The teaser for Plato's
Stepchildren is really effective. A
lot of
this is due to Alexander, played by Michael Dunn with a twitchy
nervous energy. His opening info-dump packed lines should fall flat
on the screen but he makes the exposition work by portraying
Alexander as someone who just cannot stop his mouth from running.
"...Platonians. I'm sure you've never heard of us. Our native
star is Sahndara. Millennia ago, just before it went nova, we managed
to escape. Our leader liked Plato's ideas Plato, Platonius. See? In
fact, our present philosopher-king, Parmen, sometimes calls us
Plato's children, although we sometimes think of ourselves more as
Plato's stepchildren."
At this point we're
barely 90 seconds into the episode and Alexander's character is
already solidly established as someone a little odd and lacking in
social skills; Kirk, Spock, and McCoy certainly think so judging by
the look they exchange over Alexander's head as he rambles on and on,
and the trio pretend to listen politely. When Alexander says, "excuse
me, someone's waiting for you," and then twitches and dances
backwards out of the scene it could be taken as yet another aspect of
his strange character but it isn't. The Platonians have telepathic
powers, and there's another nicely handled moment when Parmen
snatches McCoy's hypospray and it floats through the air (it's a
shame the cleaned up prints make the wires more visible). Finally the
teaser ends not on a reaction close-up of the landing party as might
normally be expected, but on Alexander in pain and worried.
This really should feel tired and second hand. Just another bunch of toga wearing demi-gods, as previously seen in Arena and Who Mourns For Adonais? but instead it feels fresh. In the space of two and a half minutes the teaser sets up some intriguing characters and has the audience asking the question all good teasers should raise; what's going on here and what's going to happen to Kirk, Spock, and McCoy?
This really should feel tired and second hand. Just another bunch of toga wearing demi-gods, as previously seen in Arena and Who Mourns For Adonais? but instead it feels fresh. In the space of two and a half minutes the teaser sets up some intriguing characters and has the audience asking the question all good teasers should raise; what's going on here and what's going to happen to Kirk, Spock, and McCoy?
Act
one continues the trend mixing nice understated moments, the contrast
between Alexander's struggle to move his chess pieces and the
effortless telekinesis of Eraclitus, and bigger moments like Parmen's
telepathic delirium. Ultimately your opinion of the story will depend
on how you view the later acts when Parman tries to force McCoy into
staying by humiliating Kirk and Spock, and later also bringing Uhura
and Nurse Chapel down from the Enterprise. Personally I find the
humiliation scenes go on too long. They make up the bulk of act two
and it's possible to go through a whole suite of emotions while
watching; anger, embarrassment (for the characters), boredom,
embarrassment (for the actors), horror, embarrassment (for yourself
at the fear of being caught watching Kirk pretending to be a horse).
Then, after act three provides a recovery period the humiliation
scenes start up again, this time with Kirk and Spock dressed in vile
red and green togas. It's difficult to know how to read these scenes.
The audience is meant to be outraged at the Platonian's humiliation
of the Enterprise crew for their own entertainment, but it's also
being done for the entertainment of the audience. At what point does
the sadism of the Platonians blur into titillation for the audience?
Probably around the point where Parmen brings out the implements of
torture and Spock menaces Nurse Chapel with a red-hot poker and Kirk
starts cracking a whip around Uhura; had someone on the production
team seen a bootleg copy of The
Avengers
episode A Touch Of
Brimstone? It
went into syndication on American television in 1969.
Apart from those togas what surprises most about the story is how lush it looks. It's easy to mock Star Trek's tendency to use the style of ancient Greece as a symbol for strange alien power, but being able to pull costumes and sets from storage must allow tight budgets to be stretched further than normal and the result is some visually pleasing, and surprisingly large and complex sets. Art director Matt Jefferies has added a small square pond behind the main throne room, and behind that is a view of greenery and a horizon. The whole set has real depth and looks bigger than Apollo's temple in Who Mourns For Adonais? although it is almost certainly smaller. In addition director of photography Al Francis lights the sets beautifully and the result is a rich and colourful world. I can't help feeling guilty for criticising Al Francis in my review of The Tholian Web because here he does sterling work.
Apart from those togas what surprises most about the story is how lush it looks. It's easy to mock Star Trek's tendency to use the style of ancient Greece as a symbol for strange alien power, but being able to pull costumes and sets from storage must allow tight budgets to be stretched further than normal and the result is some visually pleasing, and surprisingly large and complex sets. Art director Matt Jefferies has added a small square pond behind the main throne room, and behind that is a view of greenery and a horizon. The whole set has real depth and looks bigger than Apollo's temple in Who Mourns For Adonais? although it is almost certainly smaller. In addition director of photography Al Francis lights the sets beautifully and the result is a rich and colourful world. I can't help feeling guilty for criticising Al Francis in my review of The Tholian Web because here he does sterling work.
Ultimately
it's not the big set piece scenes of act two and four which stick in
the memory and make the episode work, it's little moments. Bruce
Schoengarth the film editor uses some great reaction shots of Philana as she smirks
or looks bored or disdainful; she gets surprisingly few lines but her
regular reaction shots allow her a constant presence in the story.
The slow realisation that Alexander's nervous desire to constantly
please is due to hundreds of years of literally being pushed around.
The two fops Dioniyde
and Eraclitus who mock Kirk and Spock during the revels. "Oh,
how faithless and fickle." "Make up your minds." The
laughter and applause which accompanies the revels and makes those
scenes feel like some bizarre sitcom. Liam Sullivan's delivery of
Parmen's line, "how can you let this go on?" which ends act
two and Leonard
Nimoy's subdued and broken Spock at the start of act three; somehow
more shocking than any of the indignities inflicted on him by the
Platonians.
Enterprise
crew deaths: None again, a six episode run of no deaths for the Enterprise crew.
Running total: 48
Running total: 48
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