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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[November 2, 1967] Trouble and Toil (Star Trek: Catspaw)

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Such stuff as dreams are made of


by Joe Reid

For the first several episodes, this second season of Star Trek was solidly impressive.  We got to attend a Vulcan wedding.  We saw a mythological deity from human antiquity in a sci-fi setting.  We saw a transistorized deity faced and defeated.  Then a dark alternate universe, followed by a giant cornucopia of doom!  I regret that I must mention the episode with the red colored rock lizard worshippers, since that was undoubtedly the low point of this season.  Sadly, this week’s episode, titled “Catspaw” comes very close to hitting the low that “The Apple” achieved.

Dear readers, in my opinion, futuristic sci-fi shows should avoid doing holiday themed episodes.  I have no desire to watch sci-fi episodes about Christmas or Thanksgiving.  Nor Easter, the 4th of July, Passover, Saint Patrick’s Day, or Columbus Day.  So, watching what clearly stood out as "made for Halloween" was disappointing.  Especially since I do not feel that the episode was served by the inclusion of said theme.

We started this seventh episode of the second season on the bridge of the Enterprise as our heroes awaited a report from the landing party composed of Scotty, Sulu, and a Crewman Jackson.  A message came in from Jackson, with no word about the others.  As Jackson beamed up to the ship, he arrived on the transport circle dead on arrival.  Then from the non-moving mouth of the dead man came a ghostly warning to leave the planets and that the Enterprise was cursed.


"There is a curse on you!  Also, you've left the oven on"!

Determined to find out the fates of Scotty and Sulu, Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Dr. McCoy beam down to the planet to find their people.  Arriving on the surface they find that it was a dark and foggy night.  What comes next, I was not expecting: As the trio begin their search, they are confronted by three ugly witch apparitions, and wouldn’t you know it they have a poem to share.  “Winds shall rise, and fog descend, so leave here all, or meet your end.” Poetry so bad that it even garners a negative review from Spock.


"Hail Captain Kirk, Thane of Cawdor!"

If that isn’t a blatant enough holiday reference, Kirk and the others soon find themselves at a dark and eerie castle.  Upon entering they are startled by a black cat which leads Kirk to make the first explicit Halloween reference of the night about trick or treat.  They follow the cat hoping to see where it would lead them only to be knocked unconscious as the floor collapsed below their feet.


"There's my litter box!"

They awaken to find themselves chained to the walls of a dungeon next to a skeleton that looks exactly like what it is: a Halloween decoration, or maybe a model skeleton from my kid’s science classroom.  As the doors to their cell open, we get our first looks at Scotty and Sulu as they enter the dungeon.  Both are under some sort of magic spell and can’t speak but make it clear that they will take Kirk and the others to the people in charge.


I hope they weren't paid by the line for this one…

They meet two aliens that have taken the forms of a wand-sporting wizard named Korob, and the beautiful witch, Sylvia.  Kirk, Spock, and McCoy find themselves at the mercy of powers that could endanger the Enterprise in orbit, conjure items out of thin air, and mind control their crewmembers.


Korob and Sylvia–a tale of two coiffures

It is here that the spooky themes began to subside as the magicians reveal themselves as truly alien, with little understanding of humans or even having physical bodies.  They need humans and our minds to allow them more of the new experiences that they had created.  An interesting premise, but since this is Halloween, it is drowned in hocus pocus.

In the end, Kirk is able to learn about and destroy the magic wand…er…transmuter, the item that allowed their powers to work.  The defeated aliens returned to their original forms and promptly die.  The conclusion of the episode comes fast with virtually no transition, save for a brief explanation from Kirk to his newly liberated crew.


"The missing pages of the script are right there."

Outside of the unnecessary holiday theme, this episode managed to stay true to the elements of what makes Star Trek good.  The characters' behaviors were consistent with what we have come to expect.  Kirk was smart and brave.  Spock was insightful, and others, so long as they were not mind controlled, behaved as they should.  Also the aliens had actual, explained reasons for their actions. All this combined made this episode passable and not the absolute debacle that “The Apple” was.

3 stars.

A fool thinks himself to be wise


by Janice L. Newman

It wasn’t a surprise to learn that the same author who wrote "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", one of the worst episodes of the first season, also wrote "Catspaw". Robert Bloch is famous for his horror writing, particularly the movie Psycho. But his horror fantasy scripts simply do not translate well to the grounded science fiction of Star Trek.

"Catspaw" was a frustrating experience. Not just because it didn’t feel at all like a Star Trek episode (and naysayers in the fanzines will no doubt comment, as they did with "Miri" in the first season, that they happened to catch this episode and weren’t impressed), but also because it had the potential to be an interesting episode but simply couldn’t make it work.

Firstly, the idea that the ‘collective unconscious fears’ of our species would be reflected in a gothic castle, Shakespearian witches, and black cats, is simply ridiculous. If there is some kind of collective unconscious for humanity, the reflection of it must necessarily be both much more chaotic and universal to the human experience. This flaw could have been overcome either by saying that the aliens drew their ideas of us from our popular culture, or perhaps that they drew on one particular crewmember’s unconscious fears. Alternatively, rather than using the traditional gothic symbolism, the show could have tried something more innovative, imagining what might frighten any human anywhere throughout all of history.

Another flaw was the pacing. The scene of Sulu unlocking everyone’s chains took far too long, for example, while the final scene felt rushed. The scenes on the bridge were dull, especially with the wooden DeSalle in charge.


"I am acting!"

A particularly annoying problem with the episode was that it set up situations to be resolved and then didn’t follow through. The most egregious example of this occurs when the bridge crew finally manage to ‘dent’ the forcefield around them—only to have the forcefield lifted by one of the aliens before they can escape it on their own. While I would have been mildly irritated at the similarity to "Who Mourns for Adonais?" if the crew had cleverly managed to escape, I was far more irritated that the crew was set up to escape and then not given the opportunity to do. What was the point of those scenes on the bridge, then?

The ‘horrific’ aspects to the story often came across as comedic instead. Perhaps the ugly witches might scare a young child watching the show, but the room full of adults I was watching with chuckled at their appearance and their sung proclamations. One of the saddest pieces of wasted potential was the aliens’ true appearance. They looked like little birds made of pipe cleaners, and when they came on the screen they got the loudest laugh of the evening. A scene which could have and should have been poignant or grotesque was again turned comedic by poor writing, pacing, and framing.

I’m torn as to what rating to give this episode. On one hand, it didn’t even feel like an episode of Star Trek. On the other, there were some interesting elements, and it wasn’t confusing like "The Alternative Factor" or dully exasperating like "The Apple". Plus, there was a cat. Still, when all is said and done, the wince-inducing scenes between Kirk and the Sorceress canceled out what good there could have been. I can’t give it more than one star.

Signifying Nothing


by Amber Dubin

It's ironic that this episode is called "catspaw" because the plot is about as cohesive as a heavily pawed ball of yarn; a tangle of threads that don't hold together or go anywhere.

The acting quality of the episode peaks early with the deeply convincing collapse of ensign Jackson off the transporter pad. Yet the fact that he is the only non-essential crewman sent down to this clearly hostile planet makes less than no sense. Continuing the madness, after Jackson's corpse is used to deliver a message of warning that's immediately ignored, Kirk, Spock and McCoy are subjected to another gratuitous display from disembodied witch heads spouting Shakespearian-esque poetry. You would think this theme of theater-obsessed eccentric illusion-projectors would continue, but you would be wrong, as the only further theatrical implications come in the form of the heavily made up and costumed Korob, whose appearance is given no explanation.


Though you must admit: the camera loves him!

In further defiance of explanation, the crew wakes up chained to the walls of a dungeon after the floor of the castle they enter haphazardly collapses beneath them. Next ensues an absolutely mystifying scene where a zombified Sulu painstakingly unlocks their restraints cuff by cuff. This gesture is immediately made unnecessary when they are teleported into a throne room with Korob, one of their captors. As we've seen in "Squire of Gothos" or "Who Mourns for Adonais?" Korob reveals himself to be overpowered alien attempting to understand the nature of man. He doesn't get too far in his speech, however, before he is upstaged by the real star of the play, the necklace-wearing black cat that transforms into Sylvia, a beautiful woman.

I was hoping Sylvia's introduction would lead to a McCoy-centered episode, as Bones seems to be unable to take his eyes off her.. necklace.. from the moment she enters. That theory is immediately banished as they are all teleported back to the dungeon and McCoy re-enters as a zombie (a role to which he is well-suited). The task of seducing the femme-fatale then predictably falls on Kirk, who delivers his clunkiest and least believable performance in the series so far as he outright fails in his attempt to make her feel too pretty to harm them any longer.

Despite this entirely nonsensical plot, somehow the biggest disappointment of the episode is yet to come as the aliens descend into madness. Korob is killed by a giant door, which is as easily avoidable as it is imaginary, making it therefore harmless to a being capable of casting such illusions. Even more absurdly, these magical beings, who are said to be powerful conjurors with no abilities of sensory perception, are suddenly revealed to resemble tiny, delicate bundles of exposed nerves.


Jim Henson presents: rejected muppets!

The episode abruptly ends, nothing is resolved, no one understands anything better and I'm baffled by the fact that a simple framing device of a crewman explaining Halloween to Spock at the beginning of the episode could have cleared up where these aliens got material for all the imagery in the episode. Instead, we spent more time watching Sulu unlock imaginary restraints than we do deciphering the nature or motivations of crusty blue pipe-cleaner puppet-gods.

Ridiculous. Two stars.


by Gideon Marcus

The Play's the Thing

I must confess–I did not hate this episode.  Not because it was good; heavens no!  It wasn't even Star Trek.  Just our favorite characters having a Halloween lark.  In fact, in my mind, I've completely disregarded it as a Star Trek episode.  Just as Spock and Uhura sometimes jam together in the lounge (why haven't we seen that this season?), and just as Kirk insists that real turkey be served on Thanksgiving, I've concluded that it is an Enterprise tradition that Halloween is celebrated with a big todo.

I can see Sylvia actually being Lt. McGivers' replacement, and with a minor in theatrics.  Once aboard the Enterprise, she began penning her magnum opus: a play involving all of the senior officers of the ship.  Suddenly, all the nonsensical bits make sense.  The beaming down of Scotty and Sulu as a landing party, the spooky settings and effects, the endless kissing scenes ("Oh, but Captain, these are vital to the plot!  Really, it won't breach protocol at all…")


"Did I hear a door slam?  Darn.  We'll have to do the whole take over!"

Taken as such, suddenly the episode is palatable.  It does move pretty well. Theo Marcuse is always a delight (and a genuine war hero, and he has a great last name; he's probably my cousin).  The score was nifty, particularly in the fight scene.  Less so in the five minute bit when Sulu unlocked Kirk's fetters.

And there was abundant display of a cat.  That, alone, is worth a star.

So, again, "Catspaw" isn't a good episode.  But I would watch it in reruns three times before I suffered through "The Apple" again…

Two stars.

Something Wicked this way Comes


by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

I rather enjoyed this episode. As Amber said, it wasn't good. But it was fun. Maybe it's because I enjoy camp. I liked Theo Marcuse's silks and jewels and perfectly shaved eyebrows. I liked the kitschy sets – perhaps borrowed from a recent vampire flick? – and as other writers have noted, the cat was a special treat.

I was less impressed by how many of the so-called ‘collective unconscious fears' involved woman-hating. Crones and seductresses, liars and cheats, the non-crewwomen in this episode were like something from Jesse Helms' fever dreams, no collective I'm a part of.

Janice's proposition that the episode would have been better if it had featured truly universal fears sparks my imagination far more than anything in the episode itself. What truly scares everyone? In a world with apocalypse-worshiping churchgoers, can we say everyone is afraid of death? I would say that many, many of us are afraid of a nuclear attack from our friends across the Bering Strait, but people living outside of the blast zones could be reasonably excused from the universality of that fear.

Stepping away from the philosophical mindtwister Janice gives us and back to this rather silly episode, I am looking forward to seeing this one in reruns. There's just something so fun about our heroes getting tied up – several times – like maidens in a gothic novel.


I think the Captain is starting to enjoy it…

Watching Captain Kirk once again try to kiss his way out of trouble was made all the more fun when his captor/target caught him at his game and refused to play anymore. Despite Sylvia's embodiment of a mushy handful of cruel gender stereotypes, I found myself enjoying her time on screen more than almost anyone aside from the core cast. Cheers to Antoinette Bower for taking a two-dimensional role and turning it into something fun and memorable.

There were many, many, many ways this episode could have been improved. I would be disappointed if next week's episode shared in the same nasty stereotypes of women. I fear it will, as it centers on one of my least favorite characters in this series, Mr. Mudd.

Perhaps Sylvia will make a guest appearance and turn him into a toad before he hurts more women.

Three stars.

I don't know how likely it is that Mudd will get his comeuppance, but we can certainly hope!

The episode airs tomorrow night.  Here's the invitation! Come join us.

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




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Fashion, music, politics, sports

[June 12, 1967] The Mouse that Roared (The Six Day War)

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by Gideon Marcus

Even now, it's hard to believe. Little Israel, surrounded, outnumbered, and all but written off as doomed a week ago, has emerged triumphant over its neighbors, occupying an area unequalled in size since the days of King Solomon.

How did we get here?

Prelude to a Clash

A month ago, this conflict hardly seemed inevitable. Yes, the Syrians and Israelis had tangled. IDF planes shot down six Arab MiGs in a single dogfight after Israeli forces raided to stop the flow of terrorists into the country. After that, it seemed things would calm down. Certainly, Defense Minister Dayan seemed relaxed during Israel's 19th Independence Day celebration.

But behind the scenes, the Syrians were panicking. Convinced that some eleven Israeli brigades were poised at their border (there were likely not as many companies), Syrian strongman Salah Jadid pleaded with Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser to agitate a preemptive invasion. The timing was perfect: the Soviet Union could secure greater influence with its Arab client states, and Nasser could regain stature, his support flagging dangerously over his expensive boondoggle war in Yemen vs. Saudi Arabia.

Nasser quickly ordered the UN peacekeeping forces stationed on the Egyptian/Israeli border to leave, which Secretary General U Thant unilaterally ordered. Then Nasser deployed the better part of 100,000 troops to the Sinai. On May 31, he invited Jordan's King Hussein, whom he'd only three weeks before derided as an imperialist puppet, to join the alliance. Hussein, who had been succored by American support late last year, must have been a reluctant partner. Yet, there he was in Cairo, all smiles for the camera.

All Arabia was inflamed with a passion to "drive the Jews into the sea" and "erase Israel from the map". Nasser just needed a pretense to invade. He aimed to provide it. Late last month, Egypt and Saudia Arabia closed off the Strait of Tiran, the southern end of the Gulf of Aqaba. This is one of Israel's crucial lifelines, and Prime Minister Levi Eshkol made it clear that this blockade constituted an act of war.


Shut down Aqaba


Arab exiles, enthusiastic to wipe Israel off the map

Of course it was. But Israel, now virtually abandoned by its former allies, the French, and receiving tepid support from America (tied down with its own foreign conflict), seemed at long odds to win this fight.

Strike first

There is a maxim among wargamers — it is better to strike first at 1 to 2 odds than second at 3 to 1. On the morning of June 5, 1967, Israeli planes sortied over the skies of Egypt and Jordan. It was an unprecedented tactic: fully 100% of the IDF's planes were committed, and no targets of opportunity were allowed. They were to destroy the Arab air forces on the ground. Not the support facilities, not the pilots, just the planes.

They did just that, guaranteeing uncontested control of the sky for the remainder of the operation. When Syrians launched a raid on Haifa, and Iraqi planes tried to penetrate Israeli air space, those nations, too, were savaged.

An Israeli armored column made a frontal assault on Egypt's defenses in Sinai, bolstered since the '56 war. Simultaneously, Israeli forces headed toward Kabanya, Jenin, and Latrun in the West Bank. This latter did not have to have happened. Indeed, that morning, Eshkol made an impassioned plea to Hussein not to honor his commitment to the Egyptian alliance. Jordan entered the war anyway.



The cream of Jordan's might

By the next day, it was clear the Egyptians had underestimated the Israelis. The IDF tanks under General Tal made it halfway across the northern coast of Sinai while other columns broke the Egyptian lines, savaging the artillery positions behind. In Jordan, the Israelis pushed further into the northern West Bank, and east to Deir Nizam and Ramallah. But their primary target was the ancient capital of the Jews: Jerusalem.


The IDF plows into the Sinai

The next morning, Israeli paratroopers (including my niece-in-law's brother) aided ground troops in a daring assault on the city. By early morning, Jews were once again at the foot of the Wailing Wall after nearly two decades of enforced separation. That evening, a bedraggled Jordanian King, a man who had lost half of his country, agreed to a UN ceasefire.


Heading for the West Wall


Israeli parachutists gaze in wonder at the remains of their Temple


King Hussein announces a cease-fire

In Egypt, Tal's forces reached the Suez while Israeli planes and armor savaged Nasser's vehicles in the Mitla Pass. By the next day, the IDF had secured all of the Sinai.


Egyptian wreckage in the Mitla Pass

Only one tragedy mitigated the exult of victory–on the 8th, Israeli jets attacked the U.S.S. Liberty, a communications ship close off the Mediterranean coast of the Sinai. What it was doing there is still unknown, but at the time, the IDF believed it to be a Soviet ship guiding Egyptian guns. 10 Americans were killed in the strike. The Israeli government immediately apologized for the error.


The Liberty limps home

With Egypt and Jordan out of the fight, now it was the turn of Syria, regarded in the West as the instigator of the whole affair. At first, it seemed Israel might not invade, fearing Soviet reprisals. But the threat of the Golan Heights was too great, and the Syrians at the border too hostile to ignore. On June 9, with the other two fronts of this latest conflict wrapped up, Israeli forces plunged toward Damascus. By the next day, the Syrian forces were smashed and the Golan was in Israeli hands.


Israelis in the Golan Heights


Syrians surrender

Whither the Holy land

Which brings us to today: the Arab world is humiliated, Israel controls twice the land it did a week ago (though I can't imagine they'll keep any of it if '56 be any precedent). Several hundred thousand Arabs exiled and born of exiles from the former mandate, identifying as Palestinians and whipped into a fury at the prospect of reclaiming the Holy Land, now find themselves under Jewish authority.


Israelis clear the "Gaza Strip", home to 300,000 "Palestinian" Arabs


At the UN Security Council

Moreover, the Egyptians have already received new planes from the Soviets by way of other Arab countries. There are concerns that Nasser may launch round two later this month or next month.

Israel is alive. Israel is triumphant. But what now?

An Undeserted Desert

by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

The beaches in Gaza smell like San Francisco, except the water is warmer and no great fog banks cloud the views of the rolling Mediterranean Sea. But the feeling of a bustling city, full of creative minds, just on the brink of something incredible – it's the same. Families fish for squid and sardines here, frying them in open-sided kitchens right on out the sand. Some fishermen go out at night, turning on floodlights to lure them to the surface, tentacles drifting up as they seek the stars. The call-to-prayer echoes over the city; some people stop what they're doing to pray, and some do not. It's a mixed city, mostly Muslim with an Orthodox church dating back to the 1100s, named for St. Porphyrios, a 4th century CE bishop of Gaza.

1967 Postcard from Gaza
1967 Postcard from Gaza.

People here feel a deep connection to this soil, whether they were born here or flew in on the morning El Al flight from SFO. There's a reason the unofficial Palestinian anthem is Ibrahim Tuqan (1905-1941)'s poem "Mawki" or "My homeland." ("Glory and beauty, sublimity and splendor / Are in your hills, are in your hills / Life and deliverance, pleasure and hope / Are in your air, are in your air.")

There are few things that everyone agrees about, when it comes to fights over this bit of dirt. Three major religions – four if you add in Baháʼí folks – call it "the Holy Land," so when I was traveling in the region, I sometimes took to calling it that to avoid fights.

One thing everyone agrees on is that the current modern fight over this land is asymmetrical. Now, no one will agree in whose favor it is asymmetrical. Is it "little Israel" against the eight Arab League nations? Is it a tiny Palestinian village now trapped in territory suddenly controlled by an Israeli army that, 19 years before, forced 750,000 Palestinians to flee their homes during what that community calls the Nakba or Catastrophe? The same army that has now conquered land where about a million more Palestinians and other non-Israelis currently live – many of whom are fleeing by the tens of thousands as I write?

(Many of my Palestinian friends still carry the keys to the homes they were forced out of, hanging by cords around their necks. I think about that a lot.)

A Premeditated War

In 1955, in a speech before the Knesset, former Israeli Minister Menachem Begin said: 

"I deeply believe in launching preventive war against the Arab states without further hesitation. By doing so, we will achieve two targets: firstly, the annihilation of Arab power; and secondly, the expansion of our territory."

Menachem Begin stands at a podium in front of a map with borders that include large portions of modern-day Transjordan, Syria, and other countries.
Menachem Begin speaking in 1948 about the Haret, the major conservative nationalist political party he founded. Note the borders of the map behind the assault rifle. Credit: Benno Rothenberg / Meitar Collection / National Library of Israel / The Pritzker Family National Photography Collection / CC BY 4.0.

"Expansion of our territory" brings to mind colonialism; up until fairly recently, some of the founding advocates for a modern state of Israel comfortably used the language of colonialism to justify their project. In Nachman Drosdoff's fascinating 1962 self-published biography of Ahad-Ha'am (one of the foremost pre-state Zionist thinkers) Drossdoff describes a "Lovers of Zion" meeting in Odessa in 1901 where the colonial intentions of those meeting were clear and central to their work.

"The principal reason given for the unsuccessful colonization was that the settlers had too many supervisors and trustees who do not give them the opportunity of becoming self-sustaining and independent. Therefore, the Conference worked out a new, more modern economic system of colonization, according to which every settler would be in a position, during a certain period, to repay his debts and become owner of his own land."
Ahad-Ha'am, biography by Nachman Drosdoff. The copy I have has had its cover stripped off and is marked in Hebrew and English: "Not for Sale." It's also dedicated by the author's son, which was a treat to find.

As I've written about before in a much less serious context, colonialism often relies on the lie of empty land. Of open territory for one people to expand freely into without harm or consequence.

The problem is, there is no part of the Holy Land that is empty: empty of history, empty of culture, empty of language, and certainly not empty of people. A desert is rarely deserted; though the Negev or Sinai can look barren, there are families who traverse it, who know the wells, the stories, the wadis.

Families Flee Fighting

Those families watched as Israeli fighter pilots zoomed overhead in those lovely pictures in the piece above, blasting away at air fields; just as the families in Gaza watched soldiers from the United Arab Republic retreat before Israeli forces last week, leaving terror and questions in their wake.

A family flees Gaza in 1967. Source claims photo was taken on April 29 and labels family as Egyptian. Source: This is available from National Photo Collection of Israel, Photography dept. Government Press Office (link), under the digital ID D328-054.

Just as Minister Begin hoped for 12 years ago, "Arab power" has in many ways been annihilated; and Israel's territory has certainly been expanded. But for the close to a million Palestinians and other non-Israelis now living under Israeli control, what does that mean? Will families no longer be able to fish? Will the call-to-prayer be silenced? Will Israel force more families out of their homes, into camps, into neighboring countries, doubling the number of people made stateless by the what impacted communities would call the Nakba?

Dark Days Ahead for Poets (But Still There is Starshine)

And what will it mean for the poets? For Khairi Mansour, who friends expect to be deported from the West Bank this year? For Salma Khadra Jayyusi, who has stopped writing her second poetry collection because of this war? For Rashid Husain or Tawfiq Zayyad, who have already spent time in Israeli prisons?

Image of a prison cell
There are no available photos of the prison cells where Palestinians are being held in Israel today that I could find; this is of an Israeli-run psychiatric hospital in Acre. Photo taken between 1964-65. Source: Reportage / Serie: Israël 1964-1965: Akko (Acre), Citadel-gevangenis.

It is not just Palestinian poets who I worry for, but Israeli poets and writers too. When Nathan Alterman wrote "Al Zot" ("On That") in the Israeli newspaper Davar in 1948, he was speaking out against violence against Palestinians during the events they would call the Nakba. He wrote:

"Across the vanquished city in a jeep he did speed–
A lad bold and armed, a young lion of a lad!
And an old man and a woman on that very street
Cowered against a wall, in fear of him clad.
Said the lad smiling, milk teeth shining:
"I'll try the machine gun"…and put it into play!
To hide his face in his hands the old man barely had time
When his blood on the wall was sprayed.

We shall sing, then, about "delicate incidents"
Whose name, don't you know, is murder.
Sing of conversations with sympathetic listeners,
Of snickers of forgiveness that are slurred."

When Alterman published his poem, David Ben-Gurion asked for permission to reprint it, to send it as a cautionary tale to Israeli Defense Forces soldiers; could Prime Minister Levi Eshkol do the same today? I worry for Moshe Erem, a Tel Aviv City Councilman, who in 1948 protested against thousands of Palestinian residents being held in barbed-wire encircled camps, saying:

A Palestinian man in Jaffa is trapped behind barbed wire in the neighborhood of al-Ajami. Credit: Israel Defense Forces and Defense Establishment Archive.

"This arrangement will instantly compare Ajami to a closed, sealed ghetto. It is difficult to accept the idea that evokes in us associations of horror…Barbed wire is not a one-time project; it will always be in their vision and will serve as an inexhaustible source of bubbling poison. And for the Jewish residents the wire fence will not add social 'health.' It will increase feelings of foul superiority, and perpetuate separations that we do not want to erect."

Those separations seem even higher than ever, 19 years later, after the battles detailed so carefully above. I wonder how much higher still they will climb with the triumphalist, with-us-or-against-us narratives Israel is spinning about this war. I wonder what room those victory stories leave for peace; for protest; for poetry; for any light to get in at all.

I don't know what will come next. But as I've watched my friends' countries get bombed this past week, I've been thinking a lot about one of Fadwa Tuqan's poems (the still-living sister of the Palestinian poet I quoted at the top). The poem is titled "Face Lost in the Wilderness" and ends:

"A rush and din, flame and sparks
lighting the road –
one group after another
falls embracing, in one lofty death.
The night, no matter how long, will continue
to give birth to star after star
and my life continues,
my life continues."

Translated by Patricia Alanah Byrne with help of Salma Khadra Jayyusi and Naomi Shibab Nye.



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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[April 20, 1967] End of the Road (Star Trek: "Operation: Annihilate!")

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Operation: Summarize!


by Gideon Marcus

The Enterprise is checking upon the farflung colony of Deneva, which hasn't sent out a message in a year.  One million souls are thus feared for. Captain Kirk has a personal reason to be worried–his brother and his family reside on this planet.


Starfleet's finest head for an interview at TRW.

Their fears are soon realized.  Beaming down to the planet, Kirk and co. determine that the entire population has been taken over by parasitic pancakes, who use pain to ensure their hosts to their bidding.  They have apparently been waiting for the day a starship came a-calling, so that they could continue their rampage through the universe (why they didn't use the ship they came in is never explained…) While investigating the planet's surface (again, only the most expendable personnel are sent, including Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Scotty), Mr. Spock is infected by one of the alien invaders.


"Ooo!  That smarts!"

Kirk's brother, Sam, is dead, and his sister-in-law, Aurelian, taken aboard the Enterprise for treatment, soon perishes.  But Kirk's nephew, the Denevan populace, and Spock may yet be saved.  McCoy and the scientists in the Enterprise's 14 science labs throw the book at a monstrous specimen that Spock secures from the planet.  No dice.  No amount of radiation, heat, or anything else will destroy these critters (or at least, nothing that will destroy them and not also the host.)

There is a clue, however.  One Denevan took a shuttlecraft into the sun.  Before he burned up, he announced that he was "free" of the alien.  This is the clue Kirk needs (and everyone else misses).  Apparently McCoy only thought to use infrared (heat) and very high energy radiation (microwaves and X-Rays) since the captain deduces that visible light is the key to killing the beings.

Spock volunteers to enter a light chamber and be subjected to a zillion candles of light.  It kills his parasite, but also leaves him quite blind.  Turns out they didn't need to use the whole spectrum of visible light.  Only the invisible spectrum of invisible light.

Yes, I was confused, too.


"We've tried everything!  Heat!  Radiation!"  "What about… light?"  "Yes, Jim.  I said we tried radiation.  You think we're stupid?"

Turns out the key wavelength is ultraviolet light.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's generally lumped in with "radiation", but perhaps McCoy was being extremely narrow in his definition.  Anyway, Kirk dumps a bunch of "tri-magnesite" ultraviolet beacons in orbit around Deneva and sets them off.  The radiation (that isn't radiation) is so intense that it even kills the parasites that are indoors, but doesn't manage to bake the colonists (maybe the only ones who survived were Black…)

Anyway, there is a lot to enjoy about the episode, from Nimoy's performance (see below) to the absolutely stunning setting (the TRW campus, from which were monitored the space probes of Pioneers 0, 1, 2 and 5, Explorer 6, and the Orbiting Geophysical Observatories).

But the science is ridiculous, even for television.  Really Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea stuff.  The title is one of the least inspired of the series, too.

It's a bit of a shame that this is the episode that concludes the first season.  Nevertheless, the strength of the others we've seen this season suggests we're in for a great time come fall.  And in any event, it's certainly not "The Alternative Factor".

Three and a half stars.

Operation: Indecision!


by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

Captain Kirk seemed to be of two – or more! – minds in "Operation: Annihilate!" His curiosity wars with his concern for his ship's safety early in the episode when the Denevan vessel hurls itself into the sun; his fear for his brother Sam and his sister-in-law Aurelean's safety on Deneva competes with his commitment to civility with his crew, leading him to snap at Lieutenant Uhura in a moment of uncharacteristic and uncaptainly unkindness. (To her credit, Uhura responds with complete professionalism and competence.)

But his deepest conflict becomes clear when Commander Spock and Kirk's nephew Peter become the prey of the fleshy flying flapjacks that served as this episode's villains. Kirk watches as Spock is consumed by pain, overwhelmed by it, then fiercely begins to resist it using his Vulcan training. This moment encapsulates the sweet tension that gives this episode its flavor:

Captain Kirk: "I need you, Spock, but we can't take any chances. We'll keep you confined for a while longer. If you can maintain control, we'll see. My nephew. If he regains consciousness, will he go through that?"
Dr McCoy: "Yes."
Kirk: "Help them. I don't care what it takes or costs. You've got to help them."
McCoy: "Jim, aren't you forgetting something? There are over a million colonists on that planet down there, just as much your responsibility. They need your help, too."


"I need you, Spock."

Though Kirk brings up his nephew's fate throughout the episode, it is his relationship with Spock – and his fear for his well being – that drives much of the action. This episode, more than many others, gives us language for that relationship from both Dr McCoy and Kirk himself: "affection," "best first officer in the fleet," "need," someone McCoy needs to "take care of." The look of devastation on Captain Kirk's face when he realizes that Spock might have been permanently injured was powerful, though it did make me wonder if Star Fleet can be so advanced if it has no clear accommodations for blind people. I would hope for more from the future.


"Who put this #$&@ table here?"

Like the other reviewers, I found the science in this episode silly; I kept getting hung-up on how the Ingrahamians were flying in the first place and whether we were supposed to see them as a devious hivemind or a reactive predator. But Kirk's conflict was delicious, the acting was great fun, and it made me check my TV Guide for when the next season starts. See you all back here again in September!

Three stars.

Operation: Genocide!


by Joe Reid

If there is anything that I learned from this week’s episode of Star Trek, it is that Vulcanians are strong and powerful life forms with amazing physical and mental gifts.  "Vulcans" on the other hand are the discount Woolworth's version of Vulcanian. I seem to remember that when Mr. Spock was a Vulcanian, he could read the mind of an alien lifeform, get to know that lifeform’s intentions and desires, and find a way to help it.  Remember just a few short weeks ago, on the episode, “Devil in the Dark ", where Spock saved a misunderstood creature from the humans that were going to exterminate them?  Now in “Operation: Annihilate!”, creatures, intelligent creatures no less, are no longer afforded the benefit of the doubt to be misunderstood.  They can only be annihilated.


Woolworth's – discount Vulcans available now…while supplies last!

Dear reader, please forgive my jeering of Spock.  As a character, I find him to be a standout and thoughtful character most of the time.  Apart from the limited nature of the abilities that he displayed in this episode, I normally find him compelling to watch.  The problem that I had with this episode was the handling of the creatures themselves.  The nameless, formless, flying, buzzing, lumps of Horta excrement, that conquered 3 planets and had the amazing power to control men and make them build ships.  This seems like an intelligent species that is after something.  I find myself truly wondering what it was.  “Operation: Annihilate!”, completely ignores that, just following along with the dictate presented by the title.

The episode starts out with a mystery.  Mass insanity is gripping entire populations on planets and jumping to other planets, and no one knows why.  The best sci-fi takes us on a journey of discovery, to find out the whys of whatever the writer has brought to us.  This week, we viewers start down a path and are presented with a creature that has more abilities than any that we have seen on the show thus far.  It is invisible to scanning.  As stated before, it flies, directs populations to do their bidding, and buzzes like a honeybee, for crying out loud.


"I suddenly have a craving for pancakes with honey syrup…"

Kirk and the others at one point of the episode suppose that this creature may be part of a larger organism that exists in a great beyond.  After being presented with so many proofs of intelligence, it is disappointing that the crew of the Enterprise, so intent on meeting new life forms, drives forward towards destruction over discovery.  Towards demonization of actions, over deconstruction of intent.  Towards annihilation over understanding.

This creature had the potential to be one of the, if not the most interesting and complex creatures that we could have witnessed in the cosmos.  Instead, these single celled marvels are treated like a disease in need of penicillin.  What a waste.  If only a proper Vulcanian were present this week, something could have been made from the unsolved mysteries left unexplored in this episode.

2 stars

Operation: Vulcanalia!


by Abigail Beaman

As it turns out, Vulcans are not just pointy-eared humanoids with very little variation to their anatomy compared to humans. We learn an awful lot about Spock's people from this latest episode. Now we did know a few things. One of the earliest examples is that Spock’s blood isn’t a red color, but instead green. This is due to Vulcans' blood being copper-based instead of iron-based like our human blood. But thanks to this episode, not only do we learn more about Vulcans, but we might have learned just how secretive Vulcans are about themselves with other races.


So much to this man…

In "Operation: Annihilate!", we discover that Vulcans in fact have two sets of eyelids, after Spock recovers from blindness caused by the light that kills an invasive alien parasite living inside him. Similar (I guess) to felines, Vulcans adapted these inner eyelids to protect their eyes from the harsh and unforgiving sun on the planet, Vulcan. This allows our first mate, Mister Spock to regain his eyesight after the exposure to 1,000,000 candles per square inch. Yet then an eyebrow may raise, as earlier in the episode when he first loses his sight, Bones blames himself. Bones is sure the damage is permanent and nothing could have saved Mister Spocks’ eyes. Bones not knowing that Mister Spock has two sets of eyelids initially really bugged me. Isn't he the ship's Chief Medical Officer? But maybe it's not his fault that Spock's internals are unknown to him. Maybe Vulcans keep their racial anatomy secret. That would explain why McCoy is so irritated all the time–his patient keeps holding vital information from him!


"I blame myself."  "I blame you, too!"

Now I’m not saying this episode was good. For the most part, I actually felt very unhappy that this is the episode season one had to end on (hopefully season two will continue on with good episodes like “The Devil in the Dark” or “Shore Leave”). I do in fact feel that the anatomy Daugherty comes up with within this episode is a cop-out to ensure a somewhat happy ending. [Note: Daugherty is the Director. Carabatsos is the writer–those darn credits flash by so fast! (ed)].

Yet something I would also like to point out is Leonard Nimoy’s acting of the stoic and computerized Mister Spock fighting the human emotion, pain. Throughout the episode, after Mister Spock is infected, he tries everything in his Vulcan power to deny the pain he is in. Leonard Nimoy really shows this struggle that Spock faces; his creeps rather than strides, his voice is harsh, and every once in a while, he seems to twitch in pain. It sent shivers down my spine. I was very enthralled by Leonard Nimoy (well at least more than usual) by his acting in this episode. It was probably one of, if not the only saving grace in this episode for me (well also Scotty about to shoot Spock; remind me next time when I wanna pick a fight with him).


"Freeze, Mr. Spock!"

This episode left me empty inside, and for that, I have to rate it pretty low.

Two and a half stars.

Operation: Copycat!


by Erica Frank

The aliens in "Operation: Annihilate!" are obviously inspired by Heinlein's classic, The Puppet Masters, but the differences are definitely for the worse. These aliens don't attach themselves to humans—they sting them once, injecting them with "tentacles" that spread throughout the nervous system. This allows them to control people through pain—pain so bad it can kill. It's unclear how the aliens coordinate their efforts and communicate with each other. (Looks like more evil telepathy. Sigh.) It's also unclear what the aliens themselves do after their planetary takeover, other than flutter around in shady spaces.

These aliens have been moving through planets, causing "mass insanity" and destruction for several hundred years. If the pain immediately killed people, they wouldn't last long enough to reach new worlds. So it seems only the ones who resist control are in danger, or they'd be like a virus that burns out its host before it has a chance to transfer.

Because of this, I doubt Peter—Kirk's nephew—was at risk of death. Rather, he'd likely succumb to the alien control. He'd wake up surrounded by strangers, only to be told his parents are dead. He might well give up fighting entirely; he'd have no reason to push through the pain. So it's unclear why Kirk needs to find an immediate solution.

This episode brings too many questions. While it's common for science fiction to leave possibilities for the reader or viewer to ponder, in this case, the potential answers often make no sense.


We're supposed to believe large tentacles like these are spread throughout the nervous system… without being visible through the skin? And that removing them wouldn't stop the pain? In that case, what's causing the pain?

Kirk should be able to just declare the planet off-limits, infected, and sabotage its space travel while bringing in a full scientific team. Or will the pain quickly kill people? …In which case, how did the aliens last long enough to get to new worlds, and how have they taken over only a handful of planets in several hundred years? Or are there dozens of others we don't know about?

If they haven't been going through dozens of planets, what have they been doing for those hundreds of years? Do infected humans eventually "hatch" into a swarm of flappy blob aliens that can infect new people? Or do the flappy-blob versions reproduce on their own, with the injected hosts eventually dying along with their tentacles? Do the injected people reproduce normally, and have alien-controlled babies? (Eew.) Or will each child need to be infected?

Regarding their destruction: If they stick to shaded areas, how will bombarding the planet with ultraviolet light reach them? Any of them that are inside buildings will be safe. (And in the meantime, the entire human populace will have very bad sunburns.)

Two stars. While the aliens were interesting and the underlying ideas were good (which makes sense; they were based on a terrific book), the plot itself was disjointed and incoherent. I was more intrigued by McCoy's frequent wardrobe changes than the story itself.

Summer reruns have begun!  Join us tonight at 8:30 PM (Eastern and Pacific) for the pilot that sold the series: "Where No Man Has Gone Before!

Here's the invitation!



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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[April 12, 1967] We'll take Manhattan (Star Trek: "The City on the Edge of Forever")

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Time, the subtle thief of youth


by Janice L. Newman

We’ve been watching Star Trek for almost a full season, now. We’ve seen some sublime episodes and at least one really terrible episode, but the overall quality has been high. “City on the Edge of Forever” is one of the best episodes we’ve seen yet.

Continue reading [April 12, 1967] We'll take Manhattan (Star Trek: "The City on the Edge of Forever") →

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Fashion, music, politics, sports

[April 10, 1967] A Queer Dream (the CBS "documentary" The Homosexuals)

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There is something profoundly queer in enjoying science fiction and fantasy. The genre asks us, again and again, to imagine worlds fundamentally different to the one we live in every day. Worlds with equality of the sexes in a workplace, fair and accountable courts, ends to unjust wars – and of course, pointy-eared aliens, impossible spaceships, and lithesome green women.

Still of an green-bodies Orion dancer from Star Trek: The Original Series episode The Cage
As queer a dancer as I ever saw outside of the Tenderloin.

For many of us, these science fictional spaces are a refuge, a place that is not only safe for imagining, but safe from discrimination, casual cruelty, and doubt as to our welcome. Fan communities, at their best, can be places where fairness, open mindedness, and creativity reign over entrenched biases, reflexive bigotry, and the dishwater-dull thinking of corporate life.

Last month, I felt myself yearning for Ursula K. Le Guin's shapeshifting wizards, the science fictional poetry of Adrienne Rich, the spinning worlds of Star Trek–the direct result of having watched CBS News's deeply cruel, intellectually lazy, and poorly reported documentary piece "The Homosexuals."

Over the course of an hour, reporter Mike Wallace managed to repeat nearly every stereotype, false scandal, and ignorant opinion of this group from the past decade, along with tossing tinder onto the fire of at least two witch-hunts whose scarring cinders had barely cooled. From San Francisco to Washington DC, with law enforcement layovers in Idaho and Los Angeles, this documentary gave platform and voice to faux expert after faux expert who pathologized, medicalized, and generally generalized about a population they are not from and whose membership they only come into contact with during extreme criminal or psychiatric crises.

1955 editorial headline from the Idaho Statesman "Crush the Monster"
Editorial headline "Crush the Monster," referring to homosexuality in Boise, ID. November 3, 1955, Idaho Statesman.

It was a bit like watching a reporter interview a panel of ax murderers about about the lives of modern lumberjacks and taking their words on lumberjacks' needs, lives, and values based on their shared experiences wielding an ax.

Love is generally treated much more gently in science fiction and fantasy. There are any number of cruel, debasing, woman-hating or family-hating or love-hating works of fiction available on the average public library shelf, but it is far easier to find acceptance and warmth and a curiosity about all the ways there are to be alive in our shared universe between the covers of a book than on the nightly news. Perhaps that is because those of us who love science fiction and fantasy are used to being seen as queer by the wider world, we can find it within ourselves to accept queerness in others. Perhaps the experience of imagining different languages and cultures and lifeways makes us more open to allowing others to live as makes them happiest.

I think this shared hobby certainly makes us more comfortable trying on new language for size. For example, in the program mentioned above, Mr. Wallace doggedly uses the word "homosexuals," even while one of the several men he spoke to used the term "gay." Once, Mr. Wallace used the term "bisexual," but swiftly dropped it.

A still of Mike Wallace speaking from the 1967 CBS News Report "The Homosexuals."
"Some are bisexual: they marry, have children, and keep their homosexual contacts to the side."

Now, there is no word for this community that is not soaked in blood. I have friends who call themselves saphists or faggots or queers or lesbians or fairies or dykes or homophiles or queens or gays or homosexuals, and that is their right; I'll call anyone what they ask to be called. I use "queer" for myself because I had four years of high school Latin and can't really square calling myself "man-sexual" when what I am is a woman who is plumbing agnostic. Bisexual is a fair enough descriptor too and one I sometimes use in the wilds, but there is something juicy in taking back a word so often used in violent insult, so "queer" is what I use.

It is also how I think of my collection of friends here in California, queer as to their sexual orientation or their genders or just their worldview. It is a wide and colorful umbrella we all crouch under, holding each other close out of the storms of social opprobrium like those given a megaphone in this documentary.

It did not have to be like this. Mike Wallace could have spoken to members of the Janus Society or ONE Magazine, rather than merely filming their doors for shock value; he could have followed in the footsteps of his fellows reporters at my own local station, KQED, who produced a much better documentary on this same subject six years ago titled "The Rejected." If he wished to speak to bisexuals, to women or anyone who isn't a man, to people of color, to people outside of the middle class, all he had to do was pick-up a copy of Tangents or The Phoenix or Vanguard Magazine or ring up the editors.

Song from Vanguard Magazine, 1966
"The Fairytale Ballad of Katy the Queen" from the August 1966 edition of Vanguard Magazine.
Cover of Tangents Magazine, Dec 1966, covered in anti-war and pro sexual liberation buttons
Cover from the December 1966 edition of Tangents Magazine. Pins include: "Equality for homosexuals," "It's a gay world," and "Be peculiar."

Mr. Wallace could have done what an anonymous congressional aide did nearly 20 years ago in one of the most sympathetic federal reports on queer people; he could have represented our experiences with compassion and care. In 1949, while the United States Congress was debating a change to the U.S. military's approach to discharges, an aide serving the House of Representatives' Committee on Veterans Affairs compiled report entitled: “History of the Phrase 'Discharged Under Conditions Other Than Dishonorable’ and Present Discharge Criteria for Three Services.”

Now, this report title has none of the thrill of Mr. Wallace's headlines from Boise ("Crush the Monster") or the brutal audio he included of a 19-year-old soldier begging police not to tell his mother they'd caught him with another man and near weeping when they taunted him with the threat of telling his commanding officer. But I find the best stories are sometimes tucked away, not behind flashy titles but in tomes deep enough to hide the truth. No one would accuse Professor J.R.R. Tolkien of being flashy, but I find more truth in his writing of the world than many a jazzier author.

Imagine cracking open the Congressional Record of 1949 like we're opening up your well-loved edition of The Lord of the Rings. Find your way to the report, where a staffer explains how extraordinary it is that the committee has received any formal complaints about the blue discharge ticket process – the process by which the U.S. military removed tens of thousands of soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen from the armed services during World War II. Flip your way past the harsh realities of finding a job with blue ticket discharge and references to reports with names like The Pervert Records (1947), and you will find this impossibly poignant and beautiful paragraph:

“It should be borne in mind that even a moderate amount of complaint in a matter of this sort is significant. For a person to make such a complaint in his own case implies that, he feels, a sense of injustice so great that he is willing to risk publicizing the stigma of having been discharged from the Army under circumstances which savor of disgrace. For each complainant there are many more persons who feel the same sense of injustice but prefer to bury their hurt in as much oblivion as possible.”

Today, most people who I would call queer "bury their hurt in as much oblivion as possible," making the brave few who raise their voices worthy of our shared pride. Most people who I would call queer seek to protect themselves and the ones they love from the stigma and disgrace and frequent injustices that Mr. Wallace's program did nothing to address or to heal. Most of us fantasize about a day when we will be free to be who we are. Of living fully in communities where fairness, open mindedness, and creativity reign.

I think we can get there. I dream about it. I hope you do too.




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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[March 30, 1967] The Peacekeepers (Star Trek: "Errand of Mercy")

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by Gideon Marcus

Star Trek offered a mirror to our present day world of Cold War tensions with its latest episode, "Errand of Mercy".

The episode begins with two mighty star nations, the United Federation of Planets ("a democracy") and the Klingon Empire ("brutal, savage") about to go to war.  And not a border skirmish, but a full on, fleet vs. fleet conflict that may see one of the parties laid to heel.

In between them, strategically located, is the planet of Organia.  Its inhabitants are humanoid, seemingly primitive.  As chance would have it, the Enterprise gets there before the Klingons, and Kirk (accompanied by Spock) attempts to persuade the Organians to accept a Federation protectorate, in exchange for defense, technology, education, and other benefits of enlightened society.

The Organians rebuff a bemused Kirk, assuring him that there is no danger.  Whereupon the Klingons arrive, quickly establishing a military governorship.  Unable to convince the Organians to fight for their freedom, Kirk and Spock attempt a two-man resistance effort.  They are quickly sold out by the Organians, but then rescued from prison by the self-same natives. The Klingon Commander, Kor, orders the slaughter of 200 Organians every hour until they are returned. Again, the Organians assure our heroes that nothing amiss is occurring.

Ultimately, two mighty battle fleets square off in the vicinity of Organia.  This proves to be the last straw.  The people of Organia demonstrate heretofore unseen power, their spokesman, Ayelborne, appearing in person on the Klingon and Federation homeworlds, announcing the immobilization of all combatants.


The Organians reveal their true power

In a nice moment, Kirk and Kor express their outrage at not being allowed to settle their differences through war.  They quickly come around when it is clear they have no choice.  In the final act, Kirk broods over his belligerence, feeling much chagrined.  Spock explains that they have many millennia to go before they, too, can become Gods.

We've seen many episodes where the Enterprise meets much more advanced races: "Charlie X", The Squire of Gothos", "The Corbomite Maneuver", "Arena", "Shore Leave".  Some might even be tired of the theme (I am not–we should expect half of the beings we encounter to be far beyond us; cosmic timescales favor this).  But "Errand of Mercy" is the best of this type of show we've seen so far, illuminating our frailties as a species beautifully.

"Errand" is aided by some of the best casting we've seen in the show.  John Abbott imbues Ayelborne with dignity and strength, suffused with a penetrating mildness.  And John Colicos, who I've seen before on Mission: Impossible, is affably delightful as Commander Kor.  By turns irritated and almost entreating, Kor comes across as, if anything, a lonely man.  He is isolated by his rank, by his position as an obvious intellectual and aesthete in an Empire of thugs.  Kor seems to want nothing more than to have a friend, and the only person who might qualify is his mortal enemy, Captain Kirk.  To echo Mr. Spock, "fascinating."

I appreciated the justifications for war laid out by both sides, as they appealed to Ayleborne to allow them to continue their fight.  The Klingons, Kirk says, raided planets.  The Federation, Kor insists, was hemming the Klingons in, cutting them off from territory that had always been theirs.  Yes, the American/Soviet parallels are strong (to the point that Kor boasts that the Klingons will win due to their unswerving dedication to their state, and their positions as cogs in its system).  Juanita Coulson, in the latest Yandro, praised the show for its economy of writing, how much they pack into almost throwaway lines.  This episode does a lot with a little.  In this, they are aided by director John Newland, who did most of this year's excellent (but abortive) spy show, The Man Who Never Was.


And Sulu took the center seat again!

There were some complaints voiced about the show during our viewing.  Two observed that Kirk was too quick to take the Organians at face value, asking the wrong questions (when he asked any) as to why they felt so secure.  To that, I note that 1) Kirk is, as he says in the episode, "a soldier, not a diplomat"; his behavior is entirely consistent with what we've seen in prior episodes (viz. "The Squire of Gothos" and "Arena").  2) A war had just been declared, with shots already fired.  Kirk's focus was, shall we say, narrow.  This also may explain why Spock was unusually accommodating in his impromptu guerrilla role.

Indeed, that's what I love about this episode.  The Organians put themselves into a form humans can understand, and yet it's still not enough.  Both Kirk and Kor (an intentional similarity of names?) are irritated with these beings who do not behave as they "should".  The only beings with whom they share any common ground are each other!


"In another life, I could have called you 'friend'.  Wait.  Wrong episode.

Another viewer noted that the Federation, as American analogs, would have simply taken Organia, as the Klingons ultimately did (or tried).  And perhaps they would have.  I like to think the humans (and Vulcans) are better than that.  At the very least, Kirk tried to persuade them peacefully.  But given the deliberate portrayal of the Klingons as the Federation through a glass darkly, I think the viewer may have had a point.  And probably one intended to be gotten by the writer.

Speaking of which, Gene L. Coon is a name that has popped up several times recently.  Between writers Coon and D.C. (Dorothy) Fontana, it does seem that Star Trek is reaching a consistent maturity.  Gone are references to "Earth" (though the "Federation" has a single homeworld, per Ayelborne the Organian).  The show seems to have settled on "Vulcan" over "Vulcanian".  The characters are firmly established.

With the arrival of the Organians, one wonders if the character of the show will change drastically.  Are the Organians a galactic phenomenon, or do they only care about their sector of space?  That they didn't intervene in the war with the Romulans suggests the latter.  If the Organians are strictly local, will the Federation and Klingons find other frontiers to fight about?

I can't wait to find out!  Five stars.

A Peaceful Fantasy


by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

I've written before about alien cultures reacting to Federation colonialism – from the Horta last week to the Gorn a few weeks before. In this episode, we got to see what Captain Kirk hoped was the beginning of if not colonization, then as Gideon puts it, "protectorate status."

And we saw the Organians gently reject this and all such overtures. Over and over again, we hear varions of of, "Captain, I can see that you do not understand us. Perhaps…" and "We are in no danger."


"Mellow out, man.  Everything's cool!"

At first, like Captain Kirk, I thought the Organians unbearably naive. But it turns out that Captain Kirk, and I, were arrogant. They were in no danger; capable of unilaterally ending a war that promised galaxy-wide devastation with a thought. They were ably prepared to defend themselves and the two societies who so wished to do violence around them.

Of all of the god-like aliens we have seen, I liked these the best. No capricious squires or whiny, cruel children; the Organians had a philosophy, the discipline to live by it, and the power to ensure they remained unbothered by outside forces while on their paths. I can imagine the Horta or the Gorn would have envied those powers, though as Commander Spock pointed out, "it took millions of years for the Organians to evolve into what they are. Even the gods did not spring into being overnight."


Spock comforts Jim for being a primitive.

I find these forms of power fantasies deeply satisfying. Every day, we see the power of violence, of guns, of bombs, of war. To see, if only for a few, technicolor minutes, a power to stop war? To prevent violence? To ensure cultural continuity and security in the face of attempts to colonize? That is a fantasy I enjoy a great deal. Lest I sound too star-struck, I will note that I would have preferred to see any Organian women, any evidence of many cultures mixing together, of creativity, of growth, rather than the mild stasis that seemed to characterize their society. But for what it was, it was good to see.

Just don't ask me to live there.

Four stars.

An Actually Superior Superiority


by Elijah Sauder

In this episode of Star Trek, we saw not just the most powerful god-like-beings we have seen, but also the most compelling. In our previous encounters, the god-like-beings' powers were potent, but only in a localized region of space. In this episode the Organians immobilized the entire Space Force and Klingon Empire’s armies. To quote (approximately) Kirk, “We never had a chance; the Organians raided the game.”


"Mooom!  He started it!"

As humans we want to feel in control and to exert such control through whatever means necessary; we meddle, we fight. But the Organians did not exhibit the same behavior. They expressed disgust at the thought of meddling, and when they meddled, it was in the most pacifist of ways. This gave them a suggestion of superiority far greater than that of the previous powerful beings, who flaunted their power in a way that was nothing more than human.

I very much enjoyed this episode through and through–not just as a show, but as a writer’s vision of what we should strive to be. Looking around at the violence and overreach of global superpowers we see today, what would it look like if we could transcend our primal nature to something better?

I give this episode 5/5.

The Dittoverse


by Lorelei Marcus

A crucial part of the science fiction genre is aliens, and Star Trek gives them to us in great variety.  We have the completely unfamiliar aliens like the salt-monster from "The Man Trap" or the silicon-based carpet monster from "The Devil in the Dark".  Then there's the God-like beings, which display evolution well beyond the people of the Enterprise.  My favorite aliens, though, are the humanoid ones, because their existence suggests a great deal about the Star Trek universe.

The Klingons are the third race of aliens we've seen that seem to be technologically and evolutionarily similar to the humans of the Federation.  First were the Vulcan(ians), and then the Romulans, though there is strong evidence that the Romulans are distant relatives of the Vulcans, and thus constitute one species.  The Klingons seem to have a similar relationship to humans based on their appearance, customs, and technology.  Perhaps the Klingon Empire is the result of a colony ship like Khan's, launched during Earth's warring period.  Yet I suggest there is a larger mystery afoot.

Minor differences aside, there is also a distinct resemblance between humans and Vulcans [and apparently an ability to interbreed (ed.)].  Initially, one could attribute this to the limitations of Star Trek's make-up department, but I propose there is an explanation for not just the connection between humans and Vulcans, but every humanoid alien seen and to be seen on the show.


Amazing fashion sense aside, the Klingons are remarkably humanoid.

This answer lies in "Miri" (the episode, not the character).  "Miri" introduces that 'mirror Earths' exist, worlds that appear exactly like the Federation's homeworld, yet with distinct populations and even timelines.  While we've yet to see another identical Earth like the one in "Miri", we have seen many habitable worlds and humanoid aliens.  What if a common ancestor of the humans, the Klingons, the Vulcans, all started from the same place, on the same world, at a certain early point in its evolution?  Then, this proto-Earth was progressed countless times in separate timelines, each evolving into the cultures and creatures we know.  Each of these separate Earths were somehow folded into one space, perhaps with some space-time affecting technology like a Starship's warp drive.  We already know time travel is possible using the Enterprise.  Why not an accidental collapse of the fourth dimension as well?

There is a simpler solution, of course.  All of these identical worlds could be deliberate constructs for some higher being's experiment.  Personally, I think this explanation is less interesting, but with the number of God-like aliens we've seen, probably the more likely.

Either way, I love science fiction that makes me speculate on the very fabric of the universe.  This episode is definitely a great additional piece to the puzzle that is Star Trek.

Four stars.

I have no idea what to make of this next episode of Star Trek.  Come join us tonight at 8:30 PM (Eastern and Pacific) and help us figure it out.

Here's the invitation!



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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[March 22, 1967] The Lurking Fear (Star Trek: "The Devil in the Dark")

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The Devil’s Advocate


by Andrea Castaneda

There appears to be a recurring theme in Star Trek that showcases how a planet's native species respond to human interaction. In “Arena”, “Galileo Seven”, and “Man Trap”, we’re presented with an outright hostile response that thwarts the possibility of a sustainable settlement. “Devil in the Dark " appeared, at first glance, to go in this direction. However, it is the way this week’s “monster” is framed in an empathetic light that sets this episode apart.

The episode proceeds predictably…at first. On planet Janus VI, a mysterious thing is killing man after man deep in the Pergium mines. Enter the Starship Enterprise, who are called to investigate the matter. After getting briefed by colony chief mining engineer Vanderberg, Kirk and his crew set out to track down and kill whatever this creature is. But not before Spock examines a perfectly spherical rock, describing it as a “geological oddity”. Vanderberg refers to it as a silicon nodule, saying his team found thousands of them after they opened a new level.

It didn’t take a lot of brain power for me to deduce that the nodules were probably the creature’s eggs. The mining operation threatened its nest, so the creature began to defend it. The Gorn in “Arena” and primitive species in “Galileo Seven” responded with a similar hostility to the perceived “invaders”. Why would this creature be any different?


"This egg-like thing? No idea what it is."

Suddenly, alarms blare, the crew rushes outside, and to their horror they see there’s been another attack. Not only is another man left dead, but the creature has taken a vital piece of equipment, one necessary to sustain human life. And while Scotty’s ingenuity buys them time, they now have a race against the clock. Perhaps that’s why Kirk takes on a more militant approach, ordering his men to shoot the creature on sight.

Eventually, Kirk and Spock come face to face with the creature at last. Looking like a blob made out of a shag rug and Chef Boy-ar-dee, it approaches them, and the men fire their phasers. Wounded, a piece breaks off, and it retreats back into the rock. Examining the piece, the men conclude that it is a silicon based lifeform–explaining why it didn’t appear on their carbon-based lifeform scans. As the men speculate about what the creature is, a fear dawns in Spock that it may be the last of its kind.

We are given a similar situation in "Man Trap", in which a lone shapeshifting salt-sucking creature kills many members of the Starship Enterprise to survive. But as the conflict hinges more on McCoy's personal affection for the creature–who looks like his old flame–its death is more symbolic of McCoy choosing duty over love. We get one mournful moment when Kirk reflects on the now extinct species, but it is framed as something that had to be done.

But this is where “Devil in the Dark” makes the most significant deviation from the format. When confronted with the creature again, Kirk has a change of heart when he sees it recoil from the sight of the phaser. Realizing it may be more than just a mere animal, he asks Spock–who now wants the creature dead to save Kirk–to touch minds with it.


Heart to…heart?

This was the moment that made this episode stand out for me. Speaking through the Vulcan, the creature identifies itself as a Horta and explains how she only started the attacks after the miners destroyed her eggs. Because the rest of her species died out, something that happened every 50,000 years, she was left as the lone protector of the eggs.

We are given a similar exchange in "Arena", when the Gorn tells Kirk his kind "destroyed invaders" of his planet, but it isn't nearly as emotionally charged as the Horta’s. Through Spock, the creature sobs, lamenting the impending doom of her kind and calling the humans “murderers” and “devils”. Kirk now realizes the misunderstanding and calls McCoy to heal and save the creature.

Unbeknownst to them, the angry mob of miners overwhelm the Enterprise’s security team, and rush to claim… whatever the Horta has for a head. But Spock, having learned her species’s history, convinces them that she is benevolent by nature. As proof, he explains that she had known about the human colony for the last 50 years, only attacking in recent months as a last resort to protect her species. And by some miracle, the men’s anger is suddenly quelled, having seen the error of their ways. It is, perhaps, an over-generous portrayal of human forgiveness. But maybe the agreement of letting Horta hatchlings help in their mining operations–thus giving them more profit–is what helped let bygones be bygones.

“Devil in the Dark” isn’t a flawless episode. But the moving portrayal of the Horta lamenting her lost future is what made this episode one of my favorites. It offers a new perspective for what the native species of a planet may feel when confronted with the “alien” humans. Still, I can't help but spare a thought for the salt-creature of "Man Trap", and even the Gorn in "Arena", who also may have felt the same sense of existential anguish.

Five stars.

FUTURE IMPERFECT


by Joe Reid

I love and enjoy a good sci-fi story. I am a lover of the works of Mr. Robert Heinlein and other masters like him. In the pages of a good sci-fi book you have fantastical worlds and brave people that are navigating those worlds for the adventure, to save those they care for, and to just plain do what is right and honest. Good sci-fi is so unlike our present world, where the strong, by hook or by crook, take what doesn't belong to them for the benefit of some high and mighty master who already got more scratch than a dog with fleas. Scratch stands for money, for those of you unfamiliar with street lingo.

So this episode comes along and reminds me a little too much of the world we live in. It starts off underground on a planet with the cleanest looking miners I ever laid my eyes on. They have a problem. Something is stopping the means of production of whatever it is that these miners in their all too clean jumpsuits need to mine. That problem is these workers are dying for some reason. Notice that it takes 50 of these men dying before the corporate bosses do something about it.


"You'll be just fine… Bob, was it? Ah, who cares?"

What do their bosses do about it? They do what all big money types do. They send in a fixer to make the problem go away. In comes the crew of the spaceship Enterprise. Their leader Captain “Jim” Kirk shows up and it is pretty obvious early on that all he cares about is making sure that the miners get back to producing. It doesn't matter that there’s 50 men fewer to do the work they were doing before. Money is money!

For almost all of the episode, Kirk is single-mindedly focused. Getting those space rocks moving is more important than anything else. So much so that when we learn that the creature that is killing the miners is a new form of life never seen before, Kirk would rather eliminate it than try to communicate with it. Dr., or Mr. Spock (I get confused about which is right) tries to stop him from killing the creature, but it is to no avail, as the call of space dollars drowns out any call to “seek out new life and new civilizations”. Kirk cruelly dismisses the concerns of his friend and pulls rank on him to force compliance out of the creature. So much for friendship huh, Jim?


"I'm right behind you, Spock."

In the end, it appeared to the viewer that Kirk had a change of heart and started to care about something other than money. He then uses Mr. Spock to talk to the creature, putting Spock at personal risk. For what? So that Kirk can save the creature? Bring back the dead miners? Nope! Having discovered that the creature was smart and didn’t want its species to be killed off, Kirk understood that he could use that fear to make even more money for the corporate interests that he works for. Thinking just like the greedy men of our world, and crushing any hope that the future will be a better place for any of us.

[I'll also note a striking thing Joe said after the episode: "Everyone's happy. The natives work for free, and in return, they get to keep their lives." One wonders if the Horta would have been preserved had they not been such good miners… (ed.)]

Before ya’ll get too upset with me, I know, this is just a TV show. It isn’t real. I'll tell you what though. Things we see on TV and read in paperbacks might very well be real. Only, not just yet. It is the kind of real that we hope to see someday. The kind that we will make happen in time.

And that's why I didn’t care much for this episode of Star Trek. Instead of providing a hopeful vision of the future, I just got to see the same kind of motivations that leap up at me from the pages of newspapers. I hope that the creators of this show can offer me something more hopeful in other episodes. If Star Trek keeps looking like downtown Detroit, where big corporate bosses only care about profits and send their stooges to enforce their desires, I fear that there may not be much future for this picture of the future.


Friendly interaction in Kercheval, Detroit, last summer.

3 stars

A Vulcanian’s Best Friend


by Abigail Beaman

If you were to ask my opinion about Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek, I would of course start gushing over how much I love the cast and concept of the show. It has to be one of my favorite programs that I sit down and watch regularly. Each character has a unique personality that sets him and her apart from each other, so much so that I can remember their names.

While Captain James T Kirk is charismatic and headstrong, Doctor Leonard “Bones” McCoy is cantankerous and hot-headed; but no one stands out as much as Mister Lieutenant Commander Spock. The reason is simple: he is half-Vulcan(ian?), an alien race whose members either lack emotions or repress said emotions. Due to his half-Vulcan side, Mister Spock is best described as a logical, calm, and stoic computerized man. And while it seems he gets along with most of the crew, despite his emotionless stature, there seems to be just one person that Spock truly cares about on the Enterprise. That man of course is Captain Kirk.

How do I reach this conclusion? Well, simply the only time Spock seems to break his stoic behavior and disregard any morals he has (without the aid of a certain flower’s spores) is when Kirk is in trouble. This episode shows just how deep the relationship runs between the half-Vulcan scientist and the charismatic human captain.

At the start of the episode, Spock makes it clear that he doesn’t want to kill the Horta, as he believes it to be the last of the species, a reservation he expressed in "The Man Trap", too. Spock in other episodes also has demonstrated that he values life above all else. It seems that preserving life is a moral of his and to break it would be like him breaking his stoic, Vulcan behavior. Even when Kirk tells the security team that they are to kill the Horta on sight, Spock disregards this direct order and tells the team to try to keep it alive if possible.


"Spock, what did I just say? Kill, not capture."

That is, until Kirk is at the Horta’s mercy. Spock’s opinion of the situation changes entirely: he tells Kirk to shoot it, to kill it before it kills him. The fear that Spock displays not only in his voice but also his movements clearly paints a picture, that Kirk is someone Spock cherishes greatly. Spock runs down the cave to save his friend only to find out Kirk has had a change in heart. Spock was not only ready to kill the Horta, but to sacrifice his own morals for Kirk. I don’t know about you, but the only time I would consider betraying my morals is for someone I consider a true friend, not someone who I work with.


"I'm quickening my pace, Jim!"

Clearly, the relationship between Spock and Kirk goes beyond that of just co-workers. It's a revelation that has been a long time coming, and a welcome one. Which is why I felt compelled to discuss it over any other aspect of the episode. That Spock sees Kirk as someone he cares about, enough to break his “Vulcanian cool” and morals to save, leaves me reassured. Maybe Spock can't be "happy", as he stated last episode. Nevertheless, even if Spock is an emotionless alien, he still can find a kind of companionship in his best friend, Jim Kirk.

Four stars.

Fighting Fire with Empathy


by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

I loved the twistiness of this episode. First Kirk wants to kill the Horta, then he defends it with not only his own life, but his crew's bodies. First it's a monster, then a mother. First Spock is his usual cool, emotionless self, and then he is screaming in pain as he connects himself mentally to the Horta. First the silicon nodules have "no commercial value" and then they become the hope of a new golden age of mining on Janus 6.


"Oooo, that smarts!"

Just like in "Arena," in "The Devil in the Dark" we are confronted with the colonial shortsightedness of Starfleet. Janus 6 is a "long-established colony" whose longtime colonists have somehow managed to miss an entire species of rock-dwelling creatures. Now, their 50,000 year breeding cycle might explain this, but stepping away from the specifics, it does remind me of modern failures of imagination, particularly in cases of colonial governments failing to understand the places they seek to control.

For example, the refusal of the U.S. Forest Service to use the wildfire management strategies that the Tongva Nation, Chumash Bands, and other peoples have used since time immemorial in what is now called California. Last November, this led to the tragic death of 10 hotshot firefighters in the Loop Fire near Los Angeles. Like the Horta, that wildfire burned hot and seemingly without reason; but wildfires, like Hortas, often have a logic of their own. The canyons that burned in the Angeles National Forest had been left uncleared for decades of misguided fire-suppression policies. When all of that mass had built up, of course it burned too hot and too fast to stop. The failure of the Janus 6 geologic survey team to find local life built up another kind of conflagration, one that killed 50. One hopes they won't make that mistake again.


The Loop Fire

Though we can't use Spock's Vulcanian skills to read the minds of wildfires, one of the beauties of science fiction is the hope that we might one day communicate with someone as different from us as blood and stone, or fire and water. The tension between what is and what could be, the twistiness as we get from here to there, is the fun of the genre, and this episode did a great job of letting us enjoy the ride.

4 stars.

In the next episode, Kirk and Spock go to the California Renaissance Faire. Come join us tomorrow at 8:30 PM (Eastern and Pacific)!.

Here's the invitation!

 



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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[March 2, 1967] (Star Trek: "A Taste of Armageddon")

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A Cold, Cruel Counting


by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

Most of my friends only experience the war through numbers. Unless they have family on the streets where the bombs are falling, in uniform or not, kill counts reported on the screens in our homes are the only way many people track the war in real-time.

It helps me to remember that TV show writers don't live in a pocket universe, one more far-seeing, wiser than the one in which we all shower and shave and find holes in our socks every day. Unless they are unlucky enough to have participated in the current war, their knowledge of the war comes from those same sources.

The pictures we see on television or in our papers – bombs, bodies, landscapes we've never driven through, leaders speaking languages we do not, propaganda both crudely and delicately crafted – have limited currency. But numbers, kill counts especially, are strangely memorable. We repeat them, over and over, as if these numbers tell us something of what it is like to fight and die on the other side of the world.

Gideon's copy of The World in 1966: History as We Lived It by the Writers, Photographers, and Editors of The Associated Press (Published February 1967) has this to say about the ongoing conflict in Vietnam:

"The allied side lost nearly 14,500 dead during the year, including some 4,800 Americans.  Enemy dead were placed at 50,000, but some officials privately said the figure was inflated."

The war in "A Taste of Armageddon" feels like the product of this numbers-based approach to understanding war. In this writerly extension of bloodlessly reported casualty counts, Captain Kirk and his crew face two entire societies (Eminiar Seven and Vendikar) which conduct their war via computers and then tally up the expected deaths. Living people then march into disintegration chambers to keep their 500 year war's gory score. Those societies have chosen to ensure that:

Anan: […] Our civilization lives. The people die, but our culture goes on.
Kirk: You mean to tell me your people just walk into a disintegration machine when they're told to?
Anan: We have a high consciousness of duty, Captain.

Backing up, Captain Kirk and his crew had been ferrying Ambassador Fox to open up diplomatic relations with Eminiar Seven, who they have little knowledge of. They are warned away, but acting under the Ambassador's orders, they disregard the warnings. It soon comes to light that, by entering orbit around Eminiar Seven, the Eminians and Vendikans now consider the Enterprise as a fair target in their murderously bloodless war games. When Captain Kirk declines to order the crew to transport themselves to the surface to be disintegrated, the leaders of the planet hold him and the rest of the landing party hostage.

There is some clever interplay, personal bravery, voice-faking trickery, stubborn commitment to principals on both sides, a self-sacrificing lady in distress, a self-important diplomat, some cruel things said about diplomats as a category by Mr. Scott ("Diplomats. The best diplomat I know is a fully activated phaser bank"), and finally, a threat of overwhelming force, via the apparently genocidal standing "Order Twenty Four." (I spent much of the episode hoping "Order 24" was an old joke between the Captain and Scotty, but that shoe never dropped, leaving me disturbed as to Starfleet's comfort with destroying sentient life en mass). Eventually, Captain Kirk gains the upper hand and forces the Eminians and Vendikans to the negotiating table, with the following mandate:

Kirk: "I've given you back the horrors of war. The Vendikans now assume that you've broken your agreement and that you're preparing to wage real war with real weapons. They'll want to do the same. Only the next attack they launch will do a lot more than count up numbers in a computer. They'll destroy cities, devastate your planet. You of course will want to retaliate. If I were you, I'd start making bombs. Yes, Councilman, you have a real war on your hands. You can either wage it with real weapons, or you might consider an alternative. Put an end to it. Make peace."


Make Love, not War

Because, despite the callow specimen of a diplomat that Ambassador Fox turns out to be, all wars – computer-run or otherwise – end at the negotiating table. Smart leaders try to get there as soon as possible, because they know the reality that the Eminians and Vendikans did not seem to grasp: every life lost in war is a blow to that culture. Every dead body, bomb explosion, pitted landscape, dead leader, and bit of corrosive propoganda is part of cultural death.

To be clear, I am not against self-defense in war. A proper pacifist, I am not. If I had the option of being drafted, I could not honestly mark myself a conscientious objector because I do believe there are some wars that need fighting; the jacket I wear in my photo was a relative's Plebe jacket from West Point, class of '49 and he is not the only one to serve in my family. But wars of choice are an entirely different matter to me. Those leaders who wake up one morning and decide to send other people's children to die over borders they should not have crossed in the first place are a curse upon our shared world. We have no idea how the war between the Eminians and Venikans began – by choice, by misunderstanding, by cement-shoe treaties, or with one attacking and the other defending. They do not seem to recall the inciting incident either. In the end, like all wars, peace will only come from talking.

And I find myself agreeing with Captain Kirk, wishing more people would know the consequences of war, and not just the counts of it. Perhaps we too would seek peace and hold her more dearly if we did.

Four stars.

A Polite and Gentle War?


by Erica Frank

I'm sure Dr. Leary would have something to say about the psychology of a whole society—two whole planets, in fact—that has indoctrinated its people so well that they politely march off to death when a computer tells them to.

This is exactly the opposite of the Human Be-In that took place in San Francisco last month, with its focus on "Turn on, tune in, drop out." Instead, the Eminians (and, presumably, Vendikans, although we don't meet them) have a whole culture of "Show up, tune out, drop dead."


The Eminians could take a page from our book…

While their society appears peaceful to Kirk and his team, there must be a great deal of turmoil under the surface. It's not easy to get people to just politely walk to their deaths, so their indoctrination must start very young—perhaps in infancy. Otherwise, how could you explain to a six-year-old that Mommy is leaving forever because a computer said she's dead now? Do parents calmly hand over their children to be disintegrated? …Or are children exempt from "war death," and that's one of the "messy" parts of war that their game avoids? Either way, Eminiar must have a booming business in last-minute video recordings left at the disintegration center for loved ones to pick up later.

However, I suspect the people are not so controlled as all that. While some people—like the High Council—might walk quietly to their own deaths for the sake of society, the general populace may not be so compliant.


"All those in favor of marching to your death, please remain seated."

What terrors must their death guardians commit on the populace, to convince millions of people to leave their families to die?

What do anti-war protests on Eminiar look like? Perhaps they hang around the death centers, handing out flyers that say "You Still Live! Reject the Computer and Reclaim Your Life!" Of course, the High Council would have the Enterprise crew believe that nobody protests, that everyone follows orders. But if that's true… why do their guards carry guns?

Eminiar seems to be a technologically advanced society. Surely a society that is at peace except for the cold calculations of the war itself, has little experience with interpersonal violence. But their guards are armed and well-trained. If people go to their deaths without complaint, why would their guards be so combat-ready that they are able to take down Kirk and his team? Who are they trained to fight when Federation agents aren't visiting?

I think we only got to see a tiny slice of Eminian life, filtered through the biases of the council that calmly declares millions of deaths and then makes sure that number comes true. We saw "Ministry of Peace" propaganda, not what life is actually like for most people.

Four stars. The more I think about this episode, the more chilling implications I find.

Mutually Assured Accounting


by Lorelei Marcus

How often can someone confidently say they are living through an historic event?  The kind of world-altering occurrence or period that will go down in the textbooks, that kids will memorize for years to come. 

I think everyone lives through three or four.  I narrowly missed World War II, but the bulk of my life has been spent in the conflict that has succeeded it.  Indeed, this one may be even more global in character than the last, because we all are living in its shadow: The Cold War.

I know the Cold War is a big deal, beyond the news items, the Duck and Cover drills, the Ban the Bomb protests, because it is everywhere in my entertainment.  In songs like Barry MacGuire's Eve of Destruction.  In movies like Dr. Strangelove, Failsafe, On the Beach, Panic in Year Zero.  On the small screen in shows like Twilight Zone and Britain's The War Game.  Books like Alas, Babylon and Farnham's Freehold.

These cautionary tales are so omnipresent that they've almost become cliché.  Sure, we're all afraid of the Bomb.  Using it is clearly senseless.  What else can/need be said?

So you can imagine my surprise (and not a little delight) at Star Trek's complete inversion of this theme with its latest episode, "A Taste of Armageddon".

Rather than the typical structure of two equally matched parties tensely avoiding conflict because of mutually assured destruction, instead the episode plunges us right into a Hot War.  A hot but clean war with no real weapons, but innumerable calculated casualties.


"G-4" "It's a hit!"

To stave off the possibility of total annihilation from an ever-escalating conflict, the two superpowers (planets in this case) chose to guarantee destruction, but only of people.  What a clever, callous twist!  Not only is it a comment on how nations might paradoxically value their existence over their constituents (what is a country if not the people living in it?) but it also highlights that no matter how efficiently one conducts a war, the result is still death and ruin.

The only answer is peace.  Five stars.

Getting to Know You


by Gideon Marcus

My colleagues have done an excellent job discussing the content of the episode, so I just want to note a few nifty things about its production.

One of the things that endears Star Trek to me is its ensemble nature.  This was a particularly balanced episode that saw many of its principals shining (though Uhura still remains underused, and Sulu was absent this week).  I was particularly impressed with Chief Engineer Scott's first televised turn at the helm, at which I thought he did just fine.  It seems a little strange to have the engineers in line for the bridge's center seat, but the "Starfleet" of the "United Federation of Planets" (terms of art we're starting to hear more and more) seems a lot looser on branch distinctions than the U.S. Navy.  Viz. Kevin Riley (is he still around?) moving from Engineering, to Navigation, to Communications–a path Lt. Uhura also seems to have traveled.


"I'll nae lower th' screens!"

This is the second time we've had a special Federation commissioner on board.  While I did not appreciate Mr. Fox most of the time, I do appreciate that the Enterprise is often a courier as well as a scientific vessel and sometimes warship.  The jack-of-all-trades cruiser-like nature of the ship allows for a wide variety of interesting stories.

Joe Pevney has returned to take up the director's megaphone.  He and Marc Daniels appear to have most put their imprimatur on this fledgling show, and they have yet to really disappoint (sometimes scripts let them down, of course).  A name I am seeing more is Gene L. Coon, usually in co-writing credits.  I've seen him all over television, particularly on Laredo, COMBAT!, and Wagon Train.  I'm sure there are others I've missed/forgotten.  Along with his arrival, I'm noticing a minor change in tone.  Trek feels less like an anthology show that happens to have consistent characters, and more like its own entity–a lived-in universe.

I suppose it was inevitable that, as the world of Trek became established, folks not attached to the show would want to become part of the phenomenon, particularly in light of the big "Save Star Trek" campaign we saw at the end of last year.  So it is no surprise that we are seeing our first Trek-specific clubs and even club 'zines.

Trek has been guaranteed at least one more season.  I look forward not only to more great episodes like this one (I give it a solid four stars), but also to learning more about the inhabitants and worlds that populate it!

Something WEIRD is going on. Join us tonight at 8:30 PM (Eastern and Pacific) for what looks like it will be a very strange episode of Star Trek:

Here's the invitation!



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TV

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

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The Best of Tyrants, The Worst of Tyrants


by Janice L. Newman

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

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

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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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