different science fiction shows airing on two different continents tackling the same theme is due to the fact that in the real world, prison system still rely on facilities and procedures developed in the 19th century and are in dire need of reform.

Both Star Trek and Raumpatrouille Orion assume that the death penalty will no longer be an issue in the future (though Star Trek apparently threatened a character with the death penalty in "The Menagerie"), but then the death penalty thankfully seems to be on its way out. West Germany abolished the death penalty in 1949, though East Germany still executes people on occasion, most recently concentration camp doctor Horst Fischer who was guillotined in July of this year. In the US, many states retain the death penalty, though executions are increasingly rare. The last US execution to date was that of James French, a murderer who was eager to die and was granted his wish in August 1966. He cracked a joke about "French fries", before he was electrocuted.

Trial of Horst Fischer — Concentration camp doctor Horst Fischer, the last person executed in East Germany, at his trial earlier this year.

Murderer James French, who went to the electric chair with a joke on his lips in August.

Unfortunately, Orion undercuts the criticism of the ethics of exiling criminals and troublemakers to Mura by making Tourenne not a misunderstood malcontent, but a sadistic villain. We don't learn a lot about the other prisoners; the only one whose crime is described is a murderer.

But even though "The Space Trap" misses an opportunity for social criticism, it's still an excellent episode. Let's see if the last episode of this series can uphold the high standard set by its predecessors.

Five stars

Taptoe Magazine — December 6 is St. Nicholas Day, celebrated here on the cover of the Dutch magazine taptoe.

Sinterklaas — St. Nicholas greets children during a parade through the town of Horn in the Netherlands.

St. Nicholas kindergarten — St. Nicholas visits children in a West German primary school.

St. Nicholas presents — And in the morning, many German and Dutch children will find a gift from St. Nicholas on their doorstep.

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[December 4, 1966] Riddle wrapped in an enigma (Star Trek: "The Menagerie")

December 4, 2021 Janice L. Newman 10 Comments

But first, please read this brief interlude!

As you know, in addition to Galactic Journey, I also run Journey Press, devoted both to republishing classics discovered while on this trek through time, but also to publish new works of science fiction in fantasy that (I hope!) live up to the quality and tradition of the classic works we offer.

If anyone would enjoy these works, we know it will be you. This holiday season, pick up a title or three from Journey Press! It's the best present you can give yourself, a loved one…and us!

The Sum of its Parts

by Janice L. Newman

Back in July, a few Journeyers were lucky enough to catch a private showing of "The Cage", the first pilot of the new Star Trek series. I say ‘first’ pilot, because despite the amount of money invested in making it, it was never publicly aired on TV, which seemed a shame. Still, it’s understandable – the cast and crew of the ship are almost completely different from the actors who were finally chosen for the TV show, with only Mr. Spock appearing in the same role in both. (Majel Barett appears in both, but as different characters.)

But isn’t it a waste to spend so much and work so hard on a great episode like "The Cage" and then not use it? Desilu, the studio producing Star Trek, must have thought so. They decided to use the footage after all, but in one of the most innovative ways I’ve ever seen – appropriate for a modern, forward-thinking science fiction show.

Gene Roddenberry took the original episode and wrote a new story around it, turning into a 2-part episode that frames the "The Cage" in a way that is both compelling and fits well into the narrative and characters as they have been established in the past 10 episodes.

The story opens with the Enterprise diverted to a starbase by a false message. On the base, they meet Captain Pike: a former starship captain who was grievously wounded in a training accident. Though he saved the trainees, he himself was so badly hurt by the radiation that he is now unable to interact with the world except by moving a wheelchair forward and back and answering yes and no questions with a pulsing light. His mind, we are assured, is as active as ever, but it is trapped within a body which has been damaged beyond repair.

Spock once served under Pike, and, meeting with him in secret, behaves suspiciously. He claims that he’s made all the arrangements. From there he kidnaps Pike, uses falsified voice commands to hijack the Enterprise, and begins a race toward “Talos Four”, a planet that starfleet has declared entirely forbidden to approach or even to make contact with.

Captain Kirk pursues his ship and its apparently rogue first officer. He and the commander of the base, Commodore Mendez, deliberately leave themselves stranded without fuel, gambling that Spock will pick them up rather than leaving them to die. Like many of Kirk’s wilder ideas, it’s a gamble that pays off.

Once on the ship, Mendez demands that Spock be court-martialed. Spock pleads guilty, but for his testimony, asks to show a record of what happened thirteen years ago when Pike and his crew, including Spock, first encountered Talos Four. When Mendez points out that this can’t be a normal recording, being far too detailed, Spock declines to explain his source at first.

The record Spock shows is, of course, the original "The Cage" pilot. However, the story isn’t just played straight through, it is frequently interrupted by the people watching. In this way, the tension of the ‘present-day’ story is maintained alongside the story that happened in the ‘past’. Will Spock be found guilty and receive the death penalty? Will he be able to show the entirety of what happened? Why has he done this?

The story-within-a-story format could have been confusing and poorly-done, but instead it fits astoundingly well. Since the events aboard Pike’s ship ostensibly take place thirteen years in the past, it’s easy to excuse differences in uniforms as being a natural evolution and less polished special effects as being ‘more primitive technology’. The presence of Spock in both ties the stories together into a plausible and effective whole. The sharp contrast between the young and virile Pike from the past and the badly-burned Pike from the present is profound and disturbing.

The ending is, admittedly, a little pat. Spock’s flagrantly criminal behavior is dismissed and forgiven, and Pike gets to live the rest of his life in an illusory paradise, ‘unfettered by his physical body’. The Talosians, who were so menacing and dangerous, turn out not to be evil, and the whole thing is treated almost like a big misunderstanding. It’s all a little too easy.

Despite this, though, I was incredibly impressed by how well-integrated the two stories were. Kirk and Spock felt completely in-character. In fact, when it is revealed that the entire court martial was merely designed to keep Kirk distracted so that he couldn’t find a way to regain control of his ship, it was such an appropriate follow up to "The Corbomite Maneuver" that I wanted to applaud. Spock knows that Kirk is both clever and thinks outside the box, and that it will be impossible for Spock to anticipate his actions. Building an expectation of this into his plan showed that he understands his captain very well indeed.

This was one (or two) of my favorite episodes yet.

5 stars

A few notes

by Gideon Marcus

Having seen "The Cage" at Tricon, it was interesting seeing how it was integrated into a Trek episode, and also what was changed. For instance, Malachi Throne played the Talosian Keeper in "The Cage". Since he was brought on to play Commodore Mendez (a role I really liked him in), they had to alter his voice as the Talosian. I felt this really enhanced the alienness and androgyny of the being.

I think "The Cage" worked better on its own than stitched into The Menagerie, but on the other hand, I loved the sheer scope of the two-part episode. Thirteen years of history, a starbase, flag officers, compelling aliens…with one story, Trek became a living universe.

A couple of things became clear after much pondering:

Vina probably has the Talosian power of illusion. After all, the Keeper was certain that, given any contact between the races, humans would learn the power and destroy themselves. They only had one human with which to make that assertion…

This explains the death penalty for visiting Talos — a starship going to Talos IV might very well cause the societal death of humanity. It also explains Mendez' suspension of enforcement of the order, since in this circumstance, no harm could be done.

Favorite moment of the episode:

Spock: Mr. Hansen is now in temporary command of the Enterprise.

Hansen: (voice cracking) Sir?!

5 stars for the first part, 4 stars for the second, 4.5 stars total.

Game of the Mind

by Elijah Sauder

Being new here I'll give a little introduction. My name is Elijah Sauder and I have always enjoyed things SFnal, one of my more recent favorites being Dune. Despite my interest in the genre, I have only recently started watching Star Trek, making these episodes the 3rd and 4th ones I’ve tuned in for. I have also not seen “The Cage” pilot that some of our group has.

I felt that these episodes, perhaps unintentionally, touched on some interesting ideas regarding how important the mind is. We rely so much on our ability to perceive the world for how it is, so what happens when that ability is deceived? These episodes, particularly part 2, experiment with that very idea.

It is made very clear in the second episode that the Talosians cannot directly control what one thinks or feels; however they have the ability to alter what one perceives. For instance, instead of just causing Captain Pike pain, they made him perceive that he was in a lake of fire.

To me, this distinction was fascinating. In a way, it is the ultimate form of manipulation. I think the episode does a good job of exploring how one could escape such a manipulation, though I feel that if applied correctly, it could be near inescapable. Instead of making it seem like the blasters don’t work, why not make it seem like the blasters don’t even exist, etc. If someone can control everything you perceive, do you really have any control left? Assuming a species is intelligent enough to understand how a species thinks, they could easily keep you in a loop of you thinking you succeeded, when in reality you are still in their illusion.

We humans are exploring this concept in a limited way with Op Art or optical illusion art. It creates images that are meant to trick the brain. To take the perception we assumed is real and play with it to show us something that doesn’t exist or at least something to confuse us. Some great examples of this are done by a Hungarian/French artist, Victor Vasarely.

I quite enjoyed these episodes. Overall, I agree with the general consensus, the first episode was great and the second one was good but was less polished.

5 and 4 stars, respectively. Keep your heads on straight, Elijah out.

Frankenstein's episode

by Robin Rose Graves

Spock’s defiance in part one drove my interest in this episode. This is a man who follows rules and while not immediately apparent what his motives are, I kept watching, eager to find out. My interest waned with the flashbacks. I’ve seen these scenes before and while “the Cage” has a movie quality production, its new presentation cheapens it.

Knowing already that Vina’s appearance is yet another deception on the Talosian’s part, I successfully predicted ahead of time that the reason Spock wants to bring Pike to Talos Four is to restore the quality of his life (while mobility is accounted for by his futuristic wheelchair, he is reduced to two responses to speak with: “yes” or “no.” What a cruel existence).

Yet in “the Cage,” Pike desperately escapes the Talosian’s clutches, as they want to use humans to populate a slave race. Now, the Talosian’s motives are brushed aside, and similar to how Vina decides to stay behind in order to live without disability, Pike accepts life on Talos Four. His motives are partially understandable, given the reduced existence he was living before, but the initial conflict of “the Cage” is entirely ignored. I can’t help but think this choice comes with immense sacrifice the episode doesn’t take time to contemplate.

At the end, the audience learns that this has all been agreed upon ahead of time, including allowing passage into the previously forbidden territory – yet Kirk and the rest of the Enterprise (minus Spock) are unaware of these arrangements.

Spock’s reputation for being reliable and obedient is restored, as he was never defying orders to begin with. All tension is released without consequence.

The drama of this episode could have been entirely avoided with conversation. Was it necessary to keep Kirk in the dark? In all episodes to date, Kirk has enthusiastically helped when the opportunity to do so is placed before him. While I understand the personal connection Spock has to Pike, I’m unable to believe that should Kirk have been informed ahead of time of what was going on he wouldn’t have wanted to help. The only purpose of not telling Kirk was to create the initial drama.

Thus, this is a 3 star episode for me. I loved “the Cage,” which first kindled my interest in this series. I liked what this episode was trying to do: mixing a past plot into a present plot while utilizing the brilliantly done unused Pilot. To me, it barely works and I far prefer the original “the Cage”.

Flagrant Emotionalism

by Tam Phan (Secret Asian Man)

What a fantastic performance by Nimoy. Spock’s plan may have been thorough, calculated, and deep, but were his motivations? Not only did he need to persuade Kirk, his current captain, but he had to protect him at the same time. Spock’s cunning plan to reach Talos Four to save Pike, his former captain, was borderline emotional. Though logical in execution, in my opinion his motivations were anything but. We get to see Spock’s human half in “The Menagerie” and it gives us an opportunity to relate to the logic driven alien. We don’t get to see the internal struggle that took place before the commitment to his actions, but that would have spoiled this ending and added a third episode. Perhaps a future episode will touch on this. At any rate, Nimoy’s calm demeanor in the face of these tough decisions was only broken for a moment a couple of times. Once when the monitor went blank and he implored Kirk to continue to watch until the end, and once when he felt “insulted” by Kirk’s comment at the end. A very nice touch.

It wasn’t enough that Spock had his struggle. Kirk had no choice but to condemn his First Officer and friend to a possibility of the death penalty with a guilty verdict. The pain on his face was evident. A more subtle and welcome performance by Shatner. Not to say that Shatner can’t be subtle, but it often seems there's nothing in between that and “The Enemy Within”.

I couldn’t help but appreciate Commodore Mendez, played by Malachi Throne, as the voice of reason. His decisions were appropriate and inevitable. Kirk was torn between doing what he knew was the correct thing to do and some excuse that could save his friend. Mendez took charge which not only made it impossible for Kirk to dally any longer but forced us into Kirk’s shoes. Not knowing what I would have done in that situation was reflected in Kirk and for a moment I hated Mendez even though I knew he was right.

“The Cage” was a fantastic episode on its own. I would have preferred that it stayed that way, but I understand why it was used in “The Menagerie”. The result is still one of my favorites so far.
5 Stars

by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

Spock Scheherazades His Way To Freedom

In many versions of 1001 Nights, Scheherazade’s sister is silent. She sits beside the sheikh or sultan or king or raja, listening to the stories Scheherazade spins on her behalf. In some translations, Scheherazade is telling her never-ending stories to keep her sister from becoming their ruler’s next victim, volunteering to risk her life for someone she respects and cares for.

Scheherazade’s stories are full of frames we pass through and into, minor characters in one story becoming leads in another, before fading for the next. Spock’s deliciously kaleidoscopic story in The Menagerie often uses framed computer screens to show us different moments. He appears on our screens in our homes, only to direct us to a screen showing the past on Talos Four, wherein we see a screen that the Talosians use to view the surface. Scheherazade’s tales often involve fantasies of sex and subjugation, violence and taboo, cruelty and romance, just as the Talosian fantasies Vina spins do. Like Scheherazade, Spock is spinning out his time to save a silent comrade, entertaining his audience long enough to stave off judgement, and risking death because he believes that if he only finishes telling his stories, both he and Captain Pike will be free.

There are of course some key differences. Captain Kirk is not a cruel and capricious sheikh, though the illusory Commodore Mendez could have made a go for it. Spock is not Captain Pike’s brother, though Spock’s bond to him seems deep enough for him to risk his life, career, the crew of The Enterprise, and his relationship with Captain Kirk for. But Spock’s storytelling structure, motivation, and themes place him firmly within Scheherazade’s style.

It is hard to end a multi-layered frame narrative, because we never seem to end up exactly back where we started. At the end of most tellings of Scheherazade’s story, the ruler looks up, sees their shared children sitting around them, and agrees to stop killing virgins. We don’t see his heart change on screen. We are never given a clear reason for it. Scheherazade's sister is saved without her ever saying a word. In its way, 1001 Nights’s conclusion is as fantastical as the ending of The Menagerie, with its uncharacteristically altruistic Talosians, removal of charges for Spock, and perfect mental prosthesis for Captain Pike. But why do we read stories of the fantastic if not to be surprised and delighted by their endings?

Five stars.

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[November 20 1966] Doctor…Who? (Doctor Who: The Power Of The Daleks [Part 1])

November 20, 2021 Jessica Holmes 1 Comment

By Jessica Holmes

It was with a mix of curiosity and trepidation that I tuned into Doctor Who this month. The character we know and love has vanished forever, and in his place is a stranger– A stranger who calls himself the Doctor. But is it really the same man? Once again, we have to ask the essential question that the programme was founded on. Doctor…who?

EPISODE ONE

The first episode begins with a great deal of confusion as the strange man in the place of the Doctor comes to his senses. Polly takes him to be the same old Doctor, but Ben’s not so sure– and neither am I. For one thing, he looks completely different. Even his clothes have changed. So it’s not as if he’s been ‘de-aged’ or something like that. By the way the stranger himself reacts, testing out his muscles and joints, it’s a wholly new body.

And yet, a familiar face peers back at him in his reflection.

He himself doesn’t seem certain of his identity, referring to the Doctor in the third person despite apparently sharing the Doctor’s memories.

Well, if there’s any quintessentially Doctorish trait, it’s being clear as mud.

Oh, and he plays the recorder now, and has absolutely terrible taste in hats. At any given moment in the episode, I think Ben might be about to snatch the recorder from him and use it as a deadly weapon, and to be honest, I can’t blame him. The recorder is not a musical instrument, it is a torture method designed to torment parents of young children.

The group leave the TARDIS to have a look around, finding themselves in the mercury swamps of the planet Vulcan. The swamps are a dangerous place to be, as the Doctor(?) learns when he runs into a bloke who gets shot halfway through introducing himself as an Examiner from Earth. Ben and Polly run afoul of the mercury fumes, and the Doctor himself gets a nasty crack over the head, courtesy of the other man’s killer. The mystery man plants a button in the Doctor’s hand before dragging the corpse away.

Fortunately for the group, they’re found by a couple of men from the nearby colony: Bragen, Head of Security, and Quinn, Deputy Governor. They’re dressed identically to the assassin, but it’s impossible to tell if one of them did the deed.

Believing him to be the Examiner (the Doctor doesn’t bother to correct them), the pair bring the Doctor and company back to the colony, where there’s trouble afoot. A rebellion quietly simmers beneath the surface, and a mysterious capsule has been found in the swamps.

Investigating further, it soon turns out that the capsule perhaps ought to have stayed there. There are Daleks inside! Dead Daleks, but they could still be terribly dangerous.

And there’s something in there that doesn’t seem entirely dead, but it scuttles away before they can get a good look at it. Whatever it is, it can't be good.

Things get off to a mysterious start in this episode, taking its time to introduce our new leading actor before launching into the intriguing mysteries of the Vulcan colony. Why was the Examiner summoned? Who killed him? What are the Daleks up to this time? I'm having a lot of fun.

EPISODE TWO

The group soon discover something even worse– not only does it appear that there are Daleks in here, one of them seems to be missing. The Doctor suspects that Lesterson, the head scientist, has been experimenting. One Dalek, a colony in strife… it’s a recipe for disaster.

He confronts Lesterson on the missing Dalek, urging him to destroy it. With Lesterson refusing to yield to his authority, the Doctor goes in search of a meeting with the Governor.

Which he doesn’t get. But he does get some fruit! Sure, there are listening devices hidden inside, but an apple is an apple and reincarnation/renewal is presumably hungry work. Unable to meet with the Governor, the Doctor decides to send a radio message back to Earth. Hopefully there’s some higher authority who will listen to him.

The Doctor finds the radio engineer unconscious and the equipment broken, and a rather suspicious-looking Quinn holding a pair of shears.

Bragen arrives, and when the Doctor shows him the button from his attacker, he recognises it as one of Quinn’s and arrests him on the spot.

In true B-movie fashion, Lesterson and his team try to wake up the Dalek by pumping it full of electricity. It works a little too well, shooting one of his lab assistants. What did they expect?

Quinn’s hauled before the Governor for an inquiry, and the evidence doesn’t look too good for him. Lesterson interrupts proceedings, bursting in to tell them about his new breakthrough. The Dalek is awake, active, and apparently ready to serve.

And it recognises the Doctor. Somehow. Maybe it can see something we can't?

The new Doctor continues to grow on me in this episode, his more serious side beginning to peep through the clownish exterior. The plot’s coming along nicely, and I’m none too sure what to make of the characters. I don’t feel like there’s anyone we can trust here, except perhaps Ben and Polly.

EPISODE THREE

Despite the Doctor’s protestations, the Governor gives Lesterson permission to continue his work on the Daleks. Continuing Quinn’s inquiry, Bragen accuses him of being in league with the rebels. Quinn protests that he was the one who sent for the Examiner in the first place, so why would he attack him? Unconvinced, the Governor strips him of his position and promotes Bragen in his place.

It’s all coming together for Bragen, who it turns out is in league with Lesterson’s lab assistant Janley to take over the colony. Janley’s in league with the rebels, but she’s planning on betraying them as soon as they cease to be useful. She also reveals that Lesterson’s other assistant died of his injuries, but she hasn’t told him that.

So many twists and turns!

Seeing Polly and her inquisitiveness as a potential threat, Janley lures Polly to the communications room where an accomplice knocks her out. She rewards him with the Dalek’s gun-stick.

The Dalek’s curiosity and intelligence continues to impress Lesterson, and he’s especially intrigued when it offers to build him a perfect computer. However, when he leaves the room it immediately increases the power supply to the capsule. Gee, a Dalek being up to no good, who’d have guessed?

The Doctor and Ben arrive to find two more Daleks emerging from the capsule, and wisely decide to run away. Lesterson still doesn’t believe that the Daleks are dangerous, and asks Bragen (who the Governor has left in charge while he’s away) to give him a guard.

Ben reports Polly’s disappearance to Bragen, but the Deputy Governor has bad news for the Doctor: they’ve found the real examiner’s body out in the swamps.

But how would he know that? The only people to have seen the real examiner were the Doctor and the assassin.

With the Doctor having leverage over him, Bragen backs off on arresting him, but orders him to leave Lesterson alone.

In case the Doctor needs any more incentive, somebody slips a note under the door. Polly’s safe…. As long as the Doctor stops interfering with the Dalek experiments.

Final Thoughts

So far, this is an excellent story that moves along at a good pace, delivering some fun twists and turns without becoming too convoluted. I’m looking forward to seeing where it’s all headed.

I’ll save the further ruminations on the plot for next time. The real point of interest in this story is our new leading actor. Patrick Troughton is credited as Dr. Who, but is he truly the same character?

Let’s look at the facts: He has the same memories, and we saw the original Doctor turn into this second Doctor on-screen. With all the strange things that happen in Doctor Who, a change of appearance isn’t too far out of the ordinary.

What makes it more complicated is the change in personality. Troughton’s a younger man, and he acts like it. His Doctor is quite unpredictable, often somewhat childish and playful, undercut with moments of sudden seriousness. The cadence of his speech is also his own, when he does deign to talk instead of tootling away on that blasted recorder.

He’s a different person…and yet, somehow, he still feels like the Doctor to me. There’s a sort of je-ne-sais-quoi, a vague idea of the Doctor, a spirit of mischief and genius that feels in a way like the soul of the character. I think I still recognise that in him.

It’s all a bit philosophical, isn’t it? After all, my personality when I was a child is different in many ways to my personality as an adult, but I’m still the same person. These changes happen gradually to all of us. Perhaps they just happened all at once to the Doctor.

After all, if he has a whole new body, his brain is different too, so who knows what effect his altered brain physiology has had?

In conclusion, I have no idea.

Perhaps the more important question is: do I like this new Doctor?

That’s a lot easier. Yes. I like him very, very much. He is enormous fun to watch. He’s genuinely funny, and utterly compelling when he turns serious.

This is not Hartnell’s Doctor, but it’s not trying to be, either. I think that’s a good thing. I’ll miss him, but I do feel the new chap has breathed new life into the programme. We’ve just opened the door to a whole new world of character development, and opened a can of unpredictability.

I can’t wait to see what’s in store for our second Doctor.

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[November 18, 1966] Environmental Disasters and the War of the Sexes: Space Patrol Orion, Episode 5, "Battle for the Sun"

November 18, 2021 Cora Buhlert 2 Comments

by Cora Buhlert

Of Geese, Saints and Lanterns

November 11 is St. Martin's Day or Martinmas, a popular holiday in many parts of West Germany.

For those of you not familiar with Roman Catholic saints, St. Martin was a Roman soldier who converted to Christianity and became bishop of Tours in the fourth century AD. According to legend, he cut his cloak in half with his sword to share it with a naked beggar.

In West Germany, St. Martin's Day is traditionally celebrated with a procession of children singing and carrying paper lanterns. In some regions, the children go from house to house to ask for sweets similar to trick or treating in the US. In other regions, the night ends with a St. Martin bonfire.

At home, the family enjoys a roast goose, traditionally served with dumplings and red cabbage, in reference to another legend associated with St. Martin, namely that he hid in a goose shed in order to avoid being elected bishop. However, as anybody who has ever encountered them knows, geese tend to be very noisy and so St. Martin was found and elected bishop anyway.

Traditionally, the roast St. Martin's Day goose is served with dumplings and red cabbage. However, more modern recipes such as this one with stuffed tomatoes and another one with baked apples with cranberry sauce and croquettes are also becoming more common.

A Mysterious Discovery

However, West German science fiction fans were a lot more excited about the day after St. Martin's Day, because the latest episode of Raumpatrouille: Die phantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffs Orion (Space Patrol: The Fantastic Adventures of the Spaceship Orion) aired.

"Der Kampf um die Sonne" (Battle for the Sun) plunges us right in medias res, when the Orion makes a remarkable discovery. The planetoid N116a has uncommonly high temperatures, a breathable atmosphere and lower forms of plant life, all of which should be impossible, since N116a is supposed to be a dead rock in space.

Security officer Tamara Jagellovsk (Eva Pflug) points out that the general staff has been conferring for weeks now and wonders whether the Orion's discovery might have anything to do with this. At any rate, it's a mystery worth investigating, so Tamara officially authorises Commander Cliff Alister McLane (Dietmar Schönherr) to land on N116a (once again portrayed by a spoil tip in Peißenberg, Bavaria) and take samples.

Space Patrol Orion — The Orion crew stares very intently at the planetoid N116a on the screen.

Tamara and McLane still banter and argue a lot. However, by now the banter is a lot friendlier and – dare I say it – flirtatious. This is not lost on the rest of the Orion crew, who watch the sparks fly with a mixture of amusement (Hasso and Mario) and jealousy (Helga Legrelle). Indeed, Helga (Ursula Lillig) decides to tease Tamara by elaborating in great detail about all the time she spent with McLane while on leave. Though McLane is not a good dancer, Helga notes, because he refuses to let himself go.

Orion Helga and Tamara — Helga Legrelle (Ursula Lillig) teases Tamara Jagellovsk by detailing all the time off she'd spent with McLane. Tamara, however, is not very impressed.

Putting the Science in Science Fiction

The scene switches to Earth, where familiar faces such as General Wamsler (Benno Sterzenbach) and Colonel Villa (Friedrich Joloff) are conferring about an alarming phenomenon. The activity of the sun and the frequency and duration of solar flares have increased dramatically, causing the Earth to heat up. The majority of humanity lives on the ocean floor and are insulated from the intense heatwaves. But the polar caps are about the melt, causing the sea levels to rise, which will lead to massive floods. Furthermore, the intense heat will turn Earth's surface into desert. The Orion's discovery on N116a confirms those theories. The big question is, who or what is causing the increased solar activity? Is it a natural phenomenon or is someone manipulating the sun? And if so, who? The Frogs are out, since they live in a distant star system. So are there other unknown extraterrestrials out there?

Orion may emphasise the "fiction" in "science fiction", but there is solid science behind the Earth heating up. Earth's climate tends to oscillate widely from ice ages to warm periods. Charles Greeley Abbot theorized that changes in climate are linked to sun spot activity – a theory that Orion borrowed for this episode. However, a far more likely culprit is the so-called "greenhouse effect", i.e. carbon dioxide in atmosphere functioning like the glass panes of a greenhouse, causing the Earth to heat up, which was discovered by Svante Arrhenius in 1896. In recent years, Roger Revelle and Charles David Keeling have proven that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are rising, due to emissions from industry and traffic, and that the greenhouse effect is real. Edward Teller warns that if carbon dioxide emissions keep rising, heatwaves, melting polar caps and rising sea levels will become a genuine problem in our future and not just a plot for a TV series. [The threat of a catastrophic heating on a global scale was the topic of one of our earliest articles (ed.)]

The generals need more data, so the Orion is sent to take more samples. On the planetoid N108, the Orion crew makes an even more remarkable discovery: a shuttlecraft of a type unknown to them. When Atan Shubashi (F.G. Beckhaus) investigates the mysterious craft, he finds himself faced with two human-looking men in spacesuits. The strangers hold Atan at gunpoint and force him into their shuttle, but Mario de Monti (Wolfgang Völz) manages to disable the shuttle with a well-placed shot. McLane and Hasso Sigbjörnson (Claus Holm) overwhelm the strangers and take them prisoner.

Orion Chroma scientist — One of the mysterious strangers the Orion crew takes prisoner.

The Hour of the Generals

Interrogations reveal that not only are the two men human, but they are scientists sent to investigate the same phenomenon that attracted the Orion's attention. The two scientists come from Chroma, a distant world that was settled by refugees from the Second Galactic War. The earthly authorities had no idea that Chroma even exists and the Chromans, disillusioned after finding themselves on the losing side of the Second Galactic War, like it that way.

However, Chroma has emerged from hiding in the most dramatic way possible, since they are behind the increased solar activity. The why is still a mystery.

Naturally, the assembled generals are willing to assume the worst. After all, the Chromans were rebels and enemies in the Second Galactic War, plus they managed to hide from Earthly intelligence services for centuries. And they are heating up the sun, so of course they must be hostile. "This means war," Marshall Kublai-Krim (Hans Cossy) declares.

However, not everybody is quite as war-mongering as Kublai-Krim and Sir Arthur (Franz Scharfheitlin). Colonel Villa is a lot more cautious, because if the Chromans have the ability to heat up the sun, they could have other unknown technologies as well. "If we threaten them, they might press the button first," Villa says, "And we don't know what buttons they have."

A Secret Mission for McLane

McLane is relaxing in his swanky undersea bachelor pad, when he receives a call from a scientist named Dr. Stass, who wants to know if the soil samples the Orion crew took may have gotten mixed up or contaminated. Because the samples contain solar matter, which means that the planetoids could be transformed into mini suns. Sigh. The episode was doing so well with regard to scientific accuracy, but now we're back to imaginary science.

Orion McLane's bachelor pad — McLane is relaxing in his very swanky bachelor and shows off his chest hair, even in colour.

McLane believes that this new discovery might persuade Chroma to leave our sun alone and transform the planetoids instead. However, he can neither reach General Wamsler nor Colonel Villa, so he calls Tamara to ask her to use her clout to get him an interview with Villa. McLane catches Tamara in the shower and in the process gets a glimpse of what she looks like below the neck. Personally, I'm far more interested in how her beehive survived the shower.

Colonel Villa no more wants war than McLane does and agrees to send the Orion on a secret mission to Chroma, supposedly to return the two captured scientists, but in truth to negotiate. He also warns McLane that if anything goes wrong, the government will deny all knowledge of this mission. And if Earth decides to launch a preventive strike against Chroma, no one will care about the Orion and her crew.

Orion McLane and Chroma scientist — One of the captured Chroman scientists watches McLane very intently.

McLane is not deterred and so the Orion sets off for Chroma. The Chromans are hostile initially, but direct the Orion to a landing area. When the crew gets their first glimpse of Chroma, they are stunned how lush and green the planet is. "Looks like they also have nature preserves, just like us," Mario muses, "But why are they telling us to land our ship here?"

The Orion lands on Chroma, portrayed here by a golf course in Feldafing, Bavaria.

One thing I like about Orion is how the show casually imparts information about the wider world, even though ninety percent of it takes place either aboard spaceships or in the general staff's conference room. Not only do we learn more about the two galactic wars (briefly mentioned in the first episode), but we also learn that Earth has a serious pollution problem and that unspoiled land is apparently at a premium.

Planet of Women

After landing on Chroma, the Orion is surrounded by a magnetic field. Only McLane is allowed to leave with one of the captured scientists. The other scientist remains behind aboard to assure the ship's safety.

Chroma turns out to be not at all what McLane or anybody else expected. The world is not only lush and green, but also remarkably peaceful. The turreted government building (portrayed by Höhenried castle on the shores of the Starnberg lake) with its crystal chandeliers, shag carpets and wrought iron gates, is a far cry from the austere modernity of the conference rooms on Earth.

Even more remarkable is that every single Chroman official McLane meets is an attractive woman (one of them portrayed by Danish actress and singer Vivi Bach, Dietmar Schönherr's real life wife). For it turns out that Chroma is a matriarchal society. Men, as one of the Chroman women notes, are useful as gardeners, scientists and parade soldiers, but way too warlike for anything else.

Raumpatrouille Orion Chroma — McLane enjoys the company of two attractive Chroman officials.

Orion Chroman official — One of the attractive Chroman officials (Rosemarie von Schacht). Even though Chroma has not been in contact with Earth's for centuries, they share the preference for beehives.

Orion Chroma official No. 2 — The second of the attractive Chroman officials is played by Dietmar Schönherr's real life wife, Vivi Bach.

Orion Chroma — A Chroman official offers McLane coffee, but McLane is tired of being kept waiting. We hope for the sake of Vivi Bach that Dietmar Schönherr is better behaved at the coffee table than his alter-ego.

Orion Dietmar Schönherr and Vivi Bach — Dietmar Schönherr and his wife Vivi Bach in costume on location at Höhenried castle.

The planet controlled by women is an old science fiction cliché, found in "The Last Man" by Wallace G. West, "The Priestess Who Rebelled" and "The Judging of the Priestess" by Nelson S. Bond, "Consider Her Ways" by John Wyndham, "The Feminine Metamorphosis" by David H. Keller, "Virgin Planet" by Poul Anderson and many others. Such stories are born out of men's fear of female equality and often offensive. So how will Orion handle this timeworn plot?

When McLane finally gets to meet Her, ruler of Chroma, (played by Margot Trooger, whom Journey readers may remember from her role as Cora Ann Milton in The Ringer and Again, the Ringer), he reacts like men always react in such stories, namely with incredulity and outrage, for how can these women not recognise or respect male superiority?

Orion Chroma She — She, ruler of Chroma, is seated behind her desk.

She, on the other hand, gives as good as she gets. At one point, when an outraged McLane is out of words, She suggests that he could try yelling some more. We also learn that Chroma's sun is fading, which is the reason for the attempt to heat up our sun. And no, the Chromans did not consider the effects their experiments might have, but then Earth scientists don't particularly care about that sort of thing either. However, She is willing to stop the experiments, should the data from the planetoids turn out to be promising.

Orion Margot Trooger — No matter how urgent McLane's pleas, She (Margot Trooger) will not budge.

McLane tries to convince Her of the urgency of his mission and point-blank tells her that Earth will launch a preventive strike, if the experiments are not stopped at once. "That is so typical of Earth – and of men," She replies.

The scenes between McLane and Her are a delight. Dietmar Schönherr is excellent at balancing McLane's occasional macho outbursts with the fact that he is a good man and wants to stop a war and save lives. Meanwhile, Margot Trooger is so radiant and commanding as Her that you have no problems believing that She rules an entire planet.

McLane and She on Chroma — McLane seems uncommonly fascinated by Her shag carpet. Or maybe he has dropped something.

A Very Average Kiss

Things heat up, when the Orion receives a coded message that a preventive strike is imminent. Atan and Hasso are confident that they can break through the magnetic field, but they are no more willing to leave McLane behind than he would abandon any one of them.

So Tamara sets off with the remaining Chroman scientist to warn McLane. Unlike her male comrades, Tamara talked to the scientists and realised that the Chromans are more likely to listen to a woman.

Tamara is arrested and thrown into a cell together with McLane. Since they both believe they're about to die, the normally so uptight Tamara loosens up and tells McLane that she's sorry that they spent so much time arguing. And then Tamara does something she always wanted to do and kisses McLane.

"Well, now I'm relieved," Tamara says, once their lips part, "'Cause that was a very average kiss." McLane is about to sputter in outrage, but before he can Tamara decides to put McLane's kissing abilities to the test once more.

Orion A very average kiss — Tamara and McLane share "a very average kiss"

Tamara McLane kiss — And once more in colour.

Our genre is not very good with emotions, romance, kissing and all that mushy stuff – see the uncomfortable kissing scenes in Forbidden Planet. But even if the bar is not very high, McLane's and Tamara's kiss is probably my favourite kiss in all of science fiction and Tamara's comment about McLane being a very average kisser made me love her even more.

Tamara's ongoing examination of McLane's kissing abilities is interrupted by Her, who shows up to inform them that She ordered the solar experiments stopped. When McLane wants to know why She waited until the last instant, She replies that She knew Earth would declare war as soon as she heard about the devastating effects of the experiments. However, She was playing for time, because She did not expect Earth to attack while the Orion was still on Chroma. But what can one expect of men?

However, while She may still not be a fan of men in general, She has developed a liking for a particular member of the male sex, namely Cliff Alister McLane. And so She has requested McLane to remain on Chroma as a special envoy. General Wamsler finds this hilarious, while resident womaniser Mario de Monti pouts that he was not chosen to stay on Chroma with all those attractive women. Helga and Tamara, meanwhile, are not amused at all.

It's a Women's World

Space Patrol Orion keeps getting better and better. "Battle for the Sun" took a cliched science fiction plot and did something interesting with it. Unlike most "Planet of Women" stories, the Chromans are actually in the right, while Earth – or at least the generals – comes off pretty badly.

The portrayal of the generals mirrors the general scepticism towards the military, particularly the higher ranks, in post-WWII West Germany. For people have not yet forgotten that it was war mongers like Sir Arthur or Marshall Kublai-Krim who sent out thousands of soldiers to die in a war that was already lost. Orion doesn't fall into the trap of portraying all military commanders negatively, either. Colonel Villa, General Wamsler, General Van Dyke, and of course McLane himself are all essentially good people who want to save lives. Meanwhile, the worries about pre-emptive strikes are inspired by contemporary fears about nuclear war, which would devastate West (and East) Germany.

Even though the focus is on McLane and Tamara, the rest of the Orion crew as well as the supporting cast like Villa, Wamsler, Spring-Brauner or Lydia Van Dyke all have distinct personalities. The show also tends to reuse the same characters in supporting roles. For example, the two scientists explaining the plot in "Battle of the Sun" are both characters we've seen before.

But what I love most about Space Patrol Orion is that the show gives us so many great and varied female characters. Our genre is not good at portraying women and one decent female character is often all we can hope for. Orion, however, gives us three female main characters in Tamara, Helga and Lydia Van Dyke as well as female guest characters such as Ingrid Sigbjörnson or Margot Trooger's Her.

Another great episode with a lot to say about war, gender and the environment.

Five stars.

Das Magazin November 1966 — The latest parcel from my East German aunt included the November 1966 issue of "Das Magazin" with a striking cover.

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55 years ago: Science Fact and Fiction