DVD, Stargate Atlantis S3 (Irresponsible)
Kolya's ignominious end appeared to be the point of this entire episode, as well as bringing back philandering conman Lucius, both characters who had been important to the series, though Kolya was obviously the big one since he'd played a part in several stories. It wasn't that long ago that Lucius first appeared, in 'Irresistible' earlier in the season, so I suppose I should have guessed from the title that this was a sequel. I can't wait to see what other 'Irre' title they think up for his inevitable third appearance. But much like his first episode, this wasn't quite up to standard and featured a bit too much running around instead of interesting themes, such as Lucius learning to actually be a hero. The moment when the rogue Genii duck him in the barrel to force him to capitulate, despite the Ancient shield he has, suggested a chance when he could have proved himself more than he is. But didn't. And actually that didn't make sense to me, because if he's shielded and they can't get through it, how can they apply force to him at all? And even given that, why didn't he just beat them up when they held him? It didn't make sense, but then you think more about it and it makes even less sense: how can those women give him massages if he's got the shield activated? I assumed he turned it off at times like those, but it was a bit too much of a plot device more than a believable device.
I suppose I can buy it overall, since the first attack where he really defended the village from a group of marauders was most likely taking them by surprise, whereas he's allowed stories of him to grow. Kolya wouldn't have any concerns over dealing with someone as stupid and self-serving as Lucius and you could tell he had the measure of him as soon as they met. It was fun to pit two of the series' villains or semi-villains against each other, but it was a shame Lucius never did learn a lesson. I suppose the lesson is that people like that who are so twisted and able to lie, cheat and steal against others at any moment for their own gain, would never learn a lesson, unless it was the hard way. And his function isn't to be a fully rounded individual, it's just to throw a spanner into the works of the ordered, fair-minded Atlantis team and give them a different challenge. That said, it was disappointing how simple the story was in the end, merely Kolya wanting revenge on Sheppard (were they always such nemeses for each other?), they meet, have a standoff and Sheppard draws faster. It was a forgettable finish for a character, whom although I wasn't particularly keen on, had to be admitted that he was one of the most important recurring characters. You'd think if they were going to kill him off it would be more dramatic or mean something in story terms rather than just meeting up at some alien village.
It must be said, the village was beautiful, as were the rooftop shots of it. I imagine it was a set they built, it may even have been used before (much like the Medieval set that had been recycled quite a few times on both 'SG-1' and this - perhaps it was even part of that?), but it certainly seemed to be outdoors and was sizeable and well shot so that the colours and brightness made it a pleasure on the eyes. No wonder they spent most of the episode running around inside it. Except that meant there wasn't really much to the episode - sure, you can take the message of standing up for yourself and learning to fight, not relying on others to fight your battles for you, as the simple villagers had been doing, but it was all rather obvious and uninspired. If they really do bring Lucius back I'd like it to be for a more meaningful reason, though I suspect it would merely be for comedy purposes once again. It does suggest the qualities of long seasons - I would assume his first episode went down quite well so they probably reacted to that and brought him back, showing up the drawback of short seasons and total serialisation which doesn't allow breathing room during the production.
**
Tuesday, 13 April 2021
The Apple (2)
DVD, Star Trek S2 (The Apple) (2)
White man speak with forked tongue? A litany of errors was made on this visit to the Eden-like paradise of Gamma Trianguli VI, with four Redshirts biting the death pill in relatively short order from a variety of sources, from a landing party so large it had to beam down in two stages, and Kirk blames himself for enjoying nature instead of staying sharp and alert (how sharper than a serpent-planet's flower bud…). He almost lost his First Officer, too, but fortunately Mr. Spock is a Blueshirt, and by this time in the series it was pretty much established that this colour has a kind of special forcefield woven into the uniform that prevents easy deaths, so while the first Redshirt to stare dumbly and curiously at a rotating flower head (did they learn nothing from 'This Side of Paradise'?), becomes the bullseye in the Gamma Trianguli VI Flower-Form Darts Championship 2267, Spock (hee, hee, what a funny name, eh?), takes the thorns with aplomb, saving his Captain and Chief Medical Officer's lives and yet surviving to be a dartboard another day - Scotty is in command back aboard the Enterprise, a position he's both fired and rehired from in the course of the episode, uncharacteristically wishing he could be down among the birds and the trees rather than knuckling down to some hard mechanical labour over the antimatter pods (even Scotty must dream of fresh air and blue (well, red), skies from time to time, or maybe he had some kind of a premonition that the Enterprise was going down (nah, he'd have wanted to stay aboard for sure in that case). When Spock says he finds it most unusual, Captain, I wondered if he was actually referring to Scotty's wish to come down to a verdant natural landscape rather than work on his beloved ship! Kirk butters him up later saying he knows more about the ship than the men who designed her (maybe he helped put the Enterprise together and so knows every nut and bolt?), with a sting in the tail that if he doesn't get the engines working he's fired.
Because of the Chief Engineer's distance from the planet and its godlike machine, Spock has to be the whipping boy this week, getting chucked about no less than three times - but where the bumptious Scott was only human, no matter how rowdy and hard-edged he can be, Spock is a superior (half) Vulcan, and so can sustain attacks from thorn-spitters, a how-do-you-do with a forcefield, and a direct lightning strike to the back, resulting in second degree burns - don't tell me, Vulcans have some kind of biological second back that deflects such attacks. Well no, actually, not as far as we were ever told, so he must have merely been grazed by the bolt of lightning, or else the theories about blue shirts really are true! While Spock takes it upon himself to experience all the physical pain, Kirk has to deal with self accusations of bad leadership. He should have been more cautious, he should have been more aware, he should have gone against Starfleet orders and wishes he wasn't there. It's easy to forget that his crew means a lot to the Captain, what with Redshirts so regularly getting themselves killed (and let's be straight about it, it's usually their own fault - Starfleet seems to hire people for Security that want to poke and prod every alien object they stumble across and have very little sense of self-preservation, forgetting to jump out of the way when it matters - it became such a problem they had to switch the uniform colours around in the 24th Century, although I'm not sure all the dangers honing in on the red of Command was necessarily a good idea either…). But Kirk knows his crew by name, and for once we get a sense that they were real people, he knew one of the dead's family, another's Father helped him get into the Academy, which adds reality and a personal effect from the events that play out.
It's good to be reminded of the responsibilities that lie on a starship Captain, that it's not a frivolous position, not a placeholder for square-jawed heroes, but a tough, demanding and uncompromising drain on the soul of even the best - look at how badly affected Captain Pike, Kirk's successor, was, even considering packing it all in to go into, erm… slave trading? (He was suffering mentally at the time). Kirk is as concerned about each of the Security Guards he loses (one of which is Hendorff, who was 'resurrected' in the alternate reality of the Kelvin Timeline Abramsverse, known as 'Cupcake' to that Kirk), as he is about the four hundred crew aboard his ship who are steadily being pulled into a destructively decaying orbit by tractor beam, while Kirk is powerless on the planet, almost camouflaged wearing his green wraparound tunic in one of the most iconic images of 'TOS' (when the three main characters, Kirk, Spock and McCoy are crouched amid the jungle ferns and undergrowth of this deadly paradise, discussing philosophy - I even have a postcard of that image). Kirk's guilt, and his internal struggles, are one of the things that made Trek great. Something else I noticed here that's missing from modern Trek is the sense of duty, responsibility and hierarchy, the formal command structure and vocabulary. Kirk issues short, curt commands and everyone hops to it. When there is dissent, from Spock or McCoy, it is respectful, in the form of an explanation or a comment: the pair argue over the rights of these people and what freedom represents, forming a backbone of intelligent discussion to what could have been merely action adventure.
It's an absolute pleasure to see authority, obedience and the way Starfleet works, whether it's throwaway lines like Kirk telling them to follow him in 'formation L,' whatever that is, or calling 'all hands' as a sign to gather the Landing Party together: procedure, formality, structure, not a freeform approach where everyone does as they please if they think they're in the right, as 'Discovery' is so fond of. Where commands have consequence and obedience must be immediate. This order and structure is necessary, not just for safety reasons and the fact that there must be a leader who assumes responsibility for whatever happens and therefore makes the decisions, but dramatically. It's real and realistic and doesn't rely on everyone having a sense of self-importance. There is room for spontaneity and individual initiative (witness Chekov freewheeling when Kirk orders him and Spock to create a diversion when a native is watching nearby - one of the few times we hear Spock shout, and great fun to see the Russian Ensign, 'Pav' as Yeoman Landon calls him, being insubordinate! Maybe even when Kirk orders the Guard to go round the rock to his right when they head off Akuta, and he goes left, except that just made him look stupid, unless Kirk was referring to his right, the other guy's left!), but it is not at the expense of the group and the mission, a valuable lesson modern Trek needs to learn if it ever wants to be taken seriously.
It's not just the intellectual and structural integrity side of the story that work so well, it is also one of the most colourful and bright of 'TOS' episodes, and that's saying something. The environment just sets off those classic uniform colours perfectly, and despite the planet being obviously a studio set, thanks to the efforts of the greens department (it made me think of 'Change of Heart' on 'DS9,' one of the high bars for greens sets in Trek), there's never any chance to see the limits of this indoor space so that you forget, drawn in by the drama and some excellent production design on the huts, even the mounds of soil that make the ground realistically uneven, that it was made indoors. Even Vaal, though it probably gets stick (forked?), for being a 'papier maché snake head,' is imposing and backed by a high rise of 'rock' that, added to dialogue about a vast underground cavern, looms suitably large in both fact and imagination so that you can believe in it as a planet-controlling machine. I did so want to find out the history of this creation, who built it and why. Is it another case of a 'caretaker' that felt the need to leave a primitive people with some kind of assured future in exchange for meddling with their culture after the rest of the group left for a more interesting existence (like the Caretaker of 'Caretaker' in 'Voyager,' or more recently, Apollo in 'Who Mourns For Adonais?'), or perhaps merely feeling sorry for a people group that live among so many dangers: deadly spitting plants and rocks that explode on the slightest impact (unless they're broken in half by the hands of Mr. Spock - he'd have had a short career off a long pier otherwise!).
It appeared to be implied that the Vaalians, as they name them for simplicity's sake, don't fall victim to such things, despite running around like children in a playground. If the episode has a central theme it is the question of whether ignorance of being in thrall to Vaal is bliss or the struggle to survive is what makes survival worth it. I can only assume that Vaal, by speaking through Akuta (where did he get those antennae - Replicator technology?), gave clear instructions that they avoid such plants and rocks so as to prevent accidents, but they could also hold an immunity (though obviously not to being blown up!). The natives, as colourful as the red sky, much like Vulcan's own (in fact it would have been Vulcan's own!), tanned red skin and facial markings contrasting sharply with their white blonde hair, and strong physical specimens, suggest health and vitality, like the Ba'ku of 'Insurrection' they don't grow older or suffer decay and are far from the withered husks of such aliens as the Talosians who crept about underground in a world of illusion. This would seem to indicate, and was part of Spock's argument, that they were happy and healthy, and what more would freedom give them? But if they were innocents, and as they spell out at the end, Kirk and crew were playing the role of Satan in the Garden of Eden, things weren't quite as simple as that would make out.
For their 'god' isn't above turning them into murderous barbarians, against their simple nature. Perhaps this blind obedience was meant as a parallel with the crew's own to their Captain. Is that why the Redshirts were killed, because of their obedience to rules? Again, it's not that simple, the first one failed to react to danger and got darted, another was killed for lack of knowledge about the rocks, stepping on one (a Garden of Eden with land mines, as Kirk so aptly put it), the third again failed to react to the roiling red clouds and is Phasered by lightning. But Kirk had told him to stay there… The fourth was the victim of Akuta's new head-splitting regime. Maybe it's not about following orders or blind obedience, but about the intent of the one above: the beauty of the Vaalians is their gentle nature. When Kirk first tackles Akuta he sees a big, strapping bloke and goes in fists flying, but the reaction he gets is truly alien: like a small child Akuta is taken aback to the point of tears, dismayed at this sudden attack, and even more that he would strike him. It's a brilliant moment that illustrates how alien an alien can be, even while looking largely human, that it's not the outside that makes the difference, but the inner thoughts and attitudes. To his credit, Kirk is quick to realise his mistake and make amends, reassuring and comforting the non-threatening figure that reminds us once again that he's much more than a mere military leader there to subdue or subjugate whatever he comes across, a very Trekkian message.
The episode also comes up trumps with it's chilling transformation of the open, simple and giggling natives into violent thugs, dispassionately going about their instructions as if gathering the melons that Akuta first demonstrates Vaal's technique upon, smashing it as if it's a person's head with the large, forked sticks that appear here and there in the jungle. They were quite perplexing to me at first, I didn't remember these sculptures or whatever they are (they came to a fork in the path!), from previous viewings, but it all made sense when you see Vaal and it's a giant snake head complete with, yes, forked tongue (brilliantly, the symbol is even worked in as the greeting of the Vaalians as 'welcome in the place of Vaal,' arms together and hands parted to mimic the form). So these artefacts must have been part of the worship, or at least the symbol of the machine that was set to protect the planet. Perhaps they were shrines thousands of years ago and their use had been forgotten, except now they become the weapon of choice of Vaal's children for their destructive rampage. Unfortunately, Vaal had miscalculated through lack of information - it's interesting to me that this is one machine that Kirk can't talk into submission as he did with Nomad, logic, intellect, tricks won't work against a personality-less monolith, and yet once again it is the machine's own tactics that destroy it, bringing the Enterprise down to destruction is exactly what costs it so much of its power reserves and the ship can let loose at it with what must be the longest Phaser blast they ever fired!
Vaal doesn't appear to be a very thinking machine, it doesn't have a character to be conversed with, no voice to argue against. We have no idea what Akuta heard through his antennae connection to it, it may have transmitted directly to his brain (a chilling denouncement of augmentation perhaps, though I'm not sure it could be used in one such argument since it was only bad because it was used by a dangerous machine), but it speaks through action, or the actions of its followers, and that gives it a unique character compared to so many other evil machines that Kirk or others had to face. One thing's for sure, it has infinitely more personality and sense of threat than Control had from 'DSC' Season 2 despite all the modern effects and corny dialogue. Being silent gave it more power, and as we saw, turning the peaceful into violent savages was more eloquent than the greatest speech it could have mustered. Actions really do speak louder than words! But as I said, it failed to understand the nature of the threat: its servants, though robust and of sound physical strength, didn't have the skill in combat that Starfleet has inured its members to, so they were beaten down easily, even without Phasers (and Yeoman Landon gets to do some takedowns which was fun to see and shows that combat training is for all). The fact that after this plan has failed (except for the death of the last male Redshirt), the Vaalians are completely subdued, returning to their simple manner and nonviolent attitude, shows Vaal didn't know what it was up against, nor that violence requires a certain kind of character to achieve, or discipline to accomplish a goal.
Yet the Vaalians, kept in servitude, do show remarkable powers of discipline in at least one respect. Despite the paradise they live in, the lack of clothing and the close proximity of healthy bodies, they obey the edict that touching and holding are forbidden and have no compulsion to 'pick the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil,' to go back to the Biblical root the story rests upon (I wonder if many younger people today, not brought up with the Bible as part of their cultural heritage, the secular side of our society having been fairly successful in taking us further away from teaching such things by right to all children, would even understand the allusions and the allegory of this episode?). It's possible that such things were 'bred,' if that's the not an oxymoron, out of them, and they didn't even know much about 'replacements' as they called them, and certainly didn't understand the term 'children.' This is where we circle back to that theme of knowledge being power, but when you have all that you want and are blissfully unaware of that which you do not have, ignorance may be equally valid. Yet that isn't the human way, or the Starfleet way. The noninterference directive is brought up by Spock as they'd be in direct violation with it if they were to change things, yet Kirk sees it as essential that they need to have choice.
It's a tricky nut to crack, because to give them choice they have to know the truth and understand the magnitude of the choice - like some kind of brainwashed cult, if they were merely told of all the alien things to their way of life, especially about hardship making them better people by honing their character, they'd just laugh idiotically as they did to Spock's name, or words such as 'love' that they don't understand. They believe they have all they need. There is a case for preparing them for life without Vaal, because, like all machines, it can't help but eventually break down. Presumably, as good as the life they have on the planet is, their own bodies, biological machines, will also break down in time, even though they haven't for thousands of years, they still live in a real universe where decay is inevitable (and it all comes back to that fruit again - the introduction of sin, the fall of our world into imperfection), old age will wither them, and who will guide them and look after them then? It could be argued that 'who cares, if they've had thousands of years of happy, carefree life, what does it matter that they may eventually end in misery and confusion?' Compassion is the driving force of Starfleet operations, or should be. The Prime Directive is a counter to this compassion to stop us getting too uppity about our interference in less developed species, but it all has to be looked at in context and with the greatest care, and that's why Kirk can justify going against standing orders because he knows and understands justice, and that it is more important than, again, blind obedience to law that may be without context.
He got a name for himself as a maverick, but in this case, unlike others, he does seem justified, though it was important that Spock (another alien voice), should speak up on the other side of the debate. Ultimately there is no debate, Kirk is in command, but he needs to hear the opinions of his most trusted officers, and that's what Trek used to do so well, and why it appealed to such a wide variety of people: it presented more than one side to a story and not everyone had to come down on the same side, something I'm not sure has been carried through in today's Trek (though it's still in its early days, a toddler in comparison to the elder statesman of Trek past that had decades to unfold), and needs some reminding of. Kirk says he'll take his chances with Starfleet, and the situation is made simpler by the duty of care he has to his ship that the enemy must be destroyed to save those people. Perhaps Picard would have sacrificed his ship to prevent a false god from being taken out if it was integral to a culture, but in this case, if he had, he'd have been wrong (and in all probability his resourceful crew would have found a way out of the predicament so the series would have been saved! Otherwise it would have gone from 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' to 'Star Trek: The Native Generation' and the plans of 'First Contact' to settle down quietly in small groups might well have come true - actually, does the original Enterprise have escape pods or were they a later invention? Even then, they may not have been able to launch because of the tractor beam).
Dr. McCoy is always the most ardent advocate of freedom and life, citing the right of humanoids to live free, unchained by their environment in conditions that will permit growth. Spock responds that they have the right to have conditions that work for them, but McCoy comes back to the fact that they need to advance and grow and they've basically been stagnant for thousands of years. It's the difference between a simple health and happiness, or freedom… to worry, to be ill, to die, etc. When you think about it like that it doesn't seem like much of a good deal, but it's the real deal rather than a false paradise in this life. We see an example of this reality in Yeoman Landon - she's clearly very close to Chekov, they share closeness that the Vaalians don't understand, though they emulate it when they see it. She experiences the pleasure of human life, but also the negatives: shock at the deaths of Security, worry over the Enterprise burning up - Kirk basically orders her to stop worrying, in another show of the quality of his captaincy, despite all the self-doubt and recrimination he put himself through, he doesn't allow it to overwhelm him so that he stops caring about the crew around him, even practically giving Spock a dressing down after the Vulcan saved his life, pushing he and McCoy out of the way and taking the flower's poisonous thorns, though he shows some nettling that he hadn't been quick enough to step aside himself, and didn't plan to take the projectiles.
Spock's displeasure with his human side comes out most directly with his condemnatory comment that the Vaalians had taken the first step toward true human values in learning to kill. But he was really talking about human values from the past, not the present, and not the people he works with. He's still young enough (and 'green' enough!), to have a chip on his shoulder about that side of his heritage, even though he knows it's not strictly right and would take him some years before he made peace with himself, first by trying to purge the last of his humanness from him in 'The Motion Picture,' and then experiencing death and rebirth, a unique character in Trek history (even if this is yet another claim to fame that was stolen by inferior 'DSC' writers who implied there were other half-human, half-Vulcans before him). He's not entirely right about the Vaalians even then, as we see when they quietly gather in a hut, rounded up by Chekov - they hear the big snake's dinner gong and innocently and expectantly move to leave and carry out their usual feeding of Vaal, not expecting to be stopped by Chekov and finding there's nothing they can do. There's another Biblical nod, which may or may not have been intentional, after Vaal's destruction when Kirk orders Chekov to "let those people go," which made me think of Moses to the Egyptians: let my people go! Except it was the inverse, not talking to a powerful enemy, but a jailer, and not for them to go off and worship as they wished, but to be free.
What were they free to do after that? That's the only troubling aspect of the episode, that we don't hear or understand what exactly is to become of the Vaalians, will the Federation send another ship to help them adjust to life after Vaal (which sounds a bit like Baal now that I come to think of it!), will they be supported and advised? The impression we're given is that Kirk and the Enterprise are about to swan off to the next adventure with little thought for the overturned lives on the planet below. Overturned unquestionably for the better, no longer serving a machine, but at the same time with no clear idea of how they will live. Perhaps that was the point, maybe they needed to learn to struggle, not have everything handed to them. I think it would be interesting to revisit that planet in a hundred years and see what had grown from the seeds planted there, as long as Akuta hadn't developed a maniacal desire for revenge on Kirk ('The Wrath of Akuta' doesn't have the same ring to it). Genuinely, I would have loved a sequel in one of the later series' to see what had become of the former Vaalians - they would have lived, I'm sure, they knew how to take care of themselves, they'd just have had to adapt to any problems that arose instead of getting a telegraphed message down Akuta's antennae. I suppose the episode leaves me feeling confident and happy, even if things aren't necessarily as clear-cut.
The B-side of the story is what goes on above, with Scotty in command having to deal with a failure of the ship. I believe we get the earliest reference to the idea of the it being modular, as when the Enterprise is threatened Kirk tells his Chief Engineer to discard the warp drive nacelles and get out of there with the main section if they have to, which is a thrilling idea to add to the already amazing futuristic technology on display every week. They didn't have the budget to achieve something so visual at that time and it would be twenty years until we finally saw such an option play out (in the 'TNG' pilot, 'Encounter At Farpoint'), but it proves that suggesting something in dialogue can be as powerful as actually showing it visually because it leaves it to the imagination and opens up a world of new possibilities that you may not have considered previously. While we're on the subject of the ship, at the end we see Kirk climbing out of a Jefferies Tube up a Tri-ladder yet again (the second or third time this season), so maybe he likes to keep fit by getting around that way rather than Turbolift, or perhaps it's a little time to himself as he athletically crawls and climbs between decks? It's somewhat strange not to see Scotty immersing himself in panels up to his elbows in the same way (as we see other crewmembers on the Bridge - this time I think it's the panel underneath the Engineering console which is opened), instead playing the role of commander.
It's also realistic that he has a dedicated team and that the ship isn't run by six people, they're all intelligent, working crew that can do what needs to be done, and we only see Mr. Scott at certain times when he's in contact with the planet, mostly (or when under attack - he's thrown into the Captain's Chair and you see the base lift up, almost wrenched from its mooring, so I hope he fixed that!). It's almost as strange to see Mr. Kyle in Sulu's seat, this must be the beginning of George Takei's hiatus to film 'The Green Berets' with John Wayne. It would have made sense not to see Uhura after her mind-altering experience last episode so it's fortunate that she doesn't show up in this one, allowing her a little more time to get used to her duties (although we saw her at the end of 'The Changeling' didn't we?), and it may have been a little optimistic for her to be completely restored in a week, assuming the time between episodes is roughly that period. Mr. Kyle gets more to do than ever before (he uses Spock's Science Viewer, but then so does Scott), much like Chief O'Brien's career trajectory he seems to be rising in prominence, and if only 'Phase II' had come into being he might have progressed to a main cast member! One future cast member of a different series it's fun to see is David Soul, almost a decade before he became Ken Hutchinson in 'Starsky & Hutch,' as a young native man - he had the same softness, yet eager happiness about him that Akuta did, really helping to sell this people and their ways.
The Biblical analogies start early, combining with Chekov's reliably predictable assertion that everything of value is Russian - according to him Eden was just outside Moscow and Adam and Eve were very sad to leave! Perhaps the inclination of the writing is slightly towards humans needing to leave paradise to thrive, it is a humanistic franchise despite its occasional obeisance towards Western Christian norms, which was where American society was in the 1960s, and certainly in moments like 'Star Trek V' when Kirk vigorously opined that he needed his pain and didn't want to let it go, we see that submission isn't the natural ethos of our Starfleet characters. But equally, we learn in later series' that Earth is a 'paradise' by the 24th Century, even if it isn't quite there in the 23rd (once again, monetary value appears to rear its head when Kirk scolds Spock on how valuable he is to Starfleet and does he know how much they have invested in him, to which the Vulcan responds rolling off a precise, if interrupted figure beginning 122,000…!), so the franchise seems to want it both ways: hunger, want, war, strife, are all gone from our planet, all cleaned up and pristine by human efforts apparently (and unlikely!), and yet they find it isn't enough to have enough and they need to go out into the non-paradise of space to clean that up too, or is it to learn from other cultures? And if to learn what do they need to learn if they've created paradise? It's a restless position, never satisfied and the philosophy doesn't seem to be sure what it wants, whether it's to spread its own ideas or to absorb (like the Borg), other ideologies into its own distinctiveness. It's a confused and uncertain future, despite the utopian ideals, made even more uncertain by 'Picard' (which I'm now watching at last!), in which Earth isn't so perfect any more and Starfleet became the bad guys, pretty much.
The upshot of this episode is that it gives you much to think about and reflect on (in the same way the second book of 'The Space Trilogy' by CS Lewis', 'Perelandra' inspired), it intersects with both humanist and Biblical sides, provides debate and interest, and is a good all-round story that leaves you wondering, the thinking man's Trek. At the same time it is inspirational, the characters and their struggles have more complexity, I would argue, than modern Trek dares to deal with, and the brightness of its outlook, both visually and thematically makes it a good watch. However, they preferred to end it with a light touch, as so often is the case, with a little jibe about Spock putting Kirk in the place of Satan in the Garden of Eden, and Kirk retorting that there's one crew member that resembles the character (in Medieval mythological terms, I suppose he meant). It serves to spell out the apple of the title as the knowledge of good and evil (or love and procreation; the struggle of survival, perhaps), without examining Vaal in the place of God, since that would be a good thing to explore, especially as Vaal was all about murder, and sometimes subtlety is more of a delight as the viewer comes to the conclusions on their own. In any case, I felt a more thoughtful end would have serviced such discussions better, after all the episode does have its moments of subtlety - Kirk actually eats an apple, or the alien equivalent, at one point, and my very first thought as I saw the Enterprise orbiting the planet in the first scene was that it looked like a big, red apple! Whatever the end result was, I knew it would be a fruitful discussion.
***
White man speak with forked tongue? A litany of errors was made on this visit to the Eden-like paradise of Gamma Trianguli VI, with four Redshirts biting the death pill in relatively short order from a variety of sources, from a landing party so large it had to beam down in two stages, and Kirk blames himself for enjoying nature instead of staying sharp and alert (how sharper than a serpent-planet's flower bud…). He almost lost his First Officer, too, but fortunately Mr. Spock is a Blueshirt, and by this time in the series it was pretty much established that this colour has a kind of special forcefield woven into the uniform that prevents easy deaths, so while the first Redshirt to stare dumbly and curiously at a rotating flower head (did they learn nothing from 'This Side of Paradise'?), becomes the bullseye in the Gamma Trianguli VI Flower-Form Darts Championship 2267, Spock (hee, hee, what a funny name, eh?), takes the thorns with aplomb, saving his Captain and Chief Medical Officer's lives and yet surviving to be a dartboard another day - Scotty is in command back aboard the Enterprise, a position he's both fired and rehired from in the course of the episode, uncharacteristically wishing he could be down among the birds and the trees rather than knuckling down to some hard mechanical labour over the antimatter pods (even Scotty must dream of fresh air and blue (well, red), skies from time to time, or maybe he had some kind of a premonition that the Enterprise was going down (nah, he'd have wanted to stay aboard for sure in that case). When Spock says he finds it most unusual, Captain, I wondered if he was actually referring to Scotty's wish to come down to a verdant natural landscape rather than work on his beloved ship! Kirk butters him up later saying he knows more about the ship than the men who designed her (maybe he helped put the Enterprise together and so knows every nut and bolt?), with a sting in the tail that if he doesn't get the engines working he's fired.
Because of the Chief Engineer's distance from the planet and its godlike machine, Spock has to be the whipping boy this week, getting chucked about no less than three times - but where the bumptious Scott was only human, no matter how rowdy and hard-edged he can be, Spock is a superior (half) Vulcan, and so can sustain attacks from thorn-spitters, a how-do-you-do with a forcefield, and a direct lightning strike to the back, resulting in second degree burns - don't tell me, Vulcans have some kind of biological second back that deflects such attacks. Well no, actually, not as far as we were ever told, so he must have merely been grazed by the bolt of lightning, or else the theories about blue shirts really are true! While Spock takes it upon himself to experience all the physical pain, Kirk has to deal with self accusations of bad leadership. He should have been more cautious, he should have been more aware, he should have gone against Starfleet orders and wishes he wasn't there. It's easy to forget that his crew means a lot to the Captain, what with Redshirts so regularly getting themselves killed (and let's be straight about it, it's usually their own fault - Starfleet seems to hire people for Security that want to poke and prod every alien object they stumble across and have very little sense of self-preservation, forgetting to jump out of the way when it matters - it became such a problem they had to switch the uniform colours around in the 24th Century, although I'm not sure all the dangers honing in on the red of Command was necessarily a good idea either…). But Kirk knows his crew by name, and for once we get a sense that they were real people, he knew one of the dead's family, another's Father helped him get into the Academy, which adds reality and a personal effect from the events that play out.
It's good to be reminded of the responsibilities that lie on a starship Captain, that it's not a frivolous position, not a placeholder for square-jawed heroes, but a tough, demanding and uncompromising drain on the soul of even the best - look at how badly affected Captain Pike, Kirk's successor, was, even considering packing it all in to go into, erm… slave trading? (He was suffering mentally at the time). Kirk is as concerned about each of the Security Guards he loses (one of which is Hendorff, who was 'resurrected' in the alternate reality of the Kelvin Timeline Abramsverse, known as 'Cupcake' to that Kirk), as he is about the four hundred crew aboard his ship who are steadily being pulled into a destructively decaying orbit by tractor beam, while Kirk is powerless on the planet, almost camouflaged wearing his green wraparound tunic in one of the most iconic images of 'TOS' (when the three main characters, Kirk, Spock and McCoy are crouched amid the jungle ferns and undergrowth of this deadly paradise, discussing philosophy - I even have a postcard of that image). Kirk's guilt, and his internal struggles, are one of the things that made Trek great. Something else I noticed here that's missing from modern Trek is the sense of duty, responsibility and hierarchy, the formal command structure and vocabulary. Kirk issues short, curt commands and everyone hops to it. When there is dissent, from Spock or McCoy, it is respectful, in the form of an explanation or a comment: the pair argue over the rights of these people and what freedom represents, forming a backbone of intelligent discussion to what could have been merely action adventure.
It's an absolute pleasure to see authority, obedience and the way Starfleet works, whether it's throwaway lines like Kirk telling them to follow him in 'formation L,' whatever that is, or calling 'all hands' as a sign to gather the Landing Party together: procedure, formality, structure, not a freeform approach where everyone does as they please if they think they're in the right, as 'Discovery' is so fond of. Where commands have consequence and obedience must be immediate. This order and structure is necessary, not just for safety reasons and the fact that there must be a leader who assumes responsibility for whatever happens and therefore makes the decisions, but dramatically. It's real and realistic and doesn't rely on everyone having a sense of self-importance. There is room for spontaneity and individual initiative (witness Chekov freewheeling when Kirk orders him and Spock to create a diversion when a native is watching nearby - one of the few times we hear Spock shout, and great fun to see the Russian Ensign, 'Pav' as Yeoman Landon calls him, being insubordinate! Maybe even when Kirk orders the Guard to go round the rock to his right when they head off Akuta, and he goes left, except that just made him look stupid, unless Kirk was referring to his right, the other guy's left!), but it is not at the expense of the group and the mission, a valuable lesson modern Trek needs to learn if it ever wants to be taken seriously.
It's not just the intellectual and structural integrity side of the story that work so well, it is also one of the most colourful and bright of 'TOS' episodes, and that's saying something. The environment just sets off those classic uniform colours perfectly, and despite the planet being obviously a studio set, thanks to the efforts of the greens department (it made me think of 'Change of Heart' on 'DS9,' one of the high bars for greens sets in Trek), there's never any chance to see the limits of this indoor space so that you forget, drawn in by the drama and some excellent production design on the huts, even the mounds of soil that make the ground realistically uneven, that it was made indoors. Even Vaal, though it probably gets stick (forked?), for being a 'papier maché snake head,' is imposing and backed by a high rise of 'rock' that, added to dialogue about a vast underground cavern, looms suitably large in both fact and imagination so that you can believe in it as a planet-controlling machine. I did so want to find out the history of this creation, who built it and why. Is it another case of a 'caretaker' that felt the need to leave a primitive people with some kind of assured future in exchange for meddling with their culture after the rest of the group left for a more interesting existence (like the Caretaker of 'Caretaker' in 'Voyager,' or more recently, Apollo in 'Who Mourns For Adonais?'), or perhaps merely feeling sorry for a people group that live among so many dangers: deadly spitting plants and rocks that explode on the slightest impact (unless they're broken in half by the hands of Mr. Spock - he'd have had a short career off a long pier otherwise!).
It appeared to be implied that the Vaalians, as they name them for simplicity's sake, don't fall victim to such things, despite running around like children in a playground. If the episode has a central theme it is the question of whether ignorance of being in thrall to Vaal is bliss or the struggle to survive is what makes survival worth it. I can only assume that Vaal, by speaking through Akuta (where did he get those antennae - Replicator technology?), gave clear instructions that they avoid such plants and rocks so as to prevent accidents, but they could also hold an immunity (though obviously not to being blown up!). The natives, as colourful as the red sky, much like Vulcan's own (in fact it would have been Vulcan's own!), tanned red skin and facial markings contrasting sharply with their white blonde hair, and strong physical specimens, suggest health and vitality, like the Ba'ku of 'Insurrection' they don't grow older or suffer decay and are far from the withered husks of such aliens as the Talosians who crept about underground in a world of illusion. This would seem to indicate, and was part of Spock's argument, that they were happy and healthy, and what more would freedom give them? But if they were innocents, and as they spell out at the end, Kirk and crew were playing the role of Satan in the Garden of Eden, things weren't quite as simple as that would make out.
For their 'god' isn't above turning them into murderous barbarians, against their simple nature. Perhaps this blind obedience was meant as a parallel with the crew's own to their Captain. Is that why the Redshirts were killed, because of their obedience to rules? Again, it's not that simple, the first one failed to react to danger and got darted, another was killed for lack of knowledge about the rocks, stepping on one (a Garden of Eden with land mines, as Kirk so aptly put it), the third again failed to react to the roiling red clouds and is Phasered by lightning. But Kirk had told him to stay there… The fourth was the victim of Akuta's new head-splitting regime. Maybe it's not about following orders or blind obedience, but about the intent of the one above: the beauty of the Vaalians is their gentle nature. When Kirk first tackles Akuta he sees a big, strapping bloke and goes in fists flying, but the reaction he gets is truly alien: like a small child Akuta is taken aback to the point of tears, dismayed at this sudden attack, and even more that he would strike him. It's a brilliant moment that illustrates how alien an alien can be, even while looking largely human, that it's not the outside that makes the difference, but the inner thoughts and attitudes. To his credit, Kirk is quick to realise his mistake and make amends, reassuring and comforting the non-threatening figure that reminds us once again that he's much more than a mere military leader there to subdue or subjugate whatever he comes across, a very Trekkian message.
The episode also comes up trumps with it's chilling transformation of the open, simple and giggling natives into violent thugs, dispassionately going about their instructions as if gathering the melons that Akuta first demonstrates Vaal's technique upon, smashing it as if it's a person's head with the large, forked sticks that appear here and there in the jungle. They were quite perplexing to me at first, I didn't remember these sculptures or whatever they are (they came to a fork in the path!), from previous viewings, but it all made sense when you see Vaal and it's a giant snake head complete with, yes, forked tongue (brilliantly, the symbol is even worked in as the greeting of the Vaalians as 'welcome in the place of Vaal,' arms together and hands parted to mimic the form). So these artefacts must have been part of the worship, or at least the symbol of the machine that was set to protect the planet. Perhaps they were shrines thousands of years ago and their use had been forgotten, except now they become the weapon of choice of Vaal's children for their destructive rampage. Unfortunately, Vaal had miscalculated through lack of information - it's interesting to me that this is one machine that Kirk can't talk into submission as he did with Nomad, logic, intellect, tricks won't work against a personality-less monolith, and yet once again it is the machine's own tactics that destroy it, bringing the Enterprise down to destruction is exactly what costs it so much of its power reserves and the ship can let loose at it with what must be the longest Phaser blast they ever fired!
Vaal doesn't appear to be a very thinking machine, it doesn't have a character to be conversed with, no voice to argue against. We have no idea what Akuta heard through his antennae connection to it, it may have transmitted directly to his brain (a chilling denouncement of augmentation perhaps, though I'm not sure it could be used in one such argument since it was only bad because it was used by a dangerous machine), but it speaks through action, or the actions of its followers, and that gives it a unique character compared to so many other evil machines that Kirk or others had to face. One thing's for sure, it has infinitely more personality and sense of threat than Control had from 'DSC' Season 2 despite all the modern effects and corny dialogue. Being silent gave it more power, and as we saw, turning the peaceful into violent savages was more eloquent than the greatest speech it could have mustered. Actions really do speak louder than words! But as I said, it failed to understand the nature of the threat: its servants, though robust and of sound physical strength, didn't have the skill in combat that Starfleet has inured its members to, so they were beaten down easily, even without Phasers (and Yeoman Landon gets to do some takedowns which was fun to see and shows that combat training is for all). The fact that after this plan has failed (except for the death of the last male Redshirt), the Vaalians are completely subdued, returning to their simple manner and nonviolent attitude, shows Vaal didn't know what it was up against, nor that violence requires a certain kind of character to achieve, or discipline to accomplish a goal.
Yet the Vaalians, kept in servitude, do show remarkable powers of discipline in at least one respect. Despite the paradise they live in, the lack of clothing and the close proximity of healthy bodies, they obey the edict that touching and holding are forbidden and have no compulsion to 'pick the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil,' to go back to the Biblical root the story rests upon (I wonder if many younger people today, not brought up with the Bible as part of their cultural heritage, the secular side of our society having been fairly successful in taking us further away from teaching such things by right to all children, would even understand the allusions and the allegory of this episode?). It's possible that such things were 'bred,' if that's the not an oxymoron, out of them, and they didn't even know much about 'replacements' as they called them, and certainly didn't understand the term 'children.' This is where we circle back to that theme of knowledge being power, but when you have all that you want and are blissfully unaware of that which you do not have, ignorance may be equally valid. Yet that isn't the human way, or the Starfleet way. The noninterference directive is brought up by Spock as they'd be in direct violation with it if they were to change things, yet Kirk sees it as essential that they need to have choice.
It's a tricky nut to crack, because to give them choice they have to know the truth and understand the magnitude of the choice - like some kind of brainwashed cult, if they were merely told of all the alien things to their way of life, especially about hardship making them better people by honing their character, they'd just laugh idiotically as they did to Spock's name, or words such as 'love' that they don't understand. They believe they have all they need. There is a case for preparing them for life without Vaal, because, like all machines, it can't help but eventually break down. Presumably, as good as the life they have on the planet is, their own bodies, biological machines, will also break down in time, even though they haven't for thousands of years, they still live in a real universe where decay is inevitable (and it all comes back to that fruit again - the introduction of sin, the fall of our world into imperfection), old age will wither them, and who will guide them and look after them then? It could be argued that 'who cares, if they've had thousands of years of happy, carefree life, what does it matter that they may eventually end in misery and confusion?' Compassion is the driving force of Starfleet operations, or should be. The Prime Directive is a counter to this compassion to stop us getting too uppity about our interference in less developed species, but it all has to be looked at in context and with the greatest care, and that's why Kirk can justify going against standing orders because he knows and understands justice, and that it is more important than, again, blind obedience to law that may be without context.
He got a name for himself as a maverick, but in this case, unlike others, he does seem justified, though it was important that Spock (another alien voice), should speak up on the other side of the debate. Ultimately there is no debate, Kirk is in command, but he needs to hear the opinions of his most trusted officers, and that's what Trek used to do so well, and why it appealed to such a wide variety of people: it presented more than one side to a story and not everyone had to come down on the same side, something I'm not sure has been carried through in today's Trek (though it's still in its early days, a toddler in comparison to the elder statesman of Trek past that had decades to unfold), and needs some reminding of. Kirk says he'll take his chances with Starfleet, and the situation is made simpler by the duty of care he has to his ship that the enemy must be destroyed to save those people. Perhaps Picard would have sacrificed his ship to prevent a false god from being taken out if it was integral to a culture, but in this case, if he had, he'd have been wrong (and in all probability his resourceful crew would have found a way out of the predicament so the series would have been saved! Otherwise it would have gone from 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' to 'Star Trek: The Native Generation' and the plans of 'First Contact' to settle down quietly in small groups might well have come true - actually, does the original Enterprise have escape pods or were they a later invention? Even then, they may not have been able to launch because of the tractor beam).
Dr. McCoy is always the most ardent advocate of freedom and life, citing the right of humanoids to live free, unchained by their environment in conditions that will permit growth. Spock responds that they have the right to have conditions that work for them, but McCoy comes back to the fact that they need to advance and grow and they've basically been stagnant for thousands of years. It's the difference between a simple health and happiness, or freedom… to worry, to be ill, to die, etc. When you think about it like that it doesn't seem like much of a good deal, but it's the real deal rather than a false paradise in this life. We see an example of this reality in Yeoman Landon - she's clearly very close to Chekov, they share closeness that the Vaalians don't understand, though they emulate it when they see it. She experiences the pleasure of human life, but also the negatives: shock at the deaths of Security, worry over the Enterprise burning up - Kirk basically orders her to stop worrying, in another show of the quality of his captaincy, despite all the self-doubt and recrimination he put himself through, he doesn't allow it to overwhelm him so that he stops caring about the crew around him, even practically giving Spock a dressing down after the Vulcan saved his life, pushing he and McCoy out of the way and taking the flower's poisonous thorns, though he shows some nettling that he hadn't been quick enough to step aside himself, and didn't plan to take the projectiles.
Spock's displeasure with his human side comes out most directly with his condemnatory comment that the Vaalians had taken the first step toward true human values in learning to kill. But he was really talking about human values from the past, not the present, and not the people he works with. He's still young enough (and 'green' enough!), to have a chip on his shoulder about that side of his heritage, even though he knows it's not strictly right and would take him some years before he made peace with himself, first by trying to purge the last of his humanness from him in 'The Motion Picture,' and then experiencing death and rebirth, a unique character in Trek history (even if this is yet another claim to fame that was stolen by inferior 'DSC' writers who implied there were other half-human, half-Vulcans before him). He's not entirely right about the Vaalians even then, as we see when they quietly gather in a hut, rounded up by Chekov - they hear the big snake's dinner gong and innocently and expectantly move to leave and carry out their usual feeding of Vaal, not expecting to be stopped by Chekov and finding there's nothing they can do. There's another Biblical nod, which may or may not have been intentional, after Vaal's destruction when Kirk orders Chekov to "let those people go," which made me think of Moses to the Egyptians: let my people go! Except it was the inverse, not talking to a powerful enemy, but a jailer, and not for them to go off and worship as they wished, but to be free.
What were they free to do after that? That's the only troubling aspect of the episode, that we don't hear or understand what exactly is to become of the Vaalians, will the Federation send another ship to help them adjust to life after Vaal (which sounds a bit like Baal now that I come to think of it!), will they be supported and advised? The impression we're given is that Kirk and the Enterprise are about to swan off to the next adventure with little thought for the overturned lives on the planet below. Overturned unquestionably for the better, no longer serving a machine, but at the same time with no clear idea of how they will live. Perhaps that was the point, maybe they needed to learn to struggle, not have everything handed to them. I think it would be interesting to revisit that planet in a hundred years and see what had grown from the seeds planted there, as long as Akuta hadn't developed a maniacal desire for revenge on Kirk ('The Wrath of Akuta' doesn't have the same ring to it). Genuinely, I would have loved a sequel in one of the later series' to see what had become of the former Vaalians - they would have lived, I'm sure, they knew how to take care of themselves, they'd just have had to adapt to any problems that arose instead of getting a telegraphed message down Akuta's antennae. I suppose the episode leaves me feeling confident and happy, even if things aren't necessarily as clear-cut.
The B-side of the story is what goes on above, with Scotty in command having to deal with a failure of the ship. I believe we get the earliest reference to the idea of the it being modular, as when the Enterprise is threatened Kirk tells his Chief Engineer to discard the warp drive nacelles and get out of there with the main section if they have to, which is a thrilling idea to add to the already amazing futuristic technology on display every week. They didn't have the budget to achieve something so visual at that time and it would be twenty years until we finally saw such an option play out (in the 'TNG' pilot, 'Encounter At Farpoint'), but it proves that suggesting something in dialogue can be as powerful as actually showing it visually because it leaves it to the imagination and opens up a world of new possibilities that you may not have considered previously. While we're on the subject of the ship, at the end we see Kirk climbing out of a Jefferies Tube up a Tri-ladder yet again (the second or third time this season), so maybe he likes to keep fit by getting around that way rather than Turbolift, or perhaps it's a little time to himself as he athletically crawls and climbs between decks? It's somewhat strange not to see Scotty immersing himself in panels up to his elbows in the same way (as we see other crewmembers on the Bridge - this time I think it's the panel underneath the Engineering console which is opened), instead playing the role of commander.
It's also realistic that he has a dedicated team and that the ship isn't run by six people, they're all intelligent, working crew that can do what needs to be done, and we only see Mr. Scott at certain times when he's in contact with the planet, mostly (or when under attack - he's thrown into the Captain's Chair and you see the base lift up, almost wrenched from its mooring, so I hope he fixed that!). It's almost as strange to see Mr. Kyle in Sulu's seat, this must be the beginning of George Takei's hiatus to film 'The Green Berets' with John Wayne. It would have made sense not to see Uhura after her mind-altering experience last episode so it's fortunate that she doesn't show up in this one, allowing her a little more time to get used to her duties (although we saw her at the end of 'The Changeling' didn't we?), and it may have been a little optimistic for her to be completely restored in a week, assuming the time between episodes is roughly that period. Mr. Kyle gets more to do than ever before (he uses Spock's Science Viewer, but then so does Scott), much like Chief O'Brien's career trajectory he seems to be rising in prominence, and if only 'Phase II' had come into being he might have progressed to a main cast member! One future cast member of a different series it's fun to see is David Soul, almost a decade before he became Ken Hutchinson in 'Starsky & Hutch,' as a young native man - he had the same softness, yet eager happiness about him that Akuta did, really helping to sell this people and their ways.
The Biblical analogies start early, combining with Chekov's reliably predictable assertion that everything of value is Russian - according to him Eden was just outside Moscow and Adam and Eve were very sad to leave! Perhaps the inclination of the writing is slightly towards humans needing to leave paradise to thrive, it is a humanistic franchise despite its occasional obeisance towards Western Christian norms, which was where American society was in the 1960s, and certainly in moments like 'Star Trek V' when Kirk vigorously opined that he needed his pain and didn't want to let it go, we see that submission isn't the natural ethos of our Starfleet characters. But equally, we learn in later series' that Earth is a 'paradise' by the 24th Century, even if it isn't quite there in the 23rd (once again, monetary value appears to rear its head when Kirk scolds Spock on how valuable he is to Starfleet and does he know how much they have invested in him, to which the Vulcan responds rolling off a precise, if interrupted figure beginning 122,000…!), so the franchise seems to want it both ways: hunger, want, war, strife, are all gone from our planet, all cleaned up and pristine by human efforts apparently (and unlikely!), and yet they find it isn't enough to have enough and they need to go out into the non-paradise of space to clean that up too, or is it to learn from other cultures? And if to learn what do they need to learn if they've created paradise? It's a restless position, never satisfied and the philosophy doesn't seem to be sure what it wants, whether it's to spread its own ideas or to absorb (like the Borg), other ideologies into its own distinctiveness. It's a confused and uncertain future, despite the utopian ideals, made even more uncertain by 'Picard' (which I'm now watching at last!), in which Earth isn't so perfect any more and Starfleet became the bad guys, pretty much.
The upshot of this episode is that it gives you much to think about and reflect on (in the same way the second book of 'The Space Trilogy' by CS Lewis', 'Perelandra' inspired), it intersects with both humanist and Biblical sides, provides debate and interest, and is a good all-round story that leaves you wondering, the thinking man's Trek. At the same time it is inspirational, the characters and their struggles have more complexity, I would argue, than modern Trek dares to deal with, and the brightness of its outlook, both visually and thematically makes it a good watch. However, they preferred to end it with a light touch, as so often is the case, with a little jibe about Spock putting Kirk in the place of Satan in the Garden of Eden, and Kirk retorting that there's one crew member that resembles the character (in Medieval mythological terms, I suppose he meant). It serves to spell out the apple of the title as the knowledge of good and evil (or love and procreation; the struggle of survival, perhaps), without examining Vaal in the place of God, since that would be a good thing to explore, especially as Vaal was all about murder, and sometimes subtlety is more of a delight as the viewer comes to the conclusions on their own. In any case, I felt a more thoughtful end would have serviced such discussions better, after all the episode does have its moments of subtlety - Kirk actually eats an apple, or the alien equivalent, at one point, and my very first thought as I saw the Enterprise orbiting the planet in the first scene was that it looked like a big, red apple! Whatever the end result was, I knew it would be a fruitful discussion.
***
Echoes
DVD, Stargate Atlantis S3 (Echoes)
Unexpected, but like the plan they came up with, the story all comes together at the end, pleasingly and reassuringly: an ecological catastrophe, a planet-wide, all-life-ending extinction event, and good people working together to solve the problem… It's just like 'Star Trek'! Except Trek the way it used to be, the way it should be, and the way it rarely is now. This is so far from the grim, dark sci-fi we get all the time, bright, colourful and positive. If I didn't already watch all the old Trek series' on a loop I'd be getting nostalgic for the old days. But if it apes the kind of scientific problems Starfleet showed themselves at their best with, it also turned out to be a nice story for our 'Atlantis' characters, and once again gives them licence to display how well this little team has come to gel. Like the best of 'SG-1,' it feels like you're spending time with a family, whether they're caring for each other or ribbing each other, it's a lovely balance and has really made the series come alive, especially this season when the gradual buildup of the first two seasons has developed the bonds immeasurably between the main characters, making it a joy to spend time with them. And having a likeable group of characters is more than half the battle (as modern Trek has been shown wanting, much to its detriment!).
We all know Rodney (or Meredith as Sheppard reminds us again), will save the day with some unfeasibly complicated 'tech the tech' solution. We all know Sheppard will behave heroically to get him to that point where he can tech the tech. And we know the others will do their bit in whatever field they happen to work in. But the episode didn't start out that way, it appeared to be quite a different story to averting a natural disaster of such magnitude - for a start, at the start, we have a sulky Ronon, Zelenka and Sheppard travelling back to Atlantis after a camping trip of some kind - I didn't get the clue they dropped about the direction sensors not working properly so they were off course for the city, but that was the reason: the Atlantean whale fishes had already begun to send out their electromagnetic interference as part of the warning to the city that they needed the shields up to save the planet once again as had been done thousands of years before when previous sunspots had proven a danger to life. I don't think the 'whales' were really sentient, McKay says it's in their genetic memory, so it was like an instinct, and even if The Ancients had been trying to communicate with them, there's no telling it would have been intelligent communication, even though it appeared they were trying to warn the city (and I was expecting the garbled speech to be slowed down or sped up, combined with the underwater acoustics á la 'Star Trek IV' and the whale probe).
The apparitions that begin to appear made a creepy slant, and I was expecting the three who'd been on the Jumper to have dropped into some parallel dimension or something along those lines - perhaps they'd be the only people unaffected by seeing the mysterious, ghostly figures. Otherwise it would be strange that Teyla would be the first to encounter the strangeness, and that would have accounted for the 'wrong' location of the city. But the episode doesn't follow the usual pattern for creepy episodes, despite it really being very chilling, mainly because of lack of understanding: not being able to communicate to, or read other people is a nightmarish scenario, especially when the visions are in such distress or horribly burned, so that side of the episode was successful in conveying horror and confusion. But then it goes nowhere as they pad the story out waiting for the real story to break through, and I thought it might not be quite such a good episode after all, despite the promising beginning. Fortunately I was wrong, and even though Caldwell raises the usual military response to anything they don't understand and says they should kill the dozens of whales heading for the city since they're making people so ill with their EM waves and such, they're able to come to an understanding of the situation as it really is and do something about it. The mission at the end to stand in the way of the radiation burst heading towards the planet, using the Daedalus' shields, boosted by the city's ZPM, was a beautiful moment, both visually and heroically speaking.
It almost glosses over the fact that it's a little hard to believe the radiation would shoot out and hit the planet when it was exactly in line with that burst, and when it was so relatively small that the Daedalus could stop it, but I think they did give the impression that it spreads out the further away from the sun it travelled. Other than that there were just the occasional little things like Sheppard suggesting he and Rodney take a Jumper and just jump over to see 'Sam,' McKay's beloved whale 'friend,' without a by-your-leave to Weir or anyone else. That, in truth was the most hard to accept moment in the episode since that's how they learn what's happening, so it was a little contrived. But it was a minor matter and couldn't cloud what became a solidly heartening story of the team solving a big problem with a ticking clock, as well as giving the planet Atlantis bestrides a little more character than just the massive orb of ocean it so often comes across as. By the way, what happened with the Athosians? I know they relocated in a recent episode when the last of The Ancients to be alive took over the place, and as an escape from the Replicators who followed shortly after, but does that mean they were permanently written out of the series and off the planet, since there was no mention of them here? I can't help feeling they were a piece of the series that never got its due, and Teyla may have suffered as a result, though at least she was integral to the story here in the sense she was the first to see the apparitions. You would think, though, that after so much has happened they'd take even the slightest sense of weirdness extremely seriously rather than just have her talk to Dr. Heightmeyer!
***
Unexpected, but like the plan they came up with, the story all comes together at the end, pleasingly and reassuringly: an ecological catastrophe, a planet-wide, all-life-ending extinction event, and good people working together to solve the problem… It's just like 'Star Trek'! Except Trek the way it used to be, the way it should be, and the way it rarely is now. This is so far from the grim, dark sci-fi we get all the time, bright, colourful and positive. If I didn't already watch all the old Trek series' on a loop I'd be getting nostalgic for the old days. But if it apes the kind of scientific problems Starfleet showed themselves at their best with, it also turned out to be a nice story for our 'Atlantis' characters, and once again gives them licence to display how well this little team has come to gel. Like the best of 'SG-1,' it feels like you're spending time with a family, whether they're caring for each other or ribbing each other, it's a lovely balance and has really made the series come alive, especially this season when the gradual buildup of the first two seasons has developed the bonds immeasurably between the main characters, making it a joy to spend time with them. And having a likeable group of characters is more than half the battle (as modern Trek has been shown wanting, much to its detriment!).
We all know Rodney (or Meredith as Sheppard reminds us again), will save the day with some unfeasibly complicated 'tech the tech' solution. We all know Sheppard will behave heroically to get him to that point where he can tech the tech. And we know the others will do their bit in whatever field they happen to work in. But the episode didn't start out that way, it appeared to be quite a different story to averting a natural disaster of such magnitude - for a start, at the start, we have a sulky Ronon, Zelenka and Sheppard travelling back to Atlantis after a camping trip of some kind - I didn't get the clue they dropped about the direction sensors not working properly so they were off course for the city, but that was the reason: the Atlantean whale fishes had already begun to send out their electromagnetic interference as part of the warning to the city that they needed the shields up to save the planet once again as had been done thousands of years before when previous sunspots had proven a danger to life. I don't think the 'whales' were really sentient, McKay says it's in their genetic memory, so it was like an instinct, and even if The Ancients had been trying to communicate with them, there's no telling it would have been intelligent communication, even though it appeared they were trying to warn the city (and I was expecting the garbled speech to be slowed down or sped up, combined with the underwater acoustics á la 'Star Trek IV' and the whale probe).
The apparitions that begin to appear made a creepy slant, and I was expecting the three who'd been on the Jumper to have dropped into some parallel dimension or something along those lines - perhaps they'd be the only people unaffected by seeing the mysterious, ghostly figures. Otherwise it would be strange that Teyla would be the first to encounter the strangeness, and that would have accounted for the 'wrong' location of the city. But the episode doesn't follow the usual pattern for creepy episodes, despite it really being very chilling, mainly because of lack of understanding: not being able to communicate to, or read other people is a nightmarish scenario, especially when the visions are in such distress or horribly burned, so that side of the episode was successful in conveying horror and confusion. But then it goes nowhere as they pad the story out waiting for the real story to break through, and I thought it might not be quite such a good episode after all, despite the promising beginning. Fortunately I was wrong, and even though Caldwell raises the usual military response to anything they don't understand and says they should kill the dozens of whales heading for the city since they're making people so ill with their EM waves and such, they're able to come to an understanding of the situation as it really is and do something about it. The mission at the end to stand in the way of the radiation burst heading towards the planet, using the Daedalus' shields, boosted by the city's ZPM, was a beautiful moment, both visually and heroically speaking.
It almost glosses over the fact that it's a little hard to believe the radiation would shoot out and hit the planet when it was exactly in line with that burst, and when it was so relatively small that the Daedalus could stop it, but I think they did give the impression that it spreads out the further away from the sun it travelled. Other than that there were just the occasional little things like Sheppard suggesting he and Rodney take a Jumper and just jump over to see 'Sam,' McKay's beloved whale 'friend,' without a by-your-leave to Weir or anyone else. That, in truth was the most hard to accept moment in the episode since that's how they learn what's happening, so it was a little contrived. But it was a minor matter and couldn't cloud what became a solidly heartening story of the team solving a big problem with a ticking clock, as well as giving the planet Atlantis bestrides a little more character than just the massive orb of ocean it so often comes across as. By the way, what happened with the Athosians? I know they relocated in a recent episode when the last of The Ancients to be alive took over the place, and as an escape from the Replicators who followed shortly after, but does that mean they were permanently written out of the series and off the planet, since there was no mention of them here? I can't help feeling they were a piece of the series that never got its due, and Teyla may have suffered as a result, though at least she was integral to the story here in the sense she was the first to see the apparitions. You would think, though, that after so much has happened they'd take even the slightest sense of weirdness extremely seriously rather than just have her talk to Dr. Heightmeyer!
***
The Changeling (2)
DVD, Star Trek S2 (The Changeling) (2)
I don't think the story of Nomad has a very close analogy with the mythical story of the fairy that replaces a human child, not unless the fairy had merged with the child to become a new entity. I suppose they were trying to add a bit of classical mythology to bulk out the story, which is really only a lot of waiting around until this probe from the 21st Century wises up to the fact it's been deceived. If it had only had some kind of interface with the Enterprise's computer then it would have learned everything it needed to know, wiped out the dirty biological infestation (hmm, now we know where V'ger got it's ideas from!), and went on its way back to Earth to sterilise the human vermin there. But what can you expect, even now we don't expect a Commodore Amiga from the early Nineties to connect to a MacBook of the now, so why would it be any different for computing devices centuries apart? Then again, Nomad could probably connect to a Mac since it was apparently launched in the early 2000s! I prefer to imagine when they said that they meant the early 21st Century, that way we have a little more wiggle room for it still to be launched. Unless… it really was launched already, but in secret. That's probably it. In any case it did interface with the Enterprise computer, but they had to sever the connection because it was taking data too quick for their computer to keep up, and we don't want Spock and Uhura to have to replace another communications circuit, do we!
It was very fortunate it didn't get data on Kirk's identity, but then that would probably be in a classified part of the databanks, not connected to the main library. What I love about the episode is how they assume it's some kind of ship full of tiny people. This was a great idea and I wish it had been true - it would have put an entirely different spin on the story, though I suspect they wouldn't have ever showed the microscopic aliens, merely had Nomad ferry them around as it did. So maybe it wouldn't have been so different after all. They wonder what could live in something as small as Nomad, but they must have forgotten Sylvia and Korob from 'Catspaw' whose true form was revealed at the end to be tiny little creatures. This could have been the sequel: their fellow Korobians or Sylvians had come looking for them at last! I really do like the design of Nomad, the flashing lights through tiny grilles, the shiny metal casing, the protruding sensor rods, all topped off with a deep voice that sounded suspiciously like 'Balok' ("We believe you have very little time left"). Nomad was actually voiced by Vic Perrin who is credited as 'Balok (Clint Howard's Voice)' in the 'Star Trek Encyclopedia' (as opposed to Ted Cassidy who voiced Balok's puppet), but isn't credited on Memory Alpha, where 'Walker Edmiston' is credited as the voice of Balok! I don't know what the truth of the matter is, but Nomad sure sounds like Balok! Perrin's tones would also be familiar for the voice of the Metrons and was finally seen as Tharn (and his Mirror counterpart), in 'Mirror, Mirror,' his first and only actual credited role on the series!
Having such a fruity voice coming from a small, hovering machine weirdly didn't make it seem ridiculous, it added some kind of depth of personality, a strong, authoritarian attitude to Nomad that is pleasingly held in check by the commands of Kirk. Otherwise it's extremely nosey, as you'd expect from a probe that was programmed to seek out new life and civilisations, to boldly go where Nomad has gone before! This causes some chaos to the ship, including the unfortunate loss of several Security Guards who hadn't been briefed that this little floaty mini-fridge which looks so harmless had almost taken out the entire ship with four shots! They might not have been so eager to pull a Phaser and start shooting if they had all the facts, I'm sure. There are a few mistakes that must be laid at Kirk's door in this episode: partly this, that his Security weren't very well informed and should have been warned not to stop Nomad leaving if it tried to, but to simply warn the Captain who could have stopped it with a simple instruction. But we had to see some people die otherwise we wouldn't have the sense of extreme threat from it - why did the Guards get vaporised yet Scotty, once again leaping in to save a fair maiden (sorry, neither!), where sensible men fear to tread, just as he did with Apollo, only gets flicked across the Bridge? In Scotty's case he was thrown back by touching Nomad's 'screens,' while the Guards were actually firing at Nomad, who responded in kind.
The other mistake, and one which the Captain acknowledges, is that he lets Nomad know that he is biological, too. I thought it was all part of the plan and this was when he planned to let rip with the finest display of logic this side of Mr. Spock, but it just came out in the heat of the moment. It's easy for us, sitting comfortably at home, and having seen this and many other similar episodes so many times, to almost be shouting at the screen, "Just confuse it by proving to it it's imperfect!" But Kirk hadn't used this tactic much before this time, it may even be the first time, though I'm not sure about that - was there a computer he talked down in 'A Taste of Armageddon,' and what about Landru in 'The Return of The Archons'? Either way, he didn't keep the logic card in his back pocket knowingly, he just had quick wits and the ability to seize on an opponent's weakness, only this time he was slow to do so. You'd expect Spock also to have thought of the logical solution in which to confuse it, but maybe he was still a little frazzled from mind-melding with the machine (another precursor to 'The Motion Picture'), where he couldn't actually pull his mind away and Kirk had to step in and order Nomad to release him. We don't usually see a mind meld backfire!
In the previous episode we'd been gifted some dates for the future chronology and now, thanks to mention of when Nomad launched we have another data point, so the history of the future was stacking up nicely, in spite of the series not yet really knowing when it was set. They were masters of giving out only little bits and pieces here and there so as not to write themselves into a corner, a practice that continued throughout the 'true' Trek period of '66-'05, but has sadly been one of the many conventions of Trek that has been chucked out with the current regime (things like saying the Federation and Klingons didn't have anything to do with each other since Captain Archer visited their homeworld, that sort of thing). It's said to be the first interstellar probe designed to seek out new lifeforms, although not having warp drive it's difficult to see how it managed this feat in the same way as I'm not sure why the Enterprise couldn't outrun it - sure, it can fire bolts of energy (which I mistakenly assumed was a ship, in the same style as some of the other alien vessels they presented), which travel as fast as Warp 15 (not forgetting they used a different scale at this time - do they use it in 'DSC'? Unclear since they rarely mention what speed they're travelling at, nor do they really need to use warp when they have instantaneous jumps), but could it travel that fast itself? Later, when Nomad's rootling around in Engineering, buzzing about like a curious bee, it does improve the engine capacity.
There is something of the magical fantasy tech that people sometimes complain about with the end of 'Voyager' and onward, since Nomad can fix both organic and mechanical problems simply by looking in their direction, seemingly - it carries out noninvasive surgery on Scotty to resurrect him, and again on the engines to improve them, without ever actually doing anything we can see. It does have its limits, however, as once it's wiped Uhura's memory it can't restore her 'hard drive.' If only this episode had taken place before the last couple of stories, then her absence in those would actually make a lot of sense and fit in neatly with the major misfortune she suffers here. Though it is said that she'll be back to normal by 'next week,' which sounds to me as if they were covering themselves so that when next week's episode came along and she was completely back to normal there would be no concern about it. The attack on her was one of the big missed opportunities on the series - it's good that something important happens to a background character, and there weren't ongoing consequences in those days in case the episodes needed to be shown in any order, but even in the space of this episode they could have dealt better with her reeducation. Instead, apart from the nice scene where Christine is teaching her to read, further suggesting a friendship there, it's played more for humour than tragedy. Did she only lose her ability to read and her learning, or did she lose all her memories and the sum of her life? In that case she could have become an entirely different person, and the whole episode could have been about this. It would have been absolutely tragic. There is a touch of hope, however, since she speaks a little Swahili (the only time she ever did?), her native tongue, which suggests she does retain her past memory in there somewhere.
If Uhura isn't used in the best way she could have been, at least she had a different role, Chekov didn't even get to appear - I do wonder why, since he was such a new character you'd think he'd be there every time. I can only assume they didn't have the budget to give every one of whom we think of as the main cast (the ones who went on to star in the films), a speaking role all the time, and perhaps with Chapel involved as well, Chekov got the boot this week - one of the Leslie boys sits in his seat, and in his colours too (which is how we know it can't be 'the' Mr. Leslie, since he wears red). Was that Lieutenant Palmer sitting in for Uhura at Communications? It's only that we see the back of this blonde lady, and the idea comes more easily since we see so much of the USS Constellation again from 'The Doomsday Machine,' the episode in which she appeared. Okay, so it isn't really that starship, we're given a cornucopia of sets to enjoy of our own Enterprise, but it was a bit disconcerting to see so many changes - perhaps there was some kind of upgrade between seasons because Engineering looks a lot different, and even the Transporter Room has an extra wall behind which is another science viewer - there are a lot of those, there's another one in Auxiliary Control where they show Nomad star charts of the Solar System. We even get the Brig, complete with glowing doorway to represent a forcefield, which Nomad easily pushes through. Had we seen the Brig before? I don't recall. But we see Nomad travelling up a maintenance shaft (I guess that's a Jefferies Tube, too), complete with Tri-ladder, and there's just a general great exposure to the various parts of the ship.
When Kirk and Spock head in to McCoy's office next to Sickbay they almost bump into the door as it refuses to open, one of the only times that ever happened, I'm sure! They really sold the movement of this machine, the strings upon which it dangles are cunningly hidden so that even if you're looking out for them they aren't easy to spot - they film it so well, often just hiding the very top where the lines are attached, and because the bulbous shape on top is about head height and almost looks like a face, complete with the 'eyes' of the sensor probes, you're automatically drawn to look at it, not to mention the blinking lights that also hold a fascination. I love how they show it moving through doors, out of Turbolifts, that sort of thing, cutting to a different shot to disguise the fact that it couldn't really have done that, or close-ups of it following characters. Presumably there was someone below camera holding it steady as Spock does his mind meld - it's all so cleverly and realistically done, it doesn't even rotate as you'd expect something hanging from a line would do, so it must have had two lines to steady it. A great piece of design. I also enjoyed hearing some technical details during the attack, something we're so used to in later series', but not so much in the original when things weren't as clear or tied down: Sulu says the shields just snapped on, does that mean the computer has automatic control if it detects potential threat? Spock says a fourth blast would 'shatter' the shields, does that mean they aren't energy, but some kind of ablative armour (like the Defiant), or was it just poetic licence? And Scotty has to do the age-old tactic of transferring power from engines to shields - a classic!
There's talk of the Malurians, who had all been destroyed - apparently they were being studied by a Federation science team, which suggests they might have been pre-warp, except we saw them in 'Enterprise' meddling in another (actual pre-warp), planet in 'Civilisation.' Unless they weren't being studied undercover, but with their full cooperation, which would explain it. It's funny, they do sound like a more modern-sounding alien race, not as common on 'TOS,' and I like that. I also like other bits and pieces about the episode: that Uhura goes back to her singing again, even though it prompts Nomad to travel all the way up to the Bridge from Auxiliary Control just to wipe her mind because it's inefficient (everyone's a critic!). If only Mr. Singh (Blaisdell Makee, who also played Spinelli in 'Space Seed') had been paying more attention he might have alerted them sooner and saved Uhura the inconvenience of having to learn everything all over again, though it does show what an intelligent lady she was that she could get through all her education so quickly, leading me to have no real worries about her future career in Starfleet. Kirk asking Nomad if it needs any special requirements before beaming aboard, such as a specific atmosphere, adds reality to the situation as you wouldn't expect aliens, especially ones they assume are tiny, to be able to live in exactly the same atmosphere as humanoid species, though I wonder how that would have played out if they, like Tholians, say, had required corrosive gases! And then there were the antigrav units Kirk and Spock use to rush the head-spinning Nomad to the Transporter (couldn't it have been beamed out from where it was?).
Even Kirk's little gag at the end when he starts talking about Nomad as if it were his son, and what a great doctor it might have been, must have prefigured his real, biological son David by a few years, so there are some fun references in retrospect (Symbalene Blood Burn is another - we eventually saw what this nasty pathogen could do in 'Cold Station 12' from 'Enterprise'), although this is the first entirely to be set on the ship without even a minor excursion to round out the slight feeling of closeness in the environment. Of course it only really feels slightly claustrophobic in comparison to the vast, ridiculous use of space in 'DSC,' another reality of Trek that was ruined by people that had no care for the timeline - even 'Enterprise' made sure to be even more cramped and submarine-like to represent an earlier period. But it is a good episode, it may be a cliche for Kirk to talk down an errant machine, but it wasn't so much of one at this point if you watch it in the context of the time. It uses most of the characters well, and it's different to have Kirk make mistakes and have to respond to something so different. I wish we'd heard of Jackson Roykirk in other Treks, but who knows, maybe one day we'll actually meet him since we met Zefram Cochrane, even though he was a much greater historical figure.
***
I don't think the story of Nomad has a very close analogy with the mythical story of the fairy that replaces a human child, not unless the fairy had merged with the child to become a new entity. I suppose they were trying to add a bit of classical mythology to bulk out the story, which is really only a lot of waiting around until this probe from the 21st Century wises up to the fact it's been deceived. If it had only had some kind of interface with the Enterprise's computer then it would have learned everything it needed to know, wiped out the dirty biological infestation (hmm, now we know where V'ger got it's ideas from!), and went on its way back to Earth to sterilise the human vermin there. But what can you expect, even now we don't expect a Commodore Amiga from the early Nineties to connect to a MacBook of the now, so why would it be any different for computing devices centuries apart? Then again, Nomad could probably connect to a Mac since it was apparently launched in the early 2000s! I prefer to imagine when they said that they meant the early 21st Century, that way we have a little more wiggle room for it still to be launched. Unless… it really was launched already, but in secret. That's probably it. In any case it did interface with the Enterprise computer, but they had to sever the connection because it was taking data too quick for their computer to keep up, and we don't want Spock and Uhura to have to replace another communications circuit, do we!
It was very fortunate it didn't get data on Kirk's identity, but then that would probably be in a classified part of the databanks, not connected to the main library. What I love about the episode is how they assume it's some kind of ship full of tiny people. This was a great idea and I wish it had been true - it would have put an entirely different spin on the story, though I suspect they wouldn't have ever showed the microscopic aliens, merely had Nomad ferry them around as it did. So maybe it wouldn't have been so different after all. They wonder what could live in something as small as Nomad, but they must have forgotten Sylvia and Korob from 'Catspaw' whose true form was revealed at the end to be tiny little creatures. This could have been the sequel: their fellow Korobians or Sylvians had come looking for them at last! I really do like the design of Nomad, the flashing lights through tiny grilles, the shiny metal casing, the protruding sensor rods, all topped off with a deep voice that sounded suspiciously like 'Balok' ("We believe you have very little time left"). Nomad was actually voiced by Vic Perrin who is credited as 'Balok (Clint Howard's Voice)' in the 'Star Trek Encyclopedia' (as opposed to Ted Cassidy who voiced Balok's puppet), but isn't credited on Memory Alpha, where 'Walker Edmiston' is credited as the voice of Balok! I don't know what the truth of the matter is, but Nomad sure sounds like Balok! Perrin's tones would also be familiar for the voice of the Metrons and was finally seen as Tharn (and his Mirror counterpart), in 'Mirror, Mirror,' his first and only actual credited role on the series!
Having such a fruity voice coming from a small, hovering machine weirdly didn't make it seem ridiculous, it added some kind of depth of personality, a strong, authoritarian attitude to Nomad that is pleasingly held in check by the commands of Kirk. Otherwise it's extremely nosey, as you'd expect from a probe that was programmed to seek out new life and civilisations, to boldly go where Nomad has gone before! This causes some chaos to the ship, including the unfortunate loss of several Security Guards who hadn't been briefed that this little floaty mini-fridge which looks so harmless had almost taken out the entire ship with four shots! They might not have been so eager to pull a Phaser and start shooting if they had all the facts, I'm sure. There are a few mistakes that must be laid at Kirk's door in this episode: partly this, that his Security weren't very well informed and should have been warned not to stop Nomad leaving if it tried to, but to simply warn the Captain who could have stopped it with a simple instruction. But we had to see some people die otherwise we wouldn't have the sense of extreme threat from it - why did the Guards get vaporised yet Scotty, once again leaping in to save a fair maiden (sorry, neither!), where sensible men fear to tread, just as he did with Apollo, only gets flicked across the Bridge? In Scotty's case he was thrown back by touching Nomad's 'screens,' while the Guards were actually firing at Nomad, who responded in kind.
The other mistake, and one which the Captain acknowledges, is that he lets Nomad know that he is biological, too. I thought it was all part of the plan and this was when he planned to let rip with the finest display of logic this side of Mr. Spock, but it just came out in the heat of the moment. It's easy for us, sitting comfortably at home, and having seen this and many other similar episodes so many times, to almost be shouting at the screen, "Just confuse it by proving to it it's imperfect!" But Kirk hadn't used this tactic much before this time, it may even be the first time, though I'm not sure about that - was there a computer he talked down in 'A Taste of Armageddon,' and what about Landru in 'The Return of The Archons'? Either way, he didn't keep the logic card in his back pocket knowingly, he just had quick wits and the ability to seize on an opponent's weakness, only this time he was slow to do so. You'd expect Spock also to have thought of the logical solution in which to confuse it, but maybe he was still a little frazzled from mind-melding with the machine (another precursor to 'The Motion Picture'), where he couldn't actually pull his mind away and Kirk had to step in and order Nomad to release him. We don't usually see a mind meld backfire!
In the previous episode we'd been gifted some dates for the future chronology and now, thanks to mention of when Nomad launched we have another data point, so the history of the future was stacking up nicely, in spite of the series not yet really knowing when it was set. They were masters of giving out only little bits and pieces here and there so as not to write themselves into a corner, a practice that continued throughout the 'true' Trek period of '66-'05, but has sadly been one of the many conventions of Trek that has been chucked out with the current regime (things like saying the Federation and Klingons didn't have anything to do with each other since Captain Archer visited their homeworld, that sort of thing). It's said to be the first interstellar probe designed to seek out new lifeforms, although not having warp drive it's difficult to see how it managed this feat in the same way as I'm not sure why the Enterprise couldn't outrun it - sure, it can fire bolts of energy (which I mistakenly assumed was a ship, in the same style as some of the other alien vessels they presented), which travel as fast as Warp 15 (not forgetting they used a different scale at this time - do they use it in 'DSC'? Unclear since they rarely mention what speed they're travelling at, nor do they really need to use warp when they have instantaneous jumps), but could it travel that fast itself? Later, when Nomad's rootling around in Engineering, buzzing about like a curious bee, it does improve the engine capacity.
There is something of the magical fantasy tech that people sometimes complain about with the end of 'Voyager' and onward, since Nomad can fix both organic and mechanical problems simply by looking in their direction, seemingly - it carries out noninvasive surgery on Scotty to resurrect him, and again on the engines to improve them, without ever actually doing anything we can see. It does have its limits, however, as once it's wiped Uhura's memory it can't restore her 'hard drive.' If only this episode had taken place before the last couple of stories, then her absence in those would actually make a lot of sense and fit in neatly with the major misfortune she suffers here. Though it is said that she'll be back to normal by 'next week,' which sounds to me as if they were covering themselves so that when next week's episode came along and she was completely back to normal there would be no concern about it. The attack on her was one of the big missed opportunities on the series - it's good that something important happens to a background character, and there weren't ongoing consequences in those days in case the episodes needed to be shown in any order, but even in the space of this episode they could have dealt better with her reeducation. Instead, apart from the nice scene where Christine is teaching her to read, further suggesting a friendship there, it's played more for humour than tragedy. Did she only lose her ability to read and her learning, or did she lose all her memories and the sum of her life? In that case she could have become an entirely different person, and the whole episode could have been about this. It would have been absolutely tragic. There is a touch of hope, however, since she speaks a little Swahili (the only time she ever did?), her native tongue, which suggests she does retain her past memory in there somewhere.
If Uhura isn't used in the best way she could have been, at least she had a different role, Chekov didn't even get to appear - I do wonder why, since he was such a new character you'd think he'd be there every time. I can only assume they didn't have the budget to give every one of whom we think of as the main cast (the ones who went on to star in the films), a speaking role all the time, and perhaps with Chapel involved as well, Chekov got the boot this week - one of the Leslie boys sits in his seat, and in his colours too (which is how we know it can't be 'the' Mr. Leslie, since he wears red). Was that Lieutenant Palmer sitting in for Uhura at Communications? It's only that we see the back of this blonde lady, and the idea comes more easily since we see so much of the USS Constellation again from 'The Doomsday Machine,' the episode in which she appeared. Okay, so it isn't really that starship, we're given a cornucopia of sets to enjoy of our own Enterprise, but it was a bit disconcerting to see so many changes - perhaps there was some kind of upgrade between seasons because Engineering looks a lot different, and even the Transporter Room has an extra wall behind which is another science viewer - there are a lot of those, there's another one in Auxiliary Control where they show Nomad star charts of the Solar System. We even get the Brig, complete with glowing doorway to represent a forcefield, which Nomad easily pushes through. Had we seen the Brig before? I don't recall. But we see Nomad travelling up a maintenance shaft (I guess that's a Jefferies Tube, too), complete with Tri-ladder, and there's just a general great exposure to the various parts of the ship.
When Kirk and Spock head in to McCoy's office next to Sickbay they almost bump into the door as it refuses to open, one of the only times that ever happened, I'm sure! They really sold the movement of this machine, the strings upon which it dangles are cunningly hidden so that even if you're looking out for them they aren't easy to spot - they film it so well, often just hiding the very top where the lines are attached, and because the bulbous shape on top is about head height and almost looks like a face, complete with the 'eyes' of the sensor probes, you're automatically drawn to look at it, not to mention the blinking lights that also hold a fascination. I love how they show it moving through doors, out of Turbolifts, that sort of thing, cutting to a different shot to disguise the fact that it couldn't really have done that, or close-ups of it following characters. Presumably there was someone below camera holding it steady as Spock does his mind meld - it's all so cleverly and realistically done, it doesn't even rotate as you'd expect something hanging from a line would do, so it must have had two lines to steady it. A great piece of design. I also enjoyed hearing some technical details during the attack, something we're so used to in later series', but not so much in the original when things weren't as clear or tied down: Sulu says the shields just snapped on, does that mean the computer has automatic control if it detects potential threat? Spock says a fourth blast would 'shatter' the shields, does that mean they aren't energy, but some kind of ablative armour (like the Defiant), or was it just poetic licence? And Scotty has to do the age-old tactic of transferring power from engines to shields - a classic!
There's talk of the Malurians, who had all been destroyed - apparently they were being studied by a Federation science team, which suggests they might have been pre-warp, except we saw them in 'Enterprise' meddling in another (actual pre-warp), planet in 'Civilisation.' Unless they weren't being studied undercover, but with their full cooperation, which would explain it. It's funny, they do sound like a more modern-sounding alien race, not as common on 'TOS,' and I like that. I also like other bits and pieces about the episode: that Uhura goes back to her singing again, even though it prompts Nomad to travel all the way up to the Bridge from Auxiliary Control just to wipe her mind because it's inefficient (everyone's a critic!). If only Mr. Singh (Blaisdell Makee, who also played Spinelli in 'Space Seed') had been paying more attention he might have alerted them sooner and saved Uhura the inconvenience of having to learn everything all over again, though it does show what an intelligent lady she was that she could get through all her education so quickly, leading me to have no real worries about her future career in Starfleet. Kirk asking Nomad if it needs any special requirements before beaming aboard, such as a specific atmosphere, adds reality to the situation as you wouldn't expect aliens, especially ones they assume are tiny, to be able to live in exactly the same atmosphere as humanoid species, though I wonder how that would have played out if they, like Tholians, say, had required corrosive gases! And then there were the antigrav units Kirk and Spock use to rush the head-spinning Nomad to the Transporter (couldn't it have been beamed out from where it was?).
Even Kirk's little gag at the end when he starts talking about Nomad as if it were his son, and what a great doctor it might have been, must have prefigured his real, biological son David by a few years, so there are some fun references in retrospect (Symbalene Blood Burn is another - we eventually saw what this nasty pathogen could do in 'Cold Station 12' from 'Enterprise'), although this is the first entirely to be set on the ship without even a minor excursion to round out the slight feeling of closeness in the environment. Of course it only really feels slightly claustrophobic in comparison to the vast, ridiculous use of space in 'DSC,' another reality of Trek that was ruined by people that had no care for the timeline - even 'Enterprise' made sure to be even more cramped and submarine-like to represent an earlier period. But it is a good episode, it may be a cliche for Kirk to talk down an errant machine, but it wasn't so much of one at this point if you watch it in the context of the time. It uses most of the characters well, and it's different to have Kirk make mistakes and have to respond to something so different. I wish we'd heard of Jackson Roykirk in other Treks, but who knows, maybe one day we'll actually meet him since we met Zefram Cochrane, even though he was a much greater historical figure.
***
The Return Part II
DVD, Stargate Atlantis S3 (The Return Part II)
As expected, it doesn't quite live up to Part I, but they made a concerted stab at it. I think I counted five plans in total, and that was the point, to use Wolsey as a dupe for the Replicators to think he knew the plan was to plant C4 and blow up the shield when activated (Plan C), when really it was a secret plan to insert the anti-Replicator weapons' crystals into the mechanism so that it would send out one burst when the shields were activated, taking out all the Replicators in one go (Plan D?). There was one flaw in the plan, and that was that the enemy needed to turn on the shields while the door to their cell was open, otherwise they'd have been stuck inside with no way of contacting Commander Caldwell who was coming to carry out Plan F, as in last resort, fail (nuke the city to kingdom come). Fortunately, and because it would be the end of the series otherwise, the Replicators were talking to them with the door open at the time and so it ended happily, even after Plan A had to be abandoned (retrieve Nium, the Replicator left floating in space earlier in the season, to implant a command into the whole hive mind system), and Plan B was only going to work for a short while: shoot as many of them as possible until they adjusted to the frequency of the special weapons. If there was any doubt that the Replicators were modelled on Trek's Borg, this cements it, as that's exactly the way Starfleet crews always dealt with the cybernetic race, a rotating frequency on the Phasers which would be compromised after a few shots because they would adapt.
Unfortunately, the Replicators have never held the creepiness and relentlessness of that famed race, and that was even more apparent in this episode in which the villains are mainly faceless, and even the two 'main' leaders have no character to them. This suits the Replicator style, but it doesn't make for great opposition in acting, a mark against the episode. Another mark against it, or should I say marks, are the easy way they dispense with certain key particulars such as the destruction of the 'gate room, the disposal of The Ancients and the reinstatement of Weir and her team, despite going against orders. Let's deal with the first point: they are on a budget, it can be easy to forget that when they're having completely CG Jumper chases round the spires of the city as drones try to take them down, reminiscent of the Millennium Falcon outrunning TIE Fighters in the asteroid field of 'The Empire Strikes Back.' Then there were the scenes in which General O'Neill gets to remind us that he can still pull his weight in the action sequences when they have him repeatedly swimming into an underwater set to access the controls which will let Weir's Jumper in. That was a great scene, or series of scenes (I tried holding my breath as long as he was, and I was just reclining comfortably and couldn't keep it up!), not the first time they've had characters completely submerged underwater, but it's been a while since O'Neill had to do anything so physical and it made it seem like 'SG-1' was still going strong (even though he's not a part of it now).
O'Neill and Wolsey made a fun pairing, and it was nice to see Dr. Lee again, as well as Landry and Walter, furthering the sense of a greater world these 'Atlantis' characters are joined to. But back to my point, while there was money on the screen, the fact that we never got to see the Atlantis 'gate room either completely destroyed (apart from an external view, much easier to accomplish), or in some state of disrepair, it did lessen the impression of stakes to some degree. The second problem was that these Ancients were supposed to be the last in existence and they're all wiped out offscreen as if they were the unimportant secondary characters that they were in the context of a TV production, when they should have been integral celebrities. I understand that they had to restore the status quo by the end of the episode (but did they really? Could we not have seen some survivors, and some rebuilding of the damaged city?), but to summarily execute all these Ancients whom are like meeting famous people from history, was a bad move and a shortcut, making the story seem shallower. And thirdly, perhaps the team's reinstatement could have been in some doubt, at least for an episode or two. They hadn't gone the completely serialised route, and I like that, they have enough continuity, yet also get in standalone episodes that tie in somewhat, but this was such a big deal, the overriding of orders, the risks and the dangers, that there should have been some consequences, no matter if they were overcome within an episode or two down the line.
If these problems had been fixed it would still not have been as good as the first part, but it would have been elevated to a higher level than it was, instead of seeming rushed and simplistic. But I did quite enjoy it, again the character work and the interplay between them bonds the group together and the twist of a deliberate ploy to feed O'Neill and Wolsey misinformation, with a stylistic whizz back to the scene where we left them discussing the plan, was ingenious, even if I did wonder if something had gone wrong with my DVD for a second or two! Then I thought there was some weird time anomaly occurring until I realised it was just a stylistic choice. But there was a flair to proceedings, even if it did slow down at points when they could have kept things tighter and spared more time at the end for more of a resolution instead of O'Neill just granting Weir absolution for all past sins of her and her team. Otherwise, close to being one of the better episodes of the season, but, as Rodney said, no cigar.
**
As expected, it doesn't quite live up to Part I, but they made a concerted stab at it. I think I counted five plans in total, and that was the point, to use Wolsey as a dupe for the Replicators to think he knew the plan was to plant C4 and blow up the shield when activated (Plan C), when really it was a secret plan to insert the anti-Replicator weapons' crystals into the mechanism so that it would send out one burst when the shields were activated, taking out all the Replicators in one go (Plan D?). There was one flaw in the plan, and that was that the enemy needed to turn on the shields while the door to their cell was open, otherwise they'd have been stuck inside with no way of contacting Commander Caldwell who was coming to carry out Plan F, as in last resort, fail (nuke the city to kingdom come). Fortunately, and because it would be the end of the series otherwise, the Replicators were talking to them with the door open at the time and so it ended happily, even after Plan A had to be abandoned (retrieve Nium, the Replicator left floating in space earlier in the season, to implant a command into the whole hive mind system), and Plan B was only going to work for a short while: shoot as many of them as possible until they adjusted to the frequency of the special weapons. If there was any doubt that the Replicators were modelled on Trek's Borg, this cements it, as that's exactly the way Starfleet crews always dealt with the cybernetic race, a rotating frequency on the Phasers which would be compromised after a few shots because they would adapt.
Unfortunately, the Replicators have never held the creepiness and relentlessness of that famed race, and that was even more apparent in this episode in which the villains are mainly faceless, and even the two 'main' leaders have no character to them. This suits the Replicator style, but it doesn't make for great opposition in acting, a mark against the episode. Another mark against it, or should I say marks, are the easy way they dispense with certain key particulars such as the destruction of the 'gate room, the disposal of The Ancients and the reinstatement of Weir and her team, despite going against orders. Let's deal with the first point: they are on a budget, it can be easy to forget that when they're having completely CG Jumper chases round the spires of the city as drones try to take them down, reminiscent of the Millennium Falcon outrunning TIE Fighters in the asteroid field of 'The Empire Strikes Back.' Then there were the scenes in which General O'Neill gets to remind us that he can still pull his weight in the action sequences when they have him repeatedly swimming into an underwater set to access the controls which will let Weir's Jumper in. That was a great scene, or series of scenes (I tried holding my breath as long as he was, and I was just reclining comfortably and couldn't keep it up!), not the first time they've had characters completely submerged underwater, but it's been a while since O'Neill had to do anything so physical and it made it seem like 'SG-1' was still going strong (even though he's not a part of it now).
O'Neill and Wolsey made a fun pairing, and it was nice to see Dr. Lee again, as well as Landry and Walter, furthering the sense of a greater world these 'Atlantis' characters are joined to. But back to my point, while there was money on the screen, the fact that we never got to see the Atlantis 'gate room either completely destroyed (apart from an external view, much easier to accomplish), or in some state of disrepair, it did lessen the impression of stakes to some degree. The second problem was that these Ancients were supposed to be the last in existence and they're all wiped out offscreen as if they were the unimportant secondary characters that they were in the context of a TV production, when they should have been integral celebrities. I understand that they had to restore the status quo by the end of the episode (but did they really? Could we not have seen some survivors, and some rebuilding of the damaged city?), but to summarily execute all these Ancients whom are like meeting famous people from history, was a bad move and a shortcut, making the story seem shallower. And thirdly, perhaps the team's reinstatement could have been in some doubt, at least for an episode or two. They hadn't gone the completely serialised route, and I like that, they have enough continuity, yet also get in standalone episodes that tie in somewhat, but this was such a big deal, the overriding of orders, the risks and the dangers, that there should have been some consequences, no matter if they were overcome within an episode or two down the line.
If these problems had been fixed it would still not have been as good as the first part, but it would have been elevated to a higher level than it was, instead of seeming rushed and simplistic. But I did quite enjoy it, again the character work and the interplay between them bonds the group together and the twist of a deliberate ploy to feed O'Neill and Wolsey misinformation, with a stylistic whizz back to the scene where we left them discussing the plan, was ingenious, even if I did wonder if something had gone wrong with my DVD for a second or two! Then I thought there was some weird time anomaly occurring until I realised it was just a stylistic choice. But there was a flair to proceedings, even if it did slow down at points when they could have kept things tighter and spared more time at the end for more of a resolution instead of O'Neill just granting Weir absolution for all past sins of her and her team. Otherwise, close to being one of the better episodes of the season, but, as Rodney said, no cigar.
**
Wolf in The Fold
DVD, Star Trek S2 (Wolf in The Fold)
A bit of 'The Conscience of The King,' a bit of 'Court Martial,' a little of the Risa episodes in later Trek, and even a sprig of 'Justice' from 'TNG,' but at heart it's really a good old murder mystery - old in the sense that the killer is from the 19th Century, and probably even earlier. But Jack The Ripper is the real world historical figure this episode ties into and it's always a good idea to connect to real history as it gives Trek's future chronology a ring of truth and makes it seem more a continuation of our own timeline than some distant sci-fi creation, one of its strengths and delights. They'd already dealt with a figure from their own past this season with Zefram Cochrane of the 21st Century (and far in advance of the time it was made in the 1960s), and now we get a rundown of historical data points beyond the contemporary time of production, beginning with 1974, going on to 2105 and even 2156. This kind of thing excites me, again, much like connecting to the real past, creating a 'real' past that is still in our future is another trick the whole franchise has used to make us feel it's more tied to reality than fiction. The history here is very specific, examples of recorded incidents of multiple killings of women. You could say it's surprisingly rare, but they must have been focusing on examples of higher numbers of killings, not every multiple murder, and there could have been others that were never recorded in history, or records could be fragmentary from such periods, we don't know (the computer even says there are other examples).
Interestingly, despite the addition of Chekov to the cast, they place the 1974 murders in the USSR, suggesting that even in Trek's world they were still biased against their enemies, as you would expect - rather than place this fictional future spate of killings in the USA they make it there, as it wouldn't be very nice to think that such a thing was scheduled in your audience's country! Maybe that's why Chekov didn't appear in the episode, they didn't want him there to refute it? The 1974 reference, seven years in the future at the time of this episode's production was only the least fascinating, as the next date we're given is 2105, the dawn of the 22nd Century, pre-Federation, even pre-Starfleet - we never got a founding date for that organisation, though thanks to 'Enterprise' we know it predated the Federation itself, even though it became the arm through which that body carried out its security and diplomacy. We at least know that the discussed mission to Mars in real life which has been in the planning for years will eventually come to pass (even if we didn't know about 'Voyager' episode 'One Small Step' about the 2032 mission), because by 2105 there is a Martian colony established! Who knows… The best data point is 2156 when another of these incidents took place at Heliopolis on Alpha Eridani II - just imagine if 'Enterprise' had survived to its sixth season, it could have made a great prequel where they visit this planet and are there for the murders, although of course they'd never find out who the killer was in the sense that it was an energy creature, maybe only the physical host, the creature escaping.
As it is, 'Enterprise' never got a sixth season, never visited Alpha Eridani II, never encountered the being known as Redjac, or at least, as far as we know, since although we never saw what the NX-01 did in 2156 (come on CBS, revive it!), and it would probably have been busy at the time of the Romulan War, it was at least still in operation. But enough about other series', it's 'TOS' that matters here, and Scotty that matters most - he was really coming into his own as a character this season having been little more than a glorified extra much of the time before, he's had more to do and more exploration, even if it has been slanted towards his affection for the opposite sex. The setup for the story was a trifle bizarre: Scotty suffered some kind of an injury due to an explosion that was caused (presumably, hopefully, otherwise it's much more serious!), by the incompetence or negligence of a female member of the crew. Because of this, McCoy believes he may harbour resentment against all women due to a bump on the head. I understand that it was for dramatic purposes to make Scott look guilty in the light of what happens in the episode, but it's probably more unrealistic than most of the technology on display! Scotty never even seems like the sort who would hold a grudge - granted, we hadn't yet seen him brawl with Klingons that insulted his ship, and he is a bit of a bruiser, but his character always appears to be very transparent and right on the surface, not the type to brood or harbour secret resentments, far from it!
Perhaps it would have been better to do this episode with someone else as the man under suspicion, I'm not sure who. Maybe Sulu or Chekov, though they also show enthusiasm or professionalism more than anything deep and dark. 'Trials and Tribble-ations' summed up the open, simple attitude of Starfleet officers we saw in its depiction of an Engineer Bashir and O'Brien encounter: completely guileless and fresh-faced. In that sense I suppose they did choose the right character as Scott is one of the older bods aboard, and only Dr. McCoy would really suit in the same role and then who would you have to go round sticking everyone with happy drugs to stop them becoming afeared of this evil entity that takes over the ship? You can have your evil entities laughing maniacally, or your devilish-looking Prefect Jaris (actor Charles Macauley in his second role after Landru in 'The Return of The Archons'), with his thin grey beard and swept back hair (like the original Master in 'Dr. Who' or Ra's Al Ghul from Batman), but the truly most horrifying thing in this episode are the drugged up Enterprise crew themselves! Sulu in particular becomes this creepy loon, and even the usually gruff McCoy is some kind of free spirit floating about. It's an incredibly Sixties resolution and is just plain weird to modern eyes. It's not that they were given something to affect their mood, it's the extent to which they seem to go high that makes it so off-key compared with the rest of the story where murder could happen at any moment. They pulled a similar stunt at the end of 'Day of The Dove,' but at least to defeat the entity there that similarly fed on negative emotions, Kirk and the Klingons roar with laughter and generally react through natural means rather than chemical!
The episode does seem to be a source of much inspiration or the use of much from other episodes. I mentioned 'The Conscience of The King,' and that was something of a template for this one, it would appear, though it had a little more depth to it. 'Obsession,' about another murdering non-physical creature, would be coming up soon in the season and I really wanted Kirk to mention that entity as one he'd encountered when they're discussing similar creatures known in nature - I feel sure this episode may have sparked off the idea for that one. Then there's 'Operation -- Annihilate!' where the nasty vermin there made a steady journey from one planet to another since they weren't space-borne creatures, the same thing happened with Redjac, or Jack The Ripper, or whatever other names were applied to it. I also mentioned 'Justice' of 'TNG,' an infamous first season example for various reasons, but also an important engagement with a planet's harsh laws and the decision to obey them. In that case it was pretty ludicrous since Wesley is sentenced to death for accidentally walking into a forbidden zone that he and his playmates were allowed to play near without any warning about the potentially fatal consequences of trespass, but the similarity of Kirk's decision stands: he informs Spock when the First Officer suggests beaming Scott away so they can administer their own tests aboard the Enterprise, but Kirk says they must respect Argelian laws.
There was the implication of some political necessity to keep on the right side of the Argelians since their planet is the only spaceport in the 'quadrant' as the Prefect puts it. He obviously didn't mean the Alpha (or even Beta), Quadrant, but 'sector' would probably have been a more suitable descriptor - the writers of 'TOS' had no idea that the galaxy was going to be divided up into four segments or Quadrants in later Trek and that we'd consider everything that went on as happening largely in the Alpha Quadrant, it was just one of those things that came to be defined over time. But however large this 'quadrant' the Argelians refer to, it's clear that it's important for the Starfleet to have access, so Kirk isn't about to risk that by overriding their laws and using his might, yet another one in the eye for those believing Kirk is a rogue, a renegade, a loose cannon who does what he pleases, when he pleases. Sure, his womanising side gets an outing at the end when he's so eager to go to this particular bar full of women at the end, but his diplomatic side remains intact! It would have been great if they could have mentioned the Klingons as having interests in the area, we'd already had one encounter with the Federation's enemy in 'Friday's Child' this season, and would again in 'The Trouble With Tribbles' - the ongoing unrest between the empires was one of those things that added to Trek's impression of continuity, even if there wasn't a lot of direct recurring stories or characters happening in the series, there was still a sense of tensions between two powers and the political needs when dealing with planets.
The similarities between this and 'Justice' continue: Argelius II shares the same kind of hedonistic society as Rubicun III, and the same sense of extreme justice which is a bit like the Vulcans and their general extreme control, followed by the Pon Farr where all their pent-up violence is released. The Argelians, who are said to have empathic abilities (they should have made Troi half-Argelian!), love pleasure above all else, and much like Risa thrive on sharing such things with guests. This suggests that a world of pleasure-seeking is a world doomed to forever seeking and never finding and that this is why places like Argelius II and Risa need fresh visitors all the time, because they don't have a 'soul' to their planet and are always looking for something new and desire to share their debauchery. Of course Roddenberry was all about such things and shows it as positive, but the reality can't help but creep in: although the idea that the Argelians need to hire outsiders to fill positions of administration was designed for the needs of the story, since Hengist, the host of Redjac, was the vessel in which it came to this planet, it also shows that there can be no discipline and ambition where the desire for pleasure is the paramount goal, so it makes complete sense that the natives would either have no interest in boring, but necessary bureaucracy, or that, as is said, they're inefficient, putting it kindly! Risa is another place that showed hedonism in a bad light, in spite of the makers attempts to portray it as a great place to go, and positively promoting its excesses, especially by its reputation in Starfleet as such a fun location for holidays.
The hedonism is markedly restrained in this episode since it was produced at a time when standards were still in place, though this has clearly eroded thanks to the power of streaming services who can be their own boss in terms of what content gets through, which has led to increasingly explicit films and series' so the standard has to constantly become more gruesome or explicit in order to keep attentions of those that have become accustomed or hardened to what they see depicted. In 'TOS,' half-naked dancing was the metaphor for such hedonistic society as we saw before with Vina as an Orion 'Animal Woman' in 'The Cage' - they even play the same music over this dancer, and probably some of those cushions they were sitting on would have been the same, too! The dancing did go on rather long, we got the point, but it's a bit of a strange one: McCoy thinks Scotty's interest in the dancer will cure him of any resentment to the fairer sex he may have picked up from his accident - it doesn't make any sense. I already pointed out that Mr. Scott isn't the type to bear a grudge, unless this woman deliberately endangered him (another to spurn him this season, and with no Greek god in sight?), and there doesn't seem to be any reason he would be full of anger towards all women, more likely that he'd be angry with the particular one responsible. They try to cover the ridiculousness by talking of the bump on the head so I think they're saying it could all be subconscious, but even so… Let's take him to meet a fancy dancer and then everything will be fine!
Like the Edo in 'Justice,' punishment is severe. In the Argelians' case it's a slow torture until death, again to raise the stakes, but death itself was bad enough. Weirdly, you can imagine someone like the Prefect overseeing such a sentence, as reluctantly as he'd do it, judging by the way he barely shows any feeling (except in the background in the immediate aftermath where he's seen to be bent over in pain), after his wife has been murdered right in front of him! He was probably meant to be a suspect, just as we see the four residents of the planet sitting in a line in the Briefing Room - here comes the 'Court Martial' connection. Trial by computer, or perhaps an inquest. Majel Barrett got to work overtime here as this must be the most the computer has had to say in all the episodes so far. There are people taking the stand and being read by the computer, and though 'TOS' may look a bit dated in the decades after its creation, and we've become accustomed to the amazing advances they posited with warp travel and instantaneous transportation, the computer is still far ahead of what we can accomplish now - there are simple thing such as, essentially, lie detection as the computer keeps saying there are no physiological changes in the testifier, but it's also instructed to do things like review the last few minutes of discussion and formulate a response, it answers specific questions and general questions and generally shows a degree of intelligence that was as futuristic as the other wonders of technology on display in the series.
The downside is that a computer that powerful, which controls every aspect of the ship can be a liability when a murderous entity chooses it as home. Perhaps that should have been played up a little more, but then Redjac required the people aboard to become fearful so it could gain in strength (there's a lesson there - being afraid only allows your enemy power over you), so it wasn't in its interests to cut life support or plunge Kirk and Spock to their deaths in the Turbolift. That was a scene that could have been more dramatic, but for once they take a much more realistic approach. Because of course a Turbolift couldn't go into free fall for long enough that it would make suspenseful drama, it would be mere seconds for it to drop to the bottom of the shaft (or, if we believe the 'DSC' universe, the ridiculous roller-coaster of empty space that apparently uses up the majority of the ship's internal volume!), so they sacrificed drama for reality there (although a similar scene was achieved in 'Crossfire' on 'DS9,' many years later). What we do get to see is another internal view of a computer console, this time it's not Uhura's Communications station, but the Life Support station, a couple of consoles to the right of the Engineering station, with the same cool view looking out at them from inside. Uhura is once again absent, some bloke sitting in her chair this week, so I wonder what that was all about?
The fate of Redjac is to be transported out into space by wide dispersion, the first we've heard of this capability I think, and shows just what a terrible weapon the Transporter could be if in the wrong hands. Transporter Chief Kyle is the one manning the station again, but he's too full of high spirits after being hypo-sprayed to be much use so Spock just shoves him out of the way! It was at least a genuinely amusing end to the episode instead of some laugh about trivia: Kirk wants to go to his famous women's bar, and everyone but Spock is giddy with drugs, so he has to make do with not going after all. It was an ending, what can I say. I wouldn't call this one of the best episodes, but it's at the right level of quality with nice sets and direction, a story that has you wondering, if you don't already know, and even when you know the outcome (and I always remembered Hengist was the villain), keeps your attention. The moment when the dead Hengist suddenly leaps to his feet from the Briefing Room table to grab an unsuspecting female crewmember was great, though slightly undermined by the fact she found it funny due to the effects of the drug McCoy had given her, and Hengist madly leaping and fighting like a caged beast was too easily noticeable as being performed by a stuntman in a rather shiny bald cap. But the general atmosphere of horror is well played and we haven't seen so much fog since, ooh, 'Catspaw.' For me, it's all the connections to other episodes, if only in tone and similarity, that makes it more enjoyable, as well as the historical notes that serve to enhance the series' sense of time and place.
***
A bit of 'The Conscience of The King,' a bit of 'Court Martial,' a little of the Risa episodes in later Trek, and even a sprig of 'Justice' from 'TNG,' but at heart it's really a good old murder mystery - old in the sense that the killer is from the 19th Century, and probably even earlier. But Jack The Ripper is the real world historical figure this episode ties into and it's always a good idea to connect to real history as it gives Trek's future chronology a ring of truth and makes it seem more a continuation of our own timeline than some distant sci-fi creation, one of its strengths and delights. They'd already dealt with a figure from their own past this season with Zefram Cochrane of the 21st Century (and far in advance of the time it was made in the 1960s), and now we get a rundown of historical data points beyond the contemporary time of production, beginning with 1974, going on to 2105 and even 2156. This kind of thing excites me, again, much like connecting to the real past, creating a 'real' past that is still in our future is another trick the whole franchise has used to make us feel it's more tied to reality than fiction. The history here is very specific, examples of recorded incidents of multiple killings of women. You could say it's surprisingly rare, but they must have been focusing on examples of higher numbers of killings, not every multiple murder, and there could have been others that were never recorded in history, or records could be fragmentary from such periods, we don't know (the computer even says there are other examples).
Interestingly, despite the addition of Chekov to the cast, they place the 1974 murders in the USSR, suggesting that even in Trek's world they were still biased against their enemies, as you would expect - rather than place this fictional future spate of killings in the USA they make it there, as it wouldn't be very nice to think that such a thing was scheduled in your audience's country! Maybe that's why Chekov didn't appear in the episode, they didn't want him there to refute it? The 1974 reference, seven years in the future at the time of this episode's production was only the least fascinating, as the next date we're given is 2105, the dawn of the 22nd Century, pre-Federation, even pre-Starfleet - we never got a founding date for that organisation, though thanks to 'Enterprise' we know it predated the Federation itself, even though it became the arm through which that body carried out its security and diplomacy. We at least know that the discussed mission to Mars in real life which has been in the planning for years will eventually come to pass (even if we didn't know about 'Voyager' episode 'One Small Step' about the 2032 mission), because by 2105 there is a Martian colony established! Who knows… The best data point is 2156 when another of these incidents took place at Heliopolis on Alpha Eridani II - just imagine if 'Enterprise' had survived to its sixth season, it could have made a great prequel where they visit this planet and are there for the murders, although of course they'd never find out who the killer was in the sense that it was an energy creature, maybe only the physical host, the creature escaping.
As it is, 'Enterprise' never got a sixth season, never visited Alpha Eridani II, never encountered the being known as Redjac, or at least, as far as we know, since although we never saw what the NX-01 did in 2156 (come on CBS, revive it!), and it would probably have been busy at the time of the Romulan War, it was at least still in operation. But enough about other series', it's 'TOS' that matters here, and Scotty that matters most - he was really coming into his own as a character this season having been little more than a glorified extra much of the time before, he's had more to do and more exploration, even if it has been slanted towards his affection for the opposite sex. The setup for the story was a trifle bizarre: Scotty suffered some kind of an injury due to an explosion that was caused (presumably, hopefully, otherwise it's much more serious!), by the incompetence or negligence of a female member of the crew. Because of this, McCoy believes he may harbour resentment against all women due to a bump on the head. I understand that it was for dramatic purposes to make Scott look guilty in the light of what happens in the episode, but it's probably more unrealistic than most of the technology on display! Scotty never even seems like the sort who would hold a grudge - granted, we hadn't yet seen him brawl with Klingons that insulted his ship, and he is a bit of a bruiser, but his character always appears to be very transparent and right on the surface, not the type to brood or harbour secret resentments, far from it!
Perhaps it would have been better to do this episode with someone else as the man under suspicion, I'm not sure who. Maybe Sulu or Chekov, though they also show enthusiasm or professionalism more than anything deep and dark. 'Trials and Tribble-ations' summed up the open, simple attitude of Starfleet officers we saw in its depiction of an Engineer Bashir and O'Brien encounter: completely guileless and fresh-faced. In that sense I suppose they did choose the right character as Scott is one of the older bods aboard, and only Dr. McCoy would really suit in the same role and then who would you have to go round sticking everyone with happy drugs to stop them becoming afeared of this evil entity that takes over the ship? You can have your evil entities laughing maniacally, or your devilish-looking Prefect Jaris (actor Charles Macauley in his second role after Landru in 'The Return of The Archons'), with his thin grey beard and swept back hair (like the original Master in 'Dr. Who' or Ra's Al Ghul from Batman), but the truly most horrifying thing in this episode are the drugged up Enterprise crew themselves! Sulu in particular becomes this creepy loon, and even the usually gruff McCoy is some kind of free spirit floating about. It's an incredibly Sixties resolution and is just plain weird to modern eyes. It's not that they were given something to affect their mood, it's the extent to which they seem to go high that makes it so off-key compared with the rest of the story where murder could happen at any moment. They pulled a similar stunt at the end of 'Day of The Dove,' but at least to defeat the entity there that similarly fed on negative emotions, Kirk and the Klingons roar with laughter and generally react through natural means rather than chemical!
The episode does seem to be a source of much inspiration or the use of much from other episodes. I mentioned 'The Conscience of The King,' and that was something of a template for this one, it would appear, though it had a little more depth to it. 'Obsession,' about another murdering non-physical creature, would be coming up soon in the season and I really wanted Kirk to mention that entity as one he'd encountered when they're discussing similar creatures known in nature - I feel sure this episode may have sparked off the idea for that one. Then there's 'Operation -- Annihilate!' where the nasty vermin there made a steady journey from one planet to another since they weren't space-borne creatures, the same thing happened with Redjac, or Jack The Ripper, or whatever other names were applied to it. I also mentioned 'Justice' of 'TNG,' an infamous first season example for various reasons, but also an important engagement with a planet's harsh laws and the decision to obey them. In that case it was pretty ludicrous since Wesley is sentenced to death for accidentally walking into a forbidden zone that he and his playmates were allowed to play near without any warning about the potentially fatal consequences of trespass, but the similarity of Kirk's decision stands: he informs Spock when the First Officer suggests beaming Scott away so they can administer their own tests aboard the Enterprise, but Kirk says they must respect Argelian laws.
There was the implication of some political necessity to keep on the right side of the Argelians since their planet is the only spaceport in the 'quadrant' as the Prefect puts it. He obviously didn't mean the Alpha (or even Beta), Quadrant, but 'sector' would probably have been a more suitable descriptor - the writers of 'TOS' had no idea that the galaxy was going to be divided up into four segments or Quadrants in later Trek and that we'd consider everything that went on as happening largely in the Alpha Quadrant, it was just one of those things that came to be defined over time. But however large this 'quadrant' the Argelians refer to, it's clear that it's important for the Starfleet to have access, so Kirk isn't about to risk that by overriding their laws and using his might, yet another one in the eye for those believing Kirk is a rogue, a renegade, a loose cannon who does what he pleases, when he pleases. Sure, his womanising side gets an outing at the end when he's so eager to go to this particular bar full of women at the end, but his diplomatic side remains intact! It would have been great if they could have mentioned the Klingons as having interests in the area, we'd already had one encounter with the Federation's enemy in 'Friday's Child' this season, and would again in 'The Trouble With Tribbles' - the ongoing unrest between the empires was one of those things that added to Trek's impression of continuity, even if there wasn't a lot of direct recurring stories or characters happening in the series, there was still a sense of tensions between two powers and the political needs when dealing with planets.
The similarities between this and 'Justice' continue: Argelius II shares the same kind of hedonistic society as Rubicun III, and the same sense of extreme justice which is a bit like the Vulcans and their general extreme control, followed by the Pon Farr where all their pent-up violence is released. The Argelians, who are said to have empathic abilities (they should have made Troi half-Argelian!), love pleasure above all else, and much like Risa thrive on sharing such things with guests. This suggests that a world of pleasure-seeking is a world doomed to forever seeking and never finding and that this is why places like Argelius II and Risa need fresh visitors all the time, because they don't have a 'soul' to their planet and are always looking for something new and desire to share their debauchery. Of course Roddenberry was all about such things and shows it as positive, but the reality can't help but creep in: although the idea that the Argelians need to hire outsiders to fill positions of administration was designed for the needs of the story, since Hengist, the host of Redjac, was the vessel in which it came to this planet, it also shows that there can be no discipline and ambition where the desire for pleasure is the paramount goal, so it makes complete sense that the natives would either have no interest in boring, but necessary bureaucracy, or that, as is said, they're inefficient, putting it kindly! Risa is another place that showed hedonism in a bad light, in spite of the makers attempts to portray it as a great place to go, and positively promoting its excesses, especially by its reputation in Starfleet as such a fun location for holidays.
The hedonism is markedly restrained in this episode since it was produced at a time when standards were still in place, though this has clearly eroded thanks to the power of streaming services who can be their own boss in terms of what content gets through, which has led to increasingly explicit films and series' so the standard has to constantly become more gruesome or explicit in order to keep attentions of those that have become accustomed or hardened to what they see depicted. In 'TOS,' half-naked dancing was the metaphor for such hedonistic society as we saw before with Vina as an Orion 'Animal Woman' in 'The Cage' - they even play the same music over this dancer, and probably some of those cushions they were sitting on would have been the same, too! The dancing did go on rather long, we got the point, but it's a bit of a strange one: McCoy thinks Scotty's interest in the dancer will cure him of any resentment to the fairer sex he may have picked up from his accident - it doesn't make any sense. I already pointed out that Mr. Scott isn't the type to bear a grudge, unless this woman deliberately endangered him (another to spurn him this season, and with no Greek god in sight?), and there doesn't seem to be any reason he would be full of anger towards all women, more likely that he'd be angry with the particular one responsible. They try to cover the ridiculousness by talking of the bump on the head so I think they're saying it could all be subconscious, but even so… Let's take him to meet a fancy dancer and then everything will be fine!
Like the Edo in 'Justice,' punishment is severe. In the Argelians' case it's a slow torture until death, again to raise the stakes, but death itself was bad enough. Weirdly, you can imagine someone like the Prefect overseeing such a sentence, as reluctantly as he'd do it, judging by the way he barely shows any feeling (except in the background in the immediate aftermath where he's seen to be bent over in pain), after his wife has been murdered right in front of him! He was probably meant to be a suspect, just as we see the four residents of the planet sitting in a line in the Briefing Room - here comes the 'Court Martial' connection. Trial by computer, or perhaps an inquest. Majel Barrett got to work overtime here as this must be the most the computer has had to say in all the episodes so far. There are people taking the stand and being read by the computer, and though 'TOS' may look a bit dated in the decades after its creation, and we've become accustomed to the amazing advances they posited with warp travel and instantaneous transportation, the computer is still far ahead of what we can accomplish now - there are simple thing such as, essentially, lie detection as the computer keeps saying there are no physiological changes in the testifier, but it's also instructed to do things like review the last few minutes of discussion and formulate a response, it answers specific questions and general questions and generally shows a degree of intelligence that was as futuristic as the other wonders of technology on display in the series.
The downside is that a computer that powerful, which controls every aspect of the ship can be a liability when a murderous entity chooses it as home. Perhaps that should have been played up a little more, but then Redjac required the people aboard to become fearful so it could gain in strength (there's a lesson there - being afraid only allows your enemy power over you), so it wasn't in its interests to cut life support or plunge Kirk and Spock to their deaths in the Turbolift. That was a scene that could have been more dramatic, but for once they take a much more realistic approach. Because of course a Turbolift couldn't go into free fall for long enough that it would make suspenseful drama, it would be mere seconds for it to drop to the bottom of the shaft (or, if we believe the 'DSC' universe, the ridiculous roller-coaster of empty space that apparently uses up the majority of the ship's internal volume!), so they sacrificed drama for reality there (although a similar scene was achieved in 'Crossfire' on 'DS9,' many years later). What we do get to see is another internal view of a computer console, this time it's not Uhura's Communications station, but the Life Support station, a couple of consoles to the right of the Engineering station, with the same cool view looking out at them from inside. Uhura is once again absent, some bloke sitting in her chair this week, so I wonder what that was all about?
The fate of Redjac is to be transported out into space by wide dispersion, the first we've heard of this capability I think, and shows just what a terrible weapon the Transporter could be if in the wrong hands. Transporter Chief Kyle is the one manning the station again, but he's too full of high spirits after being hypo-sprayed to be much use so Spock just shoves him out of the way! It was at least a genuinely amusing end to the episode instead of some laugh about trivia: Kirk wants to go to his famous women's bar, and everyone but Spock is giddy with drugs, so he has to make do with not going after all. It was an ending, what can I say. I wouldn't call this one of the best episodes, but it's at the right level of quality with nice sets and direction, a story that has you wondering, if you don't already know, and even when you know the outcome (and I always remembered Hengist was the villain), keeps your attention. The moment when the dead Hengist suddenly leaps to his feet from the Briefing Room table to grab an unsuspecting female crewmember was great, though slightly undermined by the fact she found it funny due to the effects of the drug McCoy had given her, and Hengist madly leaping and fighting like a caged beast was too easily noticeable as being performed by a stuntman in a rather shiny bald cap. But the general atmosphere of horror is well played and we haven't seen so much fog since, ooh, 'Catspaw.' For me, it's all the connections to other episodes, if only in tone and similarity, that makes it more enjoyable, as well as the historical notes that serve to enhance the series' sense of time and place.
***
The Return
DVD, Stargate Atlantis S3 (The Return)
From the title I thought it most likely to be Ford coming back for another encounter. From the recap about the recent 'Replicators posing as Ancients' story, I thought it'd be about them turning up again, and even once the Ancient ship had come into it I assumed they'd turn out to be Replicators. But then we had some great cameos from General O'Neill, General Landry, Walter, Wolsey, and a great idea about these Ancients turfing our people out of Atlantis and it became something different. Even then I was suspicious that this could be some Replicator trick and they were actually all captured and playing out a fantasy (rather like the 'DS9' crew in 'The Search,' also a two-parter), but they weren't all together, which would have been a telltale sign. So in the end I had to take it at face value, and there were plenty of delightful, meaningful scenes between so many of the characters that it was turning into the best episode of the season. There's always the chance that Part 2 won't live up to the quality of the first, but that's always a risk. I was actually thinking this would have made a terrific season finale, so I hope they didn't blow their ideas bag all here and fail to deliver a strong conclusion to the season. But that's not to worry about now.
I wonder if many of the scenes in this episode will be preparation for the eventual end of the series. On original run viewers wouldn't have known it would eventually last five years and that this was the halfway point (they might well have been even more optimistic considering the parent series, 'SG-1,' lasted twice that), but knowing how much more there was to go it did make me think of how it all would end and whether we'll eventually see them leave Atlantis in the way we did here. It was all very well done, taking time to show sadness about moving on, the splitting up of the team, and while I know it's really only because they're playing for time, a two-part story requiring a certain amount of stalling before you get to the cliffhanger, the character scenes were what made this so much better than mere action can give you. The only, very minor, disappointment was that we didn't see the four, Weir, Rodney, Carson and Sheppard, walk through the Stargate together as they left, but even then it was so they could have Weir turn round for one last longing glance at the surroundings that had become home. The meshing of the 'SG-1' characters and sets heightened things even more because it makes you think of that series and the endings there. And if there was ever any doubt over whether this cast were as closely bonded as the SG-1 team this episode dispels it. It was lovely to see and this season has really seen them become that close-knit group you want.
My only, and slightly embarrassing confusion was in feeling a little lost with some of the technical side of the story - Rodney has devised a Stargate system that will get them from Atlantis to Earth in only thirty minutes, using multiple 'gates and a way station in the middle. Okay, that's fine, but I forgot why they couldn't just go through the 'gate and step through at the SGC. Either I missed something or I'm forgetting major plot details! Then there were The Ancients themselves: they're still around, despite all the others having ascended because they're experiencing time at a much slower rate due to them travelling… erm, faster than light, or slower? Must be faster, but it's taken them a long time to get back to Atlantis from…? Again, probably just my lack of concentration or taking in all the details, but it was a strange way to bring some Ancients into the story, they just detect a ship, swing by it, or let it swing by them, then tell them Atlantis has been taken care of and to come on home. Typically dodgy Ancient behaviour when they take back control of Atlantis without a 'by your leave,' so there can be no question as to who's in command there. Rude!
There's nothing to be done, of course, it is their city (assuming they're not imposters), and it was a suitably grand idea to bring to the series. As was the rogue operation where the Atlantis team decide to sneak back to their adopted home against orders to assist in the fight against the Replicators. Again, it seems pretty convenient that suddenly one of their ships should show up right after an Ancients' vessel, but all will doubtless be revealed in Part 2, which I will await with eagerness. The most important takeaway from the episode for me was how close our team is and what they might have done if the Atlantis mission became a no-go, which to all appearances it did. I love that O'Neill and Wolsey are involved, I love the scene with poor Dr. Lee where Weir has to distract him by showing interest in his love for 'World of Warcraft' so McKay can put something on one of his computers that will prevent the Iris coming down and ending their commando mission prematurely. Even the addition of the Genii guy showing up at the new Athosian camp (even they were booted off the Ancients' planet rather summarily!), to try and get Ronon and Teyla to join them in their fight against The Wraith.
The only thing is that the whole situation did give me pause to reflect on what the Atlantis mission is for, other than being a TV series with a bunch of likeable characters. They were there to do what? Beat up The Wraith? Seemed more like they were keeping out of their way so they don't get attacked. Seek out new technology for reasons of having new technology. Learn new stuff from the Atlantis database… It all seems a bit of a shaky premise when you really think about it, not that it detracts from the episode or the series, but given the circumstances of the characters and that they all slot into new positions while at the same time missing the old camaraderie, it made me question what it was all about. That's why I was still half-expecting there to be some sinister scene where there was even the hint of a suggestion that all is not what it seems, but there never was, it all appeared genuine. And I genuinely enjoyed it, full of the patois of the franchise (McKay being stopped from continuing his briefing by Caldwell; Siler being the one who's working on the Jumper they steal from the SGC and has to be knocked out!), it was just a celebration of the series and its place with the parent series, and that made it all the more of a joy to watch.
***
From the title I thought it most likely to be Ford coming back for another encounter. From the recap about the recent 'Replicators posing as Ancients' story, I thought it'd be about them turning up again, and even once the Ancient ship had come into it I assumed they'd turn out to be Replicators. But then we had some great cameos from General O'Neill, General Landry, Walter, Wolsey, and a great idea about these Ancients turfing our people out of Atlantis and it became something different. Even then I was suspicious that this could be some Replicator trick and they were actually all captured and playing out a fantasy (rather like the 'DS9' crew in 'The Search,' also a two-parter), but they weren't all together, which would have been a telltale sign. So in the end I had to take it at face value, and there were plenty of delightful, meaningful scenes between so many of the characters that it was turning into the best episode of the season. There's always the chance that Part 2 won't live up to the quality of the first, but that's always a risk. I was actually thinking this would have made a terrific season finale, so I hope they didn't blow their ideas bag all here and fail to deliver a strong conclusion to the season. But that's not to worry about now.
I wonder if many of the scenes in this episode will be preparation for the eventual end of the series. On original run viewers wouldn't have known it would eventually last five years and that this was the halfway point (they might well have been even more optimistic considering the parent series, 'SG-1,' lasted twice that), but knowing how much more there was to go it did make me think of how it all would end and whether we'll eventually see them leave Atlantis in the way we did here. It was all very well done, taking time to show sadness about moving on, the splitting up of the team, and while I know it's really only because they're playing for time, a two-part story requiring a certain amount of stalling before you get to the cliffhanger, the character scenes were what made this so much better than mere action can give you. The only, very minor, disappointment was that we didn't see the four, Weir, Rodney, Carson and Sheppard, walk through the Stargate together as they left, but even then it was so they could have Weir turn round for one last longing glance at the surroundings that had become home. The meshing of the 'SG-1' characters and sets heightened things even more because it makes you think of that series and the endings there. And if there was ever any doubt over whether this cast were as closely bonded as the SG-1 team this episode dispels it. It was lovely to see and this season has really seen them become that close-knit group you want.
My only, and slightly embarrassing confusion was in feeling a little lost with some of the technical side of the story - Rodney has devised a Stargate system that will get them from Atlantis to Earth in only thirty minutes, using multiple 'gates and a way station in the middle. Okay, that's fine, but I forgot why they couldn't just go through the 'gate and step through at the SGC. Either I missed something or I'm forgetting major plot details! Then there were The Ancients themselves: they're still around, despite all the others having ascended because they're experiencing time at a much slower rate due to them travelling… erm, faster than light, or slower? Must be faster, but it's taken them a long time to get back to Atlantis from…? Again, probably just my lack of concentration or taking in all the details, but it was a strange way to bring some Ancients into the story, they just detect a ship, swing by it, or let it swing by them, then tell them Atlantis has been taken care of and to come on home. Typically dodgy Ancient behaviour when they take back control of Atlantis without a 'by your leave,' so there can be no question as to who's in command there. Rude!
There's nothing to be done, of course, it is their city (assuming they're not imposters), and it was a suitably grand idea to bring to the series. As was the rogue operation where the Atlantis team decide to sneak back to their adopted home against orders to assist in the fight against the Replicators. Again, it seems pretty convenient that suddenly one of their ships should show up right after an Ancients' vessel, but all will doubtless be revealed in Part 2, which I will await with eagerness. The most important takeaway from the episode for me was how close our team is and what they might have done if the Atlantis mission became a no-go, which to all appearances it did. I love that O'Neill and Wolsey are involved, I love the scene with poor Dr. Lee where Weir has to distract him by showing interest in his love for 'World of Warcraft' so McKay can put something on one of his computers that will prevent the Iris coming down and ending their commando mission prematurely. Even the addition of the Genii guy showing up at the new Athosian camp (even they were booted off the Ancients' planet rather summarily!), to try and get Ronon and Teyla to join them in their fight against The Wraith.
The only thing is that the whole situation did give me pause to reflect on what the Atlantis mission is for, other than being a TV series with a bunch of likeable characters. They were there to do what? Beat up The Wraith? Seemed more like they were keeping out of their way so they don't get attacked. Seek out new technology for reasons of having new technology. Learn new stuff from the Atlantis database… It all seems a bit of a shaky premise when you really think about it, not that it detracts from the episode or the series, but given the circumstances of the characters and that they all slot into new positions while at the same time missing the old camaraderie, it made me question what it was all about. That's why I was still half-expecting there to be some sinister scene where there was even the hint of a suggestion that all is not what it seems, but there never was, it all appeared genuine. And I genuinely enjoyed it, full of the patois of the franchise (McKay being stopped from continuing his briefing by Caldwell; Siler being the one who's working on the Jumper they steal from the SGC and has to be knocked out!), it was just a celebration of the series and its place with the parent series, and that made it all the more of a joy to watch.
***
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