Star Trek on the BBC: 2000 to 2007

Click here for part one: 1969  
Click here for part two: 1970 
Click here for part three: 1971
Click here for part four: 1972
Click here for part five: 1973
Click here for part six: 1974 to 1976
Click here for part seven 1977 to 1982
Click here for part eight: 1984 to 1986
Click here for part nine: 1992 to 1994
Click here for part ten 1995 to 1998

2000

Where No Man Has Gone Before was repeated in a week when a viewer could also watch Farscape on Monday; repeats of Due South and Battlestar Galactica on Tuesday; Star Trek and Buffy The Vampire Slayer on Wednesday; a repeat run of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season three on Thursday; Sliders on Friday; and Star Trek: Voyager on Sunday.

BBC2 favoured a mixture of science-fiction/fantasy/nostalgia programming opposite the BBC1 early evening news. What is commonly referred to as cult television. On BBC2 the cult genre had first developed in 1988 when shows like Mission: Impossible, The Invaders, and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century were shown under the DEF II banner; DEF II was a strand of programmes aimed at teenagers so it's difficult to tell if they were expected to enjoy a series like Battlestar Galactica in its own right or watch it ironically. Later ITC series like Randall And Hopkirk (Deceased), or Gerry Anderson productions like Thunderbirds were added into the mix. First run imports like Star Trek: The Next Generation, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and Farscape would keep things fresh.

Star Trek was an established part of this cult television cycle. It displayed remarkable staying power in a slot where the pattern tended to be strong viewing figures for the opening episodes followed by a decline as the audience became bored and drifted away. This was certainly what happened to the ambitious 6pm Tuesday repeat run planned for Doctor Who which began on 16 November 1999 before fizzling out in February 2000 due to disappointing ratings. The 2000 repeats were Star Trek's fourth time in the 6pm slot.

The repeats started on Wednesday, replacing first run season six of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, before dropping back to Tuesday in August. The series was then shifted to a Saturday afternoon slot in October. Star Trek never settled on Saturday. Its timeslot could be as early as 3.15pm or as late as 6.45pm depending on other programmes. The shift to Saturday looks like an attempt to build a new cult television slot. Star Trek often appeared with other cult series, mostly Thunderbirds repeats, or with Top of the Pops 2 a compilation of old performances from the BBC's venerable pop music show which aimed for a similar nostalgia audience. Earlier in the year Blake's 7 series one had also been shown on Saturday afternoons as a stand alone programme. The placing of Star Trek might show that an audience was more likely to tune in for a block of similar programmes.

The block of repeats starting in 2000 are also the only time the BBC showed Star Trek in production order.

2001

When Star Trek returns after Christmas the series has shifted to Sunday; the same day as the first run of The X-Files series seven. There's no obvious reason for this day change but Battlestar Galactica is briefly dropped into the Saturday cult television block, before that block is also broken up. 2001 rapidly develops into a disrupted year like 1998. In January, February, and March the series is scheduled for two weeks of each month. In April and May the series only appears once. After 35 years Star Trek is understandably a lower priority and so it is moved to make way for other programmes.

Perhaps in an attempt to make up for this, Star Trek is given a place in the Sunday morning hangover recovery slot and stays there pretty consistently from June to the end of August, with a couple of skipped weeks because of sport; the old nemesis.

There's a two week gap at the start of September. This seems to be to build up a backlog of episodes so that on Sunday 16 September a double-bill can be shown to promote a second Star Trek Night. Yes, a second Star Trek Night [1]. The first one was in 1996 for the 30th anniversary, this one is to mark the 35th. The highlight of the night was a phone in vote to choose the Captain's Choice episode. The choice was between Captain Kirk/City on the Edge of Forever, Captain Picard/In Theory, Captain Sisko/Far Beyond the Stars, and Captain Janeway/Counterpoint. Counterpoint was the winning episode.

After Star Trek Night the series shifts to Saturday and then vanishes from the schedules after October reappearing for a single week in December to show By Any Other Name.

2002

Star Trek reappears on Sunday in March before The Ultimate Computer is bounced onto Saturday 6 April to avoid Motorcycling. At the end of April and into May the series is presented as double-bills before it moves back to Saturday to avoid more sport. Then The Tholian Web is shown as a lone episode in June.

And then Star Trek vanishes. Maybe the intention was for the series to take a break over the summer and come back in the autumn, or to run the last remaining season three episodes in 2003. Whatever was planned didn't happen. The BBC paid for the rights to show Star Trek and the decision to throw that money away by leaving 15 episodes unrepeated seems unusual. Of course it's possible the BBC Genome records are wrong but it seems unlikely that 15 episodes could disappear in a technical error. The double-billing of episodes across April and May 2002 looks less like an attempt to find a new format for the repeats, and more like a way to extract the maximum value for money possible from the final few weeks of the run.

It's difficult not to get a sense of an era ending. Star Trek is taken off the air mid-run. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had finished in October 2001. Star Trek: Voyager would come to an end in August 2002. By the end of 2002 only Star Trek: The Next Generation would still be on air, and that would finish in October 2003 with a repeat of Time's Arrow Part II.

Since 1990 there had always been at least one Star Trek television series running on BBC2. 2004 would be the first time in 14 years that no Star Trek episodes were broadcast.

2005

Star Trek may have been unceremoniously removed a third of the way through season three but someone at BBC2 obviously still thought fondly of the series. On January 14 the Huygens probe landed on Titan. The BBC coverage of this probe was called Stardate: Mission To Titan and on Saturday 15 January an appropriate repeat of Where No Man Has Gone Before was squeezed in before a mission update at 2.20pm.

2006

The British television market was transformed by the time Star Trek returned. Subscription multi-channel television had been available since the mid 1980s (first on cable and then via satellite) but it was the launch of the digital terrestrial service Freeview in October 2002 which brought multi-channel television into most homes.

The 6pm weekday cult television slot opposite the news, which had existed in one form or another since 1990, was gone. Many of the series which formed the backbone of the slot were now available on DVD, or as repeats on the assorted Freeview channels. Successful first run series like Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Farscape, which kept the slot fresh and drew in new audiences, had finished. Potential replacement series had either been lost to other channels, Stargate, Smallville, and Star Trek: Enterprise all ended up on Channel 4, or proved unsuccessful; Seven Days only ran for 10 weeks on BBC2 although it completed three years on UPN.

With all this in mind it seems odd that BBC2 purchased the rights to show Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation again. The 6pm cult slot no longer existed. It was filled with quiz and lifestyle programmes. Instead Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation were scheduled back to back on Saturday afternoons. As double, and sometimes triple-bills.

UPDATE 14/05/17: Thanks to Chris Dale for pointing out a repeat of Mirror, Mirror which I had missed on digital channel BBC4. It was shown at 10pm sandwiched between a documentary called Parallel World's -A User's Guide and a repeat of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Yesterday's Enterprise. Embarrassingly it didn't occur to me to check the schedules of the non-terrestrial BBC channels for repeats.

2007

Unfortunately the Saturday slot does not seem to have been a success and Star Trek's last year to date on BBC2 saw it relegated to the schedule backwaters of just past midnight on Saturday morning. By showing the series at this anti-social time the BBC was presumably less interested in capturing that valuable night owl market than getting at least some return on its investment. The alternative would have been to dump the series, as had happened in 2002. It's possible that even early in the morning Star Trek was capable of picking up a substantial share of whatever audience was watching. It depends on the competition from other channels. BBC1 was showing BBC News 24, while BBC3 and BBC4 were repeating programmes from earlier.

This repeat run started out in NBC broadcast order but the switch to late night double-bills caused some confusion at the start of season two. Who Mourns For Adonais? and Amok Time are shown the wrong way round on 10 March, and The Apple and The Changeling are also shown in the wrong order on 17 March. Mirror, Mirror had already been shown in 2006 and was skipped.

Once Star Trek finished the repeats of Star Trek: The Next Generation were moved into the same slot and at 01.20 on 6 December 2008 the last episode of any Star Trek series shown on the BBC was the appropriately titled All Good Things.

Some final figures

The BBC has transmitted Star Trek 9 times. The first run lasted from 1969 to 1971. With repeat cycles lasting from 1971 to 1973; 1973 to 1976; 1978 to1981; 1984 to 1986; 1992 to 1994;  1995 to 1998; 2000 to 2002; and 2006 to 2007.

Star Trek was shown in production order once from 2000-2002, and that run was cut short.

Star Trek was shown in NBC broadcast order four times.

The other four times that the BBC showed Star Trek they used an order of their own devising.

The number of times the BBC actually showed Star Trek correctly is once; from 1992 to 1994. Every other time at least one episode was skipped or shown out of order.

The least shown episodes were Plato's Stepchildren and Whom Gods Destroy which only clocked up three transmissions on the BBC; first runs in 1993 and 1994, then repeats in 1998 and 2007. The Empath, the other episode censored by the BBC, was shown a total of four times because it squeaked in a repeat before the run in 2002 came to an abrupt end.

The most shown episodes were The Man Trap, Where No Man Has Gone Before, and The Galileo Seven which each got shown a total of ten times on BBC1 and BBC2.

Between 1969 and 2008 the BBC showed Star Trek, Star Trek: The Animated Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager. Only five of those 39 years had no episodes from one of those series; 1983, 1987, 1988, 1989, and 2004. And in 1989 and 2004 you could still have watched some of the movies, leaving only three out of 39 years completely Trekless.


In the list below the number in brackets shows the number of transmissions of an episode. Most episodes in 2000 are on their eighth showing; that's the original broadcast plus seven repeats.

2000-05-31     18.00     The Cage (3)
2000-06-07     18.00     Where No Man Has Gone Before (8)
2000-06-14     18.00     The Corbomite Manoeuvre (8)
2000-06-21     18.00     Mudd's Women (8)
2000-07-12     18.00     The Enemy Within (8)
2000-07-26     18.00     The Man Trap (9)
2000-08-02     18.00     The Naked Time (8)
2000-08-09     18.00     Charlie X (8)
2000-08-16     18.00     Balance Of Terror (8)
2000-08-23     18.00     What Are Little Girls Made Of? (8)
2000-08-29     18.00     Dagger Of The Mind (8)
2000-09-05     18.00     Miri (4)
2000-09-12     18.00     The Conscience Of The King (8)
2000-09-19     18.00     The Galileo Seven (9)
2000-09-26     18.00     Court Martial (8)
2000-10-03     18.00     The Menagerie Part I (8)
2000-10-10     18.00     The Menagerie Part II (8)
2000-10-14     15.30     Shore Leave (8)
2000-10-21     16.15     The Squire Of Gothos (8)
2000-10-28     15.15     Arena (8)
2000-11-04     16.50     The Alternative Factor (8)
2000-11-11     18.45     Tomorrow Is Yesterday (8)
2000-11-18     16.40     The Return Of The Archons (8)
2000-11-25     16.10     A Taste Of Armageddon (8)
2000-12-02     16.00     Space Seed (8)
2000-12-09     16.30     This Side Of Paradise (8)
2000-12-17     18.35     The Devil In The Dark (8)
2000-12-23     18.10     Errand Of Mercy (8)

2001-01-21     18.55     The City On The Edge Of Forever (8)
2001-01-28     19.15     Operation -- Annihilate! (8)
2001-02-18     18.55     Catspaw (8)
2001-02-25     18.45     Metamorphosis (8)
2001-03-18     18.30     Friday's Child (8)
2001-03-24     18.30     Who Mourns For Adonais? (8)
2001-04-08     18.30     Amok Time (8)
2001-05-20     18.30     The Doomsday Machine (8)
2001-06-17     11.15     Wolf In The Fold (8)
2001-06-24     11.15     The Changeling (8)
2001-07-01     11.15     The Apple (8)
2001-07-08     11.15     Mirror, Mirror (8)
2001-07-15     11.15     The Deadly Years (8)
2001-08-05     11.15     I, Mudd (8)
2001-08-12     11.15     The Trouble With Tribbles (8)
2001-08-19     11.15     Bread And Circuses (8)
2001-08-26     11.15     Journey To Babel (8)
2001-09-16     11.15     A Private Little War (8)
2001-09-16     12.05     The Gamesters Of Triskelion (8)
2001-10-06     12.25     Obsession (8)
2001-10-13     12.25     The Immunity Syndrome (8)
2001-10-27     12.25     A Piece Of The Action (8)
2001-12-08     12.25     By Any Other Name (8)

2002-03-24     11.20     Return To Tomorrow (8)
2002-03-31     11.10     Patterns Of Force (8)
2002-04-06     12.20     The Ultimate Computer (8)
2002-04-14     12.00     The Omega Glory (8)
2002-04-21     12.00     Assignment: Earth (8)
2002-04-28     11.20     Spectre Of The Gun (8)
2002-04-28     12.10     Elaan Of Troyius (8)
2002-05-05     11.40     The Paradise Syndrome (8)
2002-05-12     11.20     The Enterprise Incident (8)
2002-05-12     12.10     And The Children Shall Lead (8)
2002-05-19     11.20     Spock's Brain (8)
2002-05-19     12.10     Is There In Truth No Beauty? (8)
2002-05-25     12.40     The Empath (3)
2002-06-16     12.00     The Tholian Web (8)

2005-01-15     13.30     Where No Man Has Gone Before (9)    

2006-07-08     14.55     The Cage (4)
2006-07-15     13.05     The Man Trap (10)
2006-07-22     13.00     Charlie X (9)
2006-07-29     14.55     Where No Man Has Gone Before (10)
2006-08-05     12.30     The Naked Time (9) 
2006-08-19     12.30     The Enemy Within (9)
2006-08-26     13.45     Mudd's Women (9)
2006-09-02     12.30     What Are Little Girls Made Of? (9)
2006-09-09     12.55     Miri (5)
2006-09-16     13.30     Dagger Of The Mind (9)
2006-10-07     13.55     The Corbomite Manoeuvre (9)
2006-10-14     13.25     The Menagerie Part I (9)
2006-10-21     13.20     The Menagerie Part II (9)
2006-10-28     13.25     The Conscience Of The King (9)
2006-11-04     13.15     Balance Of Terror (9)    
2006-11-11     13.35     Shore Leave (9)
2006-11-18     13.55     The Galileo Seven (10)
2006-11-25     13.35     The Squire Of Gothos (9)
2006-11-28     22.00     Mirror, Mirror (9) shown on BBC4
2006-12-02     13.30     Arena (9)
2006-12-16     13.30     Tomorrow Is Yesterday (9)

2007-02-03     00.15     Court Martial (9)
2007-02-03     01.05     The Return Of The Archons (9)
2007-02-10     01.00     Space Seed (9)
2007-02-10     01.50     A Taste Of Armageddon (9)
2007-02-17     00.20     This Side Of Paradise (9)
2007-02-17     01.10     The Devil In The Dark (9)
2007-02-24     01.00     Errand Of Mercy (9)
2007-02-24     01.50     The Alternative Factor (9)
2007-03-03     01.10     The City On The Edge Of Forever (9)
2007-03-03     01.10     Operation -- Annihilate! (9)
2007-03-10     01.05     Who Mourns For Adonais? (9)
2007-03-10     01.55     Amok Time (9)
2007-03-17     00.40     The Apple (9)
2007-03-17     01.30     The Changeling (9)
2007-03-24     02:50     The Doomsday Machine (9)
2007-03-24     02:40     Catspaw (9)
2007-03-31     03.25     I, Mudd (9)
2007-03-31     04.15     Metamorphosis (9)
2007-04-07     02.20     Journey To Babel (9)
2007-04-07     03.10     Friday's Child (9)
2007-04-14     02.10     The Deadly Years (9)
2007-04-14     03.00     Obsession (9)
2007-04-21     01.40     Wolf In The Fold (9)
2007-04-21     02.30     The Trouble With Tribbles (9)
2007-04-28     02.25     The Gamesters Of Triskelion (9)
2007-04-28     03.15     A Piece Of The Action (9)
2007-05-05     01.25     The Immunity Syndrome (9)
2007-05-05     02.15     A Private Little War (9)    
2007-05-12     02.00     Return To Tomorrow (9)
2007-05-12     02.50     Patterns Of Force (9)
2007-05-19     02.05     By Any Other Name (9)
2007-05-19     02.55     The Omega Glory (9)
2007-05-26     02.20     The Ultimate Computer (9)
2007-05-26     03.10     Bread And Circuses (9)
2007-06-02     02.10     Assignment: Earth (9) 
2007-06-02     03.00     Spock's Brain (9)
2007-06-09     02.00     The Enterprise Incident (9)
2007-06-09     02.50     The Paradise Syndrome (9)
2007-06-16     02.10     And The Children Shall Lead (9)
2007-06-16     03.00     Is There In Truth No Beauty (9)
2007-06-23     02.00     Spectre Of The Gun (9)
2007-06-23     02.50     Day Of The Dove (8)
2007-06-30     03.00     For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky (8)
2007-06-30     03.50     The Tholian Web (9)
2007-07-07     01.05     Plato's Stepchildren (3)
2007-07-07     01.55     Wink Of An Eye (8)
2007-07-14     01.35     The Empath (4)
2007-07-14     02.25     Elaan Of Troyius (9)
2007-07-21     01.30     Whom Gods Destroy (3)
2007-07-21     02.20     Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (8)
2007-07-28     01.20     The Mark Of Gideon (8)
2007-07-28     02.20     That Which Survives (8)
2007-08-04     01.55     The Lights of Zetar (8)
2007-08-04     02.45     Requiem for Methuselah (8)
2007-08-11     02.30     The Way to Eden (8)
2007-08-11     03.20     The Cloud Minders (8)
2007-08-18     02.25     The Savage Curtain (8)
2007-08-18     03.15     All Our Yesterdays (8)
2007-08-25     02.20     Turnabout Intruder (8)


[1]19.30: Star Trek Night
Ends 12.45.
Jonathan Ross hosts a celebration of the 35th anniversary of Star Trek. The evening includes classic episodes, interviews and behind-the-scenes footage. Viewers can also vote for a Star Trek captain's favourite episode to be shown at 9.55pm. See page 42 for further details.
7.35 From Enterprise to Franchise How the legendary sci-fi series became a global phenomenon.
Then Memorable Moments A compilation of classic Star Trek moments demonstrating it's a good idea to Never Wear Red, plus a day out with fans at The Convention. (S)
8.10 Make It So A behind-the-scenes look at Star Trek's special effects, from photon torpedos to 24th-century bras.
8.40 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Trials and Tribble-ations
An Away Team go back in time onto Captain James T Kirk 's starship Enterprise. (R) (S)
9.20 The Warp Factory Star Trek writers have plundered all their best ideas from science. Having created four ever more advanced space ships, where is there left for Star
Trek to go? (S)
Then Memorable Moments Classic clips of big shoot-outs in Battlestations and what happens when DIY and Star Trek meet in Space: the Final Front Room. (S)
9.55 Star Trek: Viewers' Vote Winning Episode The screening of the winning episode of the Captain's Choice Viewers' Vote. Lines will be open from 10 September and close tonight at 9.15pm. Calls cost a maximum of lOp. Votes can also be registered atwww.bbc.co.uk/startrek.
Captain Kirk/City on the Edge of Forever
Captain Picard/In Theory (R) (S)
Captain Sisko/Far Beyond the Stars
Captain Janeway/Counterpoint
10.40 Star Trek IV: the Voyage Home **** Science-fiction adventure starring William Shatner , Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley. In the 23rd century, Captain Kirk and his
- crew return to 1986 San Francisco to prevent Earth's destruction. Widescreen. Review page 61.Director Leonard Nimoy (1986. PG) (S) (W) The reel story behind .. : page 62
Then Memorable Moments Space cuisine clips in Feed Me Up Scotty and romantic moments in Star Dates. (S)

A Piece Of The Action

“From here on in there is a new producer in charge, and it remains to be seen how this new order will change things.” Those prophetic words ended the review of The Gamesters Of Triskelion, and clearly demonstrate I should never go into the soothsayer business. The next episode is of course A Piece Of The Action with a joint teleplay credit for David P. Harmon and departed producer Gene L. Coon.

[This also seems to be an appropriate point to confess my error in the second to last paragraph of The Gamesters Of Triskelion review. Talking about the difference between stories produced by new producer John Meredyth Lucas and Gene L. Coon I mentioned Obsession, and implied it was produced by Gene L. Coon.

Oops.]

A Piece Of The Action sees Kirk, Spock, and McCoy visit Sigma Iotia II; planet of the Chicago gangsters. Putting the regulars into a story from a different genre, and seeing how they interact with the world, is a storytelling technique used before on Star Trek. The Conscience Of The King is Star Trek does Shakespeare. Kirk dithers like Hamlet, Lenore goes mad like Lady Macbeth, and within the episode itself we see the characters watching extracts from plays which mirror the plot. It's a common technique in television. Buffy The Vampire Slayer took the idea to its extreme with the musical episode Once More With Feeling. Futurama has the superhero episode Less Than Hero and, appropriately, Where No Fan Has Gone Before. Doctor Who used it in the early days to tell adventures in history. The Reign Of Terror is Doctor Who meets the French Revolution (a mashup of A Tale Of Two Cities, and The Scarlet Pimpernell), and The Romans is Doctor Who goes to Rome (assorted historical and biblical epics).

Doing a story from a different genre has its advantages and disadvantages. It allows a cash strapped production to raid the costume store, and save money by using pre-existing sets from other series; A Piece Of The Action uses the Paramount backlot for location filming. The downside is finding a good reason for all the characters suddenly wearing zoot suits and trilby hats. Do it wrong and the result is Miri where much amazement is expressed over a planet which looks exactly like Earth, but no explanation is ever offered for this coincidence. 

This is where Doctor Who has a built in advantage over Star Trek: time travel. To do a story about the Mongols, or the Great Depression, or Nazis the Doctor only has to travel to the appropriate year. For Star Trek to do the same the series has to invent an alien race which is like the Mongols, find a method for the Enterprise crew to time travel to the 1930s, or go to a Nazi planet. It's possible to use any of these techniques a couple of times, but repeated use is going to start pushing the limits of suspension of disbelief. Obviously this is one of the reasons behind the invention of the holodeck in Star Trek: The Next Generation, but that's a solution which carries its own problems. Imagine A Piece Of The Action done as a holodeck story. For starters you need a reason why we are watching Kirk and co. play dress up rather than going where no man has gone before. Secondly it removes all jeopardy from the story. Those scenes of Kirk being held at gunpoint have no dramatic tension if Kirk can shout, “computer end program at any time.” The only real way to resolve this problem is either to have Kirk not realise he is on the holodeck, or have a reason for it to break down. Again.

Attila the Hun, Professor Moriaty, Jack the Ripper, and Evil Lincoln. "The Holo-Shed's on the fritz again! The characters turned real!"," Damn. The last time that happened I got slapped with three paternity suits."

A Piece Of The Action's solution to having a planet just like Earth history is inventive. The inhabitants of Sigma Iotia II are bright but highly imitative; in itself a good solid science fiction concept. 100 years ago the crew of the space ship Horizon left behind a book called Chicago Mobs of the Twenties, and the Iotians mistook it for a social instruction manual. It's a funny idea but also one which is quite pleasing, and if you are prepared to run with the concept then it's easy to imagine the impact of the Horizon's visit on the Iotians; their first contact with an alien race. If the crew of the Horizon left a stack of technical manuals, plus Chicago Mobs of the Twenties by accident, and made some throwaway comment about the books containing everything the Iotians needed to advance their development then its easy to imagine how the cultural contamination began.

So, a funny concept is at the core of what is for some people the funniest Star Trek story. Right from the start this is an overtly comedic episode and the teaser has a lighter and more comedic feel than The Trouble With Tribbles. In that story the jokes in the teaser come from the characters and their interactions while the situation, at least in the beginning, is treated seriously. In A Piece Of The Action the audience is expected to share Kirk's amusement at a planet leader with the title boss, and his landing site instructions, “there's an intersection just at the end of the block, near a yellow fire plug.” In between these two moments, Shatner sits in his chair and slowly rotates it in a semi-circle first one way, and then the other (some nice direction from James Komack who moves the camera with the chair to keep Shatner facing the camera), as he struggles to explain why it's taken 100 years for a radio message to reach the Federation, and the function of the transporter. Then as Spock and McCoy come onto the bridge Kirk walks between them, and spins them round on the spot leading the pair back into the turbo elevator. Possibly this lighter tone is designed to stop the audience thinking too much about the concept. If they view the story as funny, they are less likely to sit there picking holes in the idea. Scattered through the episode are some very good character based lines, such as Spock's valiant attempt to avoid telling a direct lie when Kirk asks him for the odds of a royal fizzbin, “I have never computed them, Captain,” but the downside of the script is the same as Robert Justman's concern about The Trouble With Tribbles. “Although the concept was amusing, the story was just too cute. I feared that... it would lead to a loss of believability. Kirk, Spock, and the others were real people, and real people just did not behave that way; our finely drawn characters should never parody themselves.”

There's a quote from Douglas Adams which sums up very well the pitfalls of doing an obviously jokey script. “A danger one runs is that the moment you have anything in the script that's clearly meant to be funny in some way, everybody thinks 'oh well we can do silly voices and silly walks and so on'.” Essentially that's the problem here. Everyone is having a wonderful time being silly. Particularly William Shatner who is occasionally allowed to get away with a performance which comes dangerously close to breaking character.

When Kirk is forced into a car by Zabo we get some lines which are a good pastiche of hardbitten gangster dialogue.

ZABO: Hold it! Okay, pally, we're going for a ride.
KIRK: If you don't mind, I'd rather walk.
ZABO: Listen, pally, this could either be a taxi or a hearse. You know what I mean?

Then as Kirk climbs into the car William Shatner uses a massively over the top worried expression, complete with furrowed brow and chewed lip. It's the sort of my-character's-worried emoting which might be expected from a drama student. He's worse while explaining the rules of his made up card game fizzbin. His tone of voice is all over the place on the lines, “oh, look what you got, two jacks. You got a half fizzbin already,” and “oh, look at that. You've got another jack. How lucky you are! How wonderful for you.” It overplays the comedy of the scene. Even Leonard Nimoy isn't immune to what must have been a great atmosphere on set, and his usually iron grip on the character wobbles during the car driving scene when he also starts fishing for laughs. “Oh. I believe they had a device known as a clutch. Clutch, Captain. Perhaps one of those pedals on the floor,” is a moment when he plays Spock far to broadly. Nimoy's Spock is normally very still, and his moments are considered, but here he's all jerky body movement and emphatic head nods. Oddly, Shatner is more tolerable later in the story, when Kirk adopts a cod-Chicago accent and starts using slang; asking Scotty, “can do, sweetheart?” Partly this is because his performance never reaches the extremes it does in acts one and two, but also because this fits the concept of the episode. If Kirk is going to put Sigma Iotia II back on track he first needs to out mobster the mobsters.

A Piece Of The Action looks amazing, nothing beats seeing Kirk and Spock in sharp suits and hats, driving period cars, and packing heat. The episode feels fresh if only because it looks completely different to anything which has gone before. There are no metaphors, or analogies, or moral lessons to be learned. The plot is fairly sparse. Kirk and Spock run around being captured by, and capturing, gangsters, but it's packed with incident (gun fights, fist fights, the car driving scene, the fizzbin rules, characters being phasered) and never gets dull. When the episode doesn't go too far in its quest for laughs it's great fun; and your definition of going too far will depend on your tolerance for William Shatner being allowed to indulge himself.

Enterprise crew deaths: None. 
Running total: 43

I, Mudd

A lot of the criticisms applied to Catspaw should also apply to I, Mudd. Another frothy undemanding episode involving familiar story elements; instead of playing hunt-the-power-source, the Enterprise crew play hunt-the-controlling-android, and at the end the superior androids are confused to death by a bunch of silly humans. There's no great secret to why I, Mudd works and Catspaw doesn't; I, Mudd is better.

The tone helps. I, Mudd is unambiguously a comedy. Not a genre Star Trek has attempted before. There's been funny lines, and funny scenes, and since Gene L. Coon arrived as producer a lot of episodes have ended with a joke but the closet Star Trek came to outright comedy was Tomorrow Is Yesterday. An episode with moments of farce as characters were unexpectedly beamed up to the Enterprise. Now suddenly, in production order, there are two comedy episodes in a row I, Mudd and The Trouble With Tribbles. Perhaps Gene Roddenberry took a couple of weeks holiday.

The lighter touch definitely helps. Catspaw is not a po-faced episode (Spock's line, “very bad poetry, Captain,” is a decent quip) but attempts to present Syliva and Korob as serious threats don't work. Suspension of disbelief is finally pushed to breaking point with the reveal of the pair's true forms. As a representation of, “a life form totally alien to our galaxy,” the cute puppets don't work. In the context of a Buffy The Vampire Slayer gag (the ending to Fear Itself where Grachnar the fear demon turns out to be tiny) they might have been more acceptable. However, comedy may cover a multitude of sins but it would still take more than a few jokes to make Catspaw work successfully as a story. Yes, I, Mudd has some laughs but at its core is a well constructed script.

Unlike Syliva and Korob the motivations of the androids are clearly laid out and easy to understand. They have decided the human race is too dangerous to have free run of the galaxy. They will take the hijacked Enterprise and use it to serve man, curbing humans most acquisitive instincts and subtly controlling them in the process. The plot puts a different spin on the androids plan by having them act out misguided good intentions. Like The Changeling, I, Mudd shows us a threat which keeps escalating. First android Norman hijacks the Enterprise. Then Harry Mudd is revealed to be the brains behind the plan. Then Mudd explains his goal is to take over the Enterprise and fly it round the galaxy with his own android crew. And then the androids play their joker, they have their own plan and Harry Mudd is as much a prisoner as Kirk. The plot of I, Mudd is actually a little more sophisticated than The Changeling. In The Changeling the plot is a series of pull-back and reveals with each pull-back showing a little more of the bigger picture; the threat to the Enterprise is a damaged space probe called Nomad; Kirk must keep Nomad friendly; even friendly Nomad is a danger; Nomad learns the location of Earth. It's a linear plot whereas the android double-cross means I, Mudd ends on a twist. The audience are expecting the last act to be Kirk and crew against Mudd and androids, when it actually becomes Kirk, and crew, and Mudd against the androids.

If this is beginning to make I, Mudd sound like Shakespeare it shouldn't. By Star Trek's standards this remains a lightweight story, but it clearly demonstrates the care that even lightweight stories require. I, Mudd is full of moments which show the script has been carefully thought through. Most notably when Uhura pretends to betray Kirk and exposes his fake escape attempt because the androids are alert for an attempt and will relax their guard once it has been thwarted. Another script might have skipped this scene and jumped straight to the real escape. It's a character moment, and is not essential to the plot, but because it shows the Enterprise crew thinking through the implications of their captivity it adds a little fine detail to the story. Gene L. Coon's fingerprints seem to be all over this script, all of the characters get something to do (with the exception of poor Mr Sulu who only gets lines in the teaser and then disappears from the story). It's tempting to wonder if there was some anxiety about doing a straight comedy, because extra work does seem to have been done to bolster the script and it withstands scrutiny much better than Catspaw or The Alternative Factor.

Opinions about the comedy will depend on the viewer. It's often quite broad, and much of it relies on Shatner and Nimoy's deadpan reactions to Roger C. Carmel blustering (“That, sir, is an outrageous assumption!”). There's some real fun with the use of language (“Next, we take the Alices on a trip through Wonderland.”) but the highlight is Spock's use of logic to confuse two of the Alice model androids. A sequence which pulls of the difficult trick of being funny, in character for Spock, and also weirdly logical. 

ALICE 27: Mister Spock, you have a remarkably logical and analytical mind.

SPOCK: Thank you. [Spock attempts a neck pinch on Alice 210, it has no effect.]

ALICE 210: Is there some significance to this action?

SPOCK: I love you [points at Alice 27]. However, I hate you. [looks at Alice 210]

ALICE 210: But I'm identical in every way with Alice Twenty Seven.

SPOCK: Yes, of course. That is exactly why I hate you. Because you are identical.

That exchange is part of the climax of the episode. An audacious ten minute scene of Kirk, Spock, Harry Mudd, and the rest of the bridge crew confusing the androids into shutting down. It's tempting to label this sequence as indescribable but that gives the impression I watched I, Mudd babbling, “no words... should have sent a poet,” like Jodi Foster in Contact. It's a ten minute absurdist segment, like a freeform surrealist play within the episode itself. The cast play invisible violins and dance to imaginary music, 'kill' Scotty by pointing their fingers at him and whistling, and mess around with non-existent explosives. I don't like it much but have to admire the simple fact it exists and was broadcast in primetime on NBC.

I'm not keen on the sequence because it pushes the limits of believability of Star Trek. I can buy Kirk being Starfleet's greatest Captain, and irresistible to any woman in a thirty light year radius, but here he, and the rest of the bridge crew, suddenly become expert actors and improvisers. Either their flawless routine is made up on the spot or they've spent time scripting and rehearsing it; neither explanation works for me. To be fair, someone at the time must have held similar concerns because there is an attempt to have Kirk direct the action, pointing at people and cueing their lines, but this just emphasises the play acting nature of the scene and leaves me wondering why the androids get so confused. And that's probably my biggest complaint. The androids can be shut down by playing let's pretend. Derek Griffiths pretending to be a jelly on Play School would blow their minds. Presumably the original creators never let their children near the androids or their brains would be fused by the sight of a six year old gallumphing around and telling everyone she was a ballet dancing princess.

Director Marc Daniels keeps the story grounded and someone, possibly assistant director Phil Rawlins, does excellent work keeping track of the extras used for the duplicate androids. A few split screen effects, most notably when Harry Mudd introduces the Alice series, sell the idea of identical androids but for the most part the androids are achieved with one set of twins, a lot of identical costumes and some wigs. The clever use of extras is demonstrated in the scene where the androids reveal their true plan.

[A wide shot of the throne room. Harry fusses around saying goodbye to the androids. The camera pushes forwards and Kirk enters the rear of the throne room set with Spock and the other Alice twin]

KIRK: Mudd, a few questions I want to ask you.

MUDD: Afraid I won't have time to answer them. My bags are all packed. The androids will take the Enterprise out of orbit in less than twenty four hours. But it's been a real pleasure having you here, Kirk. Is there anything I can get for you?

...Skipped the bit with Stella...
MUDD: Alice Number 2, my little love. Will you have my bags transported up to the ship? [During this line the camera pulls back at an angle favouring both the twins, until we can see four Alices. The two twins and the two extras]

ANDROIDS: No, my Lord Mudd.

MUDD: What?

NORMAN: We can no longer take your orders, Harry Mudd.

MUDD: Why not?

 NORMAN: Our makers were wise. They programmed us to serve.

MUDD: Yes, but that's what I'm saying. Put my bags on the ship.

KIRK: Harry, I think they have something else in mind.

NORMAN: You are correct, Captain. Harry Mudd is flawed, even for a human being...

 

NORMAN:[Continues over reaction shot] We recognised this from the beginning but used his knowledge to obtain more specimens....

 NORMAN:[Continues in close-up]Your species is self-destructive...

 NORMAN:[Continues over reaction shot] You need our help.

KIRK: We prefer to help ourselves. We make mistakes, but we're human. And maybe that's the word that best explains us.

NORMAN: We will not harm you, but we will take the starship...

NORMAN:[Continues] and you will remain on this planet.

MUDD: Now, look here. You can't do that! Now, listen. To serve us, you must obey us.

ANDROIDS: No, my Lord Mudd.

MUDD: Alice number One... [still the same shot, the camera pans showing Spock and one of the Alice twins at the back of the room, Harry walks towards her] 

MUDD: [Continues] obey me. Put my bags on that ship!

[Alice 1 gives him a push. Harry goes reeling backwards]

NORMAN: We cannot allow any race as greedy and corruptible as yours...
 

NORMAN:[Continues over reaction shot] to have free run of the galaxy.

SPOCK: [As Spock speaks he walks forwards and the camera pans with him. One of the Alice twins follows and moves to stand behind Spock] I'm curious, Norman. Just how do you intend to stop them?

NORMAN: We shall serve them. Their kind will be eager to accept our service....

NORMAN:[Continues over reaction shot] Soon they will become completely dependent upon us.

ALICE 99: Their aggressive and acquisitive instincts will be under our control.

NORMAN: We shall take care of them.

SPOCK: Eminently practical.

KIRK: The whole galaxy controlled by your kind?

NORMAN: Yes, Captain.... 

Norman: [Continues in close-up] And we shall serve them and you will be happy, and controlled.

If that seems confusing to read, it was even more complicated to write, and I suspect it was most complicated of all to film. Kudos to whoever staged the scene for keeping track of the geography and making sure the two twins were used as effectively as possible. They are moved between shots and positioned very carefully though the sequence to make sure they give the impression of a planet full of identical androids.

Enterprise crew deaths: None, True to his word Norman is very careful not to kill anyone.

Running total: 35

Mirror, Mirror

Mirror, Mirror, like The Alternative Factor, involves parallel universes. It would be a clever, if slightly smug, critical device to compare the two and demonstrate that one story is actually the mirror image of the other. But they are not, except that Mirror, Mirror is really good and The Alternative Factor is terrible (and in Mirror, Mirror Spock has a better and more convincing beard than The Alternative Factor's Lazarus). Mirror, Mirror isn't really about parallel universes anyway. The world of the Terran Empire is just a backdrop for Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, and Uhura to have an adventure in which their friends and colleagues are the baddies. This is the source for those television programmes in which characters meet different versions of themselves. That's not to say Star Trek invented the idea of parallel universes, or dopplegangers, but when most series reference either idea it will be Mirror, Mirror the writer is thinking of rather than John Wyndham's 1961 short story Random Quest, or Philip K. Dick's 1962 The Man In The High Castle, or Superman's Bizarro.

There is one crucial difference between Mirror, Mirror and the television programmes which reference it; Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, and Uhura never meet their other selves. With the exception of one short scene, we are left to infer what their mirror alternates are like from looking at the universe they live in and imagining how different their characters would have to be in order to survive. In the Buffy The Vampire Slayer episode Dopplegangland the script gets a huge amount of mileage from Willow meeting her alternate world double. “I’m so evil and skanky, and I think I’m kind of gay.” Even in the early versions of Mirror, Mirror this was never a story about Kirk meeting a different version of himself, possibly because The Enemy Within was still fresh in everyone's minds. The story was always about Kirk in a different world (in Jerome Bixby's first storyline the transporter malfunction shunted Kirk into a universe where the Federation was losing a war because phasers hadn't been invented). In this respect its closest relative is the 1970 Doctor Who story Inferno in which the Doctor is bumped sideways into a fascist England, a world he never visited, and must deal with different versions of his friends.

When the transporter malfunctions (sweetly the magnetic storm which causes the problem is visualised on-screen with lightning and thunder suggesting either the production team misunderstood the nature of a magnetic storm or they didn't know how to sell the idea to the viewer) it's tempting to describe the universe the landing party arrive in as evil. It isn't. Well, not completely. Because of the title it's easy to assume this new universe is a mirror image of the Star Trek one. That what's good is bad, and vice versa; so while the Terran Empire is nasty, the Romulans and Klingons, who we never see, must be nice, and so on. That's clearly not the case. In both universes the Halkans, who live on a planet rich in dilithium crystals, are deeply committed pacifists. In a true mirror universe they would presumably have been war crazy hawks. And while the Terran Empire is obviously not nice, it's not completely evil either. At best it can be described as ruthlessly pragmatic. When Kirk arrives on the mirror-Enterprise his double is returning from the Halkan homeworld. Whether he was negotiating with the Halkans, or just threatening them, is not clear but he was talking to them. If the Terran Empire was completely evil they'd just roll up and take what they wanted. For mirror-Kirk to engage with the Halkans shows the Empire recognises the need for diplomacy, or at least recognises the need for the appearance of diplomacy. Likewise, despite what the presence of mirror-Sulu might suggest, the ISS Enterprise is not just a crew of sadists in space flying around being dastardly. Lieutenant Kyle is not evil, he's just doing his job to the best of his ability. Within the Empire the acceptance of promotion by assassination seems to have resulted in a crew where the most ruthless people end up on the bridge; resulting in a ship commanded by those best equipped to survive while killing their way to the top rather than those who are actively evil.

We don't get any hint of what the mirror versions of Uhura and Scotty must be like. Mirror-McCoy's personality is suggested by a single line from McCoy. “And my Sickbay is a chamber of horrors. My assistants were betting on the tolerance of an injured man. How long it would take him to pass out from the pain.” We do see mirror-Kirk and he comes across as a thug. He shouts, he bellows, he struggles futilely, and he makes threats he is in no position to carry out. He thinks he's being really clever in offering Spock credits, and power, but actually he's being obviously manipulative. Mirror-Kirk seems too stupid to have risen to the position of Captain, until we discover later about the Tantalus field in his cabin. Mirror-Chekov is out of his league. He's smart enough to have joined the bridge crew, and smart enough to pick a good time for an attempt on Kirk's life, but he's not smart enough to realise he's already been betrayed and that one of his guards is working for Kirk; mirror-Chekov's ultimate destination is the agony booth.

As in The Naked Time George Takei is given a visually memorable role; possibly the most memorable depending on how you think Spock looks with a beard. Here he plays mirror-Sulu in a way that brings to mind Major Toht, the sinister Gestapo Officer from Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Sulu is a sadist who abuses his authority but he's also smart; smarter than Chekov. He guesses the nature of Spock's orders. He also works out a plan which will allow him to eliminate Spock and Kirk at the same time and nearly gets away with it. He's also surprisingly brave. When Lieutenant Marlena Moreau uses the Tantalus field to remove his party of security guards Sulu doesn't run even though the odds suddenly shift against him. Sulu still takes on Kirk, not that he puts up much of a fight.

The character we see most is mirror-Spock. In the teaser his different appearance is the main visual used to establish that something weird has happened to the landing party. Bruce Shoengarth, the film editor gives us two big close-ups of Spock with beard, and one tracking shot from Kirk's point of view showing Spock armed with a dagger and phaser. When Spock uses the agoniser on Lieutenant Kyle it establishes that not only does this Spock look different, but he acts differently as well. The difference extends beyond Spock simply being a Vulcan who has decided it is logical to match the humans' brutality. When Spock tells Kirk, “I have found you to be an excellent officer. Our missions together have been both successful and profitable,” it's more than just simple flattery. As he says, “I do not desire the captaincy. I much prefer my scientific duties. I am frankly content to be a lesser target.” It's tempting to wonder if Spock protected mirror-Kirk, foiling assassination attempts against his commander to avoid becoming Captain himself. Interestingly one of Spock's guards is a Vulcan, suggesting the entire race is less isolationist than they appear to be in the main Star Trek universe.

So, what's the history of the Terran Empire? It's more than just a simple inversion of the Federation. There are plenty of hints it might be that parallel history regular, a world where Rome never fell. We have the Roman-esque salute. The Terran Empire's logo, a Gladius like short sword impaling the Earth. Advancement by assassination. And, most obviously, Marlena Moreau's comment, “if I'm to be the woman of a Caesar.” Also, though probably coincidentally, the costume department have armed the bridge crew in the style of Roman soldiers with a primary weapon, the phaser, and a dagger (in a nice touch the phaser is worn on the left continuing the mirror image theme).

What really pleases about Mirror, Mirror is its subtlety. That might seem an odd word to use for an episode which features the leering scarred face of Mr Sulu, or William Shatner seizing the opportunity to go over the top as he's dragged down a corridor bellowing, “I order you, Let me go! Traitors! Spock, get these men off me!” but this is a story packed with small moments among the equally enjoyable over the top scenes. Look at the disdainful way mirror-Spock drops Mr. Kyle's agoniser after use, rather than handing it back. And how agonisers are for enlisted men only, not bridge officers. And, having said the Terran Empire is not pointlessly sadistic there is something aptly unpleasant in the way the crew have to wear their own agonisers. It's not sufficient for the Empire to punish failure with extreme pain, each man has to deal with the humiliation of carrying the source of their pain as personal equipment.

Look also at how the turncoat guard phasers Chekov's men while defending Kirk. Life is cheap on the ISS Enterprise, and their phasers don't stun; or if they do it's not the default setting. In the same scene Kirk has a terrific reproachful line to his guards when they appear after the fight is over.

CHEKOV'S GUARD: Easy, Farrell. I did your job. Ask the captain.

FARRELL: Sir?

KIRK: Yes, he did your job.

“He did your job,” if that was the real mirror-Kirk Farrell would be on the way to the agony booth himself. All through the episode the actors are taking the time to think about how their characters would react to events, and director Marc Daniels is making time to film these reactions. As a result we have lovely background bits of business like Uhura approaching Scotty in the transporter room and making a confused gesture to her changed uniform, while at the same time Scotty silently signals, “not now,” to her. Or Kirk's reaction as he realises the standard procedure he has agreed to is a phaser barrage on Halkan cities. Or the two security guards on the bridge guarding the turbo elevator doors as Uhura distracts Sulu; in the absence of senior officers one of them lounges and leers like a dime store hood while the other checks out Uhura.

To be really picky there is one scripting oddity at the end of the episode when Kirk asks Spock, “how long before the Halkan prediction of galactic revolt is realised?” and Spock responds as if this is something the pair have discussed during the course of the episode. Presumably this line refers back to something removed at the scripting, or film editing stage, and it stands out precisely because this sort of error is very unusual. Apart from that line, this is a flawless episode and it's easy to see why 45 years later Mirror, Mirror remains a touchstone for television writers.

Enterprise crew deaths: None. Deaths on the ISS Enterprise don't count (although I'm sure their loved ones miss them very much).
Running total: 30

Misc:

The similarities between the Doctor Who story Inferno and Mirror, Mirror are remarkable. It's easy to assume Inferno borrows the parallel universe concept from Mirror, Mirror as Star Trek becomes an obvious influence on Doctor Who as the series moves through the early 70s. Which makes it all the more odd that the dates don't quite match. Mirror, Mirror was first shown on BBC1 on 15^th June 1970. That's the Monday before the last episode of the seven part Inferno was broadcast on Saturday 20^th. The first storyline for Inferno, which included the parallel universe idea suggested by producer Barry Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks, was requested on 27^th November 1969 (while BBC1 was still showing the first series of Star Trek). Obviously the BBC must have held a copy of Mirror, Mirror by November 1969 and it's not impossible Letts and Dicks watched it, but why would they do this? It would open them up to being accused of plagiarism. It's more likely Terrance Dicks and Jerome Bixby both read The Man In The High Castle, or that Dicks saw Out Of The Unknown's adaptation of Random Quest which was broadcast on 11^th February 1969.