Who Mourns For Adonais?

Most obviously Who Mourns For Adonais? is very much of its time. At the top of the episode McCoy has a line about Lieutenant Carolyn Palamas, “one day she'll find the right man and off she'll go, out of the service.” A line which could be taken to mean married women cannot serve in Starfleet, or that once Palamas has found the right man she'll have no interest in a career. In a better episode this line might just provoke a shrug at the different values of 45 years ago but there are other problems with the script.

For starters Lieutenant Palamas doesn't have much in the way of a character. She fills the same role as Lieutenant McGivers in Space Seed; to be seduced by the guest villain until reminded of where her real loyalties lie. However McGivers had a reason to fall for Khan. She's a historian fascinated by strong men from history, she doesn't seem to fit in on board the Enterprise and her skills are under appreciated by Kirk. Palamas on the other hand doesn't have any comparable motive for falling for Apollo. At the start of the episode she's in a relationship with Scotty, then she beams down with the landing party and when Apollo starts putting his 5000 year old moves on her she's his. Passed from one member of the cast to another without any say in the matter like a football.

One minute Palamas is arguing with Apollo. “But why? What you've said so far makes no sense at all!” Then when Apollo invites her to frolic like the Greeks of old, “you will know what it is to be a goddess,” and Scotty objects and is zapped while drawing his phaser she doesn't really react. She might at least be expected to run over to Scotty and see if he's injured but Kirk does that. Next Apollo magics her into a new dress and takes her for a walk. “Come,” says Apollo and when Scotty intervenes he is thrown backwards across a table, in a well set up stunt, and knocked unconscious. Palamas isn't really that bothered, she doesn't attempt to leave Apollo's side, and goes off with him into the forest. She doesn't even ask if Scotty's all right. She saw the man she's been dating struck under the chin by a massively powerful being who claims to be the Greek god Apollo. She saw him thrown backwards with a crash of thunder to lie still on the ground. McCoy's diagnosis of Scotty as stunned doesn't occur until after Palamas has gone off with Apollo. Scotty could be dead for all Palamas knows. Now try watching her next scene which starts with Palamas' line, “oh it's lovely,” and ends with Apollo kissing her, and try to make sense of it from her perspective. This is not a complaint about 45 year old sexism. It's simply bad writing.

To be fair to Leslie Parrish, the actress who plays Palamas, she seems to be aware of this problem. She makes Palamas look afraid when all this is going on, but the end result is a character who appears to be frightened by the violence itself rather than showing any concern for Scotty. As if Apollo and Scotty were fighting over Palamas in a nightclub. That said Palamas does get to play an essential role in distracting Apollo at the end of the story, and she gets one of the script's best lines when she has to pretend to be studying Apollo to see how he copies human behaviour.

APOLLO: I am Apollo. I've chosen you.

CAROLYN: I'm sure that's very flattering, but I must get on with my work now.

Much more difficult is the scene towards the end where Apollo calls down a storm after he is angered by Palamas rejection. This can be read as a rape scene. Palamas is alone, and afraid. As the winds blow around her she clutches her dress and holds it down as if to protect herself. Apollo, semi-transparent, appears superimposed over storm clouds as if he is either riding the wind, or actually the storm itself. Then Lieutenant Palamas falls to the ground and shouts, “no,” before we see an extreme close-up of Apollo's face still superimposed over the storm, and then the image cuts to a slow zoom towards Palamas as if the audience is seeing her from Apollo's point of view. Obviously the storm could just be Apollo's anger but there is a precedent within Greek mythology, and even specific myths relating to Apollo himself, to suggest this scene could have a much darker symbolic meaning. Technically it's impressive work. Well edited and well scored, in fact the music throughout this episode is consistently excellent. It also works dramatically within the context of the story, but it's steering the programme into waters it is not really equipped to navigate. If it is intended to suggest Apollo raping Lieutenant Palamas, then it gives the ending of the episode, where the audience are invited to feel sympathy for Apollo, a completely inappropriate tone.

Scotty is subject to some very odd characterisation. He's not acting out of character because Scotty has tended to be written according to the needs of each script, and generally it's left to James Doohan to pull the disparate threads together and make Scotty seem like a person. We've seen him be quietly professional in The Naked Time and The Galileo Seven, distracted in Mudd's Women, and gung ho in A Taste Of Armageddon. In Who Mourns For Adonais? Scotty is written as a lovesick teenager. He cannot keep his eyes off Palamas. And when Apollo takes Palamas from him, his instinct is to lash out. Scotty attacks Apollo three times in the course of this episode. Each time to no effect and each time sustaining more and more damage. In Futurama's Star Trek spoof Where No Fan Has Gone Before there is a running joke about Welshy (Scotty's replacement after James Doohan declined to appear) being killed by Melllvar, and his corpse being electrocuted again and again whenever Melllvar becomes angry. Who Mourns For Adonais? could well be the source for that joke.

It's difficult not to feel that writer Gilbert Ralston is just being lazy. Scotty's madly in love with Palamas because it's simply the easiest way to jam a bit of conflict and peril into the second and third act, not because it's a story the writer wants to tell. If Ralston really wanted to write a story about Scotty in love he would have actually put some effort into making it look like Scotty and Palamas were in a relationship. As it is, it's all one way. Scotty can't keep his eyes of Palamas whereas she never really reciprocates. “Oh all right,” is her response to being invited for coffee, and while he calls her Carolyn she calls him Scotty. He fights and risks his life for a woman who never even puts her arm round him. It actually looks less like love and more like obsession; which is worrying considering Wolf In The Fold is coming up.

Ultimately this all affects suspension of disbelief. The triumph of Amok Time is it makes the audience believe Vulcan exists beyond the confines of the television screen. A strong and enjoyable script makes the audience willing to overlook the implausible elements which might otherwise remind them they are watching a story filmed on a soundstage on Gower Street in Hollywood. It's why Joseph Pevney's occasionally clumsy handling of the Gorn in Arena doesn't affect the overall episode; beyond some good natured ribbing about the quality of the costumes. Likewise it's why the obviously fake spore plants in This Side Of Paradise don't matter. If that episode had been filmed on a soundstage planet filled with equally weird looking alien vegetation they could have passed without notice. Filmed on location and contrasted with real plants and trees they might have wrecked the episode. In fact This Side Of Paradise is so confident it makes the plant's appearance the subject of a joke. “What exactly are we looking for anyway, sir?” asks Kelowitz. “Whatever doesn't look right, whatever that is,” replies Sulu (who worked in the botany department in The Man Trap) oblivious to the bizarre plant slightly to his left.

In Who Mourns For Adonais? the absence of believable reactions from Palamas and Scotty means the episode never gels. Michael Forest puts in very good work as Apollo, and makes some very wordy dialogue sound like actual speech. Walter Koenig makes the most of limited scenes as Chekov.

APOLLO: I am Apollo.
[Kirk reacts]
[McCoy reacts]
[MUSIC: dramatic chord!]
CHEKOV: And I am the tsar of all the Russias.

Not the funniest response in the world but it's an interesting way to puncture the mood by introducing a character prepared to give backchat to the antagonist. Star Trek has not really gone in for sending up the baddies before so this is an interesting direction for the series, and the new character.

Matt Jefferies works miracles on a story which requires Apollo to have his own temple. It's fun-sized in comparison to real temples but it's an impressive set element; possibly the biggest the series has used so far.

Also impressive is the shot which ends act one, Apollo tripling in size and towering over the landing party booming, “welcome to Olympus”. It may be Star Trek's most ambitious effects shot so far. The first effects shot, I think, combining two live action elements rather than using overlaid animation, like phasers, or a glass painting. It's made more complicated by being layered so Apollo stands in front of the temple, and then he himself is partially obscured by a marble table in the foreground (a process Wikipedia tells me is a called a travelling matte which means I know what it's called even if I don't really understand how it works). The contrast is a little bit wonky, and the lighting not quite right but it's impressive given the budget and time limitations Star Trek always faced. Another memorable, and bizarre, image is the shot of the hand gripping the Enterprise. In fact judged purely on the visual side, this is a strong episode. The one oddity is the editing decision which means the shot of the hand holding the Enterprise is not used to bookend the opening titles. It begins act one, but it also seems like the ideal shot to end the teaser.

Enterprise crew deaths: None, again. Apollo throws a lot of electricity around but there are no fatalities. Nobody gets Westinghoused. 
Running total: 26

Balance Of Terror

So far the aliens who have appeared in Star Trek are a motley bunch; the salt vampire from The Man Trap; the Thasians, Charlie X; Ruk, What Are Little Girls Made Of?; the children on the duplicate Earth, Miri; Balok, The Corbomite Manouver; the Talosians, The Menagerie, along with the Kalar, and Vina as the green Orion slave girl. 

The Kalar, if you don't remember them for some reason, attack Captain Pike and Vina during a flashback to Rigel VII. They are monsters, in the Doctor Who sense of the word, a mobile obstacle for our hero to defeat. The salt vampire is also a monster, more articulate than the Kalar, but monster status is confirmed by its' inability to curb it's appetite and treat the Enterprise crew as anything other than an all day buffet. Ruk is mobile scenery. He looks weird and reminds the audience they are watching a science fiction programme, but he doesn't contribute much else to his episode; green Vina is the same. The Thasians are dramatic punctuation, a full stop to the plot of Charlie X when Charlie needs to be removed from the Enterprise. Miri, and the other children of the duplicate Earth, are interesting because they have grown up without adult supervision not because they are aliens. Only the Talosians and Balok, are characters in their own right. We understand what drives them and they have recognisable motives and goals.

All of them are one episode creations. It's difficult to imagine even someone as fun as Balok coming back. What could he do for an encore? Delay the Enterprise with a hexahedron, and drink more Tranya? In itself this is not a problem, after being utterly destroyed in their first story the Daleks went on to become the major baddies in Doctor Who. Rewriting characters is easy, look at the way the Ferengi go from 'the new Klingons' to comic relief over a couple of series of Star Trek: The Next Generation but if you are going to introduce a new race of aliens it's nice to get it right on the first attempt.

Which is where the Romulans come in. Balance Of Terror is their début and the Romulans appear fully formed. A lot of this is down to writer Paul Schneider's decision to use the Roman Empire as inspiration. Broad brush stokes prime the audience with just enough information to make this connection; twin planets named Romulus and Remus, a leader referred to as the Praeter, naming one Romulan Decius, and using the rank of Centurion. The result is a culture which feels solid on the basis of very little information because the audience's knowledge fills in any gaps. It also seems to have guided the actor's performances. Both Mark Leonard, and John Warburton, play their roles in a manner reminiscent of historical epics.

The Romulans are so fully formed in fact, it came as a surprise when I looked up the names of the two leaders and found they don't have any. The relationship between the two, their history, and their place within the Romulan Empire is so well established, it seemed more likely I hadn't been paying attention. Normally a role as large as Mark Leonard's going unnamed would be the sign of a hack writer but here it seems right, even appropriate, that military propriety would stop two close friends using each others names on duty.

The Commander and Centurian are treated as guest stars, not just aliens of the week. This is established the first time the episode cuts to the Romulan ship and we see the Commander and Centurian talking. It's rare to get a scene with none of the major stars, or at least one of the established characters, present. Charlie X doesn't feature a scene with the Thasians talking among themselves about the need to bring Charlie back. The Man Trap doesn't have a scene where Crater tells Nancy she can't keep killing without making people suspicious. Korby and Andrea never get a scene alone in What Are Little Girls Made Of? The Commander and Centurion are treated like Harry Mudd in Mudd's Women when we get to see him plotting with Eve, Magda, and Ruth. The actions of the characters shape the story. Kirk thinks the Romulan Commander is going into a trap when he heads towards a comet tail, then we learn that actually the Commander is setting a trap for the Enterprise, then Kirk's actions in springing his own trap alerts the Romulan Commander, who reacts, and forces Kirk to react when things don't go the way he expected. For want of a better phrase, the Commander and Centurion are written like real people. 

Apparently the Romulans were always in Paul Schneider's script, but whether they were always an off-shoot of the Vulcan race is less clear. It was a brilliant idea, whoever thought of it, and it's what elevates the Romulans to greatness. It makes them irresistible to the production team because, unlike Balok (who required a child actor, and a puppet to be realised on-screen) or Vena as an Orion slave girl (apparently women don't paint themselves green), you have an alien race who can be realised using existing production techniques, and irresistible to the audience because they add a little mystery back to Spock

Fourteen episodes in and familiarity is beginning to blunt Spock's impact. The character is not becoming boring or silly, Nimoy is careful to make sure that doesn't happen, but the initial shock of seeing the guy with the ears, eyebrows, and hair has worn off. Despite his appearance the audience needs to be reminded of his alien nature and the series has fallen into the habit of stopping once a week for a conversation about the difference between humans and Vulcans. Individually these scenes can be good, The Conscience Of The King's conversation between McCoy and Spock about alcohol has some nice lines although it does suggest McCoy gets drunk during the day, but the cumulative effect is a lot of telling, rather than showing. Suddenly we get the scene where Spock taps into the enemy ship's viewscreen and we see the Romulans in all their glory. The first time we've seen anyone else who looks like Spock, and these are baddies. I wonder if any of the original audience though we were about to find out Spock wasn't Vulcan, or that the Vulcan's were conducting some secret war. Regardless, it's odd to get to the end of the episode and realise we have now seen more Romulans than Vulcans.

The appearance of the Romulans also fills in a chunk of backstory about the Star Trek universe. Humans have had the run of the place up to this point. Flying around in their spaceship meeting aliens. We've been going to them, rather than seeing them come to us. The Corbomite Manouver is the only exception. Not only did Balok seek out the Enterprise, but the dummy Balok bluff hinted at the existence of less friendly races. How do you suppose the Romulans reacted to his cube? The Romulans have been quiet since the end of the Human-Romulan war 100 years ago. There's a nice hint they have been expanding their Empire in other directions when the Centurian talks to the Commander and says, “we've seen a hundred campaigns together, and still I do not understand you.” Possibly this is where the invisiblity shield and plasma weapon have come from; captured from enemy ships. Both seem more advanced than the otherwise underpowered and slow Romulan ship.

It's no secret Balance Of Terror is submarine story. Paul Schneider is supposed to have not so much written Balance Of Terror as adapted the film The Enemy Below for television. For a viewer who hasn't seen The Enemy Below the submarine conflict references still come through strongly; turning off equipment to run silent, jettisoning bodies and debris, and, the core of the episode, two Captains attempting to out think each other. Written down it sounds like the sort of war film everyone has sat through on a rainy Sunday afternoon but watched as a Star Trek episode it feels amazingly fresh. Largely this is because Star Trek hasn't done starship conflict before. In fact I am struggling to recall the last time the Enterprise fired its' phasers; I think it was to destroy Balok's cube in The Corbomite Manouver; and that may have been the first time we see them used.

The whole episode is bookended by two scenes showing life on board the Enterprise. In the first a wedding is about to take place and Kirk makes a speech, “Since the days of the first wooden vessels, all shipmasters have had one happy privilege. That of uniting two people in the bonds of matrimony.” At the end of the episode, inevitably, the one death among the crew was the husband to be. Contrasting with the first scene we are also reminded that all shipmasters have one unhappy privilege; notifying families of the death of a loved one.

Enterprise crew deaths: One. The unfortunate groom to be Lieutenant Robert Tomlinson.

Running total: 20

Top Ten

I'm endlessly fascinated by my own opinions. Why else would I write a blog? With this in mind, and now we've reached the tenth episode, it's time to start producing some lists. Here are the first ten episodes ranked in order of preference.

The Corbomite Manouver
The Naked Time
Charlie X

The Enemy Within

Mudd's Women

The Man Trap

Where No Man Has Gone Before

Miri

Dagger Of The Mind

What Are Little Girls Made Of?

What Are Little Girls Made Of?

Sometimes episodes just don't work. What Are Little Girls Made Of? starts well but ends a disappointing mess.

The teaser and act 1 are really very good. The Enterprise arrives at planet Exo III to find out what happened to Doctor Roger Korby's expedition, last heard from five years ago. Significantly Doctor Korby was Nurse Christine Chapel's fiancé. She gave up a research career to sign aboard a starship, hoping a deep space mission might bring her to the planet where Roger Korby went missing. When Korby makes radio contact with the Enterprise he initially wants Kirk to come down alone but extends the invitation to Chapel and the pair beam down.

Nurse Chapel is desperately in need of development. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are already well established. We've seen Uhura and Sulu off and on duty. Yeoman Rand has been important in at least two episodes (Charlie X and The Enemy Within). Scotty's had the least development but we've seen him stay focused and professional during The Enemy Within and The Naked Time, and distracted during Mudd's Women so we've got a good idea of his character. We know nothing about Nurse Chapel. She's written into The Naked Time purely to declare her love for Spock. Apart from a few shots of her passing medical instruments to McCoy we don't even get to see her unaffected by the space-drunkeness so we have no idea of what she's normally like.

The first five minutes of What Are Little Girls Made Of? do Nurse Chapel's character the world of good. While she talks to Korby two extras walk into the back of shot, listen to the conversation, and exchange a few words. Then as Christine walks off the bridge Uhura comes over and gives her a hug and a kiss. All this is done without any words but just seeing people caring about Nurse Chapel humanises her. It also gives life to the unseen Enterprise crew, we can imagine they've been gossiping about Nurse Chapel and talking about Korby's chance of survival as you'd expect from an enclosed community of 430 people.

At this point the direction is also very good. We've got the two background extras, who could have been cut to save money but weren't because they help make an important character point. Then as Kirk and Chapel beam down they appear in an icescape version of Star Trek's standard planet set. Exo III is “one hundred degree's below zero” but as the audience begin to wonder how cold Kirk and Chapel must be, Kirk turns and we see his reflection move behind him. The pair have beamed down in front of a window looking out over the icy surface. Again a tiny moment but realising Korby has sealed his caves off from the surface makes it seem more real. The cave set is also impressive. A large two level creation which allows long takes of Kirk, and Chapel exploring. Again the director and editor make good use of the set, cross fading between shots of the characters walking to give the impression of distance and passage of time.

We are introduced to Roger Korby who has found alien ruins which allow the creation of androids, and the transfer of minds into android duplicates allowing people to live forever. We are also introduced to Ruk, played by Ted Cassidy (Lurch in The Addams Family) a craggy faced android who towers over everyone and can pick Captain Kirk up and effortlessly fling him around. But, as act two begins the story grinds to a halt in a succession of boringly shot scenes which often involve little more than cutting between close-ups of people speaking. It's no surprise to find this episode went two days over schedule because the talking head shots give the impression of a director frantically trying to get material filmed as quickly and simply as possible. The episode really only comes to life again when Kirk escapes from Ruk into the cave set. A moment undermined if, like me, you have a juvenile sense of humour and notice the stalactite Kirk grabs as a weapon looks like an alarming giant rock phallus.

The ending is a mess. The script has to kill off Ruk, reveal Korby transferred himself into an android body to survive, and kill Korby, his android assistant Andrea, and a duplicate Kirk made by Korby to infiltrate the Enterprise.

Kirk talks Ruk into rebelling. Instead of an exciting fight between Korby and Ruk, Korby whips out a phaser and disintegrates him. Kirk then jumps Korby, who gets his hand stuck in a door damaging it and allowing Nurse Chapel to see the mechanism within. Meanwhile Andrea appears to have gone insane after being kissed by Kirk. She meets the duplicate Kirk, mistakes it for the real captain (apparently androids can't tell each other apart either), phasers it when it refuses to kiss her and enters the room where Korby holds Chapel and Kirk at phaserpoint. Kirk talks Korby into handing over his phaser. Andrea won't give hers up, and instead moves to kiss Korby. With the phaser between himself and Andrea, Korby grabs the trigger and fires, disintegrating them both.

You may notice Nurse Chapel does not play a great role in any of these scenes. In act three she joins Kirk for lunch and, after begging him not to force her to choose between her lover and her Captain, discovers Kirk is the android duplicate sent to test her by Korby who, despite his protestations that nothing has changed between them, no longer trusts her. This should be the point the whole episode pivots around. The moment when Chapel realises this is not the Korby she loved, and his later reveal as an android should cap this moment. Instead the lunch is used as an opportunity for debate between Kirk and Korby about the nature of humanity, and a failed escape attempt by Kirk.

This is a story about Christine Chapel meeting her fiancée, back from the dead after five years, and she doesn't need to be there. The biggest moment in her life, and she could have stayed on the Enterprise for all the effect she has on events. Even at the end as Korby points a phaser at Kirk and Chapel, and is confronted with Chapel's revulsion at what he did to himself to survive, it is Kirk who talks Korby into handing over the weapon. And Korby who takes the decision to kill himself. Ironically an episode which seemed to set out to give Nurse Christine Chapel some much needed depth reduces her to a spectator in her own life.

Enterprise crew deaths: Two. Crewmen Matthew's and Rayburn. The first time we see red-shirted security guards killed.
Running total: 19

Misc

When Kirk quizes his android double over lunch we get a mention of Kirk's brother Sam who we won't see until Operation - - Annihilate!

Mudd's Women

'THE WOMEN. Duplicating a page from the “old west”; hanky-panky aboard with a cargo of women destined for a far-off colony.' After Charlie X (and possibly Where No Man Has Gone Before) Mudd's Women becomes the next episode to have its roots in Gene Roddenberry's 1964 Star Trek proposal. The document known as Star Trek is... includes the first description of the series as a “Wagon Train” concept, or “Wagon Train to the stars” as Roddenberry later refined the phrase when pitching the series. Wagon Train being a series which ran from 1957 to 1965, and a good metaphor for the Enterprises' five year mission travelling from planet to planet without ever reaching a destination.

We'll never know whether thinking of Star Trek in terms of Wagon Train, and the history of the wild west more generally, was what gave Roddenberry the idea for The Women but that one sentence outline now sounds less like a plot for hijinks in space than this exchange from The Simpsons when the family visit a western ghost town.

GUIDE: Founded by prostitutes in 1849, and serviced by prostitute express riders who could bring in a fresh prostitute from Saint Joe in three days; Bloodbath Gulch quickly became known as a place where a trail hand could spend a month's pay in three minutes.

HOMER: Three minutes! [whistles]

MARGE: I never realized history was so filthy! 

GUIDE: First on our tour is the whore house; then we'll visit the cathouse, the brothel, the bordello, and finally the old mission.

MARGE: Oh, thank heaven!

GUIDE: Lots of prostitutes in there! 

Mudd's Women is at its most grating during act 1. Particularly when Eve, Magda, and Ruth slink through the halls of the Enterprise accompanied by sexy saxophone music, talking in breathy voices, and being ogled by the crew. The trio could be a batch of Austin Powers' Fembots; sadly without smoke coming out of their jubblies. We're only six episodes in but Star Trek has already treated its' female cast badly (go-go mini skirts, Yeoman Smith from Where No Man Has Gone Before and also Dr. Dehner brushing aside Gary Mitchell 's apology for calling her a “walking freezer unit” by telling him professional women can overcompensate, Rand's interrogation in The Enemy Within) and I don't trust the series to be doing anything except presenting these scenes at face value. 

Yet over acts two and three the script undercuts this disappointing start as Kirk, Spock, and McCoy begin speculating over exactly how these three women have got the crew of the Enterprise behaving like a bunch of horny frat boys. Well Kirk and McCoy at least. The script calls for Spock mostly to just react to events around him which Leonard Nimoy does very well, smirking and raising his eyebrows to demonstrate how these Earth emotions are far beneath him. The best moment comes when Kirk and McCoy hold an impromptu conference on the bridge and try to work out whether there could be a more sinister reason for the ladies being lovely; inter cut with shots of Spock eavesdropping and, once again, smirking and raising his eyebrows as if he's already got it all figured out and is waiting for everyone else to catch up. 

KIRK: What are they Bones?
MCCOY: You mean are they alien illusions that sort of thing?
KIRK: [as if realising what he's asked is ludicrous, but still wanting an answer] I asked you first.

Things fall apart a little in the last act when Eve realises she doesn't want a millionaire, just a man to care for her. The grumpy leader of the lithium miners discovers that he wants a wife not a clothes horse. And, Eve is tricked into finding out that believing in herself has the same effect as the performance enhancing Venus pills Mudd was giving her. Still, the scripts biggest weakness may be its insistence on constantly portraying Harry Mudd as a loveable rogue. He's not. He's a bastard who appears quite happy to let 430 people die when he tries to manoeuvre Kirk into choosing between the destruction of his ship or letting Mudd go free.

Enhancing the appearance of the episode is some stylish and unusual direction from Harvey Hart. From the opening moments of the teaser with it's low angles and use of a hand held camera it's obvious Hart is thinking about the end result and putting in more effort than other directors; later there's a striking match cut between Eve holding a Venus pill and Spock holding a burned out Lithum crystal. Hart seems fond of framing shots, and moving the camera, so lines come from actors positioned around the frame rather than the normal technique of cutting between close-ups and reaction shots. Sadly this seems to have resulted in a slower shooting pace than Star Trek could allow. Hart went one day over schedule and the producers also felt the resultant footage was difficult to edit. Hart wasn't invited back to Star Trek which is a shame, I'd love to have seen what he could have done with other scripts.

Enterprise crew deaths: None. Again. It's been a good couple of weeks for the Enterprise crew.
Running total: 17

Where No Man Has Gone Before

This is Star Trek's second pilot. Picked by NBC from three scripts (the other two being The Omega Glory, and Mudd's Women) and made more action oriented at their request. So while original pilot The Cage ends with then Enterprise Captain Christopher Pike accepting fantasy is sometimes preferable to reality Where No Man Has Gone Before ends with Kirk and new God Gary Mitchell having a fistfight.

If Charlie X is The Man Trap's brainy cousin Where No Man Has Gone Before is Charlie X's knuckle dragging older brother. Charlie X and Where No Man Has Gone Before tell different stories but both could have sprung from Gene Roddenberry's one line proposal for The Day Charlie Became God “The accidental occurrence of infinite power to do all things in the hands of a very finite man.”

Where No Man Has Gone Before may be less thoughtful than Charlie X but you can see how it persuaded NBC to buy the series. As an episode it's insanely ambitious. From the catalogue of expensive production techniques all that's missing is location filming. There are matt paintings, and planet exteriors, and interior sets, and shipboard action, and unique special effects sequences -including a really unusual optical zoom in the teaser as the camera pulls back from a star field to show Kirk and Spock watching it on a screen-, and new props (I don't think Kirk's phaser rifle was ever used again), and stunts, and fights, and special make-up. Also three guest cast members get killed off. Not just three nameless non-speaking extras but proper actors with lines. That's quite expensive. If I was a producer on a budget I'd remove the doomed Lee Kelso character and replace him with one of the featured cast; probably Scotty because Sulu is still head of Astrosciences in this episode. The Doctor can come in and say “Scotty's been choked unconscious, but he'll be okay.” and you've saved the cost of an actor. Penny pinching, but we're talking about an episode budgeted at $215,644 -against the standard first season budget of around $190,000 per episode- which ended up costing $354,974 (about $2,534,841 today). Incidentally, on the other side of the Atlantic the BBC was making Doctor Who and the four part story The Time Meddler was broadcast as Where No Man Has Gone Before was filmed. In 1965 100 minutes of Doctor Who cost £7157 or about £114,297 today.

So, what did Desilu Studios get for their money? The script for Where No Man Has Gone Before is entertaining but utterly routine. A standard story of absolute power corrupting absolutely. It has some nice moments. Kelso's death comes as a surprise because of a scene in the turbolift where Kirk and Mitchell mention him when he's not on screen. This doesn't often happen to one off characters who are not also the main guest star. It establishes the friendship between the three, makes Mitchell's later killing of Kelso more shocking, and ups the stakes in Kirk and Mitchell's fight. Which is why the producers didn't cut Kelso's character in the first place. Actually, if the producers did want to save money by cutting an actor they should have removed Yeoman Smith. It's a real nothing part which doesn't serve the plot and just makes Kirk and Mitchell both look unprofessional. Kirk can't remember her name and calls her Jones by mistake. Then Mitchell holds her hand as the Enterprise tries to break through the galactic energy barrier; the ship's at red alert, both hands on the steering wheel mister. Also, because Smith is standing slightly behind Mitchell he is forced to extend his arm back at a very awkward angle. It looks stupid and unnatural and is, presumably, at the instruction of the director because having her standing further forwards would mess up the framing of his shots. Apart from that moment the direction is quite stylish. Some interesting camera angles -an unusual overhead shot of Kirk and Spock entering a turbolift- and a great moment during the fade to commercial break between act one and two. Gary Mitchell's silver eyes linger on screen shining out from the black, I don't know if this is deliberate or just a happy accident of the fade to black process.

So what does happen to Gary Mitchell? The episode implies gaining the abilities of a god simply drives Mitchell mad with power but this has happened to other Star Trek characters without similar results. Commander Riker in Hide and Q is the most obvious example, but we've also seen Charlie Evans in the previous episode, who seemed to have comparable powers, and the Organians from Errand of Mercy. As Mitchell gains in power he becomes egotistical, cruel, and emotionally distanced from the crew. Maybe Mitchell is just unstable to begin with but if that's the case why does he say “Jim” in such a saddened and regretful way when his power is momentarily drained by trying to walk through a security force field? The Enemy Within shows us a transporter accident that splits Kirk into good and evil individuals. Maybe the energy from the galactic barrier performs a similar function, massively boosting the evil side of Mitchell's personality. For all his powers, Mitchell never displays any empathic ability like Counselor Troi from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the one telepathic power which would seem to be rooted in the good side of a person's personality would be the ability to sense what others are feeling.

Enterprise crew deaths: 12. Nine unnamed plus Mitchell, Dehner, and Kelso.

Running total: 16

The Man Trap

How would this have looked in 1966? Impossibly weird or just another show set on a spaceship? It's easy to forget Star Trek did a lot of the heavy lifting for other television science fiction. When Roj Blake and his gang of freedom fighters find the Liberator in 1978 they can stand around discussing their new ship's teleport system knowing the viewer will accept it as one of those things from that show with Doctor Spock.

But what if you're a viewer in 1966? CBS has a repeat of My Three Sons and a Jerry Lewis film. ABC is showing The Tammy Grimes Show, followed by Bewitched. For some reason you don't fancy either of those so you switch to NBC. A voice-over tells you “Captain's log stardate 1513.1. Our position orbiting planet M113. On board the Enterprise Mr. Spock temporarily in command. On the planet, the ruins of an ancient and long dead civilisation. Ship's surgeon McCoy and myself are now beaming down to the planet's surface. Our mission...” And, in quick succession you see some sort of spaceship going round a planet. A weird guy in a blue top sitting in a room full of flashing lights looking at what might be a big window showing that planet again. And, 3 people appearing out of thin air in a sparkly glow. That's pretty much the first thirty seconds.

No attempt is made to ease the audience in gently. The closest thing to an explanation is Kirk's “space, the final frontier,” monologue. Even The Prisoner has an episode where Number 6 arrives in The Village and that's a series which takes pride in being wilfully obscure. Still, I'm not sure how exciting a purpose written first episode could be,” and this is the bridge... and this is Mr Spock, he's an alien from the planet Vulcan you know... and this is sick bay... and this is the transporter room....” With suspension of disbelief being such an important part of television science fiction maybe it's better to show the ship going about it's normal business. If this is all normal and routine to the crew maybe the audience will accept it even if they don't really get it at first.

So how did The Man Trap end up as the first broadcast episode? Herbert Solow (in the book Inside Star Trek) talks about meeting NBC in August to select the first episode from those that would be ready by September. The choices seem to have been The Man Trap, Charlie X, Where No Man Has Gone Before, The Naked Time, The Enemy Within, and Mudd's Women. The Man Trap and The Naked Time were the two serious candidates because they delivered on Kirk's promise of “strange new worlds” and The Man Trap was chosen. Associate Producer Robert H Justman suspected NBC viewed The Man Trap as “scarier and more exploitable” and pushed for The Naked Time but was overruled. Later he came to view The Man Trap as the better choice and I think he's right.

Look at what was available. Charlie X takes place entirely on the Enterprise and is a sweet, but slight, story about a teenage boy with psychic powers. Where No Man Has Gone Before was Star Trek's second attempt at a pilot, and is understandably a little rougher around the edges. The Naked Time is a great story but is about the crew acting strangely and so relies on the audience first getting to know the crew. It's also, and this is not a criticism, quite a funny episode which might raise false expectations about the rest of the series. The Enemy Within splits Kirk into good and evil versions; again not an idea with much traction until you know Kirk (also, do you want your first episode to be a transporter goes wrong story?). Finally, Mudd's Women is about space prostitutes.

The downside of choosing The Man Trap is it's a monster story. Not, like Arena or The Corbomite Manouver, a story which looks like a monster story to someone not paying attention. It's an honest to god monster stalking the ship killing the crew story. If you want people to take your new science fiction series seriously you probably don't want to start with one which makes it look like a monster of the week show. Especially not if your première is the day before the second series of Lost In Space starts. You can see why Robert Justman suspected NBC saw this as an exploitable episode. If you're not familiar with science fiction it probably most closely fits your expectations of the genre. Still, it's a good monster of the week story and manages to wrong-foot the audience slightly. As the last of its' species the salt vampire has some depth beyond the usual B-Movie “atomic fish beasts come to claim our Prom Queen”.

On the plus side, The Man Trap strikes a good balance between the characters. Kirk and Spock get to worry at the mystery of Nancy Crater while McCoy gets a lot of screen time from his relationship with Nancy and also when the shape shifting salt vampire doubles for him. Kirk and McCoy also get some good banter in sickbay. McCoy is explaining how crewman Darnell has had all the salt drained from his body and refers back to an earlier argument between himself and Kirk.

McCoy: Another error on my part

Kirk: (grins) I'm not counting them Bones, you in the mood for an apology?

McCoy: (smiles slightly) Forget it, I probably was mooning over [Nancy]

Kirk: (interrupts and turns suddenly businesslike) Perhaps you were

That wipes the smile off McCoy's face. It's a moment within the episode but it really sums up the complicated professional/personal relationship between the two. I also like Kirk's brusque “you bleed too much,” dismissal of Robert Crater when he pleads for clemency for the salt vampire.

Sulu, Yeoman Rand, and Uhura also get significant screen time. By the end of the episode we still haven't seen Scotty or had any real introduction to the abilities of the Enterprise; no warp drive, tractor beams, photon torpedos, or the Federation, but Spock does get to talk ominously about forcibly using truth serum on Robert Crater.

Enterprise crew deaths: 4. Crewmen Darnell, Sturgeon, Green and Barnhart.

Misc:

During the first sickbay scene there's something odd going on with the medical scanner in the background. At first it's blank but when the camera moves the red object in the picture above comes into view. It looks like someone left the cover off the medical scanner and we're seeing through the set and looking at some scaffolding.

UPDATE: Over on Gallifrey Base user Mr. Flibble told me the red object is the reflection of the medicine cabinet on the other side of sickbay. He's absolutely right. What confused me was the clarity of the object, there's not even the slightest distortion of the reflection and the way it glides in as the camera pans makes it look more like an object behind the set. Originally I wondered if the scanner screen might have been pulled out as a quick solution to the screen reflecting the camera crew, but that's obviously not the case.