Just Bad

by Janice L. Newman

Star Trek has given us some amazing episodes over the past three seasons, episodes that made us think, made us gasp, made our hearts bleed for the characters and made us laugh out loud. Unfortunately, we’ve also had many kinds of bad episodes, from ridiculously, gloriously bad, to offensively, teeth-grindingly bad, to bizarrely bad, to pathetically bad. Yet somehow, The Cloudminders manages to be a different kind of bad than any we’ve seen before.

The story opens, as it so often does, on the Enterprise. A plague has affected a planetary member of the Federation, and the cure requires a substance found in only one place in the galaxy, the planet Ardana. (Is it just me, or have there been a lot of plagues recently?) When Kirk and Spock beam down to Ardana, however, instead of finding the precious shipment of zenite waiting for them, they are attacked.

In the heat of the moment, Mr. Spock has forgotten how to do a Vulcan Neck Pinch

The attack is interrupted by Plasus, the High Advisor of the planetary council. He brings the two of them to Stratos, a city in the clouds, where they meet Droxine, his daughter. Kirk and Spock go to the quarters prepared for them.

"Don't fret, my dear.  We only have two more scenes like this where we tell each other things we already know for the benefit of the audience."

Once they’re gone, two guards bring in a “Troglyte”, a member of the underclass who work in the mines. Plasus starts to interrogate him, but he breaks free and throws himself over the balcony.

"Anything to get out of this picture!"

There follows one of the strangest and clumsiest bits I’ve ever seen in a Star Trek episode. Spock has a voiceover where he talks about the split between the haves and have-nots on the planet, overlaid atop flashbacks to scenes we just watched. He also has some highly un-Spocklike thoughts about Droxine’s charm, purity, and sweetness.

And speak of the devil, Droxine appears and proceeds to flirt with him. Having watched nearly three seasons of Star Trek we expected him to politely brush her off. Defying everything we have ever seen and learned about the Vulcan, Spock responds in-kind, flirting back and using what Gideon calls, “the boyfriend voice”. The dialog would have been eye-rollingly bad enough if Shatner had been spouting the lines, but it was unbearable with Spock doing it.

Speaking of Shatner, the scene (thankfully) cuts to where he’s taking a nap. A woman creeps up to him, a weapon in her hand, but he grabs her and immobilizes her before she can do anything. He tells her he’ll release her if she’ll answer his questions, and she agrees.

Yvonne Craig returns to reprise her role in "Whom Gods Destroy" sans green paint…

Unfortunately, the scene now returns to Spock and Droxine, where they are discussing (groan) the Vulcan mating cycle, and whether anything might ‘disturb’ it. Spock actually says, “Extreme feminine beauty is always disturbing, madam.” If this were a ploy, like The Enterprise Incident, maybe I could forgive it (though the writing in that episode was far better than this one). If Spock were intentionally seducing Droxine to get the much-needed zenite, taking a page out of Kirk’s book, maybe I could believe that he would say these words. But there is never any indication that Spock’s words are anything but sincere.

"Can't I do anything?  Perhaps some Plomeek soup…or some Tranya?" (or) "Mrs. Droxine, you are trying to seduce me…"

Kirk calls out for Spock and Spock hurries to respond, so I guess at least one thing is still right with the universe. Droxine, Vanna, and Kirk argue politics for a while, and then Vanna is taken away to be tortured for the names of her associates. At her scream, Kirk and Spock come running. Kirk and Plasus argue about whether torture is an effective way to get information until Plasus orders them to return to their ship.

Back on the Enterprise, McCoy helpfully explains that zenite gives off a gas which makes people stupid and violent, but that the effects can be nullified with a face mask or removal from exposure. Kirk tries to explain this to Plasus, who unsurprisingly refuses to listen. Kirk then sneaks back down to the planet, getting beamed directly to Vanna’s cell. He makes a deal with her to trade masks for zenite, but she betrays him as soon as they’re beamed down to the mines. Snatching off his mask, she forces him to start digging. She gets too close to him with her stolen phaser, though, and he overpowers her and triggers a cave-in, sealing them in. Determined to prove to Vanna that the gas makes people stupid and violent (something which her own experiences should probably have convinced her was true, given that she went between the floating city and the mines regularly) Kirk has Plasus beamed in with them and makes him start digging.

"Hear that, Plasus?  That's… the sound of… the men… working on the… chain… gang."

Plasus and Kirk, overcome by the gas, start fighting. Vanna gets a hold of Kirk’s communicator and calls the Enterprise for help. Vanna screams that the gas is affecting them as the crew beam to their rescue.

The final act takes place in Stratos once more, the city in the clouds. Vanna has agreed to supply the zenite, and Kirk will give the Troglytes the masks. Spock and Droxine have one final, nauseating moment, Kirk and Plasus snipe at each other unpleasantly, and then the crew leaves with just three hours to spare to save a dying planet.

"That's all for now.  Tata!"

Well. That was an episode.

It’s hard to explain just why this episode was so bad. The writing was clunky, with every conversation going on three times longer than necessary. The guest characters felt like childish caricatures, while our beloved crewmembers (especially Spock) felt nothing like themselves. The pacing was bad, the acting not good, the directing clumsy. It was just…bad. In every way. There was no good episode inside trying to get out this time.

If I thought that NBC were the evil masterminds that some believe, I would say that they saved this episode for late in the season deliberately. Really, who’s going to complain about Star Trek’s cancellation after seeing this garbage? But I’m guessing that the sub-par script, sub-par direction, and sub-par acting were actually due to budget cuts, as NBC has shown they don’t much care what the fans think or want or say, no matter how many postcards we send them.

One star.

Not Bad

by "Greenygal"

I have mixed feelings about "Cloudminders", mostly relating to the xenite gas.  It's a terribly convenient plot device; it means that I have to sit and listen to McCoy–McCoy!–talk about how the lower class really are mentally inferior to the upper class, which is such an ugly idea and is particularly jarring in this episode about bigotry and social inequality; and even though the stuff is "shipped all over the galaxy" (did no one do any testing on unprocessed xenite?) and the Troglytes mine it all their lives, apparently McCoy is the only one who's ever noticed that raw xenite can affect people's brains.

On the other hand, the Stratos sets and outfits are lovely.  I thought the actors for Plasus, Droxine, and especially Vanna put in excellent performances. I really appreciated that Kirk is just not a part of Vanna's emotional story; she's not romantically or sexually interested in him and she doesn't learn love or mercy or responsibility or anything like that from him.  Eventually she is convinced that he's telling the truth about the masks and that's as far as it goes.  Bonus points for her ending the episode looking at Droxine, the other metaphorical half of the planet's future, instead of Kirk.

And oh, the message.  Yeah, yeah, the xenite is clumsy, but it doesn't stop this episode from being sharp and fierce and clear about what it's portraying.  Plasus and Droxine are pleasant and intelligent and educated, and they're also terrible bigots who talk so reasonably about how of course it's just natural for the Troglytes to do all the work and have no rights while the Stratosians get everything.  Everything Plasus says is awful, but Droxine expressing the same horrible ideas in sweet, reasonable tones is chilling, and emphasizes both that this is a societal problem and that it doesn't matter how nicely you express your bigotry, it's still bigotry.

Also, we've got the Troglyte in the beginning being willing to throw himself off Cloud City rather than be taken, and Vanna being strapped to the torture pillar, as a clear show-not-just-tell for how bad things are under the surface.

Not as fun as Barbarella's torture…

And as a counterpoint to all this awfulness, we've got Kirk and Spock saying in no uncertain terms "What?  They do all the work and they don't get the same advantages?  They don't get light?  That's awful.  That's unthinkable.  What do you mean they don't understand things like loyalty and justice?  Obviously they do, if you're the one behaving like violence is the only option that's your problem, Jack, and also you're not going to lay a hand on her unless you go through me."  Our Heroes absolutely refused to tolerate a single bigoted statement, and it just made me so happy to hear. (And in particular I appreciated it in contrast to Last Battlefield's "well, really, when you think about it, aren't both sides equally to blame for racial conflict?")

And what I think really saves the xenite gas from sabotaging the message is that fixing it does not suddenly fix everything.  The Troglytes are still working in the mines, and Vanna says they're still going to be fighting for their rights, and Plasus is still talking about how awful they are.  (And how "ungrateful"; I really enjoyed seeing Vanna flatly deny that she owes him anything for her training.) The masks will make things better for the Troglytes, and Droxine shows that the Stratosians can change.  But there's still a real conflict here that didn't get an easy science-fictional solution, and I appreciate that.

I think 3.5 stars is fair.  It's a flawed episode, no question, but the things that I like about it, I really like.

Skin Deep Rationale

by Joe Reid

The notion that a presumed higher group gets to benefit from the labor of a presumed lesser group while giving no thought to the lives and wellbeing of that lesser group is premise of this week’s episode of Star Trek.  “The Cloud Minders” is a funny title for this episode, seeing as how the title itself even ignores the existence of that lesser group.  This episode wasn’t named “The Dirt Miners”.  It was those in the clouds who held the authority, and those under the surface who challenged that authority.  At first glance this premise sounded compelling.  On review the whole premise fell apart due to one simple fact—the Troglites really didn’t need the Stratosians for anything.

The episode began with Starfleet in need.  They needed the mineral, zenite, to save people on another world.  The Stratosians, who somehow had authority to represent all Ardana to Startfleet, promised that they would provide the mineral that they themselves would not take part in gathering.  The loathsome long haired Troglites were tasked with collecting the zenite.  The complete lack of anyone being compensated for anything was the real head scratcher here.  The Federation was giving the people of Ardana nothing for their zenite.  The Stratosians appeared to offer the Troglites nothing for their labor in mining the zenite.  From what I gleaned, the Troglites seemed as if they were entirely self-sufficient and had no need of anything from the Stratosians.  Granted, they did come up with a plan for capturing Starfleet officers in order to ransom them for weapons to fight the cloud people for the sins of talking down to them.  Outside of emotional slights, the Troglites didn’t appear to require food, clothing, or shelter from the Stratosians.  Why bother with fighting them?

"We need nothing from you—certainly not these stupid-looking masks!"

Looking at the Stratosians themselves: people with time to pursue art, learning, and leisure, but utterly lacking the ability to do labor or automate labor.  If they were truly learned, they would have had a method to keep the people that they depend on happy.

The reason that this episode logically fell apart for me, outside of the fact that any real motive for conflict was absent, was that the conflict was resolved by the Enterprise crew, by forcing both sides to learn of a problem that neither side even knew existed.  The knowledge that zenite poisoning caused the retardation of the Troglites didn’t truly change the circumstances on the planet.  It didn’t even remove the bigotry of the Stratosian leader.  It just made Kirk and the Troglites happy, and that fixed everything.

Setting aside the flawed logic and lack of rationale in this episode, the costumes and sets felt very original.  The premise of the story was worthwhile as an ideal, but its shallow execution detracts from the weight that this episode could have carried.  I would like more from my science fiction.

2 stars

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