Patterns of Force

DVD, Star Trek S2 (Patterns of Force)

I feel they went to the parallel Earth concept one too many times this season. Both Romans and gangsters made good stories, but they seem to have tried to recreate the success of those, and it hasn't worked out so well. Maybe it's the focus on Kirk and Spock to the exclusion of the other characters, or maybe the writing isn't as sharp - there does seem to be a bit of padding, such as their first capture and escape. Though it has one of the funniest moments with Spock having to stand on Kirk's lacerated back to effect an escape from the cell (I wondered if he might accidentally do a nerve pinch since he was gripping Kirk's shoulder!), the sequence was unnecessary, only moving the story along slightly as they rescue the captive (It did lead to a clever bluff where the Nazi's appear to take over the resistance, and I thought that leader really had been shot, so it was quite a surprise when he suddenly jumped up!).

I've noticed in recent episodes that Kirk has become more like William Shatner, in his humour and manner, and I think I prefer the more buttoned down Kirk of S1 and most of S2. It shows a logical progression to the Kirk of the films, but I never noticed the change before.

The Nazi's are a good source of a story or two (both 'Voyager' and 'Enterprise' had good ones), but the horror of them isn't portrayed strongly enough. The story picks up when they get to the Fuhrer, and he's drugged and immobile. It's sad that he dies as he seemed a nice guy.

I suppose for me, this episode feels more like other sci-fi series, than a Star Trek. There's very little communication with the ship, and it's mainly about two characters trying to infiltrate a society to bring it down. When McCoy was introduced it was better (very amusing when he beams down in the middle of putting his boots on, and Spock gets some really condescending lines!), but it feels, much more than other, similar stories, to be merely a chance to dress up, with little more than that (especially the number of times they knock people out and nick their clothes!), with a vague and obvious 'the Nazi's were bad' ending. Unfortunately you can begin to see the changes in personnel that led to the series' least successful season, and impromptu demise...

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