Journey to Babel
Journey to Babel (Memory Alpha; SD Video) starts with the Enterprise picking up the Vulcan Ambassador to the Federation, Sarek. He comes on, is a little cold and a little rude to Spock, and then we learn that he’s Spock’s dad.
The Enterprise, you see, is picking up delegates to convene and decide if a new planet will be allowed to join the Federation. Everyone is traveling toward Babel, where the conference will take place. As such, this episode seems like part one of a two-parter, but the second part would have been more political and more challenging, and was never shot. I’m not sure if that’s because it would have been too political (which Trek mostly skirts) or because it would have been too challenging (involving lots of stuff Trek mostly skimps on, like big sets and nitty gritty details).
But in the course of talking a little bit about politics, we get this from Kirk:
Kirk: [In] Star Fleet force is used only as a last resort: we’re an instrument of civilization. And it’s a better opportunity for a scientist to study the universe than he could get at the Vulcan Science Academy.
This plays quite nicely into my view of the Federation as an interplanetary UN. It is also pretty much completely at odds with the series so far. The Enterprise does go on the occasional scientific expedition, but is just as often a warship looking for a fight. It fits very closely to what I would have told you about Star Trek before watching TOS closely, and it’s stated quite clearly in Next Generation, but I’m sorry to say that it’s not as explicit as it could be, or as obvious as I think Roddenberry thought it was.
This episode also goes to great lengths to make Spock a little more alien:
McCoy: [Spock, you had] a teddy bear!
Spock: Not exactly, Doctor. On Vulcan, the teddy bears are alive. And they have six inch fangs.
Seriously, that’s just bullshit. It would be incredibly illogical to give a youngster anything alive, let alone something with six inch fangs.
Also, this:
Telerek: There will be payment for your slander, Sarek!
Sarek: Threats are illogical.
Again, that’s just crazytalk. Threats are incredibly logical: they are a way of stating your position in such a way that the opposite party is aware of your intentions and the price you expect to exact for noncompliance. This could just be bluster, but Sarek is a freakin’ ambassador; he should know how threats work.
And why can’t they replicate blood?
Focus…
But we’re getting lost in the weeds, here. This episode is really rather good. It’s not as political as it first appears, which is disappointing but par for the course. It continues the trend of putting more moving parts into the picture than early episodes, which is great; the beginning of the show felt like it was trying too hard to fill airtime, but with the introduction of B-plots, layered mysteries, and progressive revelations the pacing has really gotten a thousand times better.
Grade
A
