Star Trek: Start to Finish

Is There In Truth No Beauty?

Is There In Truth No Beauty? (HD Video; Memory Alpha) starts right out by telling you that Medusans will make you crazy if you look at them.

Spock, of course, is exempt. He’s a Vulcan, so a snazzy visor will protect him from the crazy. And Dr. Miranda Jones is human and a telepath, but she’s exempt because… well, that’s part of the mystery.

This is a good episode. It’s got enough twists to fill out its length, and enough substance to make you think. Miranda is an interesting character and the Medusans are a clever– if gimmicky– idea. The ship goes to Warp 9.75 and they once again jump across the edge of the galaxy. There is a particularly badly-filmed and badly-choreographed fight scene. There is use of a fish eye lens to make the world seem alien, to good effect. It all plays well.

Spock as the Other

This is yet another episode, though, where Spock is imbued with special powers merely because he’s not human. I’m of two minds on this.

In the first case, it’s lazy writing. Space is dangerous because otherwise the show is boring. So we see lots of ways that space can be dangerous, and then the writer takes the easy way out and has Spock be different. He has super strength. Big ears mean big hearing. His eyes heal. Etc.

On the other hand, Spock becomes our foil. Kirk is a good character because he’s the best of humanity: curious and courageous and quick and determined. Spock can enhance the effect of this by being what Kirk is not. He’s too calculating to be a good leader; too cautious to take chances.

These are two different ways to approach the character, and one is distinctly better than the other, to my mind. This episode takes the wrong one, but is largely unsullied by it.

Grade

B+

And the Children Shall Lead

And the Children Shall Lead (Video; Memory Alpha) is a neat idea that runs out of steam before the credits and then flails about being boring for forty more minutes.

The nugget of goodness is that an evil spirit has convinced the children on the new colony of Triacus to kill their parents and then take over the galaxy, using the Enterprise as their transport. The spirit gives the kids powers and they chant creepy things and look odd.

I would start a spoilers block here, but there are no spoilers in this episode: eventually Kirk figures out how to turn the kids and wins the day. But it takes him an entire episode of wandering around the ship and seeing people do crazy things before he tries, because “they’re children!”

This episode has Kirk ignoring a blatant threat to the ship, McCoy disappearing into sick bay and not participating in the plot, and Spock being completely unhelpful in bothering to explain how any of this makes any sense at all.

It’d be okay if the kids were hiding something that kept the spirit alive and Kirk had to find the McGuffin, but they’re not. It’d be okay if the spirit could be extracted from the kids and we could see progress as each kid is freed and the plot unfurls, but that’s not the case. It’d be okay if the opposite happened, and the plot slowly reached tentacles into the crew, but it’s not.

What I’m trying to say is that this is a mediocre episode completely ruined by pacing (back to our old nemesis) and a lack of an explanation.

Summary Quote

McCoy: They’re crying, Jim. I don’t know how it happened, but it’s good to see.
[We saw how it happened, and it didn’t make any sense to us, anyway. But it is good to see, because it means that this episode is over.]

Grade

D-

The Paradise Syndrome

The Paradise Syndrome (Memory Alpha; HD Video) starts on a beautiful pastoral scene that looks a lot like Earth but that, by all measures, shouldn’t. There’s honeysuckle, orange blossom, Amerindians, and a giant green monolith. Well, the giant green monolith is a bit odd, I’ll admit.

Oh, and there’s an asteroid hurtling toward the planet.

But then Kirk falls down a secret shaft and gets lost and the Enterprise has to leave to deflect the asteroid and when Kirk wakes up he can’t remember who he is!

Dammit, this is an amnesia episode. Amnesia episodes are crap.

But this one, surprisingly, is not at all.

Begin Spoilers

Kirk is adopted by the natives as a God, and saves a boy from drowning to prove his bona fides.

Spock and the rest of the crew, meanwhile, are failing to stop the asteroid. After burning out the warp engines (they burned them up going “maximum warp,” which is once again Warp 9), they have two months to get back to the planet and activate the monolith, which is a conveniently-placed asteroid deflector, left by “The Preservers” who plucked the Amerindians from Earth and deposited them here many years ago. This incredibly important setting point is dropped in with just enough amazement that you can believe it, but not enough that you can believe it will ever be mentioned again.

No really, Spoilers!

Kirk is still back on the planet, and in those two months he marries the chief’s daughter, and then get her pregnant. Yeah, so this episode is a small event in Kirk’s life.

When the asteroid gets close, though, the natives expect their God to open the monolith and save them, and when he can’t they stone him and his wife, which is not a good thing to do to a pregnant lady.

But the Enterprise arrives in time, they figure out how to open the monolith, and they save the day.

Except Kirks wife, who’s been mortally wounded by a number of rocks hurtled at her by ignorant savages. She’s gonna die. Convenient wrap up of that little plot. (Interesting side note: Memory Alpha claims the original script had her live, which would have complicated Kirk’s choices rather a lot. Does he just leave her there?)

End Spoilers

If you can get over the incredibly cheesy 60s Indian outfits and the incredibly cheesy 60s Indian makeup and the not quite as cheesy 60s Indian actors, this is a pretty good episode. Shatner gets to play real love, which is a dramatic range he doesn’t usually get to play, but he does a pretty good job at it. Spock gets to be all smarty and figure out the puzzle, which is actually kind of neat. McCoy gets to do his concerned-doctor schtick that he’s so good at. And Scotty does his “I canna give you any more” deal, even if he doesn’t give that line.

Awesome Dialog

McCoy: Spock, what is it?
Spock: His mind. He’s an… extremely dynamic individual.

Best Dialog In Perhaps Ever

Kirk: More symbols. Can you read them?
Spock: I do have an excellent eye for musical notes, Captain. They would seem to indicate that–
Kirk: Spock, just press the right button.

Grade

B+; would be more, but the cheese smothers it a bit

The Enterprise Incident

The Enterprise Incident (Memory Alpha; HD Video) finds Kirk taking our favorite starship deep into Romulan territory because he was bored. They are immediately surrounded by Romulans.

This episode is incredibly predictable, and continues the long line of episodes where a woman in a major role neglects her duties because she’s smitten. The woman in this case is the Romulan fleet commander, and her neglect lets our heros win the day, but only because they play the woman’s emotions against her. If a Romulan woman came aboard the Enterprise, Kirk would see through the same trick so quickly it wouldn’t be worth building an episode around.

This is all the more shameful because Joanne Linville plays a very interesting Romulan; a warrior and an executive, wanting passion but ambitious. But her bounds as a character shrink with every line she utters. The gender stereotypes slowly eat away at what starts as a command performance until there’s nothing left by my retrospective sadness that this show that was so progressive in so many ways was still held hostage to Gene Roddenberry’s personal vices.

Awesome Dialog

Commander: How could you do this to me? Who are you that you could do this?
Spock: First Officer of the Enterprise.
[She slaps him]
Spock: [Unflinching] What is your present mode of execution?

Two technical notes: First, the Enterprise here goes Warp 9, which should blow the ship up. Second, this episode features a lot of beaming onto and off of shielded ships, which should be impossible.

Grade

D

Kirk’s Empathy

Kirk will and does go to great lengths for those he cares about, and that empathy is what makes Kirk an interesting character.

He is at his best when he’s fighting against long odds to help those he feels responsible for, because it’s when he stops being an action hero and starts being a guy you root for. His empathy is what connects you into the story, because you want him to succeed in his efforts to protect the other characters.

The flip side is Kirk’s empathy for those he’s just met. There are countless episodes where the crew discovers some enslaved group or oppressed minority or hoodwinked populace and Kirk just wants them to be free. His desire for everyone everywhere to have control of their own destiny is the motive force that drives the series, and it reflects the core ideals behind the show: that sixties-America binge of freedom as unadulterated good, as the axis around which everything turns.

That Kirk is a starship captain is the most fitting piece of the puzzle; he is freedom incarnate, zooming around the galaxy doing things that he wants to do because he thinks that doing them is awesome. That his adventures so often find him freeing people from bondage or escaping bondage himself is part and parcel of the enterprise.