The Mark of Gideon
The Mark of Gideon (Video; YouTube; Memory Alpha) finds our favorite starship visiting the planet Gideon, who is petitioning the Federation for membership but refuses to let Federation delegates visit or scan their planet. Until now, when they’ve requested Kirk come alone. And when he tries, he ends up on an empty Enterprise, all alone. Oh, no!
This episode is profoundly confused over what it wants to say, and it suffers for it. Instead of making a point and driving it home, it tries to make a point, then makes a different point on accident, and in the process undermines both points and the general philosophy of the show.
Begin Spoilers
The first annoyance is the entire “empty Enterprise” thing, which the audience immediately suspects is a replica and is not wrong to do so. But the reason this contrivance is trotted out is very obviously because it was cheaper to use their existing sets instead of build new ones. Yeah, we understand times are tough, but you’ve stepped on your Big Idea.
The Big Idea in question is of a planet overrun by population. This episode lands a few months after The Population Bomb was published, and its central thesis is an interesting idea for an episode: What if the world was so overpopulated no one could get any privacy?
Well, in a space-faring society people would leave, right? That’s not discussed here at all. They talk glancingly about contraceptives and the Rhythm Method, which are hot topics in 1969, but are sort of ignoring the huge blinking neon solution sitting in the room. And they also ignore the whole dearth-of-natural-resources angle that’d be an issue on an overcrowded planet long before the privacy thing happened.
And remember that replica-of-the-Enterprise thing? That’s a whole lot of space to dedicate to a ridiculous scheme on a planet where no one can get a moment’s respite from other people.
And let’s not even get into the fact that your scheme is lame (get the germs somewhere else!) and the heartbeats-of-everyone-outside thing makes absolutely no sense.
End Spoilers
Because we haven’t even gotten to this:
Spock: We must acknowledge once and for all that the purpose of diplomacy is to prolong a crisis.
Or this:
Spock: Diplomats and Bueraucrats may function differently, but they achieve exactly the same results.
Or this:
Bones: Are you going to let him get away with that?
Scotty: No matter what you say, Mr. Spock, he’ll twist your meaning.
Uhura: Yes, he’s infuriating, sir; how can you stand it?
[He’s standing right there!]
Or this:
Generic Starfleet Admiral Guy: Permission denied.
Spock: Admiral, I would like to state for the record that your decision is completely arbitrary.
Generic Starfleet Admiral Guy: [Nods] So noted. [Transmission ends]
This drumbeat of anti-diplomatic language and man-of-action bullshit is so counter to the spirit of Trek I’m amazed this episode was produced. Roddenberry had some crazy ideas and some messed up priorities, but he was a guy who thought diplomacy worked and that talking about our differences was useful and that meaningful discussion of the issues helped us to solve the issues. That this episode goes out of its way to complain about the process is maddening, especially since it could have so simply been twisted into the crew complaining about how the diplomat in question was simply and obviously a liar. Lying is bad and you should complain about it, especially in the context of diplomacy, where it means that you can’t solve the problems because they’re not being talked about. If you instead complain that diplomacy can’t work and then prove that to be the case because people are lying, you’ve both been wrong and then presented evidence in bad faith. Star Trek is better than that.
And yet… I kinda liked it. It’s probably just the fact that it’s been months since I got to sit down and watch Trek, but I found Kirk charming and Spock interesting and Bones funny. I liked exploring new worlds and new civilizations with my old friends. And I want to do it more often.
Oh, and shields block sensors, now, but you can teleport right through them. Hooray for consistency. Oh, wait.
Grade
D
