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

December 14, 2021 Gideon Marcus 8 Comments

Shakespearean Tragedy

by Erica Frank

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3½ stars.

The Lady Doth Protest Too Much

by Tam Phan (Secret Asian Man)

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

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

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

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

3 Stars

Detached Devices and Sensitive Spock

by Gideon Marcus

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3 stars.

A Glance at Captain Kirk’s Psychology

by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

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

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

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

Killing members of the group;

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

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

Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Five stars.

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

Here's the invitation!

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

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

December 12, 2021 Jessica Holmes 1 Comment

By Jessica Holmes

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

EPISODE FOUR

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EPISODE FIVE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyway.

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

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

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

EPISODE SIX

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Final Thoughts

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

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

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

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

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

4 out of 5 stars

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

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

December 6, 2021 Cora Buhlert 2 Comments

by Cora Buhlert

A New Government and Ghosts of the Past

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

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

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

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

Space Spores and Droning Bores

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An Unwanted Passenger

Raumpatrouille Orion episode 6 — Ibsen meets the Orion crew.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Prison Asteroid

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

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

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

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

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

Behind Bars

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

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

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

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

The Return of Dr. Mabuse?

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

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

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

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

Women in Prison

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

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

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

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

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

Reaction and Counterreaction

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

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

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

A Prison Thriller in Space

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Five stars

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

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

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

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

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

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

November 20, 2021 Jessica Holmes 1 Comment

By Jessica Holmes

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

EPISODE ONE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EPISODE TWO

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EPISODE THREE

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

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

So many twists and turns!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Final Thoughts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In conclusion, I have no idea.

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

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

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

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

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

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

November 18, 2021 Cora Buhlert 2 Comments

by Cora Buhlert

Of Geese, Saints and Lanterns

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

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

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

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

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

A Mysterious Discovery

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

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

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

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

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

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

Putting the Science in Science Fiction

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

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

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

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

The Hour of the Generals

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

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

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

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

A Secret Mission for McLane

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Planet of Women

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Very Average Kiss

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

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

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

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

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

Tamara McLane kiss — And once more in colour.

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

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

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

It's a Women's World

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

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

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

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

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

Five stars.

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

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

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

November 14, 2021 Gideon Marcus 6 Comments

A Strange Step Backward

by Gideon Marcus

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

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

Repeatedly.

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

"I should have stayed with Ma Bell…"

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

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

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

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

That's a really big Christmas ornament…

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

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

Zero-Sum Game

by Janice L. Newman

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

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

The gambit pays off.

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

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

"Just kidding!"

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

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

"You Have Two Minutes Until Howdy Doody Time!"

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

Off Kilter

by Lorelei Marcus

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

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

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

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

by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

A Different Kind of Man Behind the Curtain

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

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

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

"We're off to see the Wizard!"

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

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

Three stars.

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

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

November 10, 2021 Robin Rose Graves 12 Comments

Poetic Justice

by Robin Rose Graves

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This episode earns a five star rating from me.

The Mythopoeia of Star Trek

by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

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

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

Tantalus, by Gioacchino Assereto (1600–1649)

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

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

Four stars.

Holding out Hope

by Janice L. Newman

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

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

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

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

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

Four stars.

Chemicals, by any other name

by Gideon Marcus

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

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

The brainwasher from "Darkness".

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

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

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

Four stars.

Paved with Good Intentions

by Tam Phan (Secret Asian Man)

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

Another Tuesday aboard the Enterprise

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

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

Five stars

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

Here's the invitation!

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[November 8, 1966] Paranoia and High Treason: Space Patrol Orion, Episode 4: "Deserters"

November 8, 2021 Cora Buhlert 4 Comments

by Cora Buhlert

In Unquiet Times

Here in West Germany, October was a month of protests, some of which sadly ended in violence.

In Frankfurt on Main, more than twenty thousand people protested against the proposed emergency powers law, which would allow the West German government to suspend the constitution in case of wars or disasters. Since the emergency powers laws of the Weimar Republic are considered to have paved the way for Hitler, this is not a popular proposition, and indeed no one seems to want or need these laws except for the government.

1966 emergengy powers law protest — This protest in Frankfurt/Main against the proposed emergency powers laws drew a crowd.

Meanwhile in Cologne, the public transport authority plans a significant increase of tram and bus fares, particular for student tickets. As a result, more than eight thousand high school and university students blockaded the tram tracks on the Neumarkt in Cologne. These so-called "umbrella protests" (it was raining, so many protesters carried umbrellas) lasted for four days until they were violently broken up by the police.

Cologne umbrella protests 1966 — Students block tram tracks on the Neumarkt in Cologne to protest a fare increase.

Umbrella protests Cologne — This aerial photograph shows why the Cologne fare increase protests have been nicknamed "umbrella protests".

Umbrella protests — The police holds back student protesters in Cologne.

West Germany is not officially involved in the Vietnam war, but anti-war protests nonetheless happen a lot. In Munich, several people were arrested during an unauthorised protest against a visit by US ambassador George McGhee. And in the West German capital of Bonn, two hundred fifty Lutheran priests protested against the war in Vietnam, proclaiming that supporting the war means betraying the Christian faith.

Priests protests Vietnam war — In Bonn, 250 Lutheran priests protest against the Vietnam war.

War in Space

While the streets of West Germany were shaken by anti-war protests, "Deserters", the latest episode of Raumpatrouille: Die phantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffs Orion (Space Patrol: The Fantastic Adventures of the Spaceship Orion) showed us what warfare might look like in space. Because humanity is fighting the mysterious aliens known only as the Frogs, and that war is not going well: the Frogs have developed a shield that repels energy weapons, rendering them useless.

In response, Commander Cliff Allister McLane (Dietmar Schönherr) and the crew of the Orion 8 conduct a test of the Overkill device, a weapon as impressive as its name that can blow up entire planetoids. The striking effect was created by filling a plaster sphere with pantry staples like rice, raisins, ground coffee and flour and then blowing everything out of a small hole via pressurised air. Anybody who is familiar with the writing advice of Russian playwright Anton Chekhov will know that we can expect to see the Overkill weapon in action again before the episode is over.

Orion episode 4 — Commander McLane (Dietmar Schönherr) confronts weapons scientist Rott (Alfons Höckmann).

Orion Overkill — The Overkill device in action.

Meanwhile back on Earth, the general staff is conferring, including familiar faces like Colonel Villa of the Galactic Security Service (Friedrich Joloff), General Wamsler of the Space Patrol (Benno Sterzenbach) and General Lydia Van Dyke of the Fast Space Fleet Command (Charlotte Kerr). I like that Orion makes the various generals recurring characters rather than having interchangeable uniforms issuing commands.

Orion Generals — Grimly glare the generals: General Wamsler (Benno Sterzenbach), Marshal Kublai-Krim (Hans Cossy) and Sir Arthur (Franz Scharfheitlin)

Colonel Villa and aide — More grim generals: Colonel Villa (Friedrich Joloff) and aide (Nino Korda)

The reason for the conference is that Alonzo Pietro, commander of the spaceship Xerxes, attempted to defect to the Frogs and was only stopped at the very last instant. Pietro is fully sane, though he claims not to remember why he tried to defect. However, shortly before Pietro's defection attempt, the Xerxes landed on the space station M8/8-12, a station whose human crew experienced a breakdown, went mad and were replaced by robots.

Orion Alonzo Pietro — Commander Alonzo Pietro (Wolf Petersen) under suspicion of treason.

Sparks fly in the Starlight Casino

Meanwhile, Orion security officer Tamara Jagellovsk (Eva Pflug) is relaxing in the Starlight Casino with an unnamed officer. It's nice to see the normally so uptight Tamara on a date and enjoying a life outside work. Though this will not last, for Tamara spots McLane and Lydia Van Dyke having a drink at the bar, which causes her to promptly forget all about her date and instead scrutinise what McLane and Van Dyke are doing.

Orion Tamara — Tamara Jagellovsk (Eva Pflug) neglects her date to spy on McLane.

What they are doing is discussing the attempted defection of Alonzo Pietro. McLane is friends with Pietro (is there anybody in the fleet McLane is not friends with?) and cannot believe Pietro would turn traitor. However, McLane is quickly distracted, when he spots Tamara… with a man. So McLane and Tamara spend the rest of the evening glaring at each other across the dance floor, to the amusement of General Van Dyke and the dismay of Tamara's companion. Finally, McLane disrupts Tamara's date for good by sitting down uninvited at her table and sending her would-be suitor away on a false errand.

Sparks are flying between Tamara and McLane, and I wouldn't be surprised if half the fleet was taking bets on when those two will get together.

A Routine Mission

After this interlude, the crew of the Orion 8 head for space station M8/8-12 to install the Overkill device as a first line of defence against a potential Frog attack. It's a routine mission, but we know how well those tend to go for the Orion 8 and her crew. Especially since M8/8-12 is the very space station whose crew went mad and which Alonzo Pietro visited before attempting to defect to the Frogs. Uh-oh.

Luckily, Space Fleet Command is aware of the problems on M8/8-12 and sends along a psychiatrist named Professor Sherkoff (Erwin Linder) to observe the Orion crew. McLane takes this about as well as you can imagine.

Trouble finds the Orion crew as soon as they reach M8/8-12. The robots manning the space station do not respond to hails and neither does any other space station in the area. When the Orion finally lands, one of the robots attacks McLane, even though this contradicts the First Law of Robotics (invoked for the second time in the series after episode 3). Worse, the robots were specifically deployed to man the station because they were deemed more reliable than humans. Once again, the biggest proponent of replacing humans with robots is Colonel Villa, who also happens to be Tamara's direct superior, which supports the theory that Tamara is a highly advanced android herself.

Orion robots — The Orion crew warily observe the malfunctioning robots.

Both McLane and Professor Sherkoff suspect that something is wrong on M8/8-12 . However, the Orion crew still has a job to do and proceed to install the Overkill device. Tamara was left behind aboard the Orion to watch the ship, but since she is the crewmember with the most robotics experience (maybe because she is one herself), McLane calls her in to examine the malfunctioning robots and sends Hasso Sigbjörnson (Claus Holm) back instead.

Orion McLane — McLane calls Tamara via his handy wrist communicator

Tamara Oion — Tamara conducts some tests.

A Traitor On Board

While the Orion crew installs the Overkill device, which involves a lot of silver and translucent glass baubles that look like Christmas tree ornaments, Hasso falls asleep in the command chair and is only roused when McLane calls and tells him to program the coordinates for their next destination.

Orion Maria and Helga — Mario de Monti (Wolfgang Völz and Helga Legrelle (Ursula Lillig) install the Overkill device.

Orion: McLane and Atan — McLane and Atan Shubashi (F.G. Beckhaus) install the Overkill device.

Orion Atan — Atan tests the Overkill device. For reasons unknown, this requires a clothing iron.

So Hasso approaches the computer – a plain egg-shaped device with one big light rather than the light-studded computer of the destroyed Orion 7. This sole light begins to pulse like a malevolent evil eye, and Hasso gets a thousand-yard stare, as he punches the coordinates into the computer.

Orion Hasso — Hasso Sigbjörnson (Claus Holm), asleep on the job

Before taking off, McLane checks the course again and realises to his horror that the course entered into the computer would take the Orion into space sector AC 1000, a sector held by the Frogs.

There's a traitor aboard the Orion, so as security officer, Tamara takes command to conduct the investigation. "This will not take long," she tells McLane, because there is only one likely suspect: Hasso Sigbjörnson.

McLane doesn't believe that Hasso is a traitor – after all, they've known each other for ten years. However, McLane isn't in charge, Tamara is. And so she proceeds to interrogate Hasso, who claims not to remember anything. Hasso Sigbjörnson truly must be the unluckiest man in the fleet, because in four episodes so far he nearly got killed twice and was accused of treason once.

Space Patrol Orion has excellent actors, and their skills are on display in this scene. Particularly, Claus Holm shines as the bewildered and increasingly defensive Hasso, who's even sweating visibly. Meanwhile, Professor Sherkoff is watching with an ever so slightly sinister smirk on his face.

Tamara proceeds to arrest Hasso and calmly informs him that regulations require that she stuns him. Interestingly enough, McLane does not try to stop Tamara. However, another member of the Orion crew intervenes on behalf of Hasso, namely Helga Legrelle (Ursula Lillig).

So far, the scripts haven't given Helga much to do except utter the occasional line of gizmo speak, but she finally gets to shine when she takes on Tamara. It's obvious that Helga doesn't like Tamara because of McLane's interest in her. However, Helga also points out one important fact: Hasso was not the only crewmember who was alone aboard the Orion and could have reprogrammed the course. Tamara was also alone on board and could have done it.

Helga Legrelle — Helga points out another suspect.

While Helga and Tamara fight it out, Mario de Monti (Wolfgang Völz) is watching from the sidelines, when he suddenly gets that thousand-yard stare as well. Like a sleepwalker, he begins to punch coordinates into the Orion's computer. Coordinates, which will take the Orion deep into Frog territory. When confronted with what he has just done, Mario also claims not to remember anything.

The Manchurian Mule

Before Tamara can arrest even more people, Professor Sherkoff intervenes and points out that both Hasso and Mario were standing directly in front of the computer when they suddenly felt compelled to enter the coordinates for the Frog base. The Professor then proposes an experiment and tells Tamara to stand in front of the computer. And indeed, the malevolent light starts to pulse again, Tamara goes blank and begins to punch the coordinates for the Frog base into the computer.

Orion — Tamara programs the computer, watched by Professor Sherkoff (Erwin Linden), Atan and Helga.

Since Tamara most definitely is not a traitor and neither are Hasso and Mario, the Professor explains that the Frogs are using telenosis (a portmanteau of "telepathy" and "hypnosis") rays emitted via the Orion's computer to manipulate the crew. The same thing happened to Alonzo Pietro and the M8/8-12 crew.

A note of context: The Cold War is a game of spies, some of whom occasionally change sides and defect. And indeed, there have been several high profile defections in recent years, including British double agent Kim Philby who defected to the Soviet Union in 1963.

The Cold War also breeds paranoia, including fear of perfectly loyal men and women brainwashed into unwittingly aiding the enemy. There has never been a documented case of a brainwashed agent in the real world, but they abound in fiction whether it is in spy thrillers like Richard Condon's The Manchurian Candidate or science fiction novels like Samuel R. Delany's Babel-17.

"Deserters" cannot be influenced by Babel-17, because the show was already in production when the novel came out. The Manchurian Candidate is a possible influence. However, I suspect that the inspiration for the Frogs and their telenosis ray is "The Mule", a malevolent mutant who uses his telepathic powers to bring the Foundation to its knees in Isaac Asimov's Foundation and Empire. After all, the repeated references to the Three Laws of Robotics prove that the writers have read Asimov. And indeed, the talky boardroom scenes featuring the various generals are reminiscent of the equally talky early Foundation stories.

Hunt the Orion

However, the Mule never had to deal with the Orion crew. And so McLane devises an ingenious plan. Since the Frogs clearly want the Orion to head to sector AC-1000, the Orion will go there, letting the Frogs believe that their attempts the hypnotise the Orion crew into defecting were successful. Once the Orion crew is in range of the Frogs' base, they will use the Overkill device to blow it up.

There is only one hitch. The Orion can't inform Space Fleet Command of their plan, because the Frogs might be listening. Therefore, once the Orion's unauthorised course is detected, the general staff assumes that the crew are planning to defect. General Wamsler points out that he really cannot imagine McLane of all people turning traitor, while his aide Lieutenant Spring-Brauner (Thomas Reiner) gleefully sends the entire fleet after McLane to shoot down the Orion.

The ship closest to the Orion is none other than the Hydra under the command of Lydia Van Dyke, who no more believes that McLane would turn traitor than Wamsler does. Therefore, she delays the chase, until a swarm of Frog ships forces her to return to Earth. McLane, meanwhile, manages to destroy the Frog base as well as a squadron of Frog ships with the Overkill device.

Back on Earth, the Orion crew and Alonzo Pietro, who is no longer under arrest for treason, celebrate. Tamara dances with Professor Sherkoff much to McLane's dismay.

Orion Starlight Casino — Dances in the future still look exceedingly strange.

Orion Tamara and Sherkoff — Tamara dances with Professor Sherkoff. McLane is not pleased.

Paranoia in Space

"Deserters" is a low-key episode of Space Patrol Orion, but nonetheless an effective story, which succeeds in generating a paranoid atmosphere throughout.

I have to admit that I suspected Professor Sherkoff of being the traitor from the moment he first stepped aboard the Orion. For it was obvious that no member of the Orion crew would turn out to be the traitor and Sherkoff was the only one who didn't belong. Besides, Erwin Linder's ever so slightly sinister smirk just makes him look suspicious.

This was a nice bit of misdirection, because in the end Sherkoff turned out to be exactly what he was introduced as, namely a psychiatrist supposed to examine the Orion crew, whereas the true villain was a computer with a malevolently pulsing light.

The Frogs have been hovering in the background of every single episode so far, though we have only briefly seen them twice. Personally, I like keeping the main antagonists off stage, because the unseen menace is so much more terrifying than a goofy rubber monster.

A taunt science thriller pregnant with paranoia.

Four and a half stars.

Oktoberfest 1966 — The 1966 Oktoberfest in Munich may be over, but the poster is still striking.

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

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

November 4, 2021 Gideon Marcus 5 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

Growing pains

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On the other hand…

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

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

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

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

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

Child labor

by Tam Phan (Secret Asian Man)

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

13 years old?!

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

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

3 Stars

Bang! Zoom! Right in the kisser!

by Janice L. Newman

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

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

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

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

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

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

Child Vampires Without the Blood

by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Halloween!

Four stars.

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[November 2, 1966] An Ending? (Doctor Who: The Tenth Planet)

November 2, 2021 Jessica Holmes 1 Comment

By Jessica Holmes

Where do I begin? The latest serial of Doctor Who, penned by Kit Pedler for the first two episodes and Gerry Davis for the latter two, delivers some exciting twists and turns and real surprises, one of which may change the programme forever– or spell its doom.

EPISODE ONE

The Doctor arrives at the Antarctic base of International Space Command in the year 1986. The men inside (and yes, even in 1986 it seems rocket science is a bit of a boys’ club) take notice of the new arrivals, but there’s no time to worry about them. The latest launch has run into trouble, reporting the sudden appearance of a new planet in the sky. Worse still, their ship is losing power.

I rather liked the presentation of future space exploration as an international affair. There’s men from all over the world among the staff of International Space Command, and one of the astronauts is played by Bermudian actor Earl Cameron. Nobody can do a good fake accent to save their lives, but they tried!

The new planet looks just like Earth, but upside down. It takes a weirdly long time for people to realise that. The Doctor explains that the Earth once had a twin planet, and it has now returned. How this happened is unclear. Maybe it went on its holidays.

Things really kick off when a ship from this strange planet lands just outside the base. From it emerge men with faces made of taut fabric, bodies made of machinery, and curiously human hands.

A chill runs down the spine as one looks directly into the camera. There is something about the design of this entity that feels deeply… not just unnerving, but wrong. There’s a coldness in its gaze that penetrates the very soul.

EPISODE TWO

Here we get a name for these newcomers to Earth: Cybermen, from the planet Mondas. They were like us, once. But their race was dying, so they had to augment their bodies with cybernetics in order to survive. They kept going, upgrading every inefficiency in the human body, until there is almost nothing left but the brain– and even that hasn’t been spared some tinkering. Considering emotion and empathy to be inefficiencies, they have removed them.

The result is one of the few truly nightmarish monsters to come from Doctor Who. I think they're scarier than the Daleks. They should be naff, with their cobbled-together costumes that leave the hands visible. It’s as rough a costume as I’ve ever seen on the programme. However, every bit of it works to their advantage, visually telling the story of their cobbled-together cybernetic enhancements– you can imagine them transforming piece by piece into the horrors they are today. With their fabric ‘skin’ drawn taut over their faces, leaving them only with the suggestion of a nose, and wide, blank eyes, their visage is genuinely frightening. It’s even worse when they open their mouths, as an unnatural, almost sing-song approximation of human speech emerges from their gaping jaws.

The Cybermen tell the ground crew that it’s impossible to get the astronauts out of orbit, as the pull of Mondas is too strong. The crew don’t listen, and continue to try to no avail, as the ship explodes…for some reason.

Ben, along with Polly, a recent companion of the Doctor, has the bright idea to try nicking a gun and making a break for the TARDIS. One of the Cybermen takes the gun away and bends it in half before locking Ben in another room. Surprisingly merciful, considering they killed a couple of blokes on their way in.

The Cybermen say Earth is in danger, and to save them, they must send a message to their leaders. The energy of Mondas is almost expended, so now it’s draining the energy from Earth. Let’s not think too hard about that. It’s more magic than science.

All life on Earth will stop, but the people don’t have to die! They can go to Mondas. The implications are clear. Well, nice of them to offer, I suppose, but while I wouldn’t say no to a stronger robotic body, I draw the line at having my brain tampered with. I wonder why they bothered telling the humans, given that they have no reason to. They say themselves that everyone on Earth dying wouldn’t affect the Cybermen in any way. So why extend the invitation? Politeness?

This shot zooming out through the Cyberman's nether regions might be the weirdest I've seen in all of television.

Ben starts trying to escape, managing to kill one of the Cybermen with their own weapon. He succeeds in sneaking this weapon to the General in charge of the base. General Cutler (Robert Beatty) promptly dispatches the Cybermen holding everyone hostage. This comes as a bit of an annoyance to the Doctor, given that the Cybermen were helpfully explaining their intentions.

Still, it’s bought them some time to radio their commander in Geneva and fill him in on what happened. It’s then that they learn another astronaut was sent into orbit to try and rescue the others. It's the General’s son.

The whole team starts scrambling to get him down, but there’s something else on the radar. Hundreds of spaceships in formation, heading right for Earth!

EPISODE THREE

The whole planetary energy-draining thing hits the Doctor first, with him collapsing mere moments into the episode. He spends the following twenty minutes having a nice nap.

Desperate to save his son, General Cutler decides that the only way to save Earth is to ensure the destruction of Mondas. He will have to use Earth’s greatest weapon… the Z-bomb. A planet-destroying bomb doesn’t sound that useful to me, but I can think of a couple of countries who would probably want one.

He can’t actually get express permission to use the bomb, but apparently there are no safeguards against him using it anyway. Ben and Polly urge him to wait, as the Doctor has a hypothesis that eventually Mondas will absorb too much energy from Earth and disintegrate. However, the General is unwilling to leave it to chance, even if the blast from the bomb would also kill everyone on the side of the Earth facing Mondas. Of course, he’ll be careful to ensure his son’s spacecraft isn’t on that side.

With the General beyond reason, Ben and Polly turn to the only other authority figure on the base, the head scientist Barclay (David Dodimead). Barclay clearly has doubts about the General’s plan, and it doesn’t take long for Polly to convince him to help her. Having designed the base, Barclay is able to show Ben and Polly a convenient ventilation shaft that leads right to the missile silo. With instructions from Barclay, Ben slips into the silo and tampers with the bomb. However, the General catches him red-handed, and gives the order to launch the missile.

EPISODE FOUR

It turns out that Ben was successful in sabotaging the missile as it fails to launch. Oh, and the Doctor’s feeling better now. Goody!

The General, rather put out, pulls a gun on a defiant Barclay, but his son gets in contact before he can bark any more orders. However, when the base loses the capsule’s radio signal, the General immediately assumes the worst. Convinced that his son is dead, the General threatens to kill the Doctor for causing the delay in the launch. I suppose he missed that the Doctor was napping through that whole incident.

Luckily for the Doctor, more Cybermen burst in before the General can do him any harm, and shoot General Cutler dead.

The Doctor thanks them for saving his life, and offers them a chance to save their own. Mondas is doomed, but the Cybermen don’t have to die with it. If they ask nicely and agree not to go around shooting people, they could all come and live on Earth in peace.

Well. I think various governments might have a thing or two to say about that, but it’s an idea. The Cybermen agree to think about it, but they’d like the missile to be disarmed first, which is a fair enough request. What feels less fair is their insistence that they take Polly as a hostage, but the Doctor agrees to that too, in the interests of keeping the situation under control.

Nobody bothers to ask Polly what she thinks.

However, it soon turns out that the Cybermen have not been honest about their intentions. They’ve landed all over the world, and they’ve decided they’d rather keep their own planet. They’ll save it by destroying Earth with the Z-bomb.

Gee, who would have thought having a planet-destroying weapon could possibly be dangerous to the survival of the planet we live on?

The idea is that with Earth gone, Mondas will stop absorbing its energy, and it won’t disintegrate. I don’t suppose they’ve thought about the colossal release of energy involved in a planet-destroying explosion. The Doctor manages to warn Ben and the others, who are currently disarming the bomb, against helping the Cybermen. It’s then that Ben realises that there must be a reason that the Cybermen are using humans to handle the bomb. What if the Cybermen are vulnerable to radiation?

Aren’t we all?

Having had enough of the Doctor’s meddling, the Cybermen take him on board their ship, where his health immediately takes a turn for the worse.

Ben, meanwhile, comes up with the bright idea to use the fuel rods from the on-site nuclear reactor as a weapon against the Cybermen. And these men of science go along with it.

I’m starting to get the feeling that science wasn’t the writer’s best subject at school.

The radioactive death-stick does the job nicely, and Ben somehow gets back to the control room without coming down with a nasty case of acute radiation poisoning, managing to get rid of all the Cybermen on the base in the process.

They’re about to start luring in other Cybermen with their own communication devices, but Mondas chooses that moment to conveniently melt. With it the Cybermen also disintegrate, having been reliant on energy from Mondas.

Oh, and it turns out that the General’s son is alive after all. With the Cyberman menace gone for good, he can come back home.

Ben rushes to the cybership to rescue Polly and the Doctor, and finds the old fellow unconscious. He manages to rouse the Doctor, who seems in a bad way. Agitated, the Doctor hurries back to the TARDIS.

And then something happens.

Something weird.

The Doctor collapses to the floor as the TARDIS takes off, and the screen brightens until the Doctor’s face is completely obscured. As the light fades away, the Doctor is gone.

No, not gone.

Replaced.

There’s a man lying in the exact same spot– but it’s definitely not the Doctor.

Final Thoughts

It’s safe to say I liked this serial well enough. The Cybermen are a great enemy, but the plot doesn’t do much for me. It’s fine, I just don’t think it really uses the Cybermen to their full advantage. They feel almost tangential to the whole plot, and ultimately the Doctor defeats them by…wasting time. Not a terribly interesting resolution.

What I really want to talk about is what in the world just happened to the Doctor? I’m sure I made half the neighbourhood jump with my sudden outburst of ‘WHAT?!’ at the end of the final episode.

Where did he go? Did he go anywhere, or is that man in fact our same dear old Doc? I don’t know what to make of this development.

It’s no secret that Mr. Hartnell’s health has been rather up-and-down of late (in fact, his absence in Episode Three was due to ill health), and I had wondered how much longer he’d be up to continuing with the programme. Certainly I’d rather that he takes care of his health than continue to force himself through an intensive filming schedule. A friend of mine did find a tiny notice in the Manchester Guardian that mentioned that Mr. Hartnell was to be replaced by Patrick Troughton, and there have been rumours flying around, so I suppose the departure isn’t that much of a surprise.

I think what really flabbergasts me is the suddenness of the changeover. We’ve barely even started the new series, and the lead’s gone and vanished! If we are to assume this new man is in fact the Doctor (which seems more likely, what with the name of the programme), what does that mean for him as a character? Is he more-or-less a new person, having nothing in common but a name? I hope not.

I’ve grown attached to the Doctor as portrayed by Mr. Hartnell, and I don’t think I like the idea of him being effectively replaced and all of his character development wiped away. He’s just done such a good job! Even when the Doctor was a grumpy so-and-so, he was still fun to watch, and I loved his ability to balance the Doctor’s mischievous side with his more serious moments. There’s a warmth and wit to his portrayal that reminds me of my grandpa. It might sound childish, but I don’t want them to get rid of my TV-grandpa!

At the same time, having another actor do an impression of Mr. Hartnell’s Doctor seems sure to invite comparison, and I can’t imagine it would be favourable. I’m familiar with Patrick Troughton, having seen him on television a fair bit, but he’s a rather different kind of actor from Mr. Hartnell. A different temperament altogether. He’s younger for one thing, so will he have the same gravitas? Still, I’m not going to judge the new chap until I’ve seen him in action. I’m sure he knows he’s got some big shoes to fill.

There’s little point in speculating much about how exactly this process works within the actual story. It’ll be a weird vaguely-scientific thing I’m sure, probably to do with the TARDIS.

What does this mean for the programme, though? Will people still want to watch without the real Doctor? The new fellow doesn’t look anything like Mr. Hartnell, so the kids are surely going to notice.

Honestly, I’m at a loss. I don’t know if this is a good thing, or a bad thing. Will this open up new avenues for the Doctor’s story, or is it doomed to failure?

I’m sad to see William Hartnell go, most certainly, and I wish him the very best. Thank you, Mr. Hartnell, for three years of being our Doctor.

Still, I must admit…. I’m incredibly curious to see what comes next.

5 out of 5 stars

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Galactic Journey

Tag Archives: television

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[November 8, 1966] Paranoia and High Treason: Space Patrol Orion, Episode 4: "Deserters"

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

[November 2, 1966] An Ending? (Doctor Who: The Tenth Planet)

55 years ago: Science Fact and Fiction