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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

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

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by Gideon Marcus

Last minute reprieve

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

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

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

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

An Orgy of Destruction

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

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

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


Landru.

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

Silicon life?


by Abigail Beaman

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


Dashing Mr. Spock.

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


Our first glimpse of "Landru".

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


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

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

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

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

But also for Mr. Spock in a smock.

Everything Old is New Again


by Janice L. Newman

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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


Dialectic at thirty paces

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

Computer Dating


by Lorelei Marcus

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

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

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

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


Kirk's hotel overlooks the Sunset Strip.

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

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

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

Three stars.

When you assume…


by Erica Frank

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

A Perfect Society—for Whom?


by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

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


Women. So emotional.

Ms. Allen deFord writes:

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


Men. The picture of mental stability.

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


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

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

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

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


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

Three stars.

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

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

Come join us – here's the invitation!



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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

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

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Better Than Perry Mason


by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

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

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


A nice cross-section of ethnicity, if not gender

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

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


The Supreme Court, in 1962

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


Perry Mason, in the courtroom

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

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

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


Two absolutely convincing stunt doubles fighting in Engineering

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

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

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

Rating: 4 Stars.

Wrong Way Street


by Abigail Beaman

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

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


Computers–who needs 'em?

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

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

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


by Andrea Castaneda

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

Three stars.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics


by Lorelei Marcus

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

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


"Computers. I know all about them."

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

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

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

Four stars.

The measure of a man


by Tam Phan (Secret Asian Man)

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

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


Captain material?

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

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

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

4 Stars

The Little Black Box


by Janice L. Newman

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

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


A Soviet flight recorder – a "red box"?

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

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

The Return of Shirtless Kirk


by Erica Frank

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

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

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


Kirk's wraparound green uniform


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

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


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

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


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


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

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

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

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

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

Here's the invitation!



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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

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

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

Captain Kirk and the Myth of Empty Land


by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Three stars.

A Weak Echo


by Erica Frank

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

The two stories have some crucial differences, however.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Three stars, even though Kirk remained fully clothed throughout.

Will the real civilization please stand up.


by Andrea Castaneda

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

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

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

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

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

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

Three stars.

Fight or Flight


by Tam Phan (Secret Asian Man)

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

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

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

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

3 Stars

Ineffective effects


by Janice L. Newman

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

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

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

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

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

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

Three stars.

Nothing if not consistent


by Gideon Marcus

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Four and a half stars.

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

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



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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[January 12, 1967] Most illogical (Star Trek: "The Galileo Seven")

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Zero sum game


by Janice L. Newman

Ever since his masterful performance in “The Naked Time”, I’ve been eager to see more episodes featuring Leonard Nimoy’s half-Vulcanian, half-human character, “Spock”. This episode revolves around Spock, but it unfortunately does a poor job of what it sets out to do.

The Enterprise is on a mission to bring much-needed medical supplies to a planet suffering from plague. En route, they encounter a quasar, and since they have a couple of extra days before their rendezvous, they follow another directive: to investigate all quasars and quasar-like phenomena.

A shuttle is sent out crewed by seven people. Three are familiar to us: Spock, Scotty, and Doctor McCoy (why the ship’s engineer and ship’s doctor were sent on this scientific mission is never explained). The rest of the shuttle crew are unknowns which, given the episodes we’ve already seen, likely means that one or more of them will die.

The quasar interferes with the instruments of both the shuttlecraft and the Enterprise, causing the shuttle to crash land on a planet in the center of the quasar and the Enterprise crew to be unable to find them and pick them up. They’re racing against time, as Galactic High Commissioner Ferris, who is overseeing the delivery of the critical medical supplies, constantly and obnoxiously reminds them. If they can’t find the missing crew members within two days, they will have to leave them stranded, and probably to their deaths.


Commissioner Smarmiface

On the planet Spock takes command, only to find his orders questioned and challenged at every turn. McCoy’s needling is typical, though it feels inappropriate in the midst of the crisis. In fact, he starts the whole thing off by prodding Spock and saying that “you've always thought that logic was the best basis on which to build command”. This assertion is already suspect, given that Spock has reacted to Kirk’s more inspired gambles (see: “The Corbomite Maneuver” and “The Menagerie”) with respect and acknowledgement that they were clever, even if they were unorthodox or unexpected.

Perhaps following McCoy’s lead, several of the other crew members react with increasing disbelief, anger, frustration and disgust every time Spock tells them to do something, or even speaks. The conflict is meant to have at its heart the idea of pitting reason against emotion, but frankly, it’s poorly done. The crew mostly come across as insubordinate bullies, irrational to an outrageous degree. When Spock is helping Scotty attempt to repair the shuttle and Boma insists that Spock stop what he’s doing and ‘say a few words’ for one of the crewmembers who has, as expected, been killed by the planet’s native lifeforms, Spock’s refusal seems like the only reasonable course given the time constraints they are working under. The only really questionable choice he makes is ordering one of the crewmembers to stay outside as a scout in a dangerous area, which leads to the crewmember’s death—though as a fellow watcher noted, if the scout had been better at his job he may well have survived.


"If only I had some way to call for help!"

When they finally manage to get the shuttlecraft into orbit, Spock jettisons the fuel in a last-ditch attempt at a distress signal. It works, but only because Captain Kirk has disobeyed his own orders and started towards his rendezvous at ‘space normal’ speed instead of ‘warp speed’, and is therefore still in the vicinity. The episode ends with the entire bridge crew laughing mockingly at Spock when he denies that his final choice was an impulsive, “purely human, emotional act”.

Thus ends a story that was by turns exciting, even riveting, and enormously frustrating. The introduction of a ship’s shuttlecraft, the crew’s attempts to get the shuttlecraft into orbit, the Enterprise’s increasing desperation as they hunt for the lost crew were great. I got goosebumps when Spock chose to jettison the fuel. But the way the people under Spock undermined and questioned his authority was irritating and felt contrived. I couldn’t help but think that even if Kirk were giving the same orders, he would never have been challenged the way Spock was. Commissioner Ferris’ continual reminders that there wasn’t much time left were also annoying, although more understandable, as his mission was to prevent unnecessary loss of life in a planetwide plague—a mission which Kirk seems to treat very cavalierly at the end.

With all the good and bad, I can’t give this episode more—or less—than three stars.


by Gideon Marcus

Keep cool, man

In a crisis situation, the most valuable asset is a leader who keeps a level head.  While everyone else is flailing about, the boss makes calm, rational decisions.  With the exception of the laughable babbling scene two thirds through the episode (which single-handedly dropped the Young Traveler's appraisal of the episode from four to three stars), Mr. Spock was completely unflappable, and his decisions, for the most part, excellent.  In an episode not filled with straw men composed of irrationality, Spock's demeanor would have shored up flagging morale, not stoked anger and resentment.

"But two men died!" some might cry, girding an argument against Spock's ability to command.  I submit that, in fact, Spock's actions preserved the most people overall—you just have to see the beings on the planet as people.  While Mssrs. Boma and Gaetano were urging for a demonstration of murder, Spock argued restraint, insisting on terrorizing the aborigines rather than killing them.  He knew that a demonstration of power was likely to be useless, having deduced that their culture was too primitive to sustain the tribal social structure that would respect such a display.  But knowing his men were keen on violence, he channeled it into a less destructive option.


Spock trying to keep everyone alive.

When the indigenous sophont began whacking on the shuttlecraft with a rock, Spock didn't suggest blasting it with a phaser (fuel concerns may have been tight, but they probably could have afforded that shot based on prior consumption).  He gave it a painful shock instead.  Effective and non-lethal. 

In the end, Spock's actions were far more respectful of intelligent life, regardless of the form, than the path advocated by Doctor McCoy, a man whose profession is centered on the preservation of life.

Quasi-scientific

There were several points in the episode where a little bit of explanatory dialogue could have made things much more plausible.  Why does the Enterprise spend so much time searching the class M planet?  There's no indication that's where the shuttle went.  I would have liked there to have been some intimation that Latimer deliberately aimed the Galileo toward the habitable world so they'd have some chance.

Also, for those who don't know what a quasar is, they really are quite interesting, and probably nothing like the phenomenon depicted in the show (which is more like some kind of nebula).  Quasars are actually cutting-edge astronomical science.  When humanity first started turning their radio telescopes to the stars, they discovered sources of radiation that had hitherto been invisible.  But they blazed like beacons in low frequency radio waves. 

They seemed no bigger than stars, but they clearly were not stars.  So they were called "quasi-stellar radio sources" – quasars for short.  No one knew if they were extremely small, close-by entities, or extremely powerful far away ones.  A few years back, it was noted that every quasar had an immensely red-shifted spectrum.  That is to say that all of the light coming from any quasar, every single wavelength of color, was stretched, as if the body were receding from us at great speed.  You've probably heard of this phenomenon before: the Doppler effect you hear when a train whistle is heading away from you.

This red-shift indicated that the quasars were actually very far away, billions of light years.  They also offered proof that the early universe (since if the quasars are far away, they must be quite old – the light took billions of years to reach our eyes, after all) was different from the current universe since there are no nearby quasars.  Thus, final conclusive proof that the universe arose from some kind of Big Bang, as opposed to always existing, as Fred Hoyle and many other prominent cosmologists suggested.

What this all means is that Kirk and co. could not have investigated a quasar, for there are none close enough to Earth for his starship to reach!  He did cover up with the possibility of it being a "quasar-like" object, whatever that means (a quasi-quasi-stellar source?!)


A quasasar?

I can usually squint my ears and forgive this scientificish wishiwash, but it drives the Young Traveler crazy.

Anyway, I guess I give the episode three stars.  I can't decide if it's a terrible episode with great bits or a great episode with terrible bits…

What’s the Folsom Point


by Tam Phan (Secret Asian Man)

We’ve seen a handful of leaders throughout the series, but this is the first time that we get to experience an alien leading a team that is not of their species. Leaders have a critical role to play in every organization, and few would contest that, but what happens when we are led by someone that’s different from us?

The Enterprise’s resident alien, Spock, is no stranger to leadership. He wouldn’t be First Officer if he was. He has proven to be level headed and capable in stressful situations, and in my opinion, he conducts himself no differently in “The Galileo Seven”. He’s a sound decision maker. Yet, Gaetano and Boma seemed intent on defying Spock’s every decision no matter how reasonable. None of Spock’s orders were followed without some comment about his logic as if emotions and irrationality were the greater tools for the situation. The overt hostility toward him at every turn seemed out of place for a crew that should be trained and fully capable of following orders. It’s hard to imagine their actions were motivated by anything other than an irrational hatred or fear of the other. Would the crew have treated Kirk the same way if he had made the same decisions?

Spock’s experience reflects my own. As an Asian, an obviously "different" person (no matter how much people say America is a melting pot) it’s not out of the ordinary for my opinion to be dismissed in favor of the same opinion expressed by someone less different.

I don’t know exactly what the message was in this episode. In the end, Spock made the correct decision and saved the investigation team. Spock received no commendations for actions that not only prevented the death of several crew members, but, as Gideon mentioned, also a number of natives. Yet his decision was credited to human emotionality rather than Vulcanian rationality. It's a haha moment. The good part of Spock is the human one, not the alien one.

I’ll give the episode credit for demonstrating how a seemingly capable crew might turn on someone because he’s different, but I already know what that looks like. And in the end, if the episode was trying to show the foolishness of bigotry, it undercut its own message with the insulting ending.


Nothing better for morale and discipline than laughing at the Exec for being an alien.

One Star

The needs of the many


by Andrea Castaneda

Andi Castaneda here, photojournalist extraordinaire.

I had a lot of mixed feelings watching this episode. On one hand, I liked the setup for the conflict and seeing Spock in a leadership role. But I was ultimately left frustrated by McCoy’s and Boma’s behavior, who seemed too selfish and immature to be crewmembers of the Starship Enterprise.

This episode focuses a lot on “emotion vs logic”. But I think this conflict goes deeper than that. I think this can also be framed as “the individual vs the collective”. Now, I’m still getting to know the characters of Star Trek. But I’m told the Vulcanian culture places much more value in the community over the individual–the latter being too emotional. Spock is consistent with that philosophy, focusing more on saving the majority even at the expense of the few. He includes himself in these calculations.

However, the other crew members–specifically Boma and McCoy–seem to resent this. Perhaps this can be explained as simply as a culture clash. But one would think that after working with Spock for so long, they can understand why he has different customs and world views. Instead, they insult him, calling him a machine and implying he has no heart.


Perhaps these expressions can be entered into the log for use at their disciplinary hearing.

When other crew members are killed by the planet’s native species, they insist on giving the deceased proper burials despite the mounting danger. Granted, I say this from the comfort of my own home far removed from their situation, but it seems to me that their insistence on having their emotional needs met–despite how it jeopardizes the crew’s safety–shows a much more selfish side to them. Yes, I can understand their grief and rage, something that Spock perhaps should have taken into account. But they seemed to lack the foresight to see how it would affect others. Gaetano and Latimer were dead, yet they insisted on putting the rescue attempt in jeopardy to prioritize their own feelings.

At last, they make it off the surface of the planet, but not before they’re attacked again by the native species. The two rescue Spock from the attack–despite his protests- but it costs precious time and fuel. He confronts them on this, but what’s done is done. Their chance of survival is now even slimmer. Luckily, the show runners need another episode next week, and they are saved thanks to Spock’s quick thinking.

Overall, I enjoyed watching Spock taking on a leadership role and how he resolved conflicts. However, I wish the show had acknowledged how McCoy’s and Boma’s actions nearly cost them all their lives. It seems odd that people this erratic managed to be part of such a prestigious fleet. I'll give the show the benefit of the doubt and chalk this up to mediocre writing rather than a fundamental flaw.

For now.

Three stars.

An Illogical Logic


by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

Mr. Spock uses the word "logical" to describe his command decisions, but what he seems to mean is "passionless." It's a subtle difference, but since it was one central to the conflict of this story, I think it is worth diving into.

Here on Earth, in 350 B.C.E. Aristotle famously defined the rhetorical device of logos in his Rhetoric: “αἱ δὲ ἐν αὐτῷ τῷ λόγῳ διὰ τοῦ δεικνύναι ἢ φαίνεσθαι δεικνύναι,” that is, as the third of three methods of persuasion, one which relies “upon the speech itself, in so far as it proves or seems to prove.” (Aristotle in 23 Volumes, translated by J. H. Freese, 1926).

Aristotle meant to inform his students about how to balance three methods of convincing people to change their minds. As anyone with a Classics background will remember, Aristotle breaks all argument down into pathos (arguments designed to stir emotions), ethos (arguments which rely on the speaker’s character), and logos (arguments which rely on the proof they contain). Like a single crewman or crewwoman stranded on a hostile planet, these forms of address are not designed to be used in isolation. Nearly any given speech by Captain Kirk to his crew employs all three of these, often to stirring effect.

Yet the central tension of "The Galileo Seven" lies around Mr. Spock’s stubborn insistence on ignoring the reality of emotions and social standing to focus solely on what he calls “logic,” but which often seems to be his own good ideas, framed in declarative sentences (do any readers have loved ones who “argue” like this?) Sometimes, yes, as Gideon says, Mr. Spock’s “logic” does seem to be the actions most likely to result in the survival of the most sentient beings possible.

But in the over two-dozen times the word “logic” was uttered in this past episode, very few of them refer to moments where the speaker has provided clear proof about the rightness of a course of action. For example, when Dr. McCoy notes that Spock must be pleased to be in command, he replies:

“I neither enjoy the idea of command, nor am I frightened of it. It simply exists. And I will do whatever logically needs to be done. Excuse me.”

Claiming an action is logical, at least as Aristotle taught it and as most of us use it today, is not a short-cut to declaring a perfect, top-down, universally-understood course of correct action. It is instead a way to try to convince people your idea is best; one of several ways, all of which are stronger when braided together. It seems like whatever Mr. Spock is terming “logic” is really more about self-discipline than persuasion, which is all well-and-good, but as a commander, part of his job is to motivate people to carry out his orders. Over and over again throughout this episode, Mr. Spock fails to do so, in part because he insists on misusing both logic and rhetoric.


Logic fails Mr. Spock, or perhaps he fails logic?

There is hope for him yet, however. When all seems lost for the shuttle crew, Mr. Spock vents their fuel, sending up a flare big enough for the Enterprise to see it. It is a decision he could have verbalized, arrived at and proved logically, using either inductive or deductive reasoning, and brought the crew along with him. Though he did not, it is a decision which required him to not only analyze what he thinks the correct actions of Enterprise should have been, but to take into account who was serving as her Captain at the time: his friend, Captain Kirk. I think Mr. Spock knew that Captain Kirk would blend his own moral authority with his crew, his emotional connection to the stranded shuttlecraft, and his own keen grasp of reasoning to extend his search as long as he could. I think Mr. Spock risked all of the surviving shuttle crew’s lives on it – and he was right.

Three stars.

Come join us watching the next episode tonight at 8:30 PM (Eastern and Pacific), apparently starring Liberace!

Here's the invitation!



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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

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

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by Erica Frank

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

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


Not what we expected on an alien planet.

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

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

A Grin Without a Cat

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


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

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

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

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


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

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

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


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

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

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

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


The druidic version of Mr. Green Jeans remains nameless.

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

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

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

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

“Drink Me”


by Janice L. Newman

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

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

These are not the actions of trained specialists.

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

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

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

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

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

”Pleasure Planet”


by Tam Phan (Secret Asian Man)

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

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

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

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

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

Four stars.

Getting to know you


by Gideon Marcus

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

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

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

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

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

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

Five stars.

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

Here's the invitation!



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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

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

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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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[November 14, 1966] Star Trek: "The Corbomite Maneuver"

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A Strange Step Backward


by Gideon Marcus

With the round robin review format we've set up for Star Trek, everyone's obligations are pretty small, with the exception of the person assigned the head: the first, summarizing piece of the article.  I drew the short straw this week, possibly the most challenging week in the history of this new show.

Because a summary's job is to explain what happened.  And in "The Corbomite Maneuver", virtually nothing happened. 

Repeatedly.

The episode boils down to this: The Enterprise travels into an unexplored area of space. An alien ship intercepts the Earth ship, traps it, and threatens to destroy it.  The alien ship takes many guises — first a multicolored cube, then a giant globe of incandescent lights, then a set of glowing soap bubbles (admittedly gorgeous effects), but the scenario is always the same.  The Enterprise tries to break free, dramatic music plays, people fall out of their chairs or bounce around in hallways. The navigator-of-the-week, this time a ‘Lieutenant Bailey’ (anxious, overeager, promoted too early) occasionally has a breakdown. Lieutenant Uhura says "Hailing Frequencies open" a half dozen times, looking rather bored.


"I should have stayed with Ma Bell…"

Eventually, we learn that the whole thing was a test. The alien, Balok of the First Federation (Ron Howard's little brother), never planned to destroy the Enterprise. On the one hand, I appreciate an episode without a villain, one that challenges the hubris that we are the most powerful or the kindest race in the galaxy.

On the other hand, once we know that Kirk and his crew were never in danger, everything becomes a cheat.  The tension, the clever attempts to outmaneuver Balok (with warp engines or poker metaphors), all of it is meaningless.

Add to that a certain unevenness of the episode.  It is pretty clear this episode was filmed before the others we've seen in the series. Spock is yelling again, is wearing his old uniform, and his haircut is more severe.  Shatner has less of a grip on the Kirk character, playing him on a short fuse. As with "Where No Man has Gone Before", everything feels rawer, cheaper, more like an episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.  Perhaps it was the consciously military mien of the scenario and character interactions.

All this kvetching suggests I didn't like the episode.  That's not quite right. There are some great exchanges, particularly any involving DeForest Kelley (Dr. McCoy). George Takei's Sulu is a delight, with a lot of great subtle expressions. Yeoman Rand got an entire episode free of assault (though Kirk resents her existence as a woman). The special effects are really excellent, and probably the reason the episode got delayed. 


That's a really big Christmas ornament…

But for the most part, I was just kind of bored. That's a new experience for me with Star Trek, which has hitherto been either great or problematic. However, if "Maneuver" really is an early episode, that means we're actually on an upward rather than a downward trend. Plus, next week's episode, which looks like it will incorporate the terrific first pilot, is very promising.

So, three stars, but I won't hold it against the show.

Zero-Sum Game


by Janice L. Newman

As Gideon notes, The Corbomite Maneuver was a, shall we say, uneven episode. The first time the ship was ‘about to be destroyed’ it was exciting. By the third time, it was definitely less impactful. On the other hand, the story had plenty of great moments. The problem was, these ended up undermining each other.

For example, Captain Kirk pulls off a wonderful bluff where he apparently convinces the enemy that destroying their ship will result in the destruction of their own vessel – the bluff being the titular ‘Corbomite Maneuver’. It’s a desperate, brilliant moment that would have made a fantastic climax for the episode. Everything, from Spock saying that it was ‘well-played’, to Bailey returning to the bridge, to Kirk’s sigh of relief when the ship is not destroyed (not to mention McCoy’s overeager offer to teach Spock the game of poker) makes for a great piece of television.


The gambit pays off.

Unfortunately, it’s not the climax of the episode – or rather, it’s the climax, but not the end. And then, when we do reach the end of the story, we learn something which by itself would have made for a clever plot twist. It turns out that the entire set of encounters were orchestrated by a single entity, a powerful being who claims that it was ‘all a test’.

This is something we haven’t seen before. Yes, in Where No Man Has Gone Before and Charlie X we had immensely powerful beings, be they humans or aliens. And in The Cage we did see powerful alien minds manipulating humans to try to get something from them. But we’ve never seen (presumably benevolent) aliens simply ‘testing’ humans to learn their ‘real intentions’. It would have been a great reversal, if only it hadn’t undermined everything which had come before. The clever parts of the story, rather than building on each other, unfortunately canceled each other out.


"Just kidding!"

Lieutenant Bailey's interactions with the captain rang an odd note in the episode. Kirk's "tough love" attitude toward him reminded me strongly of the captain in "The Bedford Incident", and I kept half-expecting Bailey to fire the ship's 'phasers' when he wasn't supposed to (instead he did the opposite, freezing in the moment of crisis).

I do want to make several notes about special effects. First, the lights making up alien ships were extremely effective (and I understand these effects were so involved that they delayed the release of this episode, which was meant to be much earlier in the line up). Second, the figure of Commander Balock that appeared on the Enterprise’s screen was an unconvincing one, yet it was plausible enough for our generation — after all, we were raised on puppet shows and other primitive special effects. The fact that the episode’s writer subverted these expectations and made the figure an actual puppet was absolutely ingenious. And third, the best special effect in the entire show had to be the dubbing of little Clint Howard with an adult’s voice.


"You Have Two Minutes Until Howdy Doody Time!"

3 stars, for the special effects, the cleverness, and the banter.

Off Kilter


by Lorelei Marcus

I enjoyed the overall message of "The Corbomite Maneuver", but I felt the episode had to make some sacrifices to get there.  In particular, the atmosphere of the ship and everyone's characterizations were severely altered from what we've seen thus far.  Captain Kirk seemed forced into the role of the hard-edged, authoritarian Captain.  The women of the crew were more stereotypically portrayed, pushed aside even, so that the men could have their dramatic moments.  Uhura looks bored.  Yeoman Rand exists to make coffee and salad and annoy Captain Kirk by being a woman.  All in all, the Enterprise felt much more current-day Navy in portrayal, and more militaristic in character.


"Did I say 'at ease', mister?"

The special effects were, as has been noted, a cut above.  But I would have liked to have seen this story told with the same Enterprise we're coming to know and love, rather than this odd, warped one, seemingly created to fit the plot's needs. 

With a mid-tier story, great visuals, and inconsistent characterization, I give "Corbomite" three stars.


by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

A Different Kind of Man Behind the Curtain

When I first heard Balok speak in this week’s episode, his voice reminded me of Frank Morgan’s booming performance in The Wizard of Oz (1939). The imagery and tactics reminded me of it as well: flowing curtains of light cascaded over Balok’s alien face, the crew of the Enterprise scrambling to bargain and trick their way out of the crisis as a seemingly all-powerful wizard holding hapless visitors to arbitrary and impossible rules.

When we found that, like The Great and Powerful Oz, Balok was a small man, pulling puppet strings to intimidate and test those around him, the twist felt familiar. But that moment was also where these two fantasies diverged: where the Wizard is venal and greedy, Balok is confident and curious. He is not a huckster, but a representative of a technologically-advanced society, able to control a vast space edifice from his tiny ship, and interested in learning the truth about the crew of the Enterprise.

While Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Lion, and the Tin Man beg the Wizard to make them whole and take them home, Kirk, McCoy and Bailey don’t need any such boons from Balok. But he offers them anyway, opening up the possibility of cultural exchange between his First Federation and Kirk’s crew. Bailey, who had spent most of the episode as a cowardly lion, gracefully agrees to the exchange as the episode closes.


"We're off to see the Wizard!"

The parallels are not perfect — though if Mr.Spock had filled out the boarding party in the role of the Tin Man seeking a heart he already has, it might have been — but they are productive. Like the friends of Dorothy, Bailey, McCoy, and Spock spend the episode trying to free themselves from traps and get what they think they need. And like the Scarecrow, the Lion, and the Tin Man, in the end, the powers they were seeking to work around were not what they seemed.

I liked that, in this case, the powers were greater. Perhaps, if Balok had been behind the curtain in Oz, Dorothy and company would have gotten more than toys, but the true connection and understanding they needed in their journeys. I hope that future episodes are more even in tone, but also that they continue to expand our views of the universe the way Balok will for Bailey.

Three stars.



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[November 10, 1966] Star Trek: "Dagger of the Mind"

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Poetic Justice


by Robin Rose Graves

Star Trek has often been uninspiring of late — but this episode reminded me why I keep watching week to week.

The opening scene is unassuming. The Enterprise fails to transmit a delivery to the planet Tantalus. Kirk calmly reminds the transporter operator that prison colonies such as Tantalus are equipped with force fields. After receiving the needed permission from the planet, the delivery is allowed to go through, and in return, the Enterprise receives a mysterious box labeled “Do Not Open” (as if viewers don’t already have a good idea of what could possibly be inside).


"Under no circumstances are you to open this, you hear?"

Tantalus informs the Enterprise that a person is missing and could pose a danger to the crew. Unsurprisingly, the box housed the runaway. Now loose on the Enterprise, he becomes aggressive upon being discovered. He asks for asylum on the ship while holding Kirk at gunpoint. Spock subdues the man, and the Enterprise informs Dr. Adams on Tantalus that they found their runaway. Said fugitive identifies himself (with much pain and difficulty) as Dr. Simon van Gelder. A computer check reveals that he is not actually an inmate, but rather Dr. Adams’ assistant. It is at this point my interest was piqued. Why is an assistant being treated like an inmate? What led him to acting like the wild man he is now?

Van Gelder remains on the Enterprise while Kirk beams down along with the Enterprise’s psychiatrist – Dr. Helen Noël – in order to investigate Tantalus. They are immediately met by Dr. Adams and welcomed to the colony. Dr. Adams has gained celebrity for his humane rehabilitation methods on inmates. While on tour, Kirk and Dr. Noël encounter several reformed inmates, now acting as employees. Kirk notes their strange emotionless behavior. Dr. Adams shows off a device called the “neural neutralizer”, which he says he uses to calm agitated inmates. He explains that it is harmless at low increments.

Back on the Enterprise, a frantic van Gelder reveals to Spock and McCoy that it was the use of the neural neutralizer that left him in his current state. As Spock presses him further, van Gelder writhes in pain, struggling to speak (the actor’s performance makes it particularly difficult to watch). Finally, McCoy convinces Spock to use an ancient Vulcan psychic technique in order to calm van Gelder and allow him to speak freely about his experiences back on Tantalus.


The ancient Vulcan technique introduced in this episode.  Remarkable for the intimacy required and the vulnerability displayed.

He explains the true nature of the neural neutralizer: that it empties the mind, leaving those afflicted vulnerable to suggestion, and that Dr. Adams has been using it on inmates and staff to gain control over them. Now understanding the danger Kirk and Dr. Noël are in, the Enterprise attempts to beam down backup, but are unable to because of the colony’s forcefield. They discover all communication with the planet is severed as well.

After voicing his concerns to Dr. Noël, she and Kirk secretly investigate the neural neutralizer. With Dr. Noël at the controls, Kirk volunteers as the test subject. She is able to alter his memory of their first meeting, converting an innocent flirtation into a more serious affair. But while Kirk is under, Dr. Adams takes control of the neutralizer, turning up the intensity. He then forces Kirk to believe he has been in love with Dr. Noël for years and being apart causes him physical pain. He is then released to his quarters along with Dr. Noël, awaiting his next treatment.

Thankfully, as we saw in Naked Time, Kirk's capacity for love is constrained to the Enterprise, and Adams' conditioning fails to take, at least not to a debilitating level. At Kirk’s suggestion, Dr. Noël escapes the room through a duct. Kirk is collected once again for his next treatment, but Dr. Noël is able to sabotage it by shutting off the power. Kirk fights Dr. Adams and leaves him unconscious in the neural neutralizer. Dr. Noël gets her own action scene when she is discovered and single-handedly takes down the guard. (It’s nice to see female characters do more than look pretty and lust after Captain Kirk). With the power now down, Spock is able to beam down to the planet. He resets the power, which activates the neural neutralizer with Dr. Adams still inside. The neutralizer, without anyone to man the device, empties Dr. Adams' mind entirely, killing him with loneliness. Poetic justice for him to be killed by the same device he had tortured countless people with.

The episode ends with Kirk looking morose. McCoy questions how loneliness is able to kill a human being, but Kirk groks, having experienced the effects of the neural neutralizer himself.

"Dagger" features some of the best performances we’ve seen so far (only matched by Leonard Nimoy’s performance in "Naked Time"). Upon meeting the blank workers of Tantalus, I was alarmed by their listless speech and stoney faces. Morgan Woodward (van Gelder) chokes on every word as he struggles to fight his conditioning through physical pain and speaks of the horrors he has been through at Dr. Adams’ hands (I clenched up in sympathy watching these scenes). So much was relayed on performance alone that no fancy looking technology was needed, and while I love a vivid set design, the comparatively plain look of this episode was fitting, allowing the acting to shine without competition.

This episode earns a five star rating from me.

The Mythopoeia of Star Trek


by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

Nine episodes into Star Trek and we’re beginning to see some of the myths that float just under the surface of this world. J.R.R. Tolkien called this kind myth-making “mythopoeia,” though it has existed for as long as storytellers have called upon “rosy-fingered Dawn” or “the evil Jinn.” The Cage had the Talos star group, named presumably for the ancient greek robot who protected Europa in Crete; Charlie X had the cargo vessel Antares, meaning “rival-to-Mars”; Where No Man Has Gone Before, had crewmember Gary Mitchell reciting “The Nightingale Woman,” which he says was “written by Phineas Tarbolde on the Canopius planet back in 1996.” Canopius is probably a mistranscription of the name of the man who steered the ship of King Menelaus of Sparta to Egypt during the Trojan war. More than just referencing the existing Western mythical names of heavenly bodies, Star Trek layers those stories onto future histories, adding meaning and depth.

When I first heard the name of the penal colony in this week’s episode, I remembered that in Greek mythology, Tantalus is the founder of the House of Atreus, and his story is one of the more gruesome in a genre often marked by gore. Tantalus wanted to test the gods’ omniscience, and so when he was a guest on Mount Olympus he killed his son and served him to the gods as a feast. For killing his child and challenging the gods, Tantalus was sentenced to starve forever in a pool of water with ripe fruit hanging above his head, the water always receding when he bent to drink, and the fruit always raising itself just out of his reach.


Tantalus, by Gioacchino Assereto (1600–1649)

These themes of taboo, hunger, challenging powerful people, consent, hubris, punishment, and abuse of power move throughout Dagger of the Mind. When I saw Captain Kirk writhing in a pool of blue light as he tried to escape torment and artificially implanted lust, it reminded me of that final image of Tantalus in his pool, trapped by forced hunger and cruel punishment.

The parallels are not perfect — Captain Kirk is a victim of Doctors Adams and Noël, not a child-killing cannibal — but mythical references don’t have to be perfectly in-tune to be resonant. They just have to tantalize us into thinking and feeling more deeply about these characters.

Four stars.

Holding out Hope


by Janice L. Newman

This episode was deeply disturbing in many ways. The idea of the erasure of memories, of self, is creepy at best and horrific at worst. It is a kind of death, for who are we without our memories?

Nonetheless, beneath the horror I found a hopeful note. McCoy, when asked if he's visited a penal colony since the Federation began following Dr. Adams' theories, says simply, "A cage is a cage, Jim." Captain Kirk immediately contradicts him, saying that McCoy is behind the times, and that penal colonies are more like "resort colonies" now. Throughout the episode, despite the horror, runs a theme that prisoners should be treated with humanity, and that the purpose of such places is not to punish, but to help.

Furthermore, the prisoners themselves are never portrayed as 'deserving' the torture and the erasure of their minds. No matter what they've done in the past, they are shown as victims of Dr. Adams' machinations. Once it is understood what Dr. Adams is doing, no one other than Adams himself suggests that the prisoners are 'better off' for having part of their mind cut away. Compare this to the practice of lobotomizing people, either 'for their own good' or for 'the good of society'. Performing a lobotomy was outlawed in the Soviet Union in 1950 on the grounds that it is "contrary to the principles of humanity", yet it is still legal in the United States. It seems to me that "Dagger" is an indirect attack on this barbaric, inhumane practice.


Dr. Adams, a latter-day Dr. Moniz.

These twin themes: that of a drive to help disturbed minds, while at the same time retaining an awareness of and belief in a criminal's basic personhood and right to dignity and self, paint a picture of a more humane, thoughtful world.  Imperfect, yes, but with a determination to improve despite individual setbacks. As with "Miri", I find myself heartened by a vision of the future where punishment is no longer considered the first and best option for dealing with misbehaving people of any age.

Four stars.

Chemicals, by any other name


by Gideon Marcus

I don't know if this is a phenomenon unique to Star Trek, but I often find myself noting similarities between a given episode and previous ones, and to other stories in general.  Lorelei pointed out that, once again, we have Kirk exploring an underground complex.  Once again, the captain must treat with a megalomaniac scientist and his powerful device (q.v. "What are Little Girls Made of?").

But the biggest comparison I draw is to Norman Spinrad's recent story, Your name shall be…Darkness.  In Spinrad's tale, an American officer is captured in Korea and subjected to a novel application of electroshock therapy.  Bit by bit, his captor strips away all of his memories until all that is left is raw ego.  Then his identity is restored, presumably with additional programming.  We saw something like this in The Manchurian Candidate, too, as well as The Mind Benders, but Darkness feels like the closest fit.  In Darkness, after his ordeal, the officer is compelled (perhaps by programming) to use the brainwashing technique to cure the mentally disturbed.  He becomes a psychiatrist, one of the most prominent in his field.  Essentially, he is Dr. Adams with his machine — but whether this is ultimately a good or a bad thing is left open.  After all, we don't know what the officer's real mission is, or what he might be implanting in his patients.


The brainwasher from "Darkness".

Dr. Noël posits that the Neural Neutralizer is a better, more permanent solution to insanity than constant injection of tranquilizers (which is the way Dr. Van Gelder is treated by McCoy).  In the end, Trek teaches us that brainwashing is not the answer either. 

The episode does suggest that there is an answer, however: when Spock establishes the ultimate empathy with Van Gelder, using an "ancient Vulcan technique", only then is he able to soothe the tortured mind of the doctor.  We may not have Spock's psychic powers, but perhaps we can discover a similarly effective psychotherapeutic treatment for the heretofore incurably disturbed. 

Who says science fiction can't be aspirational as well as cautionary?

Four stars.

Paved with Good Intentions


by Tam Phan (Secret Asian Man)

I don't know how much more I can take from the security team. Fortunately, the predictable ineptitude of the security force on the Enterprise wasn't the cause of events spiraling out of control. I'll give it a pass this time because "Dagger of the Mind" is a bit of a return to form. I've been unimpressed by the recent episodes, but I love a good moral dilemma.


Another Tuesday aboard the Enterprise

The contrast between the affable, accommodating attitude Dr. Adams displayed, and that of his work, was eerie from the audience's perspective. We only know there's something wrong because this wouldn't be a very entertaining show if there wasn't, but Kirk's trust of Adams was only natural considering how renowned his work is. Even Dr. Noël's admiration was to be expected, and it was only McCoy's insistence of a thorough report that raised any suspicions. I wouldn't have been surprised if this operation had continued to go unnoticed indefinitely.

I hope to get more episodes like this where we are faced with the ethics of the implementation of technology in the future. How far would we have allowed Adams to turn that dial before stopping to consider how wrong it is? How far would we turn that dial if we thought we were making a positive impact? Going where no man has gone before isn't necessarily always to a physical place.

Five stars

(You don't have to wait long to see the next episode of Star Trek — join us tonight at 8:30 PM (Pacific AND Eastern — two showings)!!)

Here's the invitation!



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[November 4, 1966] Star Trek: "Miri"

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by Gideon Marcus

Growing pains

On the trail of an old-style distress call, the Enterprise crew makes an astonishing discovery — a (cloudless) planet that looks exactly like the Earth!  Moreover, upon beaming down to the planet, Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, Yeoman Rand, and two security guards find the replication goes down to the culture, language, and architecture.  Indeed, where they land is indistinguishable from a town in the 1960s.  Mayberry, perhaps.

But one thing is missing: people.  The planet has been abandoned for three hundred years.  Well, not quite abandoned.  Skulking amongst the buildings are prepubescent children, dirty, careless, parentless.  And there are…things.  Distorted, mindless creatures that attack on sight.  But Kirk and co. find a liaison of sorts, a young teenager named Miri.  She is terrified of the adults ("grups") at first, recalling scenes of violence and arson, but Kirk wins her over with a tender manner and a dazzling smile.

The Enterprise crew quickly discovers that all of the adults were wiped out by an artificial virus (ironically created to extend life).  It has prolonged the life of the children incredibly, but any human who has reached, or is reaching, puberty, becomes one of the monsters and dies.  And all of the crew who beamed down are now infected.  It becomes a race against time — Kirk vs. the disease, and the hostile youth population.

This episode is something of a head-scratcher.  We have the revelatory opening, which ultimately serves just as an excuse to reuse the Desilu backlot. 

The setup does not work with a three hundred year timeline.  The children would be virtually unrecognizable, culturally, if they were still alive.  Surely, they would not remember adults, who would only occupy, at most, a 30th of their lifespan's memories.  Their food would not have lasted this long, either.

Yeoman Rand was along for this mission, but she didn't get to do much but repeat other people's lines and confess her attraction for Captain Kirk.  I'm not sure I like where they're going with their relationship.

And then there's the dramatic scene, where McCoy injects himself with an untested vaccine.  As it turns out Kirk convinces the children, who had stolen their communicators at a critical juncture, to give them back their talking boxes so that they can confirm the dosage and efficacy of the serum with Enterprise computers.  So while the moment is interesting in terms of character it's ultimately pointless.


A pointless act, but Kelley really sells it, I have to say.

On the other hand…

I found that the episode hangs together much better if one disregards the three hundred year timeline.  And indeed, Spock could be mistaken on that point.  Sure, they've beamed down to a place that looks like 1960, a year three centuries in the Enterprise's past, but who's to say that the two Earths followed the exact same chronology, or started at the same point.  If the children have been on their own for just, say, three years, the episode makes a lot of sense.  Then, the global descent into madness is recent enough to explain Miri's visceral fear of adults.  It explains why the kids still retain memory of their life as civilized children (and, indeed, why they ultimately decide to work with the adults). 

And it makes the behavior of the kids, which is admittedly rather annoying, much more acceptable.  These are children who watched their world end, saw their own parents try to kill them.  Leaders like Jahn helped keep them alive in that dangerous transition.  They may seem like they are enjoying a Neverland existence, free from responsibilities, but they are still children, and they miss their parents.

The original premise, that three hundred years had passed, could have been interesting, too, with the Enterprise making contact with a population of aliens in the form of children.  But that's not what writer Adrian Spies gave us.  Instead, we got an episode that fits a three-year timeline, and with that accepted, it's actually a compelling story.

Plus, we have on-location filming for the first time, and it is quite lovely.  Credit goes to Vincent McEveety for some excellent direction, too.  Musical cues seem to be a mix of cribbed and original scoring.  It's an effective soundscape.  I feel Nimoy has finally settled into the role of Spock.  The exchange with Kirk when he indicates that he "does want to go back to the ship" was compelling.

So, I think "Miri" merits three and a half stars.  It's better than "Charlie X" but worse than the three really good episodes aired thus far.

Child labor


by Tam Phan (Secret Asian Man)

I never seem to find child actors very convincing. Miri and Jahn were no exception, failing even to pass for teenagers, let alone children that hadn't gone through puberty yet. Beyond that, it's hard to believe that 300 year olds, even in children's bodies, would continue to act like juveniles.


13 years old?!

Despite that, the music and pacing really saved this episode. The music brought complexity to each moment, and thanks to excellent direction, even though the far too Earth-like planet made for an odd setting, each scene moved the story along convincingly. There was enough suspense that the situation felt more dire and desperate as the disease progressed. We all knew what the Doctor was going to do as soon as Spock left the room, but the music made the decision come to life.

I’m really looking forward to the episode where they get it all right because music and pacing don’t make a show. Star Trek has so much potential, but this episode falls well short of that.

3 Stars

Bang! Zoom! Right in the kisser!


by Janice L. Newman

“Miri” was a lackluster episode in many ways. But one thing did stand out to me, especially as I thought about it afterward: Kirk never punishes the children.

Twice he is attacked by the children, and we do see him twice throw one child off his perch on a desk and to the ground. But other than that, we do not see Kirk raise a hand against his juvenile attackers. He never uses violence to establish dominance over them or force them to do what he wants. Instead, he explains the situation to them, pleads with them – and shows them the same respect he would adults. He treats them as though they are capable of reason and empathy. And in the end, they are.

I usually catch the last few minutes of the cartoon version of The Lone Ranger when I tune in to Mission Impossible. The end of last week’s Lone Ranger episode had him capturing the villain, who I think was meant to be some sort of boy who never grew up, and giving him a spanking before sending him to jail. It’s clearly supposed to be a ‘funny’ moment.

In “Miri”, whether one accepts the episode’s timeline of 300 years or the Traveler’s more plausible three, the child characters are obviously meant to have the minds of children. They behave ‘badly’, mocking the Enterprise crew, stealing their communicators, kidnapping Yeoman Rand, and even attacking the captain.

It wouldn’t have surprised me if Star Trek followed a similar path to The Lone Ranger, showing the children getting punished, perhaps even spanked. The fact that the show did not take this easy way out, the fact that the futuristic society it portrays values diplomacy and reason over coercion and punishment, is something that I find tremendously heartening. I can only hope that in our future we really will learn to raise our children with respect and without violence.

Two and a half stars: two for the episode, and an extra half for the hopeful message.

Child Vampires Without the Blood


by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

It’s the time of year for spooky stories and while Miri wasn’t pure horror, it had its fair share of unsettling moments: chanting children, violence in familiar settings, prosthetics designed to look like symptoms of Hansen's disease.

Horror, like science fiction, gives us a lens through which to view our own world.  In most horror, creators draw from what they think their audiences are afraid of: in this case, unruly children, certain forms of disease, and growing old. As set-dressing, they can also pull ideas from the news or culture: a headline about the 1963 measles vaccine that prolonged millions of children’s lives might inspire a writer to write a story such as Miri, twining together the wonders and the potential failures of mass vaccination.

Other creators have used the fears listed above to craft stories about vampires: immortal, living outside of the bounds of human society, violent, and mercurial. With different make-up and set-dressings, this episode could have taken place in a European castle or Soviet forest, with its hidden and chanting hordes of unaging, feral children, lost to time and civilization.

But this is Star Trek, not Blood Bath, The Blood Drinkers, Queen of Blood, Dracula: Prince of Darkness, The Empire of Dracula, Billy the Kid vs. Dracula, or any of the other vampire-focused horror films of the year (although, if Christopher Lee would be willing to make an appearance in a future episode, I am sure we would all welcome it). Rather than capes and coffins, we have tricorders and transporters, communicators and vaccines-on-demand. But the anxieties being addressed are still the same, and the episode gives the audience a chance to walk through our fears, reaching a satisfying conclusion.

Unlike much of the popular horror released this year, that conclusion did not involve buckets of blood; as Janice wisely notes, instead we got a hopeful vision of non-violence towards children, along with a diplomatic and science-driven solution to a centuries-long crisis. Endings like this are one of the reasons I often prefer science fiction flavored with horror over horror flavored with science fiction: I like the chance to live in Captain Kirk’s bright, utopian future each Thursday evening as the fall grows cooler and the shadows grow long.

(I can always catch Mr Lee’s latest flick if I find myself with an unholy craving.)

Happy Halloween!

Four stars.



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TV

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

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Fun with Binary!


by Lorelei Marcus

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

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

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

…but I liked it anyway.

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

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

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


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

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


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

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


Dr. Brown in front of the Bat Signal.

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

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

Completely lifelike androids!


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


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

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

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

Cut to Shatner lying completely naked strapped to a turntable.


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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

The end.

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

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

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

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

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

Three stars.

Wasted Potential


by Janice L. Newman

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

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

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

Two and a half stars.

Same ol', same ol'


by Gideon Marcus

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

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

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

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

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

Distinguishing Features


by Erica Frank

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


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

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

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


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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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


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

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

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

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

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

Here's the invitation!



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