The Tholian Web

There's been a significant departure from the Star Trek production team. This is the first episode filmed without Jerry Finnerman as director of photography. The complications of production order versus broadcast order mean we've already seen a couple of episodes shot by Jerry Finnerman's replacement Al Francis, Day Of The Dove and ForThe World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky, and Finnerman's last story The Empath is still to come. Jerry Finnerman's loss is significant because he was responsible for the look of the show. The bright slabs of colour, the use of lenses to add depth to sets, and the use of lighting to help tell the story. Go back and watch This Side Of Paradise and the scene where Kirk fights the effect of the spores. The lighting in the transporter room is used to represent Kirk's internal emotional struggle as Kirk goes from being lit normally, to silhouetted, and then, when he leans forward, his face is lit a harsh electric blue. No disrespect to Al Francis but his lighting on Day Of The Dove and For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky and of course here on The Tholian Web is flatter and less interesting.

The Tholian Web also sees the departure from Star Trek of Ralph Senensky who was replaced after the third day of shooting by Herb Wallerstein who takes the directing credit on this episode. Ralph Senensky's input is obvious. Most notably in the use of a 9mm lens to show Chekov's distorted point of view when he is driven mad by this strange area of space. Ralph Senensky used the same visual trick in his other third season episode Is There In Truth No Beauty? The script's suggestion that the dimensional structure of the overlapping universe can drive people insane because it is utterly alien is reminiscent of H. P. Lovecraft's stories about monstrous geometries which cause everything from a sense of dread to full blown madness.

Judy Burns and Chet Richards' script is unusually structured. Instead of a big central crisis there are several little problems. Kirk is lost in the other universe and will not reappear for two hours. The area of overlap is fragile and any energy use from the Enterprise could damage it, resulting in Kirk being lost forever. The overlapping universe is gradually driving the Enterprise crew insane. Then the Tholians arrive. Individually any one of these problems would be simple to resolve, but they start coming one immediately after another and the crisis keeps building as the episode progresses. Compare this to For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky, a story with two main strands; McCoy's terminal illness and the badly off course asteroid/world Yonada. Both these plots are set up in act one and everything which occurs is just filler until Yonada's course is corrected in act four, and Spock finds the cure to McCoy's disease and the episode ends.

The other unusual aspect of Judy Burns and Chet Richards' script is that it is largely Kirk free. Although it is a credit to the writers that his presence hangs over the story even when the character is apparently lost. According to Judy Burns in the original story outline, called In Essence – Nothing, it was Spock who was lost but this was changed following a memo from Robert Justman. It was a smart change to make. Losing Kirk strengthens the story. McCoy would never challenge Kirk in the way he does Spock. Unfortunately it turns out that McCoy goes a little too overboard when he challenges Spock's decision making.

MCCOY: ... I really came here to find out why you stayed and fought.
SPOCK: The Captain would have remained to recover a crew member at the risk of his own life or even his own ship.
MCCOY: Yes, he would, Mister Spock, but you didn't have that decision to make. What would you gain by fighting the Tholians? You could have assured yourself of a captaincy by leaving the area. But you chose to stay. Why?
SPOCK: I need not explain my rationale to you or any other member of this crew. There is a margin of variation in any experiment. While there was a chance, I was bound legally and morally to ascertain the Captain's status.
MCCOY: You mean to be sure if he was dead. Well, you made certain of that.

That's McCoy virtually accusing Spock of murdering Kirk. Granted McCoy is grieving the loss of his friend and he doesn't understand that Spock feels the same pain, he's just better at concealing it. Yes, he backs down later and apologises after hearing Kirk's last message. And, yes the moment is very well played by both Deforest Kelly and Leonard Nimoy, but it feels like a step too far for the character. There are moments in The Tholian Web when Doctor McCoy feels like a new character who has just joined the Enterprise crew, rather than someone who has served with Spock for almost three years.

Enterprise crew deaths: Despite the mass outbreak of insanity nobody dies.
Running total: 48
Misc:

The closing credits feature a make-up shot of an aged Uhura from And The Children Shall Lead, when this was used in the episode the image was cropped and inserted into a mirror.

Day Of The Dove

Day Of The Dove is one of those episodes Star Trek occasionally produces where all the interesting stuff is going on at the edge of the story. A Private Little War's dull central idea of nice hill people vs nasty villagers is much less interesting than the motivation of Krell the Klingon. What's does he want from the planet? Is he helping build a network of satellite planets to act as a buffer zone against the Federation? Are the Klingons also excited about the, “interesting organic compounds,” McCoy has found? Is he just messing up the planet for sheer devilment? The concept of the Gorgon, and its vague resemblance to H. P. Lovecraft's ideas of ancient corrupting evil, is far more interesting than anything else to be found in And The Children Shall Lead.

Day Of The Dove is a better episode than either A Private Little War or And The Children Shall Lead but the central message is spelled out so clearly it becomes obvious and trite. Peace is better than war. Far more interesting is the unnamed and unexplained alien.

At the start of the episode the Enterprise is investigating a distress call. One hundred men, women, and children have been wiped out by an unidentified craft. No trace of the colony, or any residue of the force used to destroy it, remains. The implication seems to be that the distress call was faked by the alien (in fact there probably wasn't even a colony) and that the alien is also playing with the perception and memories of the Enterprise crew to stop them noticing any holes in this scenario. At the same time the alien has also faked an attack on a Klingon ship. Physical damage has been inflicted on the ship and, again, the crew's perceptions altered to make them believe the Enterprise crew is to blame.

This is an astonishingly powerful alien. It can manipulate memories emotions and matter, and yet here it is setting up a fight between 38 humans and 38 Klingons to turn the Enterprise into an eternal all it can eat hate buffet. How did it end up here, in reduced circumstances, faking distress calls in some galactic backwater? It's fun to imagine what it got up to in the past. Perhaps it visited the Eminiar system to provoke the war between Eminiar VII and Vendikar. It probably fed off that conflict for years until both planets instigated the simulated war we see in A Taste Of Armageddon, and the alien found that computer controlled wars were too emotionless for its taste.

The story isn't about the alien, it's about Kirk and the Enterprise crew and the Klingons breaking their cycle of prejudice and hatred. It's fun, and the message is meant well and delivered sincerely, but ultimately the storytelling is too convenient to make for a great episode. The all-powerful alien becomes oddly powerless at times. When Kirk, Spock, and Mara find it in the Enterprise corridors it cowers as if trapped in the corner of the ceiling although we've already seen it move effortlessly through walls. Then while the three watch it demonstrates its dependence on hostile emotions before floating away. Several times in the episode the alien provokes Enterprise crew members into mutinous rages, Chekov on the bridge when he talks about his non-existent brother Piotre and Johnson just before he is knocked out by Spock, and yet a simple command across the ship's intercom from Kirk and Klingon Commander Kang is enough for all fighting to immediately stop.

It's also difficult to square the anti-war message of Day Of The Dove with earlier episodes especially A Private Little War in which Kirk argues for war when he says, “war isn't a good life, but it's life.” A Private Little War writer Jud Crucis (actually Don Ingalls hiding behind a pseudonym) cannot be blamed for the contradictions caused by a later episode but it's a good demonstration of how little overall continuity there was between different episodes of Star Trek.

Enterprise crew deaths: None again.
Running total: 48.

And The Children Shall Lead

“We're writing radio shows. All the actors can do now is stand around and talk to each other.” Maybe no episode better demonstrates Robert Justman's complaint about season three Star Trek than And The Children Shall Lead where the script itself actively works to prevent Kirk from taking any meaningful action.

The central premise of writer Edward J. Lakso's script is that an evil alien called the Gorgan is using children as its agents of evil. Not a bad idea in itself. Creepy kids have a history in science fiction, The Twilight Zone episode It's A Good Life or the 1960 film Village Of The Damned, an adaptation of John Wyndham's book The Midwich Cuckoos. The problem is that here the children are used in such a way it becomes impossible for Kirk to take any substantial action against them without looking like a bully, or a monster. Kirk's standard operating procedures of fighting, or seduction, are certainly off limits. The whole plot could be wrapped up in five minutes if Kirk stunned the kids with a phaser, or got McCoy to sedate them, but that's something no network would be prepared to show. When McCoy also forbids Kirk from questioning the children on psychological grounds, Kirk is effectively unable to act or investigate. One of the reasons this story feels so static is that Kirk becomes a spectator. He's unable to do anything except react; react to the children taking over the Enterprise, react to footage from Professor Starnes' tapes, and react as he loses command.

There's also a production decision which adds to the inert feel of the story. The Gorgan is realised using special effects. On screen he is always semi transparent and covered with a glowing green special effect. This limits Marvin Belli's movement, and also stops him from interacting properly with the other characters. If Marvin Belli was the world's greatest actor he might be able to overcome the limitations of not being on the same set as the principle cast, and a costume which restricts his body language to the extent he is just a talking head, but he isn't the world's greatest actor; he's a celebrity lawyer who unsuccessfully defended Jack Ruby. It turns out stunt casting isn't a new development

Having written a script which actively works to prevent the lead characters from doing anything except watch footage from the doomed Starnes Exploration Party, Edward J. Lakso is then faced with several problems.

A) Kirk must learn why the children are behaving so strangely.

B )Kirk must learn about the true source of the children's power.
C) Kirk must learn how to summon the Gorgan.
D) Kirk must learn the Gorgan's plan.

Lasko's solution results in one of the silliest Star Trek scenes committed to film. It's certainly the laziest scripting since The Alternative Factor. In context the scene just about works, as does the whole episode thanks to director Marvin J. Chomsky and film editor Donald R. Rode (genuinely one of the unsung heroes of Star Trek his work lifts otherwise average episodes like Return To Tomorrow or A Private Little War), but out of context the scene where the children summon the Gorgan to the bridge of the Enterprise is ludicrous.

The problems with this scene are many. Firstly none of the crew react in an even slightly human way. When Kirk dashes onto the bridge, having discovered the Enterprise is no longer orbiting Triacus, the children are in the middle of the ritual to summon the Gorgan. Uhura is gazing placidly at them as if this is the most delightful thing she has ever seen, while Chekov is oblivious to the din going on just behind his right shoulder. Then when the Gorgan appears everyone looks surprised, but that's pretty much the minimum required level of reaction. There are two armed guards on the bridge what are they there for if not to point their phasers at intruders who materialise out of thin air?

Secondly, no one says anything. Not a, “kids please don't play in here,” as the children conduct their ritual, or a word from Kirk. It's genuinely ludicrous that Kirk doesn't try to engage with the Gorgan but instead stays silent for almost 90 seconds. William Shatner rightly gets a lot of criticism for his performance in this episode but frankly given the material he's working with it's not really a huge surprise he's given up and is apparently just trying to amuse himself. Watch this scene from the beginning of act three as the Gorgan appears, delivers a speech, and disappears again, before the children leave the bridge. Compare the silent statues who passively watch all this with the bridge crew we've seen over the previous 58 episodes; how do you think those characters would have reacted? By wondering how those characters would react, you've already put in more work than Edward J. Lakso. He needs a scene in which the Gorgan infodumps his entire plan in such a way that Kirk learns it, and so that's exactly what he writes. Only the Gorgan has information to pass on so none of the other characters are given any lines. We're back at the scripting level of The Alternative Factor where McCoy allows Lazarus to walk out of sickbay because the plot will grind to a halt if he doesn't.

Thirdly what dialogue there is, is terrible. “Friends we have reached a moment of crisis. The enemy have discovered our operation, but they are too late,” says the Gorgan, apparently misunderstanding his part to be the role of narrator. The enemy haven't discovered your operation, you've revealed yourself to them. The only reason you have reached “ a moment of crisis” is because your followers decided to conduct their secret ritual in public.

Fourthly, despite now knowing the Gorgan's plan no one makes use of the information. At the end of the Gorgan's speech three of the children are allowed to just walk off the bridge. One of the security guards even follows the children into the turbo elevator. Presumably he's following the captain's orders to the letter. “Post a guard on the children. They're to be kept under constant watch.” Obviously he's not going to intervene as the children take over the Enterprise, he's only been ordered to watch.

There is the core of an interesting premise in And The Children Shall Lead, but the finished episode never comes close to realising that potential. The script never makes it clear if the Gorgon is somehow one of the marauders who operated from Triacus surviving in psychic form, or the entity which inspired the marauders to their centuries long reign of terror pillaging the Epsilon Indi system. If it's the latter there's an intriguing H. P. Lovecraft aspect to the story. The idea that a cave on the planet Triacus is the home of an ancient corrupting evil, and that evil has now latched on to the children of the Starnes Exploration Party; corrupting them, turning them against their own parents, and ultimately encouraging the children to focus its power against their own parents and drive them to suicide. Unfortunately, something else the script never makes clear, is what exactly did happen to the parents of the Starnes Party. Did they kill themselves to escape the horrific illusions and tricks of the Gorgan, or did their own children summon up their parents darkest fears and drive them to suicide?

Enterprise crew deaths: Two security guards are accidentally beamed into space. The most unpleasant crew death since Yeoman Thompson.
Running total: 48.

Catspaw

“Star Trek obviously solicits all-out suspension of disbelief but it won't work. It was an incredible mess of dreary complexities and confusion at the kick-off... By a generous stretch of the imagination it could lure a small coterie of the smallfry, though not happily time slotted in that direction. It's better suited to the Saturday morning kidvid bloc.”

Robert Justman and Herbert Solow quote from the The Weekly Variety's stinker of a review of The Man Trap in their book Inside Star Trek. It never gets any kinder than the section quoted above, also describing Shatner and Nimoy as, “wooden” and wondering, “how this lowercase fantasy broke into the sked.” Frustratingly the complete review doesn't appear online but the sections in Justman and Solow's book suggest the review reserves much of its criticism for surface details (“[Mr Spock] socalled chief science officer whose bizarre hairdo (etc.) is a dilly”) rather than anything much of substance. Having said that, the quoted section is very perceptive about Star Trek's scheduling. It may not have ended up on Saturday mornings but the series only achieved mass popularity in syndication after it was bought by Kaiser Broadcasting who targeted young males by putting Star Trek on at 6pm opposite their competitor's news broadcasts.

The Weekly Variety's review may be off target for The Man Trap but it sums up Catspaw very well because it does look look like, “lowercase fantasy suitable for smallfry”.

There's a lack of depth to Robert Bloch's script. It is very superficial, in a way no other Star Trek script has been before. Even a flawed episode like The Apple contains a Garden of Eden metaphor; Kirk gets some maudlin reflection about the weight of command; McCoy and Spock have an ongoing debate about the right way to treat the feeders of Vaal; there's some “nudge nudge, wink wink,” talk about sex; and the suggestion that humans stagnate in paradise and need to suffer to achieve their potential (a recurring theme in Star Trek). The Weekly Variety's favourite episode The Man Trap uses the extinct buffalo as a metaphor for the salt vampire; McCoy must kill a creature which looks like the love of his life; there's the disturbing question of Crater's relationship with the salt vampire (he appears to have fallen in love with the creature which killed his wife because it can make itself look like the woman it killed- to quote Homer Simpson “who's gonna pay for that wedding?”); and even the title is a pun, like a real man trap the salt vampire is a snare for the unwary.

Viewers can watch both stories on one of several levels. They can question the motivation of characters and decide who is right and who is wrong. They can pick up hints of themes too risky for network television to talk about in any detail. They can draw parallels with other stories. Or, they can watch them purely as the exciting space adventures of Captain Kirk and his fight against Vaal, or the salt vampire.

However, it's not just lashings of subtext which make a story work. The Apple's discussion of sex among the feeders of Vaal is handled in such a juvenile way (Spock is embarrassed by the subject: why?) the script would probably be marginally better if it was removed. The weakest part of The Doomsday Machine is the planet killer/nuclear weapons parallel; if only because Kirk unambiguously spells out the message to the audience. Mirror, Mirror makes no attempt at allegory and the cast are driven by the desire to escape; one of the most basic motives possible.

Why then do Mirror, Mirror and The Doomsday Machine feel more sophisticated than Catspaw? Both episodes give us something different. The Doomsday Machine works because the threat to the Enterprise is doubled; externally from the planet killer and internally from the obsessed Commodore Decker. Mirror, Mirror shows us a world where friends are enemies and everything familiar seems dangerous and new.

In contrast Catspaw has nothing new to offer except the set dressing. Scrape away the skeletons, black cats, and torch lit dungeons and there's a familiar stew of ideas the audience has already been presented with too many times. In Bloch's earlier script What Are Little Girls Made Of? the android Andrea goes mad after being kissed by Kirk. Here Sylvia is driven insane by the rush of sensations in her new human body. Sylvia mentions a transmuter and we're off on a game of hunt-the-power source as seen in The Squire Of Gothos. As in The Return Of The Archons members of the Enterprise crew become zombie puppets under external control. Kirk attempts to seduce Sylvia as he did with Karidian's daughter Lenore in The Conscience Of The King. Catspaw ends up feeling juvenile because it's problems are threefold. The story has no depth, the setting is just about the only original element, and the motivations of Korob and Sylvia, the two aliens who drive the plot by accidentally tapping into the human collective unconsciousness and creating a planet of witches and haunted castles (another concept done before in The Squire Of Gothos where Trelane accidentally builds his world based on outdated images from Earth), are too vague and undefined to be of any real interest.

One of the few moments of real interest comes when Korob reminds Sylvia, “We have a duty to the old ones.” Bloch was a H.P. Lovecraft fan so it seems likely he intended the reference to refer to Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos. Lovecraft described Cthulhu as, “a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers,” which does slightly match the otherwise terrible puppets which represent the true forms of Korob and Sylvia at the end of the story. Also, if you are equipped with a dirty sense of humour, there's unintentional comedy in the moment Sylvia declares, “I am a woman. I am all women,” before kneeling before Kirk and placing her hands on his hips. It looks as if she is about to commit a most indecorous act. Sylvia may be all women but she's clearly no lady.

Given this script director Joseph Pevney does his best but, as with The Apple, he's clearly struggling to engage with the material. Korob gets an unusual close-up when he argues with Sylvia. There's a terrific tracking shot as Kirk, Spock, and McCoy search the planet at the beginning of the episode; the trio walk down a shallow gulley which allows rocks to move in the foreground and background. The jump cut from the dungeon to throne room, as Kirk, Spock, and McCoy struggle with Sulu and Scotty, is effective and momentarily disorientating but weirdly the most effective piece of editing isn't in the episode itself. The Next Voyage advert for Catspaw includes the sequence where Sylvia demonstrates her ability to change between different female forms. As she changes someone, probably film editor Bruce Shoengarth, inserts short shots of the cat snarling as a transition between the different forms. It's more creepy and effective than anything in the episode.

Enterprise crew deaths: One, Lieutenant Jackson who does a spectacular belly flop onto the transporter pad after beaming up dead.

Running total: 35

Misc:

Journey Into Terror a 1965 episode of Doctor Who features the TARDIS crew landing in what appears to be the collective human unconscious while on the run from the Daleks. As in Catspaw, spooky haunted house imagery is the order of the day (along with Dracula and Frankenstein).
There must have been something in the air, or possibly the collective unconscious, during the mid sixties for two series on both sides of the Atlantic to reference Jung's theories in such similar ways, and so close together. Jung died in 1961 but his last book Man And His Symbols was published in 1964. Possibly it was this which raised awareness of his work.