Star Trek – Requiem for Methuselah

★★★★ February 14, 1969 Season 3 Episode 19

If you want to see where we are…and you missed a few…HERE is a list of the episodes in my index located at the top of my blog. 

This show was written by Gene Roddenberry, Jerome Bixby, and Arthur H. Singer

The Enterprise crew is racked by Rigelian fever and arrives at a planet to gather raw material (Ryetalin) for treatment. Spock, Kirk, and McCoy beam down and encounter Flint, seemingly the sole occupant and owner of the planet. His actions and motives are mysteriously strange throughout the first 3 acts of the episode… he appears hostile at first, but then shifts his attitude to that of a gracious host, unveiling his legal ward, a young female whose parents died while in Flint’s employ (so he says). Kirk is immediately entranced by this girl (Rayna) of great intellect, who also seems very naive. 

 Flint has something up his sleeve and it’s definitely not just to say goodbye to Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. Spock rightly suspects something is wrong and tells Kirk that their host is delaying their stay at his home for unknown reasons. Spock surmises correctly that Flint knows Brahms, da Vinci, and countless other personalities to create his exquisite collection of paintings and musical masterpieces.

 ‘Flint,’ it turns out, is just using this name as the latest in a long line; he was previously known as Da Vinci, the composer Brahms, as well as Solomon, Lazarus, Methuselah, and Merlin, besides a hundred others. Spock had deduced as much after studying Flint’s paintings and musical compositions, which were all created recently, using 23rd-century materials: Flint was born about 6000 years ago, on Earth.

For reasons never explained, he is some kind of a mutant, an immortal – he found this out way back in his first identity when he recovered from a fatal wound. This backstory is somewhat familiar, and used in other novels, series, or films. It’s very close to a Twilight Zone episode called Long Live Walter Jameson.

When Flint delays the transfer of Ryetalin to the Trek trio and basically compels them to enter his secret room with its models of other Raynas, his intentions become clear: he wants to hold them in stasis with the Enterprise for a thousand years. Spock is in his element with this late Classic Trek episode.

He’s the first person to realize that Flint will never let them leave his home since they have discovered his secret immortality and the first to tell Flint that Rayna would hate him for holding the Enterprise crew in stasis. Rayna is not what she seems…and Kirk has fallen for her…(Video at the bottom)

SPOILERS

A really good episode. Spock does something really touching at the end. He sees Kirk severely depressed about losing Rayna. Kirk put his head down and Spock goes to Kirk and mind melds with him and made him forget so he could stop hurting. 

From IMDB:

The Johannes Brahms paraphrase that Spock plays was written especially for this episode by Ivan Ditmars.

One of many Star Trek productions resembling William Shakespeare’s The Tempest and/or Irving Block’s Forbidden Planet (1956).

Flint’s viewscreen appears to be a fairly close predictor of the modern flat panel TV that would become a commonplace household device decades later, except in 4:3 rather than widescreen format.

Mr. Flint invites Kirk, Spock and Bones to his palace, which is the same as seen from afar in The Cage (1966): an Eastern palace with blue details, golden rooftops, a giant moon or other planet in the background left and a smaller, Saturn-like planet left of that. In ‘The Cage’ this is the stage for the fight between Captain Pike and the quasi-Viking giant. In the remastered Star Trek, this image was replaced with a new background.

The undercarriage of Flint’s robot, M-4, is a reused portion from the upper carriage of Nomad from The Changeling (1967).

The only time in TOS in which the stardate is given with two decimal places instead of the usual one.

In the third season blooper reel, there is a shot of the M-4 on its dolly mount, being wheeled toward William Shatner by its operator. There is also a clip of Leonard Nimoy rocking his head sarcastically while “fill-in” elevator music plays for the scene where Spock plays Johannes Brahms’ waltz for Kirk and Rayna. Ivan Ditmars’ performance was dubbed in later.

In the preview trailer, the view of Kirk’s face saying “my crew” is unobstructed. The shrunken ship had not been spliced in yet.

The closeup of the sheet music of the “totally unknown” waltz of Brahms as declared by Spock is actually a handwritten copy of a very famous Brahms Waltz. Waltz No. 1 (in B Major) of the 16 Waltzes, Op. 39. This sheet music does not replicate what is heard – the original Waltz that is “played” by Spock- which WAS written for the episode.

This episode includes the newest footage of the Enterprise seen since Mirror, Mirror (1967), utilizing the three-foot model built to demonstrate the Enterprise shape in 1964.

Actor James Daly, who plays Mr. Flint, is the father of actress Tyne Daly (Cagney & Lacey, 1981-88) and actor Timothy Daly (Wings, 1990-97).

Jerome Bixby revisited the “immortal man” theme in a novel/play filmed as The Man from Earth (2007).

Flint’s view screen appears to be the Beta III lighting panel seen in The Return of the Archons (1967). It is also similar to the one seen in Where No Man Has Gone Before (1966).

Some of the furnishings in Flint’s castle are recognizably recycled from previous episodes. Spock sits in the ornate chair used by Korob and Sylvia in Catspaw (1967). In the outer room of Flint’s laboratory, just in front of the vertical grill, is Liviana Charvanek’s “communications box” from The Enterprise Incident (1968). In the same room, the back walls are lined with the consoles from the Elba II control room in Whom Gods Destroy (1969).

In Secrets and Lies (2001), Max Evans auditions for a role in a fictional episode of Star Trek: Enterprise (2001) directed by Jonathan Frakes in which the Enterprise crew have contracted Rigelian fever and Doctor Phlox must obtain Ryetalyn to cure them.

Flint and Rayna are very similar to Rojan and Kelinda from By Any Other Name (1968), also written by Jerome Bixby.

Summary

Kirk, McCoy, and Spock beam down to what is supposed to be an uninhabited planet to collect a supply of ryetalin, an essential element to treat a serious virus that is afflicting the Enterprise crew. On the planet, they meet a human named Flint who is not very pleased to see them. He agrees to help them locate the supply of ryetalin but insists that they leave as soon as possible. His home fascinates Spock who notes that the artworks comprise unknown DaVinci paintings, unknown Brahms music, and other works all apparently original except for the fact that contemporary materials were used in their creation. Kirk is attracted to Flint’s ward, the beautiful Rayna, but she too has a secret – one that is unknown even to her.

Here is a short video…it was the only one that didn’t give me an age restriction. Here is a better video. 

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
DeForest Kelley … Dr. McCoy
James Daly … Flint
Louise Sorel … Rayna
James Doohan … Scott
Nichelle Nichols … Uhura
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited)
Roger Holloway … Lt. Lemli (uncredited)
Naomi Newman … Lt. Rahda (uncredited)
Sally Yarnell … Lieutenant (uncredited)