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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 is 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, Sul,u and an expendable geologist beam down to the surface, Losira appears in the transporter room, saying they must not go to the planet, then kills the transporter operator with a single touch. Soon after the away team arrives, 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 the 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)

Star Trek – The Tholian Web

★★★★★ November 12, 1968 Season 3 Episode 9

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, Judy Burns, and Chet Richards

I’ve said that the third season was much better than I remembered…well this is one of the reasons. A 5-star episode. We get to see the relationship between Spock and Doctor McCoy up close in this one.

An excellent episode that provides all the elements necessary for the feud between Spock and McCoy to come to a climax. Without Kirk to referee and the situation growing more intolerable, Spock and McCoy find themselves alone to hear the “Final Orders” as part of their obligation to Kirk.

The reason Kirk is not there is because when Checkov, McCoy, Kirk, and Spock beam on the disabled Starship USS Defiant adrift in space… everyone is dead on the ship. By the looks of it they all killed each other. While this is going on the Defiant is going in and out of view like it’s slowly disappearing. After investigating and showing no one but them alive on the ship…all beam back except Kirk. The ship then disappears into subspace and it’s gone.

All the while… the ship is trapped by the Tholians in an obvious Tholian Web.

Kirk vanishes with the ship…and on top of the Captain missing…now whatever caused the other crew to kill each other is now on the Enterprise. They think Kirk is dead until Uhura sees a ghostly image of Kirk…was it Kirk or was it the illness that the Enterprise has now?

A classic Star Trek episode. My favorite part is when McCoy and Spock have to watch a video left to them by Kirk if he dies. After arguments between them up to this point…the video does help them get through it.

From IMDB:

Star Trek was nominated for an Emmy Award for the special effects in this episode.

This episode is the only time that Spock refers to McCoy by his nickname, Bones.

This was the only appearance of the Tholians in the “Star Trek” franchise until Future Tense (2003) 35 years later.

This is one of the few episodes in which all of the regular second and third-season characters, Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scott, Sulu, Uhura, Chekov, and Chapel, appear.

This is the third time that the Enterprise has encountered another Constitution-class star ship with the entire crew dead. The others were in The Doomsday Machine (1967) and The Omega Glory (1968). By the end of The Ultimate Computer (1968) a fourth Constitution class, the Excalibur, is also lifeless.

This episode introduced the environmental suit. These suits were created by costume designer William Ware Theiss and consisted of silver lamé with a fabric helmet with screen mesh visor. Since these outfits were meant to be seen only in NTSC resolution, someone came up with the ingenious solution of making the “window” out of mesh. Mesh would provide the diffusion to make it seem there was something clear and solid in front of the actor’s face and reflections and recording dialog would be no problem. The way the shows were broadcast back then it would provide successful illusion of a solid face plate for the most part. It was not until DVD, which achieved the highest quality of NTSC resolution that the use of mesh became much more noticeable. And now, with high definition resolution, you can see the texture and wrinkling of the mesh quite easily.

According to James Doohan, NBC executives told him to comb his hair back for the third season. Doohan hated wearing his hair this way and stopped doing so during the filming of ‘The Tholian Web’.

Ralph Senensky began the direction of this episode but was fired and replaced by Herb Wallerstein. Senensky used the fisheye lens camera effect to show the viewpoint of a person affected by interspace. This technique had previously been used by Senensky in Is There in Truth No Beauty? (1968). (The Trek 25th Anniversary Celebration)

The antique Napoleon III ebony cabinet pedestal found in Spock’s quarters had previously appeared in the films It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) and Citizen Kane (1941).

The Defiant is not among the names of the fourteen Constitution-class starships that were established in “The Making of Star Trek”.

One of only two TOS episodes without a single guest star; the other was The Immunity Syndrome (1968).

When Chekov asks if there’s ever before been a mutiny aboard a starship, Spock responds by saying that there are absolutely no records of any such occurrence. This cleverly avoids answering the question directly. While there may be no mutiny “on record,” Spock well knows that there have been at least two, one of which he himself took part in, during The Menagerie: Part I (1966)/The Menagerie: Part II (1966). Another mutiny is mentioned years after the fact in Whom Gods Destroy (1969).

This is the first time, in the broadcast order, that Lt. Uhura’s quarters are shown. The first time via production order is in Elaan of Troyius (1968).

Herb Wallerstein is the credited director of this episode. Ralph Senensky was the original director, but was fired midway through filming and replaced by Wallerstein. Senensky refused any screen credit for this episode. However, he admitted, just to set the record straight, that half of the episode was his footage.

The space suits were later reused in Whom Gods Destroy (1969).

The ship’s chapel, which had previously appeared in Balance of Terror (1966), was a redress of the briefing room.

The lab apparatus and tubing that McCoy uses in attempting to synthesize the theragen derivative appears to have been recycled from The Devil in the Dark (1967), where it was used as part of Scotty’s makeshift replacement for the main circulating pump of the PXK pergium reactor.

Summary

The Enterprise finds the U.S.S. Defiant, which had disappeared three weeks earlier, in uncharted space. While they can see it on the view screen, their instruments can’t detect it as the space around them is in a state of flux. Captain Kirk and others beam aboard to find that the crew have all killed themselves. When all but Kirk returned to the Enterprise, the Defiant suddenly disappears. Spock believes Kirk may still be alive and is determined to bring him back, but the instability in space is affecting the crew, who are going mad (and starting to see the captain floating about the ship). Meanwhile, a pair of Tholian ships, thinking the Federation is intruding upon their space, is slowly weaving a web around the Enterprise to entrap them.

***I want to vent here for a second…or two or three. I don’t know if youtube has changed its policy but lately, every time I try to post a video for Star Trek…it’s age-restricted and will show blocked if you click on it. You can watch real people die on youtube but a 30-second clip from a 60s TV show? NO can’t have that.***

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
DeForest Kelley … Dr. McCoy
James Doohan … Scott
George Takei … Sulu
Walter Koenig … Chekov
Nichelle Nichols … Uhura
Majel Barrett … Nurse Chapel
Sean Morgan … Lt. O’Neil
Barbara Babcock … Cmdr. Loskene (voice) (uncredited)
Paul Baxley … Defiant Captain (uncredited)
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited)
Bob Bralver … Berserk Engineer (uncredited)
Frank da Vinci … Lt. Brent (uncredited)
Louie Elias … Crazed Crewman (uncredited)
Jimmy Fields … Security Crewman (uncredited)
Roger Holloway … Lt. Lemli (uncredited)
Jay D. Jones … Engineer (uncredited)
Jeannie Malone … Yeoman (uncredited)
Gary Wright … Enterprise Sciences Crewman (uncredited)

Star Trek – For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky

★★★★ November 8, 1968 Season 3 Episode 8

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, Hendrik Vollaerts, and Arthur H. Singer

I like this one a lot. It’s one of the episodes I go to when I want to watch a Star Trek episode.

Doctor McCoy finds out he has a fatal disease and only has around one year to live. The Enterprise in attacked by a missile, launched from an asteroid on an independent collision course with highly populated planet, Darren 5, in 396 days, which has simple atomic power and an internal atmosphere, but no inhabitants.

Kirk, Spock and McCoy beam onto the ‘asteroid’ and soon discover that it is a generational ship and its crew, which is very much alive, have no idea that they are on a ship. In fact, the fact is deliberately hidden from the people aboard and actions that may lead to the truth coming out are punished by the ‘Oracle’.

The most senior person there is Natira, the High Priestess of the society, and she is clearly attracted to McCoy and he feels the same way. This makes it easy for him to keep her occupied while Kirk and Spock investigate the Oracle. Unfortunately, they are caught and forced to return to the Enterprise. McCoy however decides to spend his final year with Natira. Shortly afterward he learns that there may be a way to save the people of Yonada but it would mean reading their sacred book; something nobody may do until they reach their destination.

McCoy is in love with Natira and is ready to run off with her since he only has a year to live. It was nice seeing McCoy getting the female this time. The biggest criticism of this episode is too many coincidences in this one to make it believable but still a very enjoyable episode.

From IMDB:

Polycythemia is a real disease in which the body produces too many red blood cells and is not, by itself fatal. Xenopolycythemia would be an alien (xeno- = foreign, alien) variation of the disease. It is revealed Dr. McCoy is suffering from xenopolycythmia.

The voice of the Oracle was played by James Doohan.

Jon Lormer, who plays the Old Man, was also in The Return of the Archons (1967), and the original pilot, The Cage (1966).

The metal helical staircase is recycled from The Empath (1968).

The ancient Yonada text is based on Korean (Han-Gul-ma) alphabet.

The entrance set used for the entrance portal to the “underground” section of the Yonada world-ship was used again in The Cloud Minders (1969).

The ‘Book of the People’ is the same as ‘Chicago Mobs of the Twenties’ in A Piece of the Action (1968).

Byron Morrow, who portrayed Admiral Westervliet, also portrayed Admiral Komack in Amok Time (1967).

This has the longest title of any episode in the “Star Trek” franchise.

The field reader tube, normally used to take a medical patient’s vital signs, is used in this episode by McCoy to extract the instrument of obedience from Natira. This marks the only apparent close-up use of this prop in the series.

The music that accompanies the appearance of the old man played by Jon Lormer is the same music by Alexander Courage that played during some of his lines as Dr. Theodore Haskins in The Cage (1966).

When McCoy is being punished by the Oracle while talking to the Enterprise, Kirk says, “Bones what is it? Bones what is it?” This is a recorded line of dialogue reused from The Tholian Web (1968).

The bridge scene that runs under Kirk’s voiceover at the start of Act One (where Kirk enters the bridge from the turboshaft) is the same footage from the very beginning of the episode.

Summary

Dr. McCoy is diagnosed with a fatal disease and has only one year to live. When the Enterprise is fired upon, they trace the weapons to what appears to be a giant asteroid, some 200 miles wide, that is in fact a ship on a collision course with a heavily populated planet, Darren V. What they find when they beam over is that the local population that don’t realize they are on a ship. For McCoy the trip is liberating in many ways. He finds purpose with them but also love with their High Priestess, Natira. Kirk agrees to let him stay behind but when McCoy discovers a possible solution to the impending collision with Darren V, he returns to the alien vessel with Spock intent on re-directing the errant craft.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
DeForest Kelley … Dr. McCoy
Katherine Woodville … Natira (as Kate Woodville)
James Doohan … Scott
George Takei … Sulu
Walter Koenig … Chekov
Nichelle Nichols … Uhura
Majel Barrett … Nurse Chapel
Byron Morrow … Admiral Westervliet
Jon Lormer … Old Man
Frank da Vinci … Transporter Operator (uncredited)
Tony Dante … Fabrini Oracle Guard (uncredited)
Jeannie Malone … Fabrini Servant (uncredited)

Cheap Trick – In The Street ….Under the Covers Tuesday

Wish we hadA joint so bad

I’m a huge Cheap Trick fan but when I heard this song as the theme to That 70s Show… I just asked myself why? Why not use the original version of the song? That’s not a dig at Cheap Trick…they did fine with it but it was unnecessary. The show later covered a Big Star song in an episode…the haunting song Thirteen. The band had lost out on stardom in the early seventies and now many people really like the theme song but have no clue who wrote it. In a way though…unfortunately, that fits Big Star perfectly.

In the first season, the theme song was done by Todd Griffin. It’s a close copy of the original soundwise but with different lyrics by Ben Vaughn. The rest of the show’s seasons was replaced by the Cheap Trick version. The only reason I can think of not using Big Star is they needed an edited version of the song and felt they had to change the song’s lyrics although the lyrics would have fit the show. Cheap Trick’s version is very good of course because it’s Cheap Trick…but it would have been nice to hear the original. Many people think that Cheap Trick wrote the song.

Chris Bell and Alex Chilton are credited with writing the song. In 2000, Chilton confirmed that he was paid $70 in royalties each time the show aired, an amount he thought ironic, given the show’s title. The song was originally on their debut album #1 Record.

Recently I watched some performances they did on the Leno show later on when Alex Chilton and Jody Stephens reformed the band with two members of the Posies. The introduction made me do a double take…“Big Star…the missing link between the Beatles and The Replacements.” How could I not like that? Three of my favorite bands right there.

The #1 album was hailed by critics and got radio play when released. The feedback from people who heard it was very positive. There was one problem though. They signed with Stax Records which normally didn’t deal with pop and rock bands. They weren’t prepared to promote them and the biggest problem was there was no distribution. People started to go to record shops to buy it but there were no Big Star albums there. Stax was in financial trouble as well. They carried on for three albums but with no commercial breakthrough…although bands like Cheap Trick, The Replacements, R.E.M., KISS, and others all say they were heavily influenced by them.

Jody Stephens drummer of Big Star: “I don’t know if the general population even knows that Big Star had anything to do with it.”

Mike Mills of REM: “I heard the first two records first, Radio City and #1 Record, I just thought they were perfect. If I could make records, that would be the sort of records I would make. The third one took me a bit longer to get into, but it does reward repeated listening. What Big Star was doing made sense to me.”

The Todd Griffin version

The Cheap Trick version

The Orginal

In The Street

Hanging out, down the streetThe same old thing we did last weekNot a thing to doBut talk to you

Steal your car, and bring it downPick me up, we’ll drive aroundWish we hadA joint so bad

Pass the street lightOut past midnight

Ahh

Hanging out, down the streetThe same old thing we did last weekNot a thing to doBut talk to you

Star Trek – Day Of The Dove

★★★★1/2 November 1, 1968 Season 3 Episode 7

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

I think this one ranks up there with the best of the 3rd season. Klingons and the Enterprise crew are controlled by an alien. Things are still tense between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. Anything can set it off and in this episode something nearly does.

The Enterprise responds to a distress call from a colony but finds no sign of them; it is as if there were no colony. Shortly afterwards a Klingon vessel arrives and suffers damage without the Enterprise firing a shot. A Klingon landing party, led by Kang, confronts Kirk on the planet and blames him for the attack on his ship while Kirk accuses him of wiping out the colony. Kang intends to take the Enterprise by forcing Kirk to beam them up… his plans fail and he is the one captured.

Things don’t stay that way for long though, a strange entity appears to be playing one side against the other. It turns the crew’s phasers into swords and similarly arms the Klingons. Fights ensue but injuries soon heal no matter how serious and the hatred is magnified as each side’s distrust grows. If they are to avoid an eternity of fighting they will have to come to an understanding; something that won’t be easy.

I thought the concept excellent… a being that feeds on violent, negative emotions and with the wounds healed…could go on forever. This nicely brings the crew of the Enterprise back into conflict with their most famous enemy… the Klingons.

The fact that to win they must persuade the Klingons that they can be trusted serves to make it more interesting and the conflict before that involves some enjoyable sword-fighting action. We also get Chekov ranting about wanting revenge for the death of an imagined brother and even the doctor is demanding revenge.

The regular cast do a solid job but it is Michael Ansara’s strong performance as Kang that stands out… this performance enables us to believe Kang would torture Chekov to death in an early scene and also believe he would agree to a truce when he saw their fighting had no purpose. Susan Howard also puts in a likable performance as Kang’s wife, Mara, without whom the peace couldn’t have been established.

From IMDB:

Although intra-ship beaming is routine in later incarnations of ‘Star Trek’ (where it is called “site-to-site transport”), this is the first and only time it is done in the original series, although it is also referenced in Shore Leave (1966) when Sulu notes that Spock is beaming down “from the bridge”.

Near the end of the episode, Scotty tells Kirk that the ship’s dilithium crystals are deteriorating. Kirk asks “Time factor?” Scotty replies “In 12 minutes we’ll be totally without engine power.”

This happens with exactly 12:00 minutes left in the episode.

Mara is the only female Klingon with a speaking role on TOS. Another female is beamed on board the Enterprise at the same time, but only seen briefly.

This episode was originally written with Kor from Errand of Mercy (1967) as Kirk’s Klingon adversary. Although John Colicos wanted to reprise his role, he was in Europe making Anne of the Thousand Days (1969) and was unavailable. The part was recast with Michael Ansara as “Kang”.

The spinning alien entity effect was created with a child’s spinning windmill bought from a stand at Santa Monica beach. Visual effects supervisor James Rugg was told to be creative as the production budget for season three had been drastically cut. He bought it after noticing how it glistened in the sunlight and filmed it against a black velvet cloth from several different angles, deliberately out of focus, turning with the help of a desk fan and with different gels on the spotlights. To help make it feel unearthly and disguise what it was, he also under-cranked the film in the camera to make it appear to spin faster and ran the film backwards.

This episode affords a second and final glimpse of the “working” communicator’s central spinning moiré disc, which was controlled by an inner stopwatch mechanism. Its first appearance was in Friday’s Child (1967).

As in the Imperial Starfleet of the Mirror Universe (first seen in Mirror, Mirror (1967)), the regular universe’s Klingon Empire uses agonizers on Ensign Chekov. These were developed further as the “painsticks” often seen on Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987).

Kang wears the same golden sash worn by Kor in Errand of Mercy (1967). The same sash would be worn (albeit on the opposite shoulder) by Lieutenant Worf in the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987).

The Klingon who says, “Stand and fight, you cowards!” is Pete Kellett, who previously appeared in Mirror, Mirror (1967) as Farrell, Kirk’s henchman.

Mark Tobin, who plays a Klingon in this episode, would return more than 30 years later to play a Klingon in Barge of the Dead (1999). He previously played Khan’s right-hand man, Joaquin, in Space Seed (1967).

Footage of the Klingon ship is reused from Elaan of Troyius (1968) which was filmed earlier, but aired later.

For most of the fighting, Kirk has a US Model 1860 cavalry saber.

Scottie is delighted to find a claymore (Scottish longsword). The kind he had was a basket-hilt claymore, a good battlefield weapon. The earliest claymores were 15th century but the basket-hilt designs (as Scotty has) appeared in the 18th century. Claymores weighed about 2.2-2.8 kg and were 1.2-1.4 m long. They were two-handed weapons that could take the legs off of a cavalry horse.

This is the only time Sulu is seen in engineering or working in a Jefferies tube.

Kang gives his name to one of the two cyclopic alien squids who repeatedly plague The Simpsons (1989) in their Halloween fantasies. The other is Kodos who takes his name from The Conscience of the King (1966).

David L. Ross plays a character called Lt. Johnson. This appears to be the same crewman who is otherwise known as Galloway.

The footage of engineering, with the hovering entity, was recycled from The Tholian Web (1968), which featured a floating Kirk in place of the entity.

Multiple spellings exist for Chekov’s imaginary brother. It’s a foreign variant of “Peter” that has been spelled as Piotr and Piotre. “Piotre” is an unusual spelling that can’t readily be found anywhere (leastwise, not outside the 23rd century). “Piotr” does exist in European spellings, but it is Polish rather than Russian. The standard transliteration of the Russian name (from the original Cyrillic) is “Pyotr”, although “Piotr” is phonetically equally valid.

The transporter can beam up more than six at a time. Mr. Scott had isolated and beamed through Enterprise party first, and held the additional Klingons in status somewhere within the transporter buffer.

Michael Ansara later reprises his role as Kang in Blood Oath (1994) and Flashback (1996). In Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979) he appeared as a character with a difference of only one letter: Kane.

Klingon battle cruisers can hold up 440 people. (Kang said four hundred of his crew were killed, and forty survivors were beamed aboard the Enterprise.)

This takes place in 2268.

Michael Ansara and Leonard Nimoy appeared together previously in Showdown (1965), as brothers that were also lawmen. The episode was written by TOS producer/writer Gene L. Coon.

James Doohan and Michael Ansara previously both appeared in Hot Line (1964), but did not share any scenes.

Summary

Having found a Federation colony of 100 people completely destroyed, Kirk and the Enterprise have to deal with a nearby Klingon vessel which they believe must be responsible for the colony’s destruction. When the Klingon ship is disabled, they, in turn, assume they were attacked by the Enterprise. There is obvious tension between the Enterprise crew and its Klingon enemies. Unbeknown to Kirk and his Klingon counterpart, Kang, this is the work of an alien being that gets its energy from the friction and emotions between sentient beings. The natural animosities between the two parties feed its appetites. When the creature is beamed aboard the Enterprise, it purposely creates tension among the crew, to its benefit. The situation eventually forces Kirk and Kang to work together to defeat it.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
DeForest Kelley … Dr. McCoy
Michael Ansara … Kang
Susan Howard … Mara
James Doohan … Scott
Walter Koenig … Chekov
George Takei … Sulu
Nichelle Nichols Nichelle Nichols … Uhura
David L. Ross … Lt. Johnson (as David Ross)
Mark Tobin … Klingon
Phil Adams … Klingon Soldier (uncredited)
Albert Cavens … Klingon Crewman (uncredited)
Dick Geary … Security Guard (uncredited)
Eddie Hice … Security Guard (uncredited)
Roger Holloway … Lt. Lemli (uncredited)
Jay D. Jones … Klingon (uncredited)
Pete Kellett … Klingon (uncredited)
Hubie Kerns … Klingon Crewman (uncredited)
Victor Paul … Klingon Crewman (uncredited)
Charlie Picerni … Klingon (uncredited)
George Sawaya … Klingon Crewman (uncredited)
David Sharpe … Security Officer (uncredited)

Star Trek – Spectre Of The Gun

★★★★ October 25, 1968 Season 3 Episode 6

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, Gene L. Coon, and Arthur H. Singer

This one really caught my attention. It’s one of my favorite episodes. It’s a bit surreal and I like the sparse half-done sets. We have a few of the crew of the Enterprise visiting the OK Corral. Doc Holliday, Morgan, Virgil, and Wyatt Earp all are here.

Westerns were all the rage in the 50s and 60s, and I suppose Star Trek had to pay homage to the genre in some form or fashion. “Spectre of the Gun” offers that, just as other episodes touched on medical and courtroom drama formulas.

The Enterprise arrives in Melkotian space, Kirk’s goal is to set up relations with the secretive race. The Melkotians don’t take kindly to visitors, however, and, as a form of punishment, seemingly send Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, and Chekov to a warped version of Tombstone, circa 1881, based on information they plucked from Kirk’s mind. To Spock’s credit…he thought they should have turned around and left but Kirk was determined.

The buildings are there but only halfway done. You only see fronts of buildings and nothing is quite right about this version of the old west. A powerful Melkotian tells Kirk, Spock, Bones, Checkov, and Scotty they are to be punished for their “disobedience”, recreating a frontier town with only a few buildings on some fake ground representing Tombstone, Arizona.

The Melkotian tells them they have been sentenced to death and the means of the death will be based on Kirk’s cultural memories of the Wild West town of Tombstone. The town they find themselves in is rather strange and their phasers have become revolvers and the locals believe that the landing party, Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty and Chekov, are actually the Clanton Gang. To make matters worse it is the day of the famous Gunfight at the OK Corral where the real Clantons were gunned down.

Chekov, who is playing the part of Billy Claiborne is gunned down in a fight over a woman but the real Billy Claiborne was the sole survivor from the Clanton Gang. It becomes apparent that normal rules don’t apply here; if they believe they won’t die then maybe they won’t. As the allotted time approaches, they will find out.

A very different type of episode for Star Trek. When you watch the video below…remember…everyone sees them as the Clanton game with normal western clothes.

From IMDB:

The original script called for filming on an outdoor location but, due to budget constraints, filming took place in the studio. These constraints also prevented the set designers from building a complete Western town and the concept of pieces of a town drawn from Kirk’s mind was developed.

DeForest Kelley appeared in other dramatizations of the same historical events, playing Ike Clanton in The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (October 26, 1881) (1955) and Morgan Earp in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957). He was also offered a role in Hour of the Gun (1967) (the movie this episode is named after) but had to decline due to his Star Trek commitment.

For the third season, the velour tunics from the first two seasons have been replaced by polyester ones, which are better-fitting but lack the luster of the original velour. The new fabric was a heavy diamond-weave nylon double-knit material akin to that used in professional baseball uniforms. The switch was made because the original velour shrank every time it was dry-cleaned. This was a problem because union rules required that costumes be cleaned before each use.

The writing of this episode was influenced by NBC executives who wanted Chekov to be featured more in the third season than he had been in the second season.

This is the only episode to end with the Enterprise heading toward a planet.

Written by Lee Cronin, the pseudonym of Gene L. Coon. Some have assumed that it was used because he was unhappy with the results. Actually, it was because he had left Paramount and was under contract with Universal, so he was not supposed to be working for Paramount as well.

Gene Roddenberry originally wanted to film ‘Spectre of the Gun’, about the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, in Arizona, either at Old Tucson Studios in Tucson, Arizona, or at Apacheland Studios in Apache Junction, Arizona. He found out that there was no budget to do it and had to rely on camera angles, bright colorful lights, and dreamlike sets, which added to the episode’s strange alien quality.

This was the first episode produced for the third season but it aired as the sixth episode of the season.

Kirk, Spock, and Scotty are all in the landing party and Sulu doesn’t appear. The storyline never states who is in command of the Enterprise while the senior ranking officers are away, although Uhura is the next in line.

According to James Doohan, NBC executives told him to comb his hair back for the third season. Doohan hated wearing his hair this way and stopped doing so during The Tholian Web (1968).

After Season 2, Star Trek was very nearly cancelled. After a fan-led campaign, a third season was finally commissioned by the network, providing a budget cut of 25% was instigated. This is why the third season has little location filming, re-used and re-purposed props, and recycled special effects. Seasons 1 and 2 already had tight budgets, so a reduced budget was always going to be noticeable This episode is one example where the budget cutbacks started to become apparent as the producers tried to keep expenditures down.

A very subtle change in the third season was the use of new sound effects for the pushing of buttons on the bridge.

The episode was first broadcast on October 25, 1968, only one day before the 87th anniversary of the actual Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

A scene that was never filmed included McCoy/McLowery (DeForest Kelley) offering to share his medical expertise with Doc Holliday (Sam Gilman) to treat his progressing tuberculosis.

Another difference this episode brings is the “singing plant” background noise from The Cage (1966), used for nearly every planet in seasons one and two, is replaced here by a warbling sound used before in The Gamesters of Triskelion (1968). This will again be used intermittently throughout season three for example, in For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky (1968) and The Cloud Minders (1969).

In this episode, Kirk refers to the ships phasers as ‘phaser guns’.

Clocking in at approximately five minutes and 25 seconds, this episode’s teaser is the second longest in the original series, lasting 10 seconds shorter than the teaser for I, Mudd (1967).

The original title for this episode was “The Last Gunfight”.

This is The Original Series’ only foray into surrealism, with unique set designs by Walter M. Jefferies.

Some errors regarding the historical gunfight: Morgan Earp is referred to by Kirk as “the man who kills on sight” when the real-life Morgan, by most reliable accounts, was an even-tempered lawman who used his gun only when he was forced to. The gunfight in the Melkotian scenario is treated as a prearranged event when, actually, it was a more or less spontaneous affair. The gunfight took place near the hour of three o’clock, rather than the five o’clock in the episode. Finally, although it may have seemed that Chekov’s Billy Claiborne was the youngest (he turned twenty-one, the day before the gunfight), Billy Clanton, the role Scotty played, was nineteen.

Jerry Fielding’s unique score adds atmosphere. When the villains are first seen in the saloon, Fielding has the piano play stereotypical “menace” notes and a bizarre rendition of “Buffalo Gals”. Fielding’s other Star Trek contribution was his score for The Trouble with Tribbles (1967).

For the incomplete mock-up of the Sheriff’s office, the sign with the word “Sheriff” on it is written in the same font as the opening credits to the series (the Fs have the same slant in the center).

This is the second time that McCoy believes he cannot be harmed by a weapon (this time due to Spock’s convincing in a meld); the first time, when he stands his ground as the Black Knight charges him in Shore Leave (1966), this strategy was unsuccessful, as the weapon (a lance) was physically real, not merely an illusion.

Chekov is the only member of the landing party who wears a two-holstered gun belt.

Rex Holman (Morgan Earp) later played the settler J’onn in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989).

When Spock and McCoy are in the bar, discussing the tranquilizer, the table with the supplies that are used to make it also has a double-barreled shotgun on it, whose presence goes unexplained.

Although Sam Gilman (Doc Holliday) was 53 years old when this episode was made, Holliday was only 30 at the time of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral on October 26, 1881 and 36 at the time of his death on November 8, 1887.

Gregg Palmer (Rancher) previously played Tom McLowery in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1961).

Charles Seel plays the saloon bartender. He also played a Western bartender in the series Tombstone Territory (1957), Bat Masterson (1958), Wanted: Dead or Alive (1958), and The Guns of Will Sonnett (1967) as well as the feature films The Texas Rangers (1951) and The Horse Soldiers (1959).

Abraham Sofaer, the voice of the Melkotian, also provided the voice used for the Thasian in Charlie X (1966).

Other USS Enterprise crews visited the Old West in A Fistful of Datas (1992) and North Star (2003).

The “sparkling” sound effect heard in the background while the crew is in Tombstone is also heard in the “Orson reports” at the end of most episodes of Mork & Mindy (1978).

Sulu does not appear in this episode.

Charles Maxwell, who plays Virgil Earp, was a veteran character actor on TV westerns of the era, including Bat Masterson (1958), Bonanza (1959), Rawhide (1959), The High Chaparral (1967), and others.

This takes place in 2268.

This was Bonnie Beecher’s penultimate role before retiring from acting. Now known as “Jahanara Romney”, she works with her husband Wavy Gravy (born Hugh Romney) running a performing arts camp. Beecher grew up in Minnesota where she knew the young Robert Zimmerman, now known as Bob Dylan. Beecher even sang on some of Dylan’s earliest homemade recordings, and is one of the possible inspirations for the song “Girl From The North Country.”

James Doohan voiced the Melkotian warning buoy.

When Kirk (Ike Clanton) attempts to appeal to Wyatt and Virgil Earp in their office, he is taunted by Virgil, who punches him. Kirk reacts and places Virgil in an arm lock. After Kirk releases him, Wyatt wants to kill Kirk and tells him to draw, but Virgil intercedes and tells Wyatt that, when the time comes, he will make him pay for what he did, but,during the gunfight at the end, it is Wyatt who move forward to confront Kirk.

Summary

When the Enterprise trespasses into uncharted territory, Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scott and Chekov are transported to a location that has all the trappings of the American Old West. It’s October 26, 1881, and Kirk soon realizes they are in Tombstone, Arizona, on the day of the famed gunfight at the OK Corral between the Clanton gang and the Earps – with Kirk and company representing the ill-fated Clantons. If history is to be repeated, they will fairly all be killed so must use whatever resources availed to them to defeat the threat and survive. The solution, however – and the only way of escape – lies within them.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
DeForest Kelley … Dr. McCoy
Ron Soble … Wyatt Earp
Bonnie Beecher … Sylvia
James Doohan … Scott
Walter Koenig … Chekov
Nichelle Nichols … Uhura
Charles Maxwell … Virgil Earp
Rex Holman … Morgan Earp
Sam Gilman … Doc Holliday
Charles Seel … Ed
Bill Zuckert … Johnny Behan
Ed McCready … Barber
Abraham Sofaer … Melkotian (voice)
Richard Anthony … Rider (uncredited)
Paul Baxley … 1st Cowboy (uncredited)
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited)
Charles Cirillo … Barfly (uncredited)
Roger Holloway … Lt. Lemli (uncredited)
Jeannie Malone … Yeoman (uncredited)
Bob Orrison … 2nd Cowboy (uncredited)
Gregg Palmer … Rancher (uncredited)
Eddie Paskey … Lieutenant Leslie (uncredited)

Star Trek – Is There in Truth No Beauty?

★★★★ October 18, 1968 Season 3 Episode 5

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, Jean Lisette Aroeste, and Arthur H. Singer

A story that would always interest me in school was Medusa. You would turn to stone when you saw her. This one is built off of that story.

Before I start…I will say that in the 3rd season, the camera crew did a good job. They added some different shots like using a fish-eyed lens. I liked the different angles they used because it made it feel different and it was effective.

The Enterprise is tasked with transporting an ambassador from a race who is perceived as so ugly, that just the sight of one by human eyes will cause instant madness. The Medusan ambassador Kollos is accompanied by a telepathic human aide named Miranda, who claims that her life of training on Vulcan allows her to see him without insanity ensuing.

A scientist aboard happens to be a scorned lover of Miranda’s. In a fit of jealousy, he attempts to murder Kollos, predictably causing him to go mad. He takes over control of the engines and shoots the Enterprise out of the galaxy into a disorientating patch of space. Only Kollos’s ultra-intelligent mind can bring the Enterprise back.

But he needs control of the bridge, something that is obviously infeasible. Spock must attempt a mind-meld with Kollos, merging the two men into Spock’s body. Miranda feels a special connection to Kollos and attempts to stop this from happening. But Spock wins out and the two merge and help the Enterprise reenter the galaxy.

Miranda sabotages Spock out of jealousy, trying to make him go mad. A now sick Spock needs a mind-meld with Miranda. Kirk is able to convince her to do it.

It’s a very good episode.

From IMDB:

Diana Muldaur was given a dark wig to wear for the role of Miranda. This was largely to help distinguish the character from her previous guest role as Dr Ann Mulhall in Star Trek: The Original Series: Return to Tomorrow (1968).

Although often cited by some fans as evidence of a “larger message” in Star Trek, the “IDIC” (“Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations”) medallion that Spock wears during the dinner scene had much baser origins. Leonard Nimoy was originally supposed to give a lengthy speech about the medallion and what it represented. Nimoy found the speech completely unsuited to the plot, and refused to say the lines until he got an explanation from producer Gene Roddenberry, who had had the lines and the use of the medallion inserted into the script. Roddenberry came to the set and admitted to Nimoy that he was selling the “IDIC” medallions through his personal marketing company, Lincoln Enterprises, and inserted the scene about the “IDIC” purely as product placement to generate sales. Nimoy ultimately refused to say the lines, and instead the scene was re-written with Capt. Kirk and other characters commenting on Spock’s wearing of the medallion instead.

This episode included a rare glimpse of the seldom seen left side of the bridge opposite the turbolift.

Spock/Kollos says to Miranda, “O Brave New World that has such creatures in it.” She replies, ” ‘Tis new to thee.” These are
lines in As You Like It (1908)’s The Tempest, Act V, Sc. 1, whose heroine is named Miranda.

The episode title is from a poem by the 17th century English poet and clergyman George Herbert, from his poem “Jordan (I)”, line 2: “Who says that fictions only and false hair/ Become a verse? Is there in truth no beauty?”

Shots of the Enterprise in the galactic void are recycled from Star Trek: The Original Series: Where No Man Has Gone Before (1966).

The remastered version replaced the Medusan home-world effect with that of a newly-designed Federation vessel. It strongly resembles one of the early sketches that art director Walter M. Jefferies drew of the USS Enterprise, as reproduced in ‘The Making of Star Trek’.

A very rare stock shot of the Enterprise is used when the ship warps towards the barrier under Marvick’s control: it is taken from the opening of Star Trek: The Original Series: The Cage (1966) (just before the “Guest Star Susan Oliver” credit) and shows the Enterprise at high speed blasting towards the camera. The same shot is reused later in Star Trek: The Original Series: That Which Survives (1969).

The name Kollos, is pronounced kàlos, a reference to the Greek word Kallos which means Beauty.

The tartan Scotty wears as part of his dress uniform during the dinner with Amanda Jones IS in fact the dress tartan for the clan Scott.

The arboretum was originally built for Star Trek: The Original Series: Elaan of Troyius (1968), but its appearance ended up as a deleted scene. Apart from this one, it was only seen in Star Trek: The Original Series: And the Children Shall Lead (1968).

The dinner scene marks the first presentation of the Vulcan IDIC (Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations) symbol.

Jessica Walter was offered the part of Dr. Miranda Jones but was unavailable.

In Star Trek: Enterprise (2001) it is explained that Commander Trip Tucker designed the Constitution-class Enterprise warp engines that Doctor Larry Marvick commandeers from Scott.

This is one of only two instances in which Scotty wears a dress uniform complete with ancestral tartan. But whereas he wears white socks here, in Star Trek: The Original Series: The Savage Curtain (1969) he wears red ones.

When David Frankham guest-starred on The Outer Limits: Don’t Open Till Doomsday (1964), his character was also the victim of an alien hidden in a box which injured those who glimpsed it.

This was Eddie Paskey’s last appearance in the series.

This is the last appearance of antigravs in the series.

The pictures of exotic planets seen in the dining room reappeared in Kirk’s quarters in other third-season episodes.

The second mention of Scotty’s first name: Montgomery. The first was Star Trek: The Original Series: Wolf in the Fold (1967)(#2.14).

One of two episodes written by Jean Lisette Aroeste, a UCLA librarian and Star Trek fan whose unsolicited scripts were read and recommended by co-producer Robert H. Justman. Her other story was “A Handful of Dust,” which was produced as “All Our Yesterdays.” (S3E23)

The script was written by Jean Lisette Aroeste, one of four writers of Star Trek who had no prior TV writing credits. The other three were David Gerrold (‘The Trouble with Tribbles’, ‘The Cloud Minders’), Judy Burns (‘The Tholian Web’) and Joyce Muskat (‘The Empath’).

McCoy comments that a blind person couldn’t pilot a space craft. However, in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987), the blind Geordi LaForge piloted the Enterprise-D as the ship’s helmsman during the show’s first season. Dr Jones’ neural net can be seen as a precursor to LaForge’s VISOR.

This is the third of five “Star Trek” episodes to feature a question mark in the title. The other four are Star Trek: The Original Series: What Are Little Girls Made Of? (1966), Star Trek: The Original Series: Who Mourns for Adonais? (1967), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Who Mourns for Morn? (1998) and Star Trek: Discovery: Will You Take My Hand? (2018).

Apparently, many people think that members of the Enterprise crew can not walk and listen at the same time. Often, when a ship wide announcement is made, they stop to listen to the announcement. However, is has always been policy that when a captain speaks, the whole crew stops non-essential work to listen, out of respect.

This takes place in 2268.

Miranda Jones wears her hair in a loosely draped style with a toroidal loop on top, very similar to that worn by Kelinda in Star Trek: The Original Series: By Any Other Name (1968). Roses also play an important role in the narrative for each character.

Leonard Nimoy appears to be suffering from nasal congestion during this episode

The first of two times that William Shatner stars with a character who is a blind woman. He would do so again in T.J. Hooker: Blind Justice (1982)(#2.4).

Summary

The Enterprise is tasked with transporting the Medusan ambassador, Kollos, to his home planet along with his human aide, Dr. Miranda Jones, who, for reasons initially understood only by Dr. McCoy, can safely travel be with the Medusan. Medusans are formless creatures, the very sight of whom makes humans go insane. (Like the snake-haired Medusa of ancient Greek mythology whose looks caused humans to turn to stone.) For that reason, aside from Dr. Jones, only half-Vulcan Spock can be in the same room with the ambassador. She expresses envy of Spock. When Engineer Laurence Marvick, unrequitedly in love with Dr. Jones, tries to kill Kollos, he goes insane and dies, after sending the Enterprise beyond the edge of the galaxy. Only Spock and the ambassador (with Miranda’s help) can navigate the starship back to known space.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
DeForest Kelley … Dr. McCoy
Diana Muldaur … Dr. Miranda Jones
David Frankham … Larry Marvick
James Doohan … Scott
George Takei … Sulu
Nichelle Nichols … Uhura
Walter Koenig … Chekov
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited)
Bob Bralver … Yeoman (uncredited)
Frank da Vinci … Lt. Brent (uncredited)
Vince Deadrick Sr. Vince Deadrick Sr. … Engineer (uncredited)
Louie Elias … Engineer (uncredited)
Dick Geary … Security Guard (uncredited)
Roger Holloway … Lt. Lemli (uncredited)
Jeannie Malone … Yeoman (uncredited)
Eddie Paskey … Lieutenant Leslie (uncredited)

Star Trek – And the Children Shall Lead

★★ October 11, 1968 Season 3 Episode 4

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, Edward J. Lakso, and Arthur H. Singer

Walter Koenig was not happy about this episode. While he felt that the episode was very poor overall, his biggest complaint was the casting of noted criminal attorney Melvin Belli as Gorgan, firstly because it severely undermined the main villain, and secondly, because he considered it an act of stunt casting which had robbed professional actors from a potential job. Belli’s son played one of the children…Stevie.

Have you ever seen Children of the Corn? There is a little of that feeling in this. The Enterprise comes to an outpost to check on the Starnes Exploration Party and finds that all the adults committed suicide. All that remains are the kids, who oddly seem quite happy and indifferent to the deaths. So, despite all the warning signs that there is a major problem, the kids are taken back to the ship where they unleash their reign of terror after a little bit.

Something has been influencing them since they were on the planet. The something was an evil presence named Gorgan. The Starnes Exploration Party accidentally released Gorgan from his cave. He used the party’s children to evoke the fears of the adults, eventually rendering the adults mentally unstable and driving them to commit mass suicide. He manipulated the children to follow him in his quest of conquering the universe.

While this episode might have been poor, it is written with a decent understanding of how children can resent their parents and deal with grief through denial. That’s about the best thing I can say about it. After the kids use Gorgan’s power to manipulate the crew…Kirk talks to the kids to make them understand they have been used.

From IMDB:

This was lawyer Melvin Belli’s (Gorgan) first time playing a fictional character. His son Melvin Caesar Belli plays one of the children (Stevie).

Leonard Nimoy explained that when he complained about the script to Fred Freiberger, Freiberger said, “This script is going to be what ‘Miri’ should have been”. Nimoy objected, calling Star Trek: The Original Series: Miri (1966) a beautiful, well-acted story, and felt that Freiberger’s comments were as much as saying, “‘Miri’ was a piece of trash”.

This is the only episode of the original series in which we see the fully fledged United Federation of Planets flag. Previous appearances, such as Star Trek: The Original Series: The Menagerie: Part II (1966), simply used the pre-existing United Nations flag.

During one scene on the bridge, Kirk tries to give orders to Leslie, but his words are garbled. If the audio for this scene is played in reverse, Kirk can be heard to say, “Remove Lieutenant Uhura and Mr. Spock from the bridge. Confine them to quarters. Did you hear me? Take Mr. Sulu to his quarters. He’s relieved of duty. Remove Lieutenant Uhura and Mr. Spock from the bridge. Confine them to quarters. Take Mr. Sulu to his quarters, I said. (garbled) Mr. Spock from the bridge. Confine him to quarters. Mr. Leslie, take Mr. Sulu to his quarters. He’s relieved of duty.”

Producer Fred Freiberger hoped that the presence of Melvin Belli would boost ratings. This plan failed and Freiberger realized it would have been more appropriate to cast an actor in the role.

Actor Craig Hundley also made a musical contribution to “Star Trek.” Under the name Craig Huxley, he invented the Blaster Beam, an 18 foot long aluminum bar strung with piano wire and played with artillery shells. The instrument’s distinctive metallic twang was used to represent V’Ger on Jerry Goldsmith’s soundtrack to Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). James Horner used it as well for his “Star Trek” soundtracks, and Huxley composed “Genesis Project” for the Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) soundtrack.

Craig Huxley (Tommy Starnes) previously appeared in Star Trek: The Original Series: Operation — Annihilate! (1967) as Kirk’s nephew Peter.

In James Blish’s novelization, Sulu is terrified by the sight of missiles on the view-screen, not swords. More interestingly, the children sing spells to cause havoc among the crew rather than making the fist-pumping gesture which has earned a lot of ridicule among fans.

It is never explained how Kirk knew to refer to the Friendly Angel as “Gorgan”. Based on early drafts of the script, and in a bit of sloppy editing, episode writer Edward J. Lakso alternated between the various names, explaining why it appeared and stuck so late in the episode. A deleted scene had revealed that Tommy did tell Kirk the name. However, this scene took place in the script after Kirk had used the name.

The title paraphrases the last line of Isaiah 11:6: “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.”

Raymond Burr was the director’s, and several of the main cast’s, original choice to play Gorgan. However, he was either unavailable/too expensive/not interested or the director was overruled by the producers (depending on the source).

Professor Starnes and the other male colonists wore jumpsuits left over from Star Trek: The Original Series: The Devil in the Dark (1967), which were reused many times during the series.

The name on one of the tombstones of the parents is “Tsing Tao” which is the name of a city in China, now written as Qingdao. Tsingtao beer was originated there.

The mirror in which Uhura sees her aged reflection at the communications station is never used in any other episode. Of course, like Uhura’s reflection, the mirror itself may have been an illusion created by the children.

All eight major regular performers of the second and third seasons – Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Uhura, Chapel, and Chekov – appear in this episode.

A female Expedition Party member wore Martha Leighton’s costume from Star Trek: The Original Series: The Conscience of the King (1966).

This episode borrows elements and concepts from several sources, including Greek mythology (Gorgan), the Old Testament (the Book of Isaiah), and puritanical/colonial witchery (the incantations). It also has a similar plot to the first-season episode Star Trek: The Original Series: Charlie X (1966).

The arboretum set was originally built for Star Trek: The Original Series: Elaan of Troyius (1968), but became a deleted scene due to time constraints. It was later modified for the arboretum that appeared in Star Trek: The Original Series: Is There in Truth No Beauty? (1968).

This episode is the first appearance of the set piece depicting the entrance to the Gorgan’s cave. It would be seen again in many third season episodes, including Star Trek: The Original Series: Spock’s Brain (1968), Star Trek: The Original Series: The Cloud Minders (1969), Star Trek: The Original Series: All Our Yesterdays (1969), and Star Trek: The Original Series: That Which Survives (1969).

The dress worn by the one of the female members of the Starnes Expedition Party was also created by William Ware Theiss, and was previously worn by Janet Wallace in Star Trek: The Original Series: The Deadly Years (1967). ) In fact, both costumes worn by Wallace can be seen in this episode, one worn by Don Linden’s mother and the other worn by an unnamed woman (who commits suicide in the teaser).

Pamelyn Ferdin and Brian Tochi would later co-star on the live-action children’s science fiction TV series Space Academy (1977), which was developed out of a rejected concept for Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973) and starred ‘Lost in Space’ (1965) veteran Jonathan Harris.

This episode was the twenty-sixth remastered episode of the The Original Series to air. It premiered in syndication the weekend of 14 April 2007 and, aside from the standard CGI replacement footage of the Enterprise, this episode most notably featured new effects shots of the planet Triacus.

Kirk’s request for “a very small” dish of ice cream, which he never actually eats, may have been a reference to the fact that William Shatner had put on considerable weight between seasons 2 and 3. According to producer Robert Justman, Shatner was invited to see the rushes (raw footage) from the first day of photography for “Spectre of the Gun.” He was aghast at how he looked on screen and immediately went on a crash diet.

Cameo
Chad Everett: uncredited as the crewman in Auxiliary Control who helps Scotty fight off Kirk and Spock.

Summary

The Enterprise responds to a distress call from the scientific colony on Triacus and arrives to find that all of the adults are dead. Oddly, the children seem unaffected by the deaths and continue to play as if nothing had happened. When questioned, they show no remorse whatsoever and express a dislike for parental authority. Expedition logs reveal that the expedition had discovered an ancient civilization and that there might be one survivor. In fact, the Gorgon thrives on the innocence of the children and the adults’ self-doubt.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
DeForest Kelley … Dr. McCoy
Craig Huxley … Tommy Starnes (as Craig Hundley)
James Wellman … Professor Starnes
Melvin Belli … Gorgan
James Doohan … Scott
Majel Barrett … Nurse Chapel
Nichelle Nichols … Uhura
George Takei … Sulu
Walter Koenig … Chekov
Pamelyn Ferdin … Mary
Melvin Caesar Belli … Steve (as Caesar Belli)
Mark Robert Brown … Don
Brian Tochi … Ray
Louie Elias … 1st Technician (as Lou Elias)
Paul Baxley … Security Guard (uncredited)
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited)
Frank da Vinci … Transporter Operator (uncredited)
Dick Dial … Security Guard (uncredited)
Roger Holloway … Lt. Lemli (uncredited)
Jay D. Jones … 2nd Technician (uncredited)
Jeannie Malone … Yeoman (uncredited)
Eddie Paskey … Lieutenant Leslie (uncredited)
Leslie Carol Shatner Leslie Carol Shatner … Child (uncredited)
Victor Toyota … Tsing Tao (uncredited)