Star Trek: Start to Finish

Turnabout Intruder

TOS’s final episode, Turnabout Intruder (Netflix; Memory Alpha), gives the whole crew a chance to go out acting, and all but the most important role does great.

The Enterprise finds a decimated colony whose lead scientist is Janice, an old Starfleet flame of Kirk’s (who isn’t, right?). She’s still mad because women can’t be captains and she wanted Kirk’s life, so she uses Alien Technology™ to switch bodies with James.

Let’s pause here and count the bits of free-floating silliness we’ve already got. First, what the hell with the sexism, Starfleet? You guys are the future but you’re still doing things that are obviously on the way out in the 60s? Second, why is that Alien Technology never ever mentioned again? Last, Kirk is put into the body of a woman and not once does he play with that. That’s an opportunity Kirk wouldn’t miss.

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But back to the episode. Janice-as-Kirk gets Kirk-as-Janice put into sick bay, but Janice-as-Kirk is obviously acting weird. Spock and McCoy get suspicious, but they can’t prove anything. Spock mind melds with Kirk-as-Janice and then makes an ill-considered jailbreak attempt, which leads to a courtroom bit and mutiny charges for everyone and a sit in and another jailbreak and a silly resolution involving special effects and no sense.

This episode is basically the archetype of Season 3: it takes characters you love, puts them in a slightly new odd situation, then completely fails to deliver anything resembling a logical resolution while nevertheless churning out a few perfect moments.

Let’s go over the best one before we return to trashing the episode. Scotty and McCoy are outside the aforementioned mutiny trial. They’re two thirds of the jury tasked with convicting or acquitting Spock, and they discuss what will happen if they go against the increasingly deviant Captain. The weight of the decision is obvious, and they know both what they have to do and the insanity and labor ahead. It’s well written and well acted, and you can tell how comfortable these two are in their roles.

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But it’s got, buried in the brilliance, this line:

Scotty: “I’ve seen the captain feverish, sick, drunk, delirious, terrified, overjoyed, boiling mad. But up to now I have never seen him red faced with hysteria.”

That they actually use the word ‘hysteria’ is the kicker. This episode, see, is one long tirade about how women are weak. Let’s return to Starfleet’s apparent sexism. It’s not clear who we’re supposed to be mad at about this. The policy seems crazy and stupid to my mind, and I initially assumed I should feel a good women’s-lib vibe and blame The Man for all our woes. But the episode resolves around how obvious it is that Janice isn’t cut out to be a captain anyway. And it’s not too big a leap from there to why the policy exists, except for Kirks throwaway line at the top of the episode that he’s against the rule, too. Are we supposed to blame Janice’s insanity on this rule, and think that if she was allowed to become a Captain it would have all been fine? That seems ridiculous, not only because Kirk says she’s not fit for the post “temperamentally or by training”. We see this theme echoed with Nurse Chapel being a willing patsy to keep Kirk-as-Janice locked up in sickbay, with Uhura missing and a weaker woman in her chair, and with repeated focus to Janice’s womanly wiles and petty grievances.

And don’t even get me started on the scene where Janice-as-Kirk uses a nail file while talking to senior staff, or I might have to kill someone.

Grade

C-, but only that high because Scotty and McCoy get a great scene.

Requiem for Methuselah

Requiem for Methuselah (Video; YouTube; Memory Alpha) gives too much away in the title, but is otherwise excellent.

The crew is suffering from Rigelian Fever, which will kill them all in a few days. They need ryetalyn quickly to make an antidote, and when they land on the only planet within range that’s got it, they’re shot at by a robot drone and threatened by an old guy who owns the place.

But when they threaten him back, he invites them to his house, introduces himself as Flint, offers them all the ryetalyn they need, and even offers to make the antidote for them. As if that weren’t fishy enough, he’s got never-catalogued da Vinci paintings and scores by Brahms and expensive manuscripts. And a hidden girl (there’s always a girl).

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I hesitate to even put this in the spoilers box, because the title already gives it away: this guy has been a live for thousands of years; he can’t die and has collected all this stuff, and claims to have been the historical da Vinci and Brahms. No surprises there, but it is interesting that he’s not an alien or anything; he’s just naturally and inexplicably immortal. He has no idea why and no explanation is given or even tossed out as a possibility.

His relationship with the hidden girl Rayna is more mysterious, and it’s fittingly the axis around which the plot turns. But let’s ignore the Rayna/Flint dynamic and focus on the inevitable Rayna/Kirk dynamic. Kirk meets her briefly for two scenes and is smitten. He loves her, says as much, and when he claims with certainty that she loves him back, she doesn’t argue. Later Flint and Spock both affirm that love. A possibility that I had never even entertained before suddenly hit me:

What if Kirk isn’t just a womanizing wanderer? What if he actually likes these girls? What if he’s just the most lovesick person to ever set foot on a starship, and he just has the best luck at finding people but the worst luck keeping them around? What if Kirk is, in short, a tragic hero, whose capacity for love drives him to greatness, but whose heart is always dashed on the rocks by fate?

That’d be a pretty awesome, moody, interesting character. But I don’t really think that’s who Kirk is. Kirk is a womanizer, he does just wander into relationships and then have no problem taking off, and when things do get serious the universe kindly shatters all possibility of a lasting commitment by conveniently killing off whomever Kirk banged this week.

And the Flint/Rayna bit is interesting, but you’ll have to watch the show for the full details. All I’ve got to say about that is: why is Data so novel, since the universe is apparently teeming with androids?

Now all this is good. Great, even. You get Kirk dealing with who he is, an interesting pair of guests, a neat dynamic between those three, Spock there to support, McCoy there to comment, and a messy, tragic end that leaves almost everyone shattered. But then the last scene is an absolutely perfect capstone, where Spock uses his Vulcan Mind Meld to help Kirk in whatever little way he can, because he knows that his friend needs it. We as an audience are left wondering if he knew by himself or because he listened to McCoy’s fantastic paean to love. We also get to wonder whether Kirk ever finds out. But it’s a wonderful show of mercy (an emotion?) on Spock’s part, and it’s woven so perfectly into the plot that it pulls everything together and emphasizes all the right points.

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Best Bit of Dialog

McCoy: You see, I feel sorrier for you [Spock] than I do for him [Kirk] because you’ll never know the things that love can drive a man to. The ecstasies, the miseries, the broken rules, the desperate chances, the glorious failures, the glorious victories. All of these things you’ll never know simply because the word love isn’t written into your book.

Grade

A+; easily one of my favorite episodes in a long time, if not the whole series.

Specre of the Gun

Spectre of the Gun (HD Video; Memory Alpha) is like distilled TOS. There’s a new civilization to contact, a warning ignored, a confounding obstacle involving godlike powers, and a simple solution waiting to be found that makes everything all better just in time for the closing credits.

Awesome Dialog (Part I)

[Checkov is making out with the illusion of a girl]
Kirk: Uhm… Mr Checkov?
Checkov: What can I do, Captain? You know we’re always supposed to maintain good relations with the natives.

Awesome Dialog (Part II)

Kirk: How did you manage to test it?
McCoy: It wasn’t necessary; it’s simple; nothing could go wrong.
Kirk: Up ‘til now, everything has gone wrong!

Awesome Dialog (Part III)

Scotty: [Takes a drink of bourbon] It’s to kill the pain.
Spock: But this is painless.
Scotty: Well, you should’ve warned me sooner, Mister Spock. Fire away.

Grade

A. This is a solid episode, if a little on the silly side, and it has a slew of awesome dialog.

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+

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.

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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?)

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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

Dagger of the Mind

Dagger of the Mind (Memory Alpha; HD Video) take our favorite crew to Tantalus Penal Colony, where they’re dropping off supplies and picking up a box full of records. Except that there’s actually an escaped prisoner in the box. Whoops!

This episode contains a couple of significant “firsts:” it’s the first time we’re told that the transporter can’t work through a “security force field” like the one used at the colony. This is a necessary plot point for this episode, and becomes an important plot point in many other episodes to come. I can’t recall if anyone ever does any transporter-that-works-through-shields experiments, but I’d be kind of surprised if there’s not an episode about it.

This is also the first time we see a Vulcan Mind Meld, except that it’s kind of totally different from what I’ve ever seen as a Vulcan Mind Meld before. Here, Spock performs accupressure and speaks in a hypnotic monotone, and asks questions that the other participant answers. Later, it’s just a few fingers on the face and scenes from the past play on the screen. I must say I like the later version better.

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There is one big plot twist in this episode, and it occurs about 5 minutes in. The prisoner on the ship asks for asylum; he’s terrified that they’ll send him back to the prison. So instead of the crazy-guy-on-the-ship episode I was expecting, we get a crazy-guy-on-the-planet instead.

There’s a little bit of intrigue on the planet, but it pretty much plays out exactly how you expect it to: Kirk (and the hottie he’s sent with) are wined and dined by the prison’s director, they don’t suspect anything, they are curious about something called a “neural neutralizer,” they sneak out to use it, the director finds them and tortures Kirk, he escapes, resolution.

Except… why does the director do this? Why is he experimenting with the neural neutralizer? Kirk says early on that this guy is a genius who’s completely revolutionized the penal system, and that everything it just swell, now. So what additional benefit does this machine have? Or are we supposed to believe that this is what makes the system work, and no one has noticed before? It’s all very vague.

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This episode isn’t that great. It’s got a weak story with no real surprises, and it ignores the two big issues it could address: how does the penal system of the future operate? and what good is this medical-experiment-cum-torture-device? Either of these could fill out a smart episode that dealt with something, but instead the plot just kind of drifts into the finish you expect at the beginning like a bad Bond movie but with fewer explosions and no naked women.

Awesome Dialog

• Spock: Interesting. You Earth people glorify organized violence for forty centuries, yet you imprison those who employ it privately.

• McCoy: If something unusual is going on down there-
  Kirk: An assumption, Doctor.
  McCoy: I’m required to enter any reasonable doubts in my medical log. That requires you to answer in your log. Sorry, Jim.
  [Spock gives a knowing look.]

• Kirk: One of the advantages of being a captain, doctor, is being able to ask for advice without necessarily having to take it.

Grade

C-