Gene Roddenberry – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

Star Trek – Turnabout Intruder

★★★1/2 June 3, 1969 Season 3 Episode 24

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 and Arthur Singer

This is IT! The last episode of the last season. Because the original series was canceled instead of coming to a natural end, and the idea of a series finale was not as popular in the 1960s, “Turnabout Intruder” was close to a normal episode and did not have the “finale” touches. The remastered version of “Turnabout Intruder” ended with the Enterprise flying toward a colorful nebula, to artistically signify the episode as being the last of the original series.

First of all, I want to thank all of you for reading all of these posts or just dropping back by once in a while. I know I narrow my audience doing these television shows so I am so thankful that some of you who really never watched it jumped in and I hope some of you come away watching a few of them. Some of you like Lisa, Obbverse, and Liam re-watched the shows as we went along and I thank you for it and the rest that did.

This episode is basically “Freaky Friday” in space.

Kirk’s body gets kidnapped by his former lover Janice Lester (played by Sandra Smith) who has gone jealously insane over the fact that Starfleet apparently doesn’t allow women captains (Roddenberry regretted this in the script). While the script may have been intended as a social commentary on the 1960s, it doesn’t quite work for a Star Trek series that was supposedly set in the 23rd century.

Surely by then, women would have risen up the ranks to become captains of starships! While it seems implausible that Kirk would allow his body to be kidnapped on Camus II by an alien device, this cannot be dismissed outright. As Spock rightly notes, the Enterprise has been to many new places and witnessed many strange events. Moreover, Kirk was once cloned in ‘What Are Little Girls Made of?’ and even split into two in ‘The Enemy Within.’

I think Shatner does a fair acting job in this one. He is much more emotional because Lester is in his body. I think this one is an average episode of the third season. Not one of the greats but not bad.

From IMDB:

William Shatner had a severe case of ‘flu’ during filming of this episode. At one point, he had to lift Sandra Smith in his arms, carry her to a couch and put her on it: during the first take, he got as far as the couch and dropped her. Fortunately, it was well padded, and Smith bounced several times; according to Joanie Winston, who was visiting the set, Shatner looked down at Smith and said, “You know I love you, baby, but you’ve got to lose about six inches off that ass.”

Leonard Nimoy is the only actor to appear in every episode of the series. William Shatner appeared in every episode with the exception of the first pilot, The Cage (1966).

Gene Roddenberry regretted the line about the Federation supposedly not allowing female captains, as he felt it was sexist.

The transposition sequence was the last footage shot for The Original Series.

This episode is subtly referenced in Legacy (1990). Jean-Luc Picard mentions that they are bypassing an archaeological survey on Camus II, the same planet that this episode begins on. This was mentioned because, with the airing of its 80th episode “Legacy”, Star Trek: The Next Generation officially became longer than TOS.

Leonard Nimoy (Spock) and Majel Barrett (Nurse Christine Chapel and Number One) are the only actors to appear in both the series finale and the first pilot The Cage (1966).

Nurse Chapel’s (Majel Barrett) hair color is brown for this episode, not its usual blonde color.

This episode was originally scheduled for broadcast on March 28, 1969. Special network coverage of the death of Dwight D. Eisenhower pre-empted it, and it didn’t air until June 3.

Lieutenant Galloway reappears in this episode, despite being killed by Ronald Tracey in The Omega Glory (1968). He was credited as Galloway (misspelled as “Galoway”) even though actor David L. Ross had been recast as Lieutenant Johnson in Day of the Dove (1968) after the character of Galloway was killed off.

Although this was the last episode of the Original Series to be filmed and aired, this episode has a lower stardate than the previous episode, All Our Yesterdays (1969).

The production crew nicknamed this episode “Captain Kirk: Space Queen”.

Though her voice is muffled, Dr. Lester protests to Dr. Coleman, “Go to Hell!” a rare case of a “swear” sneaking past the network censors.

According to Harry Landers, he was very fatigued during this episode because he had just had his upper right lung removed due to an infection. He wanted to turn the role down but did it as a favor to producer Fred Freiberger.

After two years on the series, Roger Holloway finally gets to speak dialogue, all of two words. His character’s name (Lemli) was the same as William Shatner’s license plate at the time, a mixture of his daughters’ (Leslie, Melanie, Lisabeth) names.

Summary

On the planet Camus II, Kirk meets his old flame, Janice Lester, who is supposedly dying of radiation poisoning. She is a woman scorned and is out to get her revenge on Kirk with whom she was in love many years ago. She has discovered an alien process that will allow her to transfer her essence into Kirk’s body and vice versa. Returning to the Enterprise in Kirk’s body, she now has command of the Enterprise. Kirk on the other hand is now in Lester’s body and can get no one to believe that he is really Kirk. It soon becomes obvious that Lester is incapable of command, leading Spock to accept that she has, in fact, taken over Kirk’s body.

THANKS AGAIN! One final message…Live Long and Prosper.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
DeForest Kelley … Dr. McCoy
Sandra Smith … Janice Lester
Harry Landers … Dr. Coleman
James Doohan … Scott
George Takei … Sulu
Walter Koenig … Chekov
Majel Barrett … Nurse Chapel
Barbara Baldavin … Communications Officer
David L. Ross … Lt. Galoway
John Boyer … Guard
Tom Anfinsen … Medical Technician (uncredited)
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited)
James Drake … Security Guard (uncredited)
Roger Holloway … Lt. Lemli (uncredited)

Star Trek – All Our Yesterdays

★★★★ March 14, 1969 Season 3 Episode 23

If 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, Jean Lisette Aroeste, and Arthur H. Singer

Only one more episode after this one. This is one that you see Spock fall for a lady named Zarabeth who is played beautifully by Mariette Hartley. You see Spock revert back to the time before Vulcan developed the logical way of life. Personally, I think Spock could have been happy there in the cold with Zarabeth…I know I would! This is one of my favorite episodes of the third season. They don’t spend hardly any time in the Enterprise.

Kirk and crew land on a lonely planet where the sun is about to explode. They intend to evacuate the inhabitants but find the place deserted except for Mr. Atoz who operates some sort of high-tech library. Despite trying to get a straight answer from him about everyone’s whereabouts, Atoz is indifferent to their questions and insists they must quickly ‘make a selection while there is still time. The reason for the short time is a star is about to nova, and the three arrive on the planet, hoping to help evacuate the population

They have no idea what he’s talking about but wander about looking at the hand mirror-like disks on the viewers and they see images of the planet’s past. Then, while a disk is in the viewer, Kirk runs through the doorway and is magically transported back in time to what on Earth would look like the time of Louis XIV (the 1660s). When McCoy and Spock follow, a different disk is in the viewer and they are sent to an ice-age hell. All too late they realize that the library is a time travel machine and repository.

While Kirk’s visit is pretty short and not all that exciting, Spock and McCoy’s is much more eventful, as Spock falls head over heels for Mariette Hartley–who was sent to this awful place as a punishment. The scenes with Spock are exceptionally interesting and very atypical of the normally logical Vulcan. McCoy almost freezes to death but Spock looks after him but that doesn’t mean we don’t get some verbal jabs from each of them to each other.

One of the best episodes of the 3rd season in my opinion. I do like Time Travel also so that played a part.

From IMDB:

The name of the librarian Mr. Atoz is a play on the phrase “A to Z”. Author Jean Lisette Aroeste was a UCLA librarian at the time she wrote this script.

Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov do not appear in this episode. Scotty does not appear on screen but has several voice-over lines. In no other episode are only three regular members of the crew seen in person.

The title is taken from “Macbeth” by William Shakespeare, Act 5, Scene 5: The title character speaks “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, / Creeps in this petty pace from day to day / To the last syllable of recorded time, / And all our yesterdays have lighted fools / The way to dusty death.”

The name of the device, the Atavachron, is quite a descriptive one. “Atavus” is Latin for “… (an) ancestor or ancestral type from which a character is assumed to be inherited”, and “chron” is from the Greek “chronos” (“time”), so, an Atavachron is a device which can send you to an ancestral place of any time period.

According to the stardate, this episode is chronologically the last of the series, even though its production number and air date are earlier than Turnabout Intruder (1969). This is therefore the last voyage of the USS Enterprise in the original series. This is also the last time-travel episode of the original series.

Part of the set depicting the surface of the ice age planet where Spock and McCoy are transported was recycled from the MGM film Ice Station Zebra (1968), made the previous year.

There is no footage aboard the Enterprise in this story. Only three crew members (Kirk, Spock & McCoy) are seen and only one stock footage shot of the exterior is used. This was a deliberate attempt to cut costs and to film this episode quickly by using a minimal number of sets. Sets from previous episodes were reused as well.

The Atavachron computer used by Mr. Atoz is the same one as used by Gary Seven in Assignment: Earth (1968).

Mariette Hartley (Zarabeth) was not allowed to show her belly-button in this episode, despite the appearances of other women’s navels in previous episodes. To comment on this censorship, Gene Roddenberry gave Hartley’s character two navels in his pilot Genesis II (1973), stating that “the network owed me one.”

There were two highly successful sequel books, “Yesterday’s Son” and “Time for Yesterday”, both by A.C. Crispin.

The stock footage showing the endless snow fields on the disc McCoy watches was also used as the surface of Exo III in What Are Little Girls Made Of? (1966).

The sound effect used for the Atavachron is the experimental time code broadcast by radio stations WWV and WWVH in the 1960s. A time code seems appropriate for a time machine.

Summary

Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beam down to the planet Sarpeidon to learn what has happened to its population. The planet, which will be completely destroyed when its sun goes supernova in a few hours’ time, once had a thriving population but has now been reduced to one person, the librarian Mr. Atoz. It would appear that the planet’s entire population has gone back in time to a period of their choice in the planet’s history. When the three crewmen unknowingly have gone through the time portal, Kirk ends up in a society similar to 17th-century Earth while McCoy and Spock end up in a frozen ice age. With Kirk arrested and accused of witchcraft and the others having to survive the harsh Arctic-like climate, they have only a short time to find their way back and return to the Enterprise before the planet explodes. For Mr. Spock, he finds a time from before the existence of Vulcan and he’s regressing to an emotional state.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
DeForest Kelley … Dr. McCoy
Mariette Hartley … Zarabeth
Ian Wolfe … Mr. Atoz
Kermit Murdock … The Prosecutor
Ed Bakey … The First Fop
James Doohan … Scott (voice)
Anna Karen … Woman
Albert Cavens … Second Fop (as Al Cavens)
Stan Barrett … The Jailor
Johnny Haymer … The Constable

Star Trek – The Savage Curtain

★★★★1/2 March 7, 1969 Season 3 Episode 22

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, Arthur Heinemann, and Arthur H. Singer

This is a bizarre episode…even for Star Trek. I like the episode more than some Trek fans. When you see Abraham Lincoln materialize in space and talk to you…you know you are in for a different kind of episode. I will say this… it works because of the actor playing Lincoln… he is exactly what I would picture Lincoln.

The Enterprise crew once again encounters highly advanced/highly evolved aliens, who, in this case, wish to study the concepts of good and evil and use crew members as pawns in their inquiries. This episode, a morality tale, borrows elements from some of the better episodes of the past.

Apparently Lincoln (Lee Bergere) was a boyhood hero to Captain Kirk, while everyone on the planet Vulcan revered the legendary Surak (Barry Atwater). The two heroes are teamed up with Kirk and Spock to do physical battle with the galaxy’s most notorious outlaws, with a mute Genghis Khan representing ancient Earth history. This, all in the name of defining good versus evil, life versus death

I simply love the improbable idea of a stunning recreation of Abraham Lincoln and “father of Vulcan civilization/peace/logic”, Surak from the minds of Kirk and Spock (it is established how much admiration and respect Kirk and Spock have for these historical figures) forced into combat with evil historical figures representing the worst kind of lot as rock beings on a planet primarily of lava want to study good vs. evil and judge the results.

From IMDB:

This is the final episode of the series to feature the entire ensemble cast of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Uhura, Sulu, and Chekov. This episode also marks the final appearance of Nichelle Nichols (Uhura) in the series.

This marks the second time TOS encounters a silicon-based life form. The first time is in The Devil in the Dark (1967). Janos Prohaska played both lifeforms, with Bart La Rue supplying the Excalbian’s voice.

Lincoln tells Kirk, “There is no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war, except its ending.” This speech, written by the Star Trek screen writers, has become so popular that some people mistakenly believe it to be something the real Abraham Lincoln said.

“The Savage Curtain” introduces Klingon founding father Kahless and Vulcan founding father Surak to the Star Trek universe. Kahless’ history played an important role in several episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993) (where he is regarded as a force for good, contrary to the sentiments expressed here), and Surak’s history was crucial to the final season of Star Trek: Enterprise (2001) which also gave a little bit of backstory to Colonel Phillip F. Green. Zora of Tiburon is the only “historic” figure introduced here who was not further developed in a later Star Trek series.

Colonel Green’s uniform was recycled into the spacesuit worn by Mork in his appearances on Happy Days (1974) and Mork & Mindy (1978).

Tiburon, homeland of the cruel scientist Zora, is named after the Spanish word for shark, and was also the homeland of Doctor Sevrin, the villain-of-the-week of The Way to Eden (1969).

The first choice for the role of Lincoln was Mark Lenard, best known for playing Sarek, but prior commitments prohibited him from taking the part.

The characters of Zora and Genghis Khan have no lines. This is probably due to budget constraints, as actors with speaking parts were paid significantly more than background actors.

The war that included Colonel Phillip Green’s atrocities was later decided to be World War III in the mid-21st century, which served as an important macguffin in later Trek productions such as Encounter at Farpoint (1987), Star Trek: First Contact (1996), and a number of Star Trek: Enterprise (2001) episodes.

This is the second and final mention in a TOS episode that it may be possible to separate the nacelles from the ship, in this case by specifically jettisoning them.

A Star Trek trading card set gave Colonel Green’s full name as Edward Featherstone Green, but this was superseded by the last few episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise (2001) where he was spoken of as Phillip Green.

Kahless is seen here in the Klingon style typical of TOS. It would seem to contradict the explanation given in Divergence (2005) for the change in physical appearance of the Klingons, since Kahless lived long before those events. However, since the image of Kahless was drawn from Kirk’s and Spock’s minds, not from “fact”, this is not necessarily a contradiction.

The appearances of Kahless and Surak mark the final respective appearances of a Klingon and (full) Vulcan in The Original Series.

The budget cuts imposed by the network for series three are noticeable here. Although, at first glance, this appeared to have a number of guest actors, at least two of them were actor/stunt performers with no lines of dialogue. The planet surface was the Desilu set with fiber-glass rocks that had been used in previous stories or borrowed from the recently canceled CBS show Lost in Space (1965), Genghis Khan’s outfit had been used at least once previously, in The Omega Glory (1968), and Kahless’ Klingon outfit had also been used previously. Note that both Kirk and Spock materialize on the planet surface without their tricorders or phasers, meaning that money could be saved by not requiring any additional visual effects. Also, many of the planet surface props, such as spears, had been used previously. In fact, the only significant spend was on commissioning the molten rock creature costume (which was connected to a smoke machine).

This episode marks the final appearance of dress uniforms in the original series.

Scott’s kilt is the 1826 Scott black and white tartan, which “..was produced for his own use by Sir Walter Scott in 1822, and that he wore it in private, in the form of a Lowland shepherd’s plaid.” In Scotland, the patterns are referred to as ‘tartan’ as opposed to ‘plaid’ preferred in America. The one exception is the design known, in Scotland, as Shepherd’s Plaid.

William Shatner struggled to keep weight off during the show’s run and found the pounds piling on as filming dragged on over the course of a season. His weight gain is particularly noticeable in this story in comparison to episodes earlier in season three.

In the teaser, McCoy says, “There is no intelligent life here.”, and is quickly proven wrong. This is the only time anybody actually says this oft-quoted phrase on the original Star Trek series.

This is one of three productions in which Genghis Khan and Abraham Lincoln appear together as characters, in spite of the fact that Lincoln was born 582 years after the Khan’s death. The others are Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989) and Clone High (2002).

Summary

When someone purporting to be Abraham Lincoln asks them to beam down to the planet below, Kirk and Spock agree to join him. Soon Surak, the greatest Vulcan of all time, is with them. They are told by a rock-like creature that they are there to do battle against four of history’s most evil characters. The rock creature’s society does not understand the concepts of good and evil and the battle between the two groups will determine which has the greatest merit. They are free to use any materials available to them on the planet and Kirk soon realizes that there are weapons to be made.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
DeForest Kelley … Dr. McCoy
Lee Bergere … Lincoln
Barry Atwater … Surak
Phillip Pine … Col. Green
James Doohan … Scott
George Takei … Sulu
Nichelle Nichols … Uhura
Walter Koenig … Chekov
Arell Blanton … Chief Security Guard
Carol Daniels … Zora (as Carol Daniels DeMent)
Bob Herron … Kahless (as Robert Herron)
Nathan Jung … Ghengis Khan
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited)
Roger Holloway … Lt. Lemli (uncredited)
Bart La Rue … Yarnek (voice) (uncredited)
Janos Prohaska … Yarnek (uncredited)

Star Trek – The Cloud Minders

★★★★ February 28, 1969 Season 3 Episode 21

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, Margaret Armen, and David Gerrold

The Enterprise arrives at the planet Ardana to obtain Zenite, a rare mineral that they need to combat a botanical plague on another world. Kirk and Spock beam down but find themselves caught in the middle of a class struggle between the intellectual rulers dwelling in a city in the clouds, sustained by some anti-gravity technology, and Troglytes, the miners who mostly dwell in the caves on the surface of the planet, where such items like Zenite are obtained.

This is essentially a reworking of the worker class story penned by H.G. Wells in his famous novel The Time Machine. Extrapolating from such a premise of basic inequality, where-in the elites get all the benefits through the sweat of the workers.

It proposes that, sometime in the past, one race experienced an extreme branching-off separation into two, though, scientifically, they are still all the same race. Kirk and Spock see them as the same, simply a division of the rich vs. the poor, but the egotistical intellectuals of Stratos, the hovering city, have come to see themselves, over the centuries, as a different, superior race.

I liked seeing Spock liked by Droxine. She didn’t know it was a dead end but it’s nice seeing Spock, McCoy, or Scotty be involved instead of Kirk every now and then. Over all a good solid episode.

SPOILERS

The ending was left open…will the Cloud Minders and Troglytes get along?

From IMDB:

The rest chamber on Stratos is furnished with the iconic “Ribbon Chair” by french modernist designer Pierre Paulin, upholstered here in day-glow orange.

This was one of the first TV roles for football star Fred Williamson, who later became a prolific film actor.

According to John M. Dwyer (on the TOS season 2 DVD special features), the metal artwork and sculptures that appear throughout the city were mostly parts of metal furniture, like tables, etc. that he had rented from “a guy up in Topanga Canyon”, minus the glass tops, and much care had to be taken to return them in their original condition.

It is interesting that Jeff Corey was cast as Plasus, the leader of the privileged people on Stratos. For a number of years he had been blacklisted from working for allegedly being a Communist.

The phrase “For what purpose?” is uttered several times by several characters, in different contexts.

The story line is similar to Metropolis (1927) about a two class society where the upper class lives in the utopian city Stratos in the sky, enjoying their privileged life, while the cave-dwelling Troglytes’ only existence is working in the mines for the pleasure of a few – which is a key philosophical topic about ‘the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few’ in the Star Trek universe.

When Kirk, Spock, and McCoy explain the benefits of the filter masks to Plasus, they do so from a monitor in the transporter room. This is the first and only time in the series we see a visual communication take place here.

The mine “entrance” is the same set piece that was used for the entrance to the defense computer cave in That Which Survives (1969).

The script was written by David Gerrold, one of four writers of Star Trek who had no prior TV writing credits. The other three were Jean Lisette Aroeste (‘Is There in Truth No Beauty?’, ‘All Our Yesterdays’), Judy Burns (‘The Tholian Web’) and Joyce Muskat (‘The Empath’).

Just before leaving Stratos, Captain Kirk suggests to Plasus that the Federation Bureau of Industrialization (FBI) might be of assistance to mediate the difficulties with the Troglytes.

This takes place in 2269.

Jeff Corey and DeForest Kelley appeared together in Canon City (1948).

The name Droxine supposedly means awareness, audacity and gentleness.

Jeff Corey, who played Plasus, was also a director and teacher. In fact, he was one of Leonard Nimoy’s acting instructors.

Summary

Kirk and the Enterprise arrive at the planet Ardana to collect a supply of Zenite, needed to combat a botanical plague. The Stratosians live in a city literally in the clouds, far above the planet. They are highly intelligent and devote most of their time to art and intellectual pursuits. On the planet however live the Troglites, a primitive people who work in the mines. The Stratosians face a rebellion from the planet’s populace by a group of Troglites known as the Disruptors. In the city above, one particular Stratosian, the beautiful Droxine, takes a particular interest in Mr. Spock. Kirk soon realizes that the Disruptors may have legitimate complaints and is forced to deal with them when they steal the Zenite shipment. They also discover there may be an explanation for the Troglites’ limited intellectual capacity.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
DeForest Kelley … Dr. McCoy
Jeff Corey … Plasus
Diana Ewing … Droxine
Charlene Polite … Vanna
James Doohan … Scott
Nichelle Nichols … Uhura
Kirk Raymond … Cloud Guard #1 (as Kirk Raymone)
Jimmy Fields … Cloud Guard #2
Ed Long … Midro
Fred Williamson … Anka
Garth Pillsbury … Prisoner
Harv Selsby … Guard
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (archive footage) (uncredited)
Louie Elias … Troglyte #1 (uncredited)
Dick Geary … Cloud City Sentinel #1 (uncredited)
Jay D. Jones … Prisoner #2 (uncredited)
Bob Miles … Cloud City Sentinel #2 (uncredited)
Marvin Walters … Troglyte #2 (uncredited)

Star Trek – The Way to Eden

★ February 21, 1969 Season 3 Episode 20

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, Arthur Heinemann, and D.C. Fontana

Not a strong episode or particularly a good one. This is one of the weakest episodes of the series. Now if you are looking for a product of it’s times episode…this is the one for you! Interstellar Hippies + Enterprise is basically what it is.

The Enterprise intercepts a stolen spacecraft as it heads into Romulan space. Those aboard are flying it in such a reckless manner that it explodes just as they are beamed out. Once aboard the Enterprise, we see that they are a bunch of space hippies. They intend to set up a new colony on Eden; a perfect planet they believe they will find. Kirk is unimpressed and plans to take them to the nearest star base…the only reason they aren’t thrown in the brig is that one of them is the son of an ambassador.

They soon start causing trouble; trying to incite younger crew members to join them and generally being obstructive. Spock seems to have an understanding with them and agrees to use the ship’s computer to help them find the planet they seek. The group is given medical scans which reveal that its leader Dr Sevrin is the carrier of a deadly disease; he is quarantined but soon after his followers release him and take over auxiliary control. From here they shut off bridge controls and take the Enterprise to their Eden in Romulan territory.

The planet, while as beautiful as all of them imagined, also has a very deadly side.

From IMDB:

Uhura does not appear in this episode. Lieutenant Palmer, who fills in, makes her second and final TOS appearance after The Doomsday Machine (1967).

The space hippie protest “Herbert, Herbert, Herbert!” is a gag, referring to both Star Trek four time director Herb Wallerstein, and long time Executive in Charge of Production Herbert F. Solow. (Spock tells Kirk that the reference to Herbert is “somewhat uncomplimentary” and that “Herbert was a minor official, notorious for his rigid and limited patterns of thought.”)

For the scene in which Spock plays his Vulcan harp for Adam (the last time he plays the instrument on the series), the background music for Uhura’s song from Charlie X (1966) is recycled.

James Doohan (Scotty) stated that this was his least favorite episode.

Charles Napier wrote some of the songs Adam sings.

Walter Koenig was highly critical of the writing for “The Way to Eden”. In particular he felt Chekov was written as too authoritative, rigid and by the book, a complete contrast from his usual and intended characterization.

Dr. Sevrin is based on Timothy Leary, a controversial psychology professor who advocated LSD as a therapeutic drug.

This episode was originally entitled “Joanna.” The character of Irina was originally to be Joanna McCoy, daughter of Dr. McCoy, and love interest for Captain Kirk, but that original script was rejected. The character of Joanna was planned to later appear in the fourth season, but Star Trek was canceled at the end of the third season.

In this episode, for the first time, Chekov’s first and middle names are spoken/revealed, Pavel Andreivich.

In some scenes, William Shatner can be seen to be wearing a corset.

Nurse Chapel’s collapse, as well as the collapse of other crew members in the corridor, is reused footage from Spock’s Brain (1968). This is why the lights go out in sickbay during that shot, while they are functioning normally elsewhere on the ship.

Dr. McCoy does have a number of salt shakers in his arsenal of “medical equipment” (as well as boat anchors) but the spinning hand scanner was a special prop made by the prop department to go with the medical tricorder. It did nothing but spin.

A brief shot of the surface of Eden is reused footage of the lakeside from Shore Leave (1966). A shot of the surface of Gamma Trianguli VI from The Apple (1967) is also recycled and used in the same scene.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) recycles many elements of “The Way to Eden,” including Spock’s desire to find Eden.

Skip Homeier also starred in Patterns of Force (1968) as Melakon.

In the original version of the episode, the spacecraft Aurora is a Tholian ship with AMT model kit nacelles added to it. It is shown in the preview trailer without the nacelles. For the remastered version, a new design was created.

Summary

The Enterprise intercepts a stolen spacecraft heading directly for Romulan space. Its occupants are six space-age hippies who refuse to accept authority and are unconventional in their thinking. Led by the renowned Dr. Sevrin, they are in search of paradise – the mythical planet Eden. Kirk cannot relate but Spock does and agrees to help locate the planet. Spock also concludes that Sevrin is insane. For Chekov, it’s a chance to re-unite with Irina, with whom he was in love while they were students at the Academy. When the travelers manage to take control of the Enterprise, they realize their dream and arrive on Eden, which has surprises of its own.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
DeForest Kelley … Dr. McCoy
Skip Homeier … Sevrin
Charles Napier … Adam
Mary Linda Rapelye … Irina (as Mary-Linda Rapelye)
James Doohan … Scott
Walter Koenig … Chekov
George Takei … Sulu
Majel Barrett … Nurse Chapel
Victor Brandt … Tongo Rad
Elizabeth Rogers … Lt. Palmer
Deborah Downey … Girl #1
Phyllis Douglas … Girl #2

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)

Star Trek – The Lights of Zetar

★★★ January 31, 1969 Season 3 Episode 18

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, Jeremy Tarcher, and Shari Lewis

Poor old Scotty…he can’t seem to keep a girlfriend. When he liked a girl before she ended up getting murdered by an alien or another one stolen by a Greek God. In this one, something happens to the one he likes… will it work?

This episode highlights the theme of alien possession, as a young woman called Mira Romaine is used by aliens called Zetars. Although their purpose is somewhat vague, their arrival via a “psychic storm cloud” heralds a takeover and some interesting side effects. When the ship approaches Memory Alpha, Mira Romaine starts having visions of impending danger, and the landing party goes down to investigate

Once on Alpha’s surface, the backlash of the Zetar arrival is seen. One female technician starts to talk in a slow frog-like garble, then she undergoes a weird horrifying convulsive transformation…and then dies. Mira is beamed down but is unable to make head or tail out of what Kirk and the others had witnessed – until she senses that the Zetarians are coming back.

Kirk realizes the only way to rid Mira of her condition is to subject her to decompression. Scotty, who had taken a serious liking to Mira, gets her to the decompression chamber but not without being zapped by the Zetars that are in her body.

We never find out much about the Zetars and if they were good or bad although they did kill all of Memory Alpha’s staff. It’s an enjoyable episode. I kept wondering when Kirk was going to jump on Scotty for displaying so much attention to Mira Romaine…although I would do the same thing.

From IMDB:

Shari Lewis decided to write the romantic angle centering on Scotty as a way to deviate from the formula of Kirk always getting the romantic interests. This is the third show where Scotty actively pursues a specific woman. In season two, he wooed Kara in “Wolf in the Fold”, and Carolyn Palamas in “Who Mourns for Adonais?”.

This show was co-written by Shari Lewis and her husband Jeremy Tarcher. Lewis also lobbied to be cast in the guest role of Lt Romaine, but was denied the part. Lewis was a ventriloquist best known for characters such as Lamb Chop, Charlie Horse and Hush Puppy.

The glass-covered portal of the medical decompression chamber is a reuse of a suspended-animation pod from Space Seed (1967).

The overhead zoom shot of the bridge in the teaser was not shot for this episode. It apparently was filmed for (but not used in) The Galileo Seven (1967). Lt. Hadley, rather than Mr. Chekov, is at the Navigator station in the shot. It is noticeable that he is wearing Lieutenant stripes in the shot. The crew is also noticeably wearing the velour uniforms seen in season 1 and 2, not the nylon variety that replaced them in season 3.

This is the final episode in which we will see a Tellarite and an Andorian in TOS.

Final appearance on the show by John Winston as Kyle, though he would return to play the role in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982). In addition, the last episode to feature all seven of the regular characters as well as both Kyle and Chapel.

The Memory Alpha monitor room was the reused control room set from Whom Gods Destroy (1969).

On the Memory Alpha control room main panel, the round indicator light in the middle is a prop that was used in the behavior modification chairs in Whom Gods Destroy (1969) and Dagger of the Mind (1966).

In the fourth act, when Scotty is helping the possessed Mira to her feet before picking her up, James Doohan’s missing finger is clearly noticeable.

Just after Sulu shouts that the shields have been penetrated and everyone runs down the corridor (at around 37 minutes in), a creative male background extra can be seen performing some kind of ‘batten down the hatches’ mime act upon a yellow wall fixture. Looking more closely, one can see that the extra is holding a tool to perform the ‘batten down’ action.

Summary

En route to Memory Alpha, a massive Federation library designed to hold all the knowledge of its member worlds, the Enterprise comes across an entity of twinkling lights that is impervious to the ship’s weapons and can move faster than the speed of light. For Lt. Mira Romaine, it’s her first deep space voyage, but she has the support of Lt. Cdr. Scott, who has fallen very much in love with the lass. When they first encounter the new being, Mira’s body is invaded, and it soon becomes clear that the entity has no intention of releasing her. The challenge for Kirk and Spock is to find a way to rid them of this being, but the only method available may also kill her.

Click here to see the video…preview of the episode

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
DeForest Kelley … Dr. McCoy
Jan Shutan … Lt. Mira Romaine
James Doohan … Scott
George Takei … Sulu
Walter Koenig … Chekov
Nichelle Nichols … Uhura
Majel Barrett … Nurse Chapel
John Winston … Lt. Kyle
Libby Erwin … Technician
Barbara Babcock … Zetar (voice)
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited)
Frank da Vinci … Crewman (uncredited)
Roger Holloway … Lt. Lemli (uncredited)
Jeannie Malone … Yeoman (uncredited)

Star Trek – That Which Survives

★★★★ January 24, 1969 Season 3 Episode 17

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, John Meredyth, and D.C. Fontana

This is the first episode I saw Kirk avoiding a beautiful woman (Losira)…but he had a good reason.

The Enterprise investigating a mysterious planet… it is only the size of the Moon and is a mere five thousand years old but it appears to sustain life, have an atmosphere and be the mass of the Earth. Just as Kirk, McCoy, Sulu and an expendable geologist beam down to the surface Losira appears in the transporter room saying they must not go to the planet; s…e then kills the transporter operator with a single touch. Soon after the away team arrive the planet suffers a major earthquake; when it is over there is no sign of the Enterprise.

As they search for anything that might be edible Losira appears and approaches the geologist, she says she has come for him before touching and killing him. It isn’t that long before she is coming for the others although it becomes apparent that she can only harm the specific person she has come for.

Back on the Enterprise, the crew discovers that the entire ship has been moved to a point almost a thousand light years away and the same woman kills an engineer as he examines the engines after Scotty states that something doesn’t feel right. Further investigations reveal sabotage that could destroy the ship as it hurtles back to the planet.

Losira touched Sulu on the planet and almost killed him until Kirk intervened. She can seemingly be anywhere at any time. She only kills the one she comes for…so when she came for Sulu she didn’t hurt Kirk because he wasn’t a target. They thought they could fight it by splitting up and guarding the one she came for…then…she split into 3 Losiras. How is Losira doing this? Can she be beaten? Will the Enterprise blow up?

It’s a suspenseful episode with another subplot going on with an emergency on the Enterprise and worth a watch. My problem is with my favorite character in Star Trek universe. Spock is different in this one. He was more of a smart-aleck and sometimes downright rude to the crew. It’s as if the writers knew Spock somewhat but exaggerated him into a snarky Vulcan.

From IMDB:

Lt. Radha is both the first explicitly Hindu character (shown by the bright red dot on her forehead, known as a Bindi), and the first Enterprise helmswoman, to appear in Star Trek.

The center section of D’Amato’s tricorder differs substantially from the standard Starfleet model. Instead of tape discs and a moiré pattern, it features an intermittently glowing white panel and what appears to be a tubular sensor. In deference to D’Amato’s specialty, some prop-conscious fans have dubbed this a “geological tricorder.”

A new access tube was created for this episode to show where the matter-antimatter reaction chamber was.

Second and final appearance of Dr. M’Benga.

James Doohan lost a finger while fighting in WWII, and consistently hid his right hand during the series. While changing polarity on the magnetic probe, his hand can be clearly seen, which shows the absence of the finger.

This is the last episode of TOS in which Enterprise crew members (Wyatt, D’Amato, and Watkins) die onscreen or close to it. However, in Requiem for Methuselah (1969), Kirk will report in his opening log that three crew members have died of Rigellian fever.

Sulu discusses the silicon-based creatures on Janus VI, i.e., the Horta of The Devil in the Dark (1967).

In this episode, it is revealed there are (at least) three Doctors assigned to the USS Enterprise: Chief Medical Office Dr. Leonard McCoy, Dr M’Benga (also featured in ‘A Private Little War’), and Doctor Sanchez (the only appearance).

Normally characters are perfectly still when being energized. When Losira appears in the transporter room while the landing party beams out, Kirk is able to look up and see her kill the transporter chief. McCoy’s facial expression is also slightly different.

This is the only time a tricorder is shown on the “automatic distress” setting. In place of the usual data disc storage slot, it has a flashing light panel. Since the storage slot is visible in a previous scene, it must be on a type of swivel, allowing it to be rotated to reveal the panel when the unit is placed on this setting.

Spock’s calculation device was reused from the remote control prop created for Spock’s Brain (1968).

After D’Amato dies, Kirk uses his phaser to dig a grave for him. This is only the second time on Star Trek where a crewman is buried by the landing party on a planet, the first occurring in The Galileo Seven (1967). Usually, dead crewmen are returned to the ship. A similar burial will be shown in Star Trek: Generations (1994). One could also say that a “crewman is buried by the landing party on a planet” when Kirk is able to kill and entomb a mutating Gary Mitchell on Delta Vega in Where No Man Has Gone Before (1966), although no formal ceremony is shown.

The bypass valve room that Watkins enters consists of re-used pieces of the Yonada control room from For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky (1968). The control panel was re-used from the Vians’ torture chamber in The Empath (1968).

Pavel Chekov does not appear in this episode, although Kirk mentions him.

This episode was used as the background for the Star Trek: Gateways novel ‘One Small Step’, by Susan Wright, which elaborates extensively on the story. The mysteries of this episode were used to help tie in the original series with the rest of the Gateways books.

This is the last episode of TOS to have an unknown stardate.

The Russian seismic event that Sulu mentions is the Tunguska event which occurred in 1908, in Siberia. Captain Kirk responds, “If I wanted a Russian history lesson, I would have brought along Chekov”.

Lee Meriwether is one of four actors to appear in Star Trek who previously played a Batman villain. Meriwether portrayed Catwoman in Batman: The Movie (1966). Malachi Throne played False Face during the first season of Batman before playing Commodore Mendes in The Menagerie: Part I (1966). Julie Newmar played Catwoman in the TV series, and was seen in Friday’s Child (1967). The final Batman “Special Guest Villain” to go from Batman to Star Trek was Frank Gorshin (known for his portrayal of The Riddler), who appeared as Commissioner Bele in Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (1969). In addition, two actors went from a role on Star Trek to a major guest role on Batman (Joan Collins (Edith Keeler / The Siren) and Roger C. Carmel (Harry Mudd / Colonel Gumm)), and dozens of bit players appeared on both shows and/or Mission: Impossible (1966).

Another occasion where network decency standards had a big effect on the costumes worn by women. The beautiful Losira costume had a strategic flap, that covered her navel. The networks usually didn’t allow the showing of a woman’s navel in 1969.

One of the few times a crewman who is not a red shirt, is killed ( D’Amato is in the Sciences Dept. and wears a blue tunic ).

Although already seen in “The Conscience of The King”, we get another example of how powerful the explosion of an overloaded hand phaser is. In “Conscience”, the phaser was jettisoned into space but was powerful enough to rock the ship. In This episode, the explosion is a lot more powerful. It lights up the entire area and people have to drop for cover.

Each time Losira becomes a one-dimensional figure and vanishes, there is the brief sound of a woman singing.

This takes place in 2268.

Dr. M’Benga reports to Spock that it looks like the crewman died because every cell in his body exploded from within, but he also states his findings are only preliminary. Then Dr. McCoy immediately determines the same diagnosis when on the planet, with his tiny whirring analyzer. One would assume that the Enterprise’s huge medical computer could have come to the same conclusion and faster than Dr. McCoy’s hand held device.

In the preview trailer, the visual effect of flashing blue lights has not been added in yet when Scotty’s corridor is shown.

William Shatner and Lee Meriwether would later co-star together in To Catch a Dead Man (1973).

Leonard Nimoy and Lee Merriweather would appear together in a number of episodes of the 4th season of Mission: Impossible (1966).

This was the last episode produced by series pioneer Robert H. Justman. As he said, nearly 30 years later, the show was “now strictly budget-driven. My never-ending battle to cut costs without compromising quality had failed. The ‘Star Trek’ I knew, and was proud to be a part of, was no more.”

Summary

Kirk and company find that all vegetation on the planet is poisonous to them and there is no source of water. Sulu finds brief readings of magnetic fields from the planet, but they disappear after a few moment. The 4 guys split up to do their tasks. D’Amato is confronted by the same woman (as on-board the Enterprise) and she touches D’Amato, who ends up dead. Kirk also discovers that the whole planet is made of a very dense rock.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
DeForest Kelley … Dr. McCoy
Lee Meriwether … Losira
James Doohan … Scott
Arthur Batanides … D’Amato
George Takei … Sulu
Nichelle Nichols … Uhura
Naomi Newman … Rahda (as Naomi Pollack)
Booker Bradshaw … Dr. M’Benga
Brad Forrest … Ensign
Kenneth Washington … Watkins
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited)
Frank da Vinci … Lt. Brent (uncredited)
Roger Holloway … Lt. Lemli (uncredited)
Jeannie Malone … Yeoman (uncredited)

Star Trek – The Mark of Gideon

★★★★ January 17, 1969 Season 3 Episode 16

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, George F. Slavin, and Stanley Adams

This is a dark episode.

Enterprise visiting the planet Gideon to negotiate its possible membership of the Federation. Everything they say makes their world like a paradise but they are isolationists and won’t even allow their planet to be scanned. Their one concession is to allow Kirk to beam down. When he does something apparently goes wrong… he rematerializes in the transporter room of the Enterprise strangely the ship appears to be abandoned and Kirk is suffering from an injury he doesn’t remember receiving.

He calls for Spock, McCoy, and the rest of the crew and no one is there. How could a Starship evacuate that fast? You are as confused as Kirk is when you are watching. It starts becoming apparent that this is a facsimile of the Enterprise as we repeatedly cut back to the bridge of the real Enterprise where the crew are concerned about what happened to the captain.

He searches and eventually meets one other person; a beautiful young woman who identifies herself as Odona. She claims to have no idea how she got on board; saying that she comes from a world that is so crowded that it is impossible to ever be alone. Alone together they start to grow close while strange things start to happen; we see crowds of people looking through the view-screen and it becomes apparent that the ship might not be moving.

It turns out they are on Gideon and that far from being a paradise it is an incredibly overpopulated planet where people live longer and longer but a cultural objection to contraception means babies are born at the same rate as before they want Kirk for a more radical solution… to introduce a disease.

While this is going on…on the real Enterprise Spock is getting really close to being frustrated. Starfleet has denied him to go and look for the Captain. Gideon’s ruler Hodin…is a true politician! He twists Spock’s words and his own for that matter to make sure no one beams down. Hurst won’t let Spock come down and investigate. In the end, Spock cuts some red tape, but even Vulcans can lose their patience and what he did was eminently logical.

SPOILERS

It’s a good episode but not great. There are many plot holes in this one. If you don’t have the room…why build a replica Enterprise? You could have just beamed Kirk down and got the same result. Their society believes in life but Hodin is willing to sacrifice his own daughter so she can catch a disease and spread it so the population will go down.

Some episodes are hard to explain…and this is one of them.

From IMDB:

The episode was written by Stanley Adams, who had earlier guest-starred as Cyrano Jones in The Trouble with Tribbles (1967). Adams has become concerned over the issue of overpopulation, and during production of Tribbles, mentioned to Gene Roddenberry that he thought it would be an interesting social topic for the series to address. However, Adams said that he was disappointed by the episode’s final results.

McCoy makes a sarcastic remark regarding Spock having a career as a diplomat. Spock would later go on to have a career in diplomacy, negotiating with the Klingons in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) and working as an ambassador during the time of Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987).

The coordinates given to Kirk to transport down to the council chamber were 875 020 079. The coordinates the council member gave Scotty, to beam him up from, were 875 020 709. This is not a “goof” but a (admittedly silly) plot device of the episode.

Remarkably, this episode did not run afoul of NBC censors, despite Kirk broaching such sensitive matters as sexual sterilization and birth control.

When Kirk tries to address anyone on the ship, one of the shots, showing an empty corridor, is recycled from Is There in Truth No Beauty? (1968). Also, another shot shows an empty Sickbay – with the Red Alert indicator light flashing, an obvious pickup shot.

This is the only episode showing an exterior viewing port. The only other time a window looking outside the ship is seen is on the observation deck in The Conscience of the King (1966). Of course, in this case, the port seen is not on the real Enterprise. The exterior viewing port from this episode is the same design as the one used to witness Marta’s execution in Whom Gods Destroy (1969).

Gene Dynarski, who plays Krodak, the man who is beamed up to the Enterprise, appeared as one of the miners in the season one episode Mudd’s Women as Ben.

A sample of the reciting of the 875 020 079 coordinates was repeated multiple times at the end of the song ‘Mathematics of Chaos’ from Killing Joke’s 1994 album ‘Pandemonium’.

This is the second of two TOS episodes that show an empty Constitution-class bridge, the other installment being the first season outing This Side of Paradise (1967).

In This Side of Paradise (1967), Kirk stated in his log that the crew had committed mutiny and had effectively stranded him in orbit because he was unable to pilot the Enterprise by himself. Here, while he’s on the bridge with Odonna, he changes out one microtape for another at the engineering station. When Odona asks Kirk what he’d done, Kirk says he took the Enterprise out of warp and activated the sublight (impulse) engines. This suggests that Kirk can indeed pilot the Enterprise by himself with the assistance of the ship’s computer and pre-programmed microtapes, creating a plot hole for This Side of Paradise.

Sharon Acker (Odona) had earlier showed up on TV in The Night of the Sedgewick Curse (1968), in which she played Lavina Sedgewick. But in this case, she had the opposite problem, as the Sedgewick family had a history of Lubbock’s Distemper, a disease in which the sufferers age rapidly.

This takes place in 2268.

David Hurst would later play Justin Collins in three installments of the original Dark Shadows (1966) in 1971. One of eight actors to appear both in Star Trek and Dark Shadows, he is the only one who appeared in Trek before he appeared in Shadows.

Summary

While beaming down to the planet Gideon, Captain Kirk finds himself still in the transporter room. He can find no one on the ship, now apparently abandoned by the entire crew. He does find one other occupant on the Enterprise, a beautiful young woman, Odona, who does not know how she got there. Back on the real Enterprise, Spock tries to deal with Gideon’s representatives who claim that Kirk never arrived and claim no knowledge of his whereabouts. Soon, Odona falls deathly ill, which is exactly what the leaders of Gideon were hoping for. Spock soon realizes that there is a problem with the beam-down coordinates they were provided.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
DeForest Kelley … Dr. McCoy
Sharon Acker … Odona
David Hurst … Hodin
ames Doohan … Scott
George Takei … Sulu
Nichelle Nichols … Uhura
Walter Koenig … Chekov
Gene Dynarski … Krodak
Richard Derr … Admiral Fitzgerald
Bill Blackburn … Gideon Inhabitant (uncredited)
Frank da Vinci … Lt. Brent (uncredited)
Jay D. Jones … Gideon Guard (uncredited)

Star Trek – Let That Be Your Last Battlefield

★★★★ January 10, 1969 Season 3 Episode 15

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, Oliver Crawford, and Gene L. Coon

This is a good episode and it does have a message that is as subtle as a sledgehammer…I’m interested to see your point of view in the comments. In some ways the story is subtle. It’s not about who was right or who was wrong…it’s the hate between them that is the enemy. The hatred between the two races will only lead to destruction.

The Starship Enterprise has inadvertently crossed paths with two alien beings who have been at odds for 50,000 years, Lokai and Bele. A shuttlecraft was stolen from a Starbase 4 and the Enterprise is in pursuit. They use a tractor beam to “rescue” the shuttlecraft and a strange humanoid who is black on one side and white on the other.

His name is Lokai and he said he “borrowed” the shuttlecraft to escape a commissioner from the planet Cheron who has been pursuing him. When McCoy examines him, he determines that Lokai would be regarded as a superhuman when compared to average humans from Earth.

Shortly thereafter another humanoid obviously from the same planet appears on the Enterprise, Bele. He says the Enterprise holds “precious cargo”: Lokai. Bele also has the same trait of having a black side and a white side.

We learn that Bele regards Lokai as an inferior race and that Lokai’s “people” were destroying their civilization. By contrast, Lokai contends that Bele’s people enslaved his people. Bele also demonstrates abilities far above those of Earth humans. When the difference between the two is finely revealed, Kirk and Spock are somewhat flabbergasted as to the characteristic which distinguishes the individuals. Lokai’s race is black on the right side and white on the other. Bele is white on the right side and black on the left.

While this story device of humanoids with a black side and a white side may appear to be an obvious commentary on contemporary racial relations, the story does well to keep from portraying one side as being “right” and the other “wrong.” Lokai’s claims his people were oppressed by the people represented by Bele may at first seem like the obvious choice for our sympathies. But then we learn that Lokai’s people engaged in destruction on a mass scale. He also continually admonishes the crew for not carrying out justice because they are not willing to kill Bele. Simultaneously Bele believes he is pursuing not only Lokai but justice and that his apprehension of Lokai represents the greater symbolic rightness of “justice.”

SPOILERS:

This episode does have the marvelous self-destruct sequence initiated by Kirk, in which Spock & Scotty join in to voice the self-destruct codes. This sequence manages to squeeze out every bit of suspense possible for such a televised few minutes and foreshadows the now-famous sequence later duplicated in the 3rd Trek film, “The Search For Spock.” Knowing what we do now about that movie, the countdown to doom in this episode is all the more chilling. The ending is bleak but it backs up the point of the episode. This time Kirk’s speech didn’t work and nothing will work until they die.

Spock: To expect sense from two mentalities of such extreme viewpoints is not logical.

From IMDB:

The original story concept did not depict the aliens with bi-colored skin. One was a devil with a tail and the other was an angel. Episode director Jud Taylor came up with the idea of bi-colored skin shortly before the episode began filming. His original suggestion was that they be half-black/half-white, one color from the waist up and the other from the waist down, but each wearing reversed color schemes. The central idea stuck but the colors were finally separated along the vertical axis rather than along the horizontal.

Bele’s totally “invisible” ship perhaps is the most noticeable effect of the biggest budget cut in the original series.

During the filming of Frank Gorshin and Lou Antonio’s run sequences, Gorshin and Antonio collided with one another when neither actor knew the other was striding down opposite ends of the corridor. The camera crew hadn’t warned them that their scenes were being shot simultaneously.

The characters of Bele and Lokai are depicted as wearing gloves all the time. This was not because it was a requirement of the script or character descriptions, but because the black and white makeup would have smudged and rubbed off every time their hands touched anything or any other character.

This was the last episode Robert H. Justman worked on as co-producer. He left the show because of its declining quality and NBC’s harsh treatment of it.

This episode represents the last on-screen appearance of the hangar deck in the original series. The shuttlecraft makes one last appearance on the planet set of The Way to Eden (1969).

The screenplay was based on a story by Lee Cronin, the pseudonym of Gene L. Coon. He used a pseudonym because he had left Paramount and was under contract with Universal, so he was not supposed to be working for Paramount as well.

The characters of Bele and Lokai both wear shirts which are not pullovers but instead zip up the back. This was because makeup application with the shirts on would have soiled the shirts, and pulling shirts over their heads after the makeup was applied would have disturbed the makeup. Therefore makeup had to be applied first, including below the neckline of the mock turtlenecks they will be wearing. Then the shirts could be put on gently and laid over the made-up neck, and then zipped snugly up the back.

Frank Gorshin had trouble finding a way to interpret his character of Bele when he first received the script. He found the answer one evening, when he was watching a Kirk Douglas film on television with his wife. He realized that Douglas had portrayed the same kind of seething, angry, and stubborn character that he was looking for. Thus Gorshin used Kirk Douglas as a model for the role of Bele.

Gene L. Coon’s association with the series ended with the production of this episode. As with all of his contributions to the third season, the story was credited to one of his pen-names, Lee Cronin.

Every time there is a “red alert”, the camera quickly and repeatedly zooms in and out of a shot of one of the many flashing, red warning lights which indicate the red alert. This camera effect, no doubt an homage to Frank Gorshin’s role as The Riddler in “Batman” (1966-68), was only used in this episode.

The episode’s plot was a clear indictment of the discrimination and prejudice which was still rampant in the late 1960s by showcasing its complete absurdity, especially in light of the assassination of Martin Luther King less than a year prior, and just a few years after the Watts Riots and the events later depicted in the films Ghosts of Mississippi (1996), Malcolm X (1992) and Mississippi Burning (1988). The white/black and black/white makeup was also a rather obvious allegory to the tension that existed between many whites and blacks, especially in the Southern United States. However, many critics charged that this underlying message was considered much too obvious and heavy-handed, overshadowing what was otherwise excellent acting by Frank Gorshin and the series regulars.

This episode features a close-up of the Enterprise model. Zoom shots from below and above the saucer section are used, representing some of the rare ‘beauty shots’ of the ship filmed during the series. (Episodes Operation — Annihilate! (1967) and Metamorphosis (1967) have unique shots of the Enterprise as well.) During the opening credits in the first scene, for example, the camera glides underneath the saucer to an extreme close-up of the saucer’s phaser section and lights. That Which Survives (1969) uses the same shot briefly when the Enterprise is shaking at warp.

Leonard Nimoy (Spock) later directed Lou Antonio (Lokai) in Death on a Barge (1973).

The Saurian Brandy bottle makes an appearance in this episode (on a cabinet behind Spock in the scene where Bele is drinking with Kirk and Spock). The distinctive-shape container was actually a modified George Dickel 1964 commemorative edition “powder horn” whisky bottle.

The SciFi Channel, the DVD, and the remastered version added some new scenes that were not in the original broadcast or VHS versions. After Kirk makes his first log entry at the beginning of this episode, he asks Chekov about estimated time to Ariannus, tells Uhura to contact them to tell them that decontamination is to begin upon arrival, and asks Scotty if it will present any danger. Then, after the shuttle is bought to the hangar deck, there is a shot of the shuttlecraft docking with the Enterprise. Sulu then calls Kirk in the turbolift to inform him that hangar doors are closed. Finally, there is a shot of Kirk and Spock in the hallway, before they meet with the guards.

The costume Frank Gorshin wears is very similar in components to the costume he wore as The Riddler on Batman (1966).

Bele and Lokai have brown hair on their head, but their eyebrows are black and white to match their faces.

Summary

While on a mission of mercy, the Enterprise comes across a shuttlecraft stolen from Starbase 4. Its occupant is Lokai, a humanoid who is exactly half black and half white. Soon his pursuer, Commissioner Bele, arrives on board demanding that Lokai be turned over to him for transport to their home planet where Lokai has been convicted as a terrorist. Both men have extraordinary powers and it turns out that the pursuit has lasted 50,000 years. Their hatred of one another is racially based and, despite attempts by Kirk and others, they are not prepared to reconcile. The pursuit ends on their home planet where they learn the fate of their races.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
DeForest Kelley … Dr. McCoy
Frank Gorshin … Bele
Lou Antonio … Lokai
James Doohan … Scott
Walter Koenig … Chekov
Nichelle Nichols … Uhura
George Takei … Sulu
Majel Barrett … Nurse Chapel
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited)
Frank da Vinci … Lt. Brent (uncredited)
Roger Holloway … Lt. Lemli (uncredited)
Jeannie Malone … Yeoman (uncredited)

Star Trek – Whom Gods Destroy

★★★1/2 January 3, 1969 Season 3 Episode 14

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, Lee Erwin, and Jerry Sohl

As Kirk and Spock are about to embark on an away visit to a prison planet to deliver medical supplies, they suspect something isn’t quite right. The medical supply is medicine to help the criminally insane. Kirk arranges a code signal with Scotty before he beams him and Leonard Nimoy back on board.

That proved to be a wise precaution because when the two beam down the prison and it’s a prison for the criminally insane. The warden/governor of the planet Keye Luke has been overthrown and Steve Ihnat has taken over. This former starship commander is mad and also has developed shape-shifting abilities. The inmates have taken over.

I’ve read where some think Steve Ihnat went overboard playing the mad criminal Garth…well yea he did but that is what the role called for. He has ambitions just as mad people do, to take over the immediate universe with the Enterprise at his disposal and his ability now to become Captain Kirk. But there’s that signal code that Kirk arranged with Scotty. Can’t do much until he’s on the Enterprise.

Yvonne Craig plays Marta an Orion Slave Girl and is great in the part. The ending gets eventful. Garth turns into a clone of Captain Kirk and he fights the real Captain Kirk. Spock comes in and doesn’t know which one to stun. He uses his logic and listens…does he stun the wrong one?

If Yvonne Craig seems familiar…she played Batgirl on the Batman TV show.

From IMDB:

The plot of inmates taking over the asylum and impersonating the warden closely resembles Dagger of the Mind (1966), right down to the “agony chair” prop which is reused from that episode. In his memoir ‘I Am Not Spock’, Leonard Nimoy shares a memo that he wrote to the producers to complain about the similarities.

Garth’s costume is that of Galactic High Commissioner Ferris from The Galileo Seven (1967).

The episode’s title is often misattributed to the Greek playwright Euripides. However, the phrase “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad” is spoken by Prometheus in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “The Masque of Pandora” (1875). Another version (“Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad”) is quoted as a “heathen proverb” in ‘Daniel, a Model for Young Men’ (1854) by William Anderson Scott (1813-1885). Yet another variation on the phrase was given by historian Charles A. Beard, who, when asked to write a short volume summarizing the lessons of history, said that he could do it in four sentences. One of them was, “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad with power.”

The asylum planet’s name is based upon an historical place. Elba II is named after the Mediterranean island off of the coast of Italy where the French Emperor Napoléon Bonaparte was briefly exiled to in 1814. Napoleon succeeded in escaping from there in 1815 and was restored to power in France, but was later defeated at Waterloo. He then spent the remaining six years of his life on the remote South Atlantic island of Saint Helena. “Captain Garth” in this story was characterized as another Napoleon.

The remote control for the facility’s force fields is a repainted and redecorated phaser prop.

Garth’s torture chair is a reuse of the chair in the neural neutralizer room from Dagger of the Mind (1966), with the addition of earpieces mounted on either side.

Although Garth is a former Starfleet captain whose exploits were studied by Kirk at Starfleet Acadamy (and thus is at least a decade older than Kirk), the actor who played Garth – Steve Ihnat – is 3 years younger than William Shatner (Kirk).

Kirk refers to Spock as his “brother” and Spock agrees with this figurative interpretation of their relationship. Kirk would refer to Spock as his “brother” again in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989).

In the United Kingdom, the BBC skipped this episode in all runs of the series through to the early 1990s, due to its content.

Steve Ihnat worked with Gene Roddenberry and DeForest Kelley in his failed pilot Police Story (1967), which led to his casting as Garth.

While the Andorian inmate is wearing an almost boa-like red costume, one of the Human inmates is wearing the traditional Andorian costume seen in the second season (and which can be seen again on an Andorian corpse in The Lights of Zetar (1969)).

Garth mentions several figures from Earth’s history who failed in their attempts to conquer the planet, among them Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler, and the fictional name of Lee Kuan. This marks the second time the fictional name of Lee Kuan was mentioned in the original series, as Spock cited his name among Ramses II, Gaio Giulio Cesare, Alexander the Great, Napoléon Bonaparte, and Adolf Hitler in Patterns of Force (1968), where Spock stated that Earth’s history is “full of men seeking absolute power.”

Contrary to popular belief, the Tellarites in TOS always had three fingers, even in this episode. The fingers are sleeker in appearance than they were in Season Two. The Lights of Zetar (1969) would be the only time we see a Tellarite with five fingers in TOS.

The character of Garth led to an historic legal battle between CBS/Paramount and the fan filmmaking community: a battle about pitting digital rights and its owners, and the community which has fostered their growth in the first place. The Star Trek fan filmmaking community has always been very strong and vibrant one, even prior to the Internet. However, it’s been through such sites as YouTube, that the fan-made films have found a much wider audience. After receiving over $1million in Kickstarter funds, the makers of a proposed fan-made film based upon Garth’s battle at Axanar, were told by CBS/Paramount in no uncertain terms that doing so would be in violation of copyrighted material. This incident – and the uproar since – has roiled the community.

The suits worn by Garth’s men on the planet surface are the same environmental suits as worn by the Enterprise crew in The Tholian Web (1968).

Garth mentions Krotus in the list of leaders who preceded him but failed. Although never shown in any Star Trek (as of 2020), Krotus was an Andorian historical figure, a noted despot who harbored goals of great conquest, but ultimately failed. History would remember him as the Ka’Thelan Conqueror of Andoria, who swept across the planet, forcing the Andorians into a new cultural and technological era. His entire world bowed to him, but his empire ultimately crumbled and he was murdered by his own daughter.

This episode mentions a Starfleet battle strategy called “The Cochran Deceleration.” Although it was never seen used in the series, apparently it is so well known and used by all starship captains that it’s considered a classic battle maneuver.

This was the last live action appearance of the Orions in the “Star Trek” franchise until Borderland (2004) 35 years later.

This is the second consecutive episode to guest star an actor from the Batman (1966) TV series, namely, Yvonne Craig, and the third in a row to feature an actor connected to Batman, as Lee Meriwether (Losira in That Which Survives (1969)) played the Catwoman in the Batman: The Movie (1966) feature film. Previously, Frank Gorshin who played the Riddler played Commissioner Bele in Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (1969).

This was released in Jan. 1969 and Garth twice says, “Marta, my dear” in an apparent nod to The Beatles’ “White Album,” which was released Nov. 1968, and included the song “Martha, My Dear”, which was written by Paul McCartney as an ode to his Old English sheepdog Martha. In fact, this is merely a coincidence as the episode was filmed in October 1968, prior to the release of the “White Album”.

Spock’s sentence “Captain Kirk, I presume?” is an allusion to the famous but apocryphal question asked by explorer Henry Morton Stanley to David Livingstone on the shores of Lake Tanganyika on November 10, 1871: “Doctor Livingstone, I presume?” The question was later used as the basis for the title of Doctor Bashir, I Presume (1997).

Summary

The Enterprise travels to the planet Elba II, home of the last asylum for the criminally insane, to deliver a serum that should cure all of its remaining inmates. Kirk and Spock beam down to the planet’s surface where all seems in order, but they soon find the inmates now run the asylum, led by Garth (at one time a starship Captain, whose exploits were required reading at the Academy). Garth, who’s learned how to shape-shift, can take on the appearance of anyone, including Kirk or Spock. In the process of learning this ability, he lost his sanity. Garth plans to pose as the Captain, beam up to the Enterprise and take over the ship, but Kirk has a roadblock set up to overcome.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
DeForest Kelley … Dr. McCoy
Steve Ihnat … Garth
Yvonne Craig … Marta
James Doohan … Scott
George Takei … Sulu
Nichelle Nichols … Uhura
Dick Geary … Andorian (as Richard Geary)
Gary Downey … Tellarite
Keye Luke … Cory
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited)
Frank da Vinci … Lt. Brent (uncredited)
Lars Hensen … Elba II Inmate (uncredited)
Roger Holloway … Lt. Lemli (uncredited)
Jeannie Malone … Yeoman (uncredited)

Star Trek – Elaan of Troyius

★★★★★ December 20, 1968 Season 3 Episode 13

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, John Meredyth Lucas, and Arthur Singer

If you take Veruca Salt, Scarlett O’Hara, and mix her with Bellatrix Lestrange… you might come up with Elaan. She is a flat-out…handful (and I’m being nice)… to deal with as her first teacher and now Kirk can testify to it. But as it goes on…you do start having sympathy for her and understand her a bit more and why she is like she is.

Federation space politics and diplomacy are at the forefront of the plot. The Enterprise is directed to transport a princess (Elaan) from her world to their enemy’s world in an effort to marry her off to the enemy and thus ensure peace.

The problem is that Elaan is barbaric and has no intention of fulfilling her duties. And, once she comes aboard, she is a prima donna who needs civilizing before she’s ready to marry anyone. So, it’s up to Kirk, after she injures the other teacher, to civilize her. There’s a subplot of an assassination attempt through sabotage that’s thrown in for a little bit of tension.

Kirk becomes infected by Elaan’s tears. According to legend, and 23rd-century biochemistry, the tears of such a female enslave all men. This provides another excuse for Kirk to, uh, fraternize with an alien woman (see Wink Of An Eye) who is generally regarded as off-limits.

I started to feel a twinge of pity for her by the conclusion, despite her earlier antics. She seems doomed and forsaken at the end to spend the remainder of her life behaving in a certain fashion, contrary to her nature. France Nuyen does a great job playing Elaan. They cast her perfectly with her exotic looks. Even Kirk is hurt also seeing her go.

There is also a good space battle with a Klingon ship.

From IMDB:

France Nuyen is believed to be the first person of Vietnamese descent to appear on American television.

The story includes elements of both Homer’s “Iliad” (Helen of Troy, represented as Elaan of Troyius) and William Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew” (the battle between the clever rational male and the unreasonable temper-tantrum-throwing female).

Mel Brooks based many of the characteristics of Princess Vespa in his classic Star Wars spoof Spaceballs (1987) on Elaan.

When the camera slowly tilts up Elaan’s skimpily clad body (bikini bottom and top) in the transporter, her belly button is covered as per the 1951 Code of Practices for Television Broadcasters, which prohibited female navel exposure. However, by the fall of 1966, this guideline was no longer being enforced. While it’s true costumes on Star Trek often obscured women’s navels, the network did not require it, contrary to a popular myth. In Mirror, Mirror (1967), both Nyota Uhura’s and Marlena Moureau’s navels were often seen, and the first time this happened was in Shore Leave (1966).

Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated during the filming of this episode. France Nuyen, a big supporter of Kennedy, had been deeply shocked by the news while shooting her parts as Elaan.

The red “armor” of the Elasian guards’ costumes was constructed from a popular 1960s table place-mat, made of tiny plastic discs embedded in a plastic sheet. This is the same as the red stand-up collar worn by Galt in The Gamesters of Triskelion (1968).

When Mr. Spock scans the Dohlman’s necklace, the sound the necklace makes is the same as the sound made by the Martian tripods in The War of the Worlds (1953).

This episode features the first appearance of the classic D7 Class Klingon battle cruiser, designed and built by Star Trek art director Walter M. Jefferies. (Klingon ships previously had been represented by blobs of light or blips on a computer screen). Day of the Dove (1968), which was filmed later, but aired earlier, reused shots of the Klingon battle cruiser from this episode.

This is the only “TOS” episode that was written and directed by the same individual, in this case John Meredyth Lucas.

France Nuyen, who plays Elaan, starred opposite William Shatner on Broadway in “The World of Suzie Wong” from 1958 until 1960, and they would reunite again in A Small Beheading (1974).

A scene with Spock playing his Vulcan harp in the recreation room set was filmed but then edited out.

The Saurian brandy container makes an appearance in this episode. The bottle is actually a George Dickel commemorative edition “powder horn” whiskey bottle.

In Relics (1992), this was one of many adventures which the revived Scotty reminisced about.

The Klingon Captain says “No terms. Surrender must be unconditional and immediate,” paraphrasing the famous policy of US Civil War General Ulysses S. Grant.

Marked the only time in the series that McCoy actually spoke the line “You’re out of your Vulcan mind”. Because the line was frequently quoted and parodied throughout pop culture, it was only assumed to have been spoken multiple times over the course of the series.

The Perfect Mate (1992) is essentially a retelling of this story.

This and Errand of Mercy (1967) show a Klingon flip-top communicator similar to the ones used by Starfleet. This communicator was originally seen as an Eminiar VII communicator in A Taste of Armageddon (1967).

This episode takes place in 2268.

In A Small Beheading (1974) where William Shatner and France Nuyen are reunited, he plays a ship’s captain and she plays his wife, who is also a member of the Chinese royal family.

William Shatner and France Nuyen had previously starred together in the original Broadway cast of “The World of Suzie Wong.”

The sound effect heard as Kryton sabotages the dilithium crystal assembly is the same one heard in the episode “Arena” when the Metron speaks.

One of the only TOS episodes to have its score composed specifically for it (by Fred Steiner). Many of its cues were used in other third season episodes.

The episode title was inspired by the legend of ‘Helen of Troy ‘.

Summary

Kirk and the Enterprise crew are on a diplomatic mission to transport Elaan, a princess of her people, to Troyius where she is to marry the ruler in the hopes establishing peace between their two worlds. She’s rather a handful for Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise – imperious, demanding and completely lacking in anything remotely akin to manners. She even stabs the Troyian ambassador when he enters her quarters uninvited. It’s left to Captain Kirk to try and get her under control, but she does have the power to entice men, and soon Kirk is passionate for her. All the while, the Enterprise is being followed by a Klingon warship that is bent on destroying them. It is also apparent that the Enterprise has a saboteur on board.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
DeForest Kelley … Dr. McCoy
France Nuyen … Elaan
Jay Robinson … Petri
Tony Young … Kryton
James Doohan … Scott
Nichelle Nichols … Uhura
George Takei … Sulu
Walter Koenig … Chekov
Majel Barrett … Nurse Chapel
Lee Duncan … Evans
Victor Brandt … Watson
Dick Durock … Guard #1
Charles Beck … Guard #2
K.L. Smith … Klingon
Hal Baylor … Guard (uncredited)
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited)
Frank da Vinci … Transporter Operator (uncredited)
Roger Holloway … Lt. Lemli (uncredited)
Jeannie Malone … Bridge Yeoman (uncredited)
Eddie Paskey … Lieutenant Leslie (uncredited)

Star Trek – The Empath

★★★1/2 December 6, 1968 Season 3 Episode 12

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, Joyce Muskat, and Arthur H. Singer

the Enterprise comes upon a superior alien race that selects the landing party of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and a pair of unnamed crewmen as guinea pigs in a psychological experiment. The aliens look like second cousins to the Talosians and we know what intellects they had. You also know what happens to unnamed crewmen in any Star Trek episode.

This crowd is almost as good or bad depending on your point of view. The three regulars are put into a room together with a deaf-mute named Gem played by Kathryn Hays. She cannot speak, but her facial expressions tell much because Hays is a total empath with healing powers.

As all the series regulars are tortured, Gem heals them. But like that other healer from the big screen, John Coffey in The Green Mile it takes a lot out of Gem every time she heals. It’s soon clear she’s the object of the alien experiment.

This is an interesting and emotional episode dealing with the idea of self-sacrifice. Having Gem mute makes her more mysterious as she can’t tell people about herself… the members of the Enterprise must determine for themselves what she is and decide whether she is a fellow prisoner or working with those holding them captive. Kathryn Hays does a great job in the role… expressing Gem’s emotions entirely through facial expressions.

From IMDB:

This was DeForest Kelley’s favourite episode.

In the sequence of Gem absorbing the boils, Kathryn Hays was strapped to a board and kept absolutely still while make-up was applied. Stop-motion photography filmed the progression. The few moments of the scene took eight hours to film.

This episode contains another one of McCoy’s famous, “I’m a doctor, not a…” quotes. In this episode, it is “coal miner”.

The Empath was written by Joyce Muskat, one of only four fans who were able to sell scripts to the original series, the others being David Gerrold, Judy Burns, and Jean Lisette Aroeste.

After McCoy is tortured, his tattered uniform shirt is an older velour shirt, rather than the new polyester double knits that were used in the 3rd season.

The helical staircase in the station was also used in For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky (1968).

The orange-red flickers that accompany the Vian transporter effect are frames of the same effect created to represent the Medusan ambassador Kollos.

Though identified as Thann and Lal in the closing credits, the two Vians are never called by their proper names on-screen.

The third season of Star Trek was famously only greenlighted after viewer pressure made the NBC network change their mind after they originally planned to cancel the series after the second season. One of the conditions that NBC insisted on when they finally commissioned a third season was for the production company to implement cuts to the production budget by 25%, and this resulted in production design shortcuts (such as reusing footage, props and sets from previous episodes) as well as a purported drop in the quality of some of the scripts. The budget cuts are particularly noticeable in this episode, one of the last of the third season. With the production budget for the entire series already thinly stretched and close to running out as the production schedule for season three drew to a close, the producers were forced to creatively save money by implementing minimal set design in the laboratory scenes where much of this story takes place (hence why these scenes were filmed against a black backdrop) and re-use the slightly redressed alien desert planet surface set previously seen in The City on the Edge of Forever (1967) among others.

In Turnabout Intruder (1969), Kirk (in Janice Lester’s body) mentions the events of The Empath to try to convince Spock of the mind switch.

The research station shown at the beginning is the same set used in The Naked Time (1966). While it’s not unusual to re-use sets, this also confirms that Starfleet used the same design of research station on various planets.

In the United Kingdom, the BBC skipped this episode in all runs of the series through to the early 1990s. Three other episodes were also skipped, Whom Gods Destroy (1969), Plato’s Stepchildren (1968), and Miri (1966). The reason given was because they dealt with the unpleasant subjects of madness, torture, sadism and disease.

In the final scene, Scotty refers to the story of ‘the pearl of great price’. This refers to a parable told by Jesus in Matthew 13:45-46.

This is the only episode whose first-act credits open on a completely black background.

This was one of the few episodes to quote the Bible.

The Empath bears many striking similarities to Nightmare (1963), where Earth men are subjected to various tortures and torments by bizarre aliens on a mostly barren set with just a few props and backdrops. Both “The Empath” and “Nightmare” were directed by John Erman.

The footage of the Minaran sun is re-used from Operation — Annihilate! (1967).

The preview of the episode shows Gem’s healing of wounds done by jump-cuts, rather than as fades.

Sound effects of the Vians’ laboratory were previously used in Norman’s lab in I, Mudd (1967).

The tripodal device in the center of the Vian laboratory appeared first in Spock’s Brain (1968) as the framework connected to the black box (by “light rays”) that housed Spock’s brain. It is inverted here from its earlier position.

Uhura and Chekov do not appear in this episode.

The couch seen in the underground lab is a gigantic version of the agonizers seen in Mirror, Mirror (1967) and Day of the Dove (1968). It was first seen as the Eymorg’s table in Spock’s Brain (1968).

This takes place in 2268.

Leonard Nimoy and Kathryn Hays were also cast together in Night Gallery’s “She’ll Be Coming For You” (S3:E10, 1972).

Summary

Kirk, Spock, and McCoy suddenly find themselves in an underground laboratory where they meet an attractive young woman who is not only mute but also an empath who can absorb someone else’s pain. When their captors make themselves known, they refuse to explain why the three men have been taken prisoner or why they and the young woman, whom McCoy has named Gem, are there. Inexplicably, they set about torturing them for no apparent reason. Fortunately, Gem’s empathic powers allow her to take away their pain, but only at great sacrifice to herself. When their captors tell Kirk that he must choose which of his men to die, their selflessness comes to the fore, leaving Dr. McCoy to volunteer himself. They all soon learn that the object of the experiment is Gem herself.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
DeForest Kelley … Dr. McCoy
Kathryn Hays … Gem
Alan Bergmann … Lal
James Doohan … Scott
George Takei … Sulu
Davis Roberts … Dr. Ozaba
Jason Wingreen … Dr. Linke
Willard Sage … Thann
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited)
Dick Geary … Security Guard (uncredited)
Roger Holloway … Lt. Lemli (uncredited)

Star Trek – Wink of an Eye

★★★★ November 29, 1968 Season 3 Episode 11

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, Arthur Heinemann, and Gene L. Coon

I always liked this episode…maybe more than some other Star Trek fans. The ending bothered me but other than that I loved it. I do have a question or two for you serious Star Trek fans coming up.

The Enterprise receives a distress signal, but when they arrived on the planet, they see it was once inhabited but is now totally depopulated. When they transport back to the ship, something is slipped in Kirk’s coffee by an unseen force. Suddenly, everyone but him appears to be moving slower and slower, though it’s actually Kirk that is accelerating in speed to such a degree that he seems to disappear…moving too fast for the human eye to detect.

Once this occurs, he discovers that there were survivors on the planet and they beamed aboard undetected because they, too, were moving at this hugely accelerated speed. The Scalosians plan on putting the ship’s crew in suspended animation and using the crew as breeding stock to be thawed out as needed, as the same thing that makes these beings accelerate also makes their men sterile.

So they have to mate outside of their race or their race will die.

I just noticed when Deela and Kirk are left alone in a room…it goes to another shot and when it comes back to the pair…Kirk is putting his boots on and Deela is combing her hair. It’s clear in a subtle way they had sex. I’m curious about how the censors allowed this. Nothing stops Kirk…even being held against his will.

SPOILERS

Kirk leaves a message to the others about what is happening. Spock, McCoy, and Nurse Chapel see it and McCoy comes up with an antidote so Spock drinks the Scalosian water and he speeds up to help Kirk. They get together and disable the freezing device that the Scalosians have put in place. Spock does have the antidote with him.

Why didn’t Kirk offer the Scalosians the antidote that he and Spock took? Would it have not worked with their body chemistry?

From IMDB:

The remastered version of this episode premiered in syndication the weekend of 13 January 2007. New shots of Scalos from space, as well as an enhanced matte painting of the surface were inserted into the episode, alongside more realistic phaser effects. This was the first remastered episode from third season to air and thus featured a “new” opening titles sequence.

Walter Koenig did not film any new footage for this. Chekov appears briefly in the opening scenes but it’s stock footage from earlier productions. He takes no part in the plot.

This contains the second time in The Original Series where Kirk is seen in what can be presumed to be a post-coital situation. He is seen zipping up his boots while sitting on the edge of his bed, with Deela standing nearby arranging her hair.

The hyper-accelerated movement plot was also used in The Night of the Burning Diamond (1966), produced by Gene L. Coon/Lee Cronin.

Written by Lee Cronin, the pseudonym of Gene L. Coon. The pseudonym was used because he had left Paramount and was under contract with Universal, so he was not supposed to be working for Paramount as well.

Loosely based on an H.G. Wells short story called “The New Accelerator”. A cartoon episode of The Lone Ranger (1966) also used this plot.

The Scalosian weapon was made from lathe-turned aluminum and was approximately 170 mm (6¾”) long. A sketch of the design appeared in the “Star Trek: The Original Series Sketchbook” (p. 91). The weapon made a sound identical to Klingon disruptors and the Ardana torture device in The Cloud Minders (1969).

The “Star Trek Customizable Card Game” features a wild card called “Boot Scene” (named after the famous suggestive scene with Deela) which can neutralize the opposing player’s Captain Kirk with a beautiful alien.

In the first scene, Scotty is shown on the bridge recording a log while other dialogue is played over this scene. The footage is reused from The Empath (1968). This is evident because Scotty wears a very different hairstyle, and another woman takes the place of Uhura. A piece of Scotty’s dialogue with Kirk on the planet below from “The Empath” can also be heard, very faintly. In fact, what he is saying originally played over Kirk’s communicator in “The Empath”.

This episode was, in essence, a bottle show with the need for only one set, a fountain, which was designed by Walter M. Jefferies.

As part of the condition of commissioning a third series of Star Trek, the network insisted on a cut in the budget of 25%. This meant that some episodes suffered notable cost cutting measures. This particular episode was considered one of the more lavish and expensive ones of series three due to the number of special effects that had to be created for the story.

Rael is also the name taken by Claude Vorilhon, the founder and actual leader of the UFO religion known as Raëlism. It started in 1973.

In a note from Gene Roddenberry to Fred Freiberger dated May 29th, 1968, he calls the water “Scalian water”, which may be a mistake on his part or a indication that the name was changed to “Scalosian” later.

This, along with ‘The Tholian Web’ and ‘The Cloud Minders’, was one of the most expensive stories to make from series 3 due to the number of effects shots needed. As the series budget had already been significantly cut back from the budget NBC had assigned to Seasons 1 & 2, some of the other stories filmed for the rest of Season 3 had to make noticeable cutbacks in their sets and effects to accommodate the high production cost of this episode. However, as other posters have noted, even here the budget was sparingly used with limited film sets.

This takes place in 2268.

Kathie Browne and Jason Evers also appeared together in Deathtown (1968).

In the accelerated world of the Scalosians and then Kirk and later Spock, touching anything (buttons, switches, machines, countertops, doors, etc), at the accelerated speed, would have the same (if not more) energy as a bullet from a gun. So, everything they touched in the unaccelerated world could blow apart as if it had been struck by a bullet. However, bullets are harder than hands/fingers so the latter might not have had an immediate effect. Over time, they might wear out through over-use.

Actress Kathie Browne (Deela), first worked with Gene Roddenberry in 1962 on an episode he wrote for Have Gun – Will Travel (1957), titled Taylor’s Woman (1962).

Captain James T. Kirk takes his coffee without milk.

When Kirk entered the accelerated world of the Scalosians, given everything they did within the ship, compared to the slower Enterprise crew, the crew’s movement could have equated to weeks or even months in the Scalosian world, not merely days. During that time, Kirk and the Scalosians would have needed to eat, sleep, use the bathroom, bath/shower and shave. Any appliances (e.g., shower, faucet or flushing toilet) would have operated far too slowly to be useable by Kirk and the Scalosians.

Summary

The Enterprise responds to a distress call from the planet Scalos, but when Kirk and a landing party beam down to the planet they find no living beings. It turns out that the Scalosians live at a much higher rate of acceleration, rendering them invisible to the human eye. One of the Scalosians, the beautiful and seductive Deela, accelerates Kirk so they can interact, where she tells him he cannot return to his normal life. For the crew, Kirk has virtually disappeared before their eyes. The Scalosians want to turn the Enterprise into a cryogenic storage facility for the crew. Kirk learns that at his current state of acceleration, they are subject to cellular degeneration and rapid aging should they suffer the slightest cut. He leaves a message for the crew but it is left to Mr. Spock to find a way to decipher it.

On this one…at least as far as the City…CGI brings the city to life…it’s one of the very few CGI effects that I liked.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
DeForest Kelley … Dr. McCoy
Kathie Browne … Deela
Jason Evers … Rael
James Doohan … Scott
George Takei … Sulu
Nichelle Nichols … Uhura
Majel Barrett … Nurse Chapel
Erik Holland … Ekor
Geoffrey Binney … Compton
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited)
Dick Geary … Scalosian / Security Guard #1 (uncredited)
Eddie Hice Eddie Hice … Security Guard #2 (uncredited)
Roger Holloway … Lt. Lemli (uncredited)
Jay D. Jones … Engineer (uncredited)
Jeannie Malone … Yeoman (uncredited)

Star Trek – Plato’s Stepchildren

★★★1/2 November 22, 1968 Season 3 Episode 10

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, Meyer Dolinsky, and Arthur H. Singer

This is one of the more famous episodes of Star Trek but certainly not one of the great ones. It’s famous for the “first” interracial kiss on television. Whether it was the first is debatable but this was in prime time and remembered. The kiss happened between Captain Kirk and Uhura and within the storyline was forced by the enemy so to speak. It’s sad that it was such a big deal…and it shouldn’t have been.

What’s funny is Kirk…he had kissed green aliens and all kinds…the Captain loved women…so, in theory, this shouldn’t have been a big deal. I have to give Shatner a lot of credit here. The network wanted two shots…one of them kissing and one that they don’t. Time was running out while shooting and they could NOT go in overtime so Shatner messed the one up that they didn’t kiss on purpose so they would have to use the other. After hugging Uhura he crossed his eyes knowing they would not use that one.

For me…the kiss between Spock and Nurse Chapel was more compelling in the story but not history of course. Kirk and Uhura were just work colleagues who respected each other. Nurse Chapel had feelings for the unemotional Spock. Nurse Chapel said: “For so long I’ve wanted to be close to you. Now all I want to do is crawl away and die.” In other words, she wanted it to happen naturally and not forced which was a violation of both of them.

Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beam down to a culture patterned after ancient Greece, to treat an infection suffered by the group’s leader. However, the resemblance to the old-time Greek philosophers and intellectual is mostly superficial… the jerks here possess vast telekinetic powers and enjoy using them on ‘lesser’ beings for purposes of humiliation, to satisfy their sadistic need for vicarious entertainment. In other words, they’re bored as hell after an existence of over two millennia and the Enterprise crew offer a brief respite from the doldrums.

A cautionary take on the ‘power corrupts’ principle, the episode shows how these Platonians are unable or unwilling to hold back from using their power for even the briefest of periods. Kirk gets the first sampling when Parmen, the leader, forces him to slap himself repeatedly. It gets worse, much worse.

Their powers have allowed them to live here for centuries undetected. After saving the leader’s life, they ask McCoy to stay and be their doctor. He quickly declines but they won’t take no for an answer, even if that means torturing his friends in the process. We see Kirk continuously punching himself in the face, Spock almost crushing Kirk’s skull with his foot, and all sorts of bizarre interactions and movements. McCoy is able to isolate why this planet gave the people these powers. He creates a concoction in Kirk’s blood that allows him to battle the leader telekinetically. Kirk wins and warns the people to be better behaved or the Federation will come down and give them a shiner in the future.

SPOILERS BELOW

Michael Dunn who plays Alexander stole the show to me. His dialog was excellent as was his acting. My only criticism with the ending…is they didn’t show Alexander’s reaction to the Starship when he was beamed aboard.

From IMDB:

Network executives ordered director David Alexander to shoot a take where Kirk and Uhura did not kiss, just so it would be available. However, William Shatner crossed his eyes at the camera, making the take useless.

Nichelle Nichols said this was her favorite episode, due to Uhura’s being allowed to do something plot-crucial as opposed to her usual role as a glorified receptionist.

Leonard Nimoy composed the “Maiden Wine” song himself.

Nichelle Nichols has said that the Star Trek production offices received more mail on this episode than any other episode in the history of the series and, surprisingly, none of it was negative.

There is some dispute about whether the kiss actually occurred. According to the on-screen footage, it appears that the actors’ lips touched. However, both William Shatner and Nichelle Nichols claimed in ‘Star Trek Memories’ that NBC exerted pressure to forbid lip contact and to use a clever camera technique to conceal the “separation”. Looking closely, it appears that the actors’ lips are not touching; the angle only makes it look like they might be slightly touching.

In the UK, where interracial romance had already been depicted on television, the BBC dropped this episode and subsequent repeats purely on the violence factor, on the grounds that the sadistic treatment of the Enterprise Crew was not suitable for its early evening time slot. It was first shown in the UK on satellite television some 25 years later and on the BBC in December 1993.

This episode features the first and only time both Uhura and Chapel were beamed down to a planet together, and both are a part of the central storyline.

The musical number that Kirk and Spock are forced to perform consists of lines from different parts of ‘Through the Looking Glass’ (sequel to ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’) by Lewis Carroll.

Contrary to popular belief, this was not the first interracial kiss on American network television. This occurred previously in Movin’ with Nancy (1967) when Nancy Sinatra kissed Sammy Davis Jr., and it was also voluntary. When Captain Kirk (William Shatner) kissed Lieutenant Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), he kissed her involuntarily. The studio expressed some concern, and it was suggested instead that Spock should kiss Uhura ‘to make it less of a problem for the southern [US] audience’. Some stations in the South originally refused to air it.

Michael Dunn died of natural causes, just five years after this episode was shown, at age 38.

This is Alexander Courage’s last score for Star Trek. This episode was also the last episode to have an original score, although new songs for The Way to Eden (1969) and a Johannes Brahms paraphrase for Requiem for Methuselah (1969) were composed.

Michael Dunn (Alexander) was best known for playing villains such as Dr. Loveless on The Wild Wild West (1965). Dunn had previously been considered for the role of Little Balok in The Corbomite Maneuver (1966).

As Kirk and Spock are forced to perform at Parmen’s will, their faces are momentarily contorted into a manically happy face (Spock, ironically) and an overtly pouting one (Kirk). A re-occuring image of theatre masks doing these faces is very common in symbolizing the world of theatre.

Liam Sullivan, who plays Parmen, was cast because the producers thought (incorrectly) that he strongly resembled British actor Sir Laurence Olivier. (He looks nothing like Olivier.)

As with other episodes from this season, George Takei was unavailable due to his working on The Green Berets (1968).

Philana says she stopped aging at 30. Barbara Babcock was 31 at time of filming.

This takes place in 2268.

The fictional compound ‘kironide’ could be a reference to Cyranides/Kyranides, a Greek text on alchemy and magic from nearly 2000 years ago.

This is an illustration of how immune system may become less effective if not challenged (e.g., by pathogens or antigens). In this case, the Platonians had weakened their bodies from lack of use, greatly diminishing their resistance to infections and the ability to repair the most minor injury. The body’s internal “safeguards” always have to be working in order to be totally effective. In the next, Wink of an Eye (1968)(#3.11), the Scalosians have the same weakness but the reason is not explained.

Summary

Paste HerThe Enterprise responds to an urgent distress call from the planet Platonius. There, they find Platonius’ leader, Parmen, delirious after a small cut on his leg that has become massively infected. The residents of planet are an ancient civilization and, since relocating to Platonius after their original planet was destroyed, have developed telekinetic powers. Having cured Parmen, McCoy finds that they will not let him leave. Working with Alexander, the only Platonian not to have telekinetic power, Kirk, Spock and McCoy try to find a way to gain an advantage.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
DeForest Kelley … Dr. McCoy
Michael Dunn … Alexander
Liam Sullivan … Parmen
Barbara Babcock … Philana
James Doohan … Scott
Nichelle Nichols … Uhura
Majel Barrett … Nurse Chapel
Ted Scott Ted Scott … Eraclitus
Derek Partridge … Dionyd
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited)
Jeannie Malone … Yeoman (uncredited)