That Which Survives

Redshirt has become such a generic term for a character who dies soon after being introduced that it has it's own Wikipedia entry. Different script writers use redshirt deaths in different ways. Nine unnamed crew die off screen in Where No Man Has Gone Before because an audience unfamiliar with Star Trek needs to have the damage to the Enterprise put into a context they can understand. "Ship's condition, heading back on impulse power only. Main engines burned out. The ship's space warp ability gone. Earth bases which were only days away are now years in the distance." Kirk's log entry means very little to someone new to Star Trek but nine dead is a concept which can be instantly grasped. An incident which killed nine crew must be serious. When crewman Darnell becomes the first Star Trek character to die in The Man Trap the purpose of his death is to tell us what the salt vampire does. In the case of By Any Other Name a quick and dirty fix to the story -to answer the question what happens to the Enterprise crew when the Kelvans take over- results in the memorable death of Yeoman Thompson.

It's an ongoing problem for Star Trek that in order to underline the danger facing a landing party someone really needs to die but that someone can't be a member of the regular cast. It's not so much a story telling problem as a suspension of disbelief problem. No redshirts die in The Doomsday Machine (Commodore Decker doesn't count being a fully fledged guest character as opposed to the anonymous crew who join the choir invisible in Where No Man Has Gone Before). Despite this lack of crew death The Doomsday Machine is an exciting story well told and the audience allow themselves to be swept along and, for want of a better word, to pretend that they believe Kirk might die when the transporter fails at a crucial moment. In The Apple it doesn't matter how high the death toll rises. A conga line of redshirts could have fallen into Vaal's maw. It wouldn't solve the basic problem that watching the story grind through its four acts is dull. Without that audience engagement The Apple seems stupid and the multiple redshirt deaths simply underline the ludicrousness of the five survivors of the nine person landing party being the four regular cast and one woman who beamed down.

The third season of Star Trek features the fewest redshirt deaths. Only seven by the broadcast of That Which Survives. At first glance it seems as if the production team are aware that regularly killing the supporting cast leaves the series open to parody and have decided to scale back the number of times it happens. Actually this is probably a symptom of the budget problems Robert Justman used to complain about. One simple money saving measure is to eliminate all those minor characters before filming starts. Having said that, looking at the list of third season episodes it's hard to spot ones where a few additional extras might have upped the ante and improved the story. The only obvious candidate is Whom Gods Destroy. If Kirk and Spock had beamed down with a few security guards for Garth to threaten, or confuse with his shape shifting ability, then the story might have seemed less static; the scene where Garth blows up Marta might make more sense if it was an Enterprise crew member rather than a woman to whom Kirk barely has any connection.

With all this in mind the teaser to That Which Survives surprises when a woman appears in the transporter room and kills the unfortunate transporter operator. For the first act we seem to be watching a traditionally structured Star Trek. The landing party is trapped on a planet facing a threat and isolated from the resources of the Enterprise. In Whom Gods Destroy Kirk and Spock are trapped below a security screen. In The Apple it is Vaal which keeps the landing party and the ship separated. The Empath has the Enterprise leave orbit, and the story, because of a powerful solar flare. In That Which Survives the Enterprise is transported, "nine hundred and ninety point seven light years," from the planet. In theory this should make the end of act one, when Lieutenant D'Amato is also killed by the mystery lady, the point where all tension drains from the script. The landing party now consists of Kirk McCoy and Sulu, and there is no way any of them are going to be killed. However the teleplay is written by old hand John Meredyth Lucas, from a story by Michael Richards, and he does his best to make some changes to the formula.

Aware that threatening the lives of the landing party is a dead end for generating tension, the story switches back to the ship. Losira, the strange woman with the killer touch, appears back on the Enterprise and kills an engineer then sabotages the ship. This links the planet side and ship board stories more directly than normal. The story is opened out, rather than closed down when the audience realise no one else can die, and the power of Losira is emphasised. Another interesting variation on the normal story is that both the landing party and the Enterprise crew believe the others to be dead. The side effects of the power which flings the Enterprise across space make the landing party think the ship has been destroyed, and vice-versa. This leaves the landing party focusing on survival rather than simply thinking about getting back to the ship.

Elements of That Which Survives feel like an attempt to tell a ghost story in a science fiction series; there's a mysterious planet haunted by a strange woman whose touch causes death. The recent Doctor Who story Hide was a similar attempt to tell a genre crossing story, and in both cases the shift from a haunted house/planet story to science fiction is a little awkward as the story attempts to find a scientific explanation for the spooky events. One problem is that the climax to the Enterprise plot, Scotty's trip into the service crawlway to shut off the fuel, doesn't have any relation to the rest of the story. It's tense, and a good showcase for James Doohan, but it has nothing to do with the mystery of the strange planet or Losira.

Another problem with That Which Survives is that the dialogue can be over-ripe. It's nicely sharp in places. Kirk's "if I'd wanted a Russian history lesson, I'd have brought along Mister Chekov," is great, as is Scotty's " I know what time it is. I don't need a blooming cuckoo clock, " as Spock insists on counting down the time remaining. Unfortunately in other places the dialogue skids over into the melodramatic. Sulu's "how can such people be, Captain? Such evil and she's so, so beautiful." Or, when McCoy wonders who killed D'Amato, Kirk's insightful, "something or someone did." Spock suffers from several particularly bad attacks of cute dialogue.

UHURA: Mister Spock! Are you all right?

SPOCK: Yes. I believe no permanent damage was done.

UHURA: What happened?

SPOCK: The occipital area of my head seems to have impacted with the chair.
UHURA: No, Mister Spock. I meant what happened to us?

SPOCK: ...Can you give me warp eight?

SCOTT: Aye, sir. And maybe a wee bit more. I'll sit on the warp engines myself and nurse them.

SPOCK: That position, Mister Scott, would not only be unavailing but also undignified.

SPOCK: Mister Scott, you have accomplished your task.

SCOTT: You might at least say thank you.

SPOCK: For what purpose, Mister Scott? What is it in you humans...

SCOTT: Never mind.

SPOCK: ...That requires an overwhelming display of emotion in a situation such as this? Two men pursue the only reasonable course of action indicated, and yet you feel that something else is necessary.

And so on. At times he's so weirdly literal, and funny-logical that it's tempting to wonder if Mr. Spock has been at McCoy's Saurian brandy. He's in character but acting very differently to normal. There are times when Leonard Nimoy seems to be struggling with playing funny-Spock. In the warp eight exchange his emphatic finger pointing is at odds with Leonard Nimoy's normal tight control on Spock's movement. It gives us a glimpse of how Spock might have been handled differently in an alternate version of Star Trek where the character was played much more as comic relief.

Enterprise crew deaths: Three, Ensign Wyatt, Lieutenant D'Amato, and Crewman Watkins. The most crew to die in a single episode since Obsession.

Running total: 53

The Empath

It feels unfair to criticise The Empath because it's a sincere attempt to tell a very different story. There are none of the usual Star Trek staples; no one "dies" or is presumed dead, and nobody falls in love or meets an old flame. Gem is an attempt to realise a very different type of alien. The Vian's have their own agenda and are not out to conquer the Galaxy. These are not superior beings outwitted by clever humans. Earth is not in danger. The story is resolved not with a fist fight but when Kirk tells the Vians that they have lost the very qualities they are looking for in Gem; almost a proto Star Trek: The Next Generation resolution. This is an attempt to break out of the usual format while still telling a recognisably Star Trek story.

Unfortunately The Empath is dull. Like Return To Tomorrow it feels as if there isn't sufficient plot to fill a 48 minute episode, but where Return To Tomorrow could pad out the running time with characters making speeches at each other The Empath has an additional problem. Gem is mute. This is, as already mentioned, an attempt to realise a very different kind of alien, but it does mean large portions of the story are dialogue free. It's possible to do exciting dialogue light sequences but they rely on the film editor having sufficient material to cut a sequence together. In The Doomsday Machine the 90 seconds between Kirk activating Scotty's improvised self-destruct system and the planet-killer being destroyed has this dialogue.
 
KIRK: Beam me aboard.
SPOCK: Energise.
KYLE: Energising. Bridge, it's shorted out again.
SCOTT: Och, what's wrong with it?
KIRK: Gentlemen, beam me aboard.
SPOCK: We can't, Captain. Transporter is out again... Mister Scott, twenty seconds to detonation.
SPOCK: Mister Scott?... Mister Scott. Try inverse phasing.
SULU: Sixty, fifty, forty, thirty.
KIRK: Gentlemen, I suggest you beam me aboard.
SULU: Ten, nine, eight, seven.
SPOCK: Mister Scott?
SCOTT: Try her now, Mister Kyle.
SULU: Six, five, four.

That's 13 lines of dialogue to cover one of the most exciting 90 seconds in Star Trek. Film editor Donald R. Rode is able to keep cutting between Kirk on the Constellation, Spock on the Enterprise bridge, Scotty in the Jefferies tube, the transporter room, the damaged exterior of the Constellation, and the maw of the planet-killer. In The Empath Donald R. Rode struggles to make a shorter sequence work when Gem heals the cut on Kirk's head; simply because he doesn't have the same variety of material.

[Medium close-up of Gem]
[Medium close-up of of Kirk showing a cut on his forehead]
[Medium close-up of Gem, she begins reaching forwards]
[Three shot of Kirk, Gem, and McCoy, Gem puts her hand on Kirk's forehead]
[Medium close-up of Gem]
[Medium close-up of of Kirk, the cut vanishes]
[Medium close-up of Gem, the cut appears on her forehead]
[Medium close-up of McCoy]
[Medium close-up of Kirk, he begins reaching forwards]
[Medium close-up of Gem, Kirk touches the cut]
[Medium close-up of Kirk, he looks at the blood on his fingertip]
[Medium close-up of of Gem, the cut vanishes]
[Medium close-up of McCoy]
[Three shot of Kirk, Gem, and McCoy, Gem slumps forwards as Kirk touches his forehead]
Kirk: The pain is gone.

Even that simple sequence was probably a nightmare to film. Something as basic as capturing two shots of William Shatner with and without make-up for the cut, so they could be convincingly dissolved together, probably ate up filming time. In fact possibly that's one reason for the black void setting; a featureless background would simplify the process of dissolving between shots of actors. The lack of dialogue also hampers storytelling because the shots that are filmed have to be as simple and basic as possible to allow the audience to see what is happening and understand events without explanatory dialogue.

It's easy to think of The Empath as a cheap money saving story, the central location for the action is a large black void, but by the standards of Star Trek this is lavish. There's a specially composed score by George Duning. The research station seen in the teaser doesn't look like a redress of one of the Enterprise sets which means a specially constructed set was made for an area with less than three minutes of screen time. There's also a planet exterior set, make up for the two Vians, more make up for the assorted injuries inflicted on the landing party and Gem (plus the time required to make up the actors), the hire of special props to fill the different areas of the black void, and lots of optical effects; the Vian's matter-energy scrambler, their force field, even something as simple as Gem's healing of the cut on Kirk's head is given a small optical effect. Ultimately even the black void itself comes across as a halfway house, less an excuse to save money than the only practical way to represent a large underground cavern on Star Trek's budget.

Ironically while the episode is dull it is visually interesting. The black void setting is unique and well lit and filmed by director John Erman and director of photography Jerry Finnerman; again there's no small irony that the man who made Star Trek so colourful should spend his last episode lighting black drapes. In production order The Empath falls between two Ralph Senensky directed stories and it's tempting to wonder, given his skill at drawing sensitive performances from actors, whether the intent was to get Ralph Senensky to direct this episode rather than either The Tholian Web or Is There In Truth No Beauty?. If that isn't the case then its notable that the episode uses lenses in a similar way to those two stories. During the act two chase across the surface, when McCoy and Spock realise the rescue party is an illusion, a 9mm lens is used to add depth to the set and, exactly as was also done in Metamorphosis, strategically placed rocks hide off set areas which would have been revealed by the lens. It's also possible that some shots of the Vians make use of the 9mm lens, occasionally there's a degree of distortion to the aliens like the point of view madness shots in The Tholian Web or Is There In Truth No Beauty although the effect is more subtle. When Donald R. Rode is given sufficient material to work with he cuts together some good sequences. The act two chase works very well, and there's a lovely moment when, just before the healing sequence mentioned above, his editing shows the two Vians teleporting away by stepping forwards as if to walk out of frame; a subtle but good looking effect.

Enterprise crew deaths: None. After 12 episodes only three crew have died making season three the safest for the Enterprise crew; so far.
Running total: 49

Is There In Truth No Beauty?

Each of the three core Star Trek directors had their own speciality. Marc Daniels' strength was making the most of the Enterprise sets, producing his best work on bottle shows like The Doomsday Machine, or Mirror, Mirror. Joseph Pevney was great at big set piece stories, ones with lots of location shooting like Arena, but he also had an excellent eye for composing individual shots as in Amok Time and the scene where Spock tries to explain the pon farr to Kirk (“The birds and the bees are not Vulcans, Captain”).

The Star Trek production team seem to have viewed Ralph Senensky as the actor's director and tended to give him scripts with lots of character moments; This Side Of Paradise and Metamorphosis. He also has an astonishingly good sense of cinematography. In script terms Metamorphosis is frankly dull. Like This Side Of Paradise it's a love story between two mismatched people but Cochrane and the Companion are no Spock and Leila. However regardless of the faults of the script the finished episode looks stunning and judged on its visuals alone the story would be one of Star Trek's ten best. Ralph Senensky's real strength appears to have been in inspiring the people around him to do their best work; in the case of Metamorphosis the art director Matt Jefferies, and director of photography Jerry Finnerman.

What's true for Metamorphosis is also true for Is There In Truth No Beauty? The episode looks stunning and there's a constant sense that Ralph Senensky is always looking for a more interesting angle. Most notably with his and Jerry Finnerman's use of a 9mm fish-eye lens to capture point of view insanity shots. However where Metamorphosis was dull, Is There In Truth No Beauty? is a much better paced story. Like The Enterprise Incident it is full of plot and keeps the attention of the viewer by constantly moving the story in new directions. Ultimately Is There In Truth No Beauty? is a better episode than The Enterprise Incident because the story is much neater. Where The Enterprise Incident ends up being overbalanced by the weight of too many coincidences, Is There In Truth No Beauty? carefully sets up its story. If Jean Lisette Aroeste's script has a fault it's a little predictable in places. In the opening Captain's log when the Medusians are described as, “beings who are formless, so utterly hideous that the sight of a Medusan brings total madness to any human who sees one,” it is immediately apparent that someone is going to see one and be driven insane. Likewise it's clear Ambassador Kollos' navigation skills will be required when Kirk later asks Miranda Jones, “do you feel any way may be found to employ Medusan navigators on starships? It would certainly solve many of our navigational problems.” One surprise the script sucessfully pulls off is the end of act three moment when Spock accidentally catches sight of the Medusan. Early on it is established that Miranda Jones is jealous of Spock's superior ability to mind meld with Kollos but it remains unclear if Spock/Kollos accidentally forgets to wear the visor when Kollos returns to his box or if, as Kirk later accuses Jones, she deliberately made him forget.

The cast are in fine form, and there are two excellent guest stars. Most obviously Diana Muldaur, back again after appearing in the earlier Ralph Senensky directed episode Return To Tomorrow. She makes Miranda Jones spiky and unpleasant without being irremediable. For half the episode Diana Muldaur is given the extremely difficult task of playing a blind character without giving away that her character is blind; her condition is not revealed until act three. The odd vulnerability Diana Muldaur succeeds in giving Miranda Jones is an accomplished piece of acting. More easy to overlook is David Frankham as Larry Marvick who makes the most of a smaller role. his sweaty hysteria once Marvick goes mad is really well done, especially his delivery of the oddly creepy line, “We mustn't sleep! They come in your dreams! That's the worst! They suffocate in your dreams!”

 

The two behind the scenes stars of the episode are film editor Fabian Tordjmann and George Duning who composed the additional music. Fabian Tordjmann's editing work on the episode is tremendous. Watch the scene where Larry Marvick is driven mad by Ambassador Kollos. In the 30 seconds between the slow zoom to Kollos' container and the shot of Miranda Jones sitting in her cabin there are something like 20 cuts, but the sequence is more than just simple rapid cutting. Everything works together to create a sense of dislocation; the lurid green light; the headache inducing animation; and cutting around within a single shot so that, for example, we see Larry Marvick twist in agony, before Fabian Tordjmann cuts back to the beginning of the shot and then suddenly to the end, so that Marvick appears to jerk around the frame as if time is out of joint. Played over the top of this is George Duning's frantic score. The discordant trumpet stabs and electric organ would sound ridiculous on any other episode, but perfectly fit the mood and pace of Is There In Truth No Beauty?

Act two encapsulates why Is There In Truth No Beauty? works as well as it does. Running at a brisk six minutes the pace never lets up and showcases the work of Ralph Senensky, Fabian Tordjmann, Jerry Finnerman, George Duning, and the cast. The act begins with a tracking shot following the now insane Larry Marvick as he runs from the Medusan Ambassador's quarters to a turbo elevator, and then cuts between Marvick heading to engineering with, first, Miranda Jones investigating the Ambassador's cabin, and then Kirk, Spock, McCoy and two security guards walking down the same corridor with the camera tracking backwards. There is no dialogue for the first minute of the act, but the mood is captured by the camera movement in the shots used, Duning's score, and the body language of the actors; David Frankham, distressed and disoriented; Diana Muldaur hesitant and unsure; and Kirk and the security team purposeful.

At this point I'm going to have to politely disagree with Ralph Senensky. Over on his blog he describes when he first saw the episode on television, “I was appalled. Who had ordered the horror film flickering green light and the comic strip animation?” I can understand why he feels they are an unnecessary addition to his director's cut. His opinion is that they represent a “vulgarizing technique [that] had never intruded into STAR TREK before." The green light and animation are b-movie techniques but I don't think Star Trek should be above using these techniques, and I also think they are an important part of why the episode works. The green light and animation give the audience a sense of something incomprehensible in the Ambassador's container. This is not just some rubber suited monster but literally something indescribable which the human mind cannot cope with, and it's important to have this conveyed with a visual cue.

Enterprise crew deaths: None this week. Although recurring extra Billy Blackburn does get punched in the face by the insane Larry Marvick.

Running total: 48.

Spock's Brain

The weirdest thing about Spock's Brain is that anyone thought this was the ideal episode to open season three. The second weirdest thing about Spock's Brain is how close the episode comes to working.

To stick with the second point. Yes, the premise is dumb. An alien woman scoops Spock's brain out of his head and runs off with it because they need its processing ability to run their city. Still Star Trek has taken less promising ideas and turned them into workable stories before. Spock must have sex or he'll die; that's Amok Time. Or there's the incident Leonard Nimoy recalls in his memoir I Am Spock. “But that day in 1967, when [D.C. Fontana ] came onto the Star Trek soundstage and told me, “Hey I have an idea for a Spock love story,” I was taken aback. Worse than taken aback – I was frightened... the very phrase “Spock love story” seemed oxymoronic.” “Trust me,” Nimoy reports Fontana saying to him, “there's a way to pull it off properly,” and of course she was right, This Side Of Paradise was the result. 

Taken individually each element of the story feels like it could work. The goofiest idea is the women of Sigma Draconis VI exiling unneeded men to the icy surface of the world. This war of the sexes concept is one other programmes have played with but no one has ever really made it work sucessfully; there's Power the series four episode of Blake's 7, and the Doctor Who story Galaxy 4.

In isolation everything else works. The idea of a brain as the central processing unit of a complex machine can be seen echoed in films like RoboCop. The idea of a pampered civilisation cared for and surrounded by the technology of their ancestors which they no longer understand is straight out of E. M. Forster's The Machine Stops (on YouTube you can find BBC2's outstanding 1966 adaptation for the series Out Of The Unknown). The idea of aliens harvesting organs for their own purposes occurs again as the basis of the Vidiians in Star Trek: Voyager.

Gene L. Coon's script (writing under the pseudonym Lee Cronin) characterises the regulars very well. McCoy gets some great lines which Deforest Kelly uses to good effect. Most notably after using The Teacher to gain the necessary surgical knowledge, “a child could do it. A child could do it.” There's the discussion on the bridge as the crew work through the problem of which of the three inhabited planets in the Sigma Draconis system is the correct one. There's also a scene which perfectly captures Kirk as the man who never gives up even in the face of insurmountable odds.

KIRK: Then we'll take him with us.
MCCOY: Take him? Take him where?
KIRK: In search of his brain, Doctor. From what you say, the moment we find it we must restore it to his body, or we lose him.
MCCOY: Jim, where are you going to look? In this whole galaxy, where are you going to look for Spock's brain? How are you going to find it?
KIRK: I'll find it.
MCCOY: Even if you do, I can't restore it. I don't have the medical technique.
KIRK: It was taken out. It can be put back in.
MCCOY: But I don't know how.
KIRK: The thief that took it has the knowledge. I'll force it out of her.
MCCOY: If you don't find it in twenty four hours, you'd better forget the whole thing, Jim.
KIRK: You and Scotty have Spock ready.

Scrape away the melodramatic dialogue, “in this whole galaxy, where are you going to look for Spock's brain?” and you'll find a perfect sketch of Kirk's “I don't believe in the no win scenario” personality. He's got two impossible problems to solve, finding Spock's brain and then getting it back inside Spock's head, and his immediate reaction is to solve them one at a time.

Yet, even though that scene captures the essence of Kirk it's next to impossible not read it and die a little inside. Somehow almost everything Gene L. Coon writes turns to ashes when realised on screen. The same is true of Marc Daniels' direction. As in The Doomsday Machine Daniels uses back projection for the bridge viewscreen, but where it was a throwaway moment in that story it's used repeatedly in Spock's Brain. It looks brilliant, and it really adds to the believability of the bridge to see the crew interacting with the images. The best moment may be a single close up of Kirk standing right in front of the screen with stars moving in the background. Unfortunately very little else of Daniels' direction works as intended. The episode has no clarity of tone. Star Trek has done silly stories before, but even in an episode like The Apple it's always clear that Vaal is a threat. Unless he's stopped he can, and will destroy the Enterprise. Here the tone is all over the place, the characters are treating the danger to Spock as real but the editorial style of the story is very arch; as if the audience are meant to be laughing at the characters for taking it so seriously.

Probably the biggest mistake of the episode is bringing the remote controlled body of Spock to Sigma Draconis VI. At various times both Marc Daniels and Robert Justman have gallantly taken responsibility for this idea. Again on paper it makes perfect sense. The episode is called Spock's Brain and Leonard Nimoy is one of the real assets of the series. Why wouldn't you want him on screen as much as possible instead of occasionally cutting back to Spock unconscious in sickbay with Nurse Chapel looking concerned? Unfortunately as with much else in the episode, it's an idea which doesn't work. Mistake one is adding a ticking effect to the remote controlled Spock which is probably meant to suggest the clicking of electrical relays but actually sounds like he is now run by clockwork. Mistake number two is having Spock's body on screen while Kirk is talking to his disembodied brain. Again in theory it's a good idea, that Spock can be physically present and also absent in the same scene, but the result is a slack-faced Nimoy who distracts from the scene precisely because he is motionless or left gazing in the wrong direction. Possibly the silliest decision comes from film editor Bill Brame who occasionally cuts to Spock for reaction shots; pointless when the whole episode is about Spock's body being incapable of reacting. 

It's easy to understand why at the planning stage this episode seemed like a good curtain raiser for the third season. Exactly the same rationale was behind choosing Amok Time to open season two. Spock is Star Trek's breakout character, probably the most identifiable character from the series. Why wouldn't you start a new season with a story based on him? However once the episode was finished it's amazing anyone still wanted to run it first. Spock's Brain was the sixth third season episode made, also available to air would have been Spectre Of The Gun (made first) and The Enterprise Incident (made fourth). Both are superior Spock heavy stories. There's some logic behind holding Spectre Of The Gun back to air near Halloween (what better night to broadcast a story in which Captain Kirk dresses up as a cowboy?) but 31^st October 1968 was a Thursday so Spectre Of The Gun ended up showing over a week before on Friday 25^th. Far enough away that the Halloween link was vague. The Enterprise Incident would have been a good first episode, but presumably it wasn't wanted because NBC only ever seemed to value stories set on planets and, whatever its faults, Spock's Brain is a planet story. 

It's something of a cliché to hold Spock's Brain up as an example of everything rubbish about Star Trek. Just as it's also something of a cliché to try and be all revisionist and pretend this episode is good. Boringly the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Spock's Brain has too many bad moments to be good, but too many good moments to be truly bad. In the end it fails even to be the worst episode of the third season. 

Enterprise crew deaths: The third season starts with no one dying.

Running total: 46

The Omega Glory

For 35 minutes The Omega Glory plods along before abruptly taking the end of act three turning to Crazy Town. This is the episode where the savage Yangs of planet Omega IV are revealed to be misunderstood Yankees who have been engaged in a war with the Kohms (Communists, do you see?). This is the episode where the Yangs recite a corrupted version of the Pledge of Allegiance, complete with hand on heart gesture. This is the episode where the Yang's leather bound Bible, with Holy Bible written on the front, contains a picture of the Devil looking uncannily like Mr. Spock. This is the episode where Captain Kirk reads aloud from the Yangs' copy of the Preamble to the United States Constitution (which also establishes that the Yangs' country was called The United States because the document is perfectly readable on screen). This is the episode where the Yangs of the United States of Omega IV have the same flag as Earth's United States of America. This is also the episode where this astonishing duplication of Earth's history and artefacts is never explained.

The split between acts one to three and act four of The Omega Glory is so extreme it's almost two different episodes. The first two thirds of the story are A Private Little War but with the focus of the storytelling shifted. A Private Little War is about Kirk attempting to find the best way to intervene in the Klingon driven conflict between the hill people and the villagers. The Omega Glory is about Kirk attempting to find the best way to deal with rogue starship captain Ron Tracey who has gone native and spent the last six months directly helping the Kohms in their war with the Yangs. A similar shifting of the story focus can be seen between Obsession and The Doomsday Machine where Obsession is about Kirk's determination to hunt down and kill the cloud vampire at all costs, and The Doomsday Machine is about Kirk dealing with Commodore Decker who is determined to hunt down and kill the planet killer at all costs.

The teaser and opening act form the strongest part of the episode. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Lieutenant Galloway investigate the mystery of the abandoned USS Exeter. Subdued lighting, and a simple echo effect sells the idea that these familiar sets are actually a different starship. These sequences are atmospheric and the mystery of what has happened to the Exeter's crew is well handled. The empty crew uniforms and piles of crystals are instantly reminiscent of the previous episode By Any Other Name, and the Kelvan's ability to distil bodies down to crystal-like shapes. It would be interesting to know if any contemporary viewers jumped to the not unreasonable conclusion that aliens were responsible. After finding a message from the Exeter's medical officer the landing party make haste to the surface of the planet Omega IV where they meet the Exeter Captain Ron Tracey, and learn they are infected by a virus held in check by some unknown environmental factor. The landing party can never leave Omega IV.

Gradually the story gets less interesting. Kirk has a fist fight with Ron Tracey, then he has a fist fight with Cloud William leader of the Yangs, then he has another fist fight with Tracey. So many different plot strands are picked up and discarded it's difficult to tell what the story is about. There is the empty starship, the mystery of the vanished Exeter crew, the virus, the hunt for a cure, the rogue starship commander gone native, the post-apocalyptic battle between two tribes, the search for the fountain of youth, and the 'savage' Yangs and 'civilised' Kohms. More frustrating is the indifferent way these plots are resolved. The apparently fatal virus is contracted by beaming down to Omega IV, and then cured by hanging around on Omega VI a bit longer. The natives of Omega IV live for thousands of years and Ron Tracey's motivation is provided by his search for the environmental factor responsible. Until it's revealed there is no fountain of youth. People on Omega IV just live longer. The war between the Yangs and the Kohms ends off screen. All the story lines which run across the first three acts are resolved before act three ends which again gives the impression of two separate episodes crushed into one 48 minute slot.

It's the performances which hold the attention. Particularly Morgan Woodward as rogue captain and sole survivor of the USS Exeter, Ron Tracey. He sells the idea of the Yang Kohm war ending off screen. “They sacrificed hundreds just to draw us out in the open. And then they came, and they came. We drained four of our phasers, and they still came. We killed thousands and they still came.” In fact all three actors in this scene turn in terrific performances, Woodward, William Shatner, and Deforest Kelly; Spock is unconscious at this point so Leonard Nimoy gets to sit this one out.

MCCOY: He'll live, but I'll have to get him to better facilities than this.

TRACEY: Impossible! You can't carry the disease up to the ship with you.

MCCOY: He's fully immunised now. We all are.

KIRK: We can beam up at any time. Any of us.

TRACEY: You've isolated the serum?

KIRK: There's no serum! There are no miracles! There's no immortality here! All this is for nothing!

TRACEY: Explain it to him, Doctor.

MCCOY: Leave medicine to medical men, Captain. You found no fountain of youth here. People live longer here now because it's natural for them to.

TRACEY: Outside. Or I'll burn down both your friends now.

William Shatner's furious delivery of “there's no serum..” is perfect. Suddenly Kirk has a depth of anger we've not seen before, and Deforest Kelly is just as good on “leave medicine to medical men...” All three actors are working really well together and the performances mesh perfectly.

On the other side of the camera Jerry Finnerman's lighting also adds a lot of atmosphere. He uses shadows very well, and his best moment comes during Woodward's “ they sacrificed hundreds...” speech. Finnerman keeps Woodwards face and body in shadow but his white hair is illuminated from behind and looks like a crazed halo. Director Vincent McEveety is also trying to keep scenes visually interesting, he's fond of using a quick zoom to add impact to a shot.

Then at the end of act three a Yang warrior carries in the United States flag, accompanied on the soundtrack by The Star-Spangled Banner. Suddenly the rest of the episode is utterly overshadowed. It doesn't matter if this is the worst Star Trek episode ever or the greatest because this is the episode in which the aliens have the United States flag and it's never explained! It's like coming home and finding the Mona Lisa on your living room wall. You're not going to stand there talking about the composition of the painting, or use of symbolism, or the enigmatic smile. You are just going to wonder how the hell the Mona Lisa ended up on your living room wall.

First season story Miri (ironically also directed by Vincent McEveety) suffers from the same problem. The episode begins with the Enterprise discovering a world exactly like Earth. An exact duplicate. As Kirk says, “not the Earth, another Earth.” The viewer sits patiently waiting for an explanation which never comes. The “another Earth” material is just there to hook the viewer. After that Miri's writer Adrian Spies is confident his plot about the landing party catching a disease and meeting kids gone wild will so grab the viewer's imagination that they will forget about the duplicate Earth. This proves not to be the case. The episode is caught in a trap of its own making. The script has established Miri's world looks like Earth so every time the episode cuts back to the Enterprise in orbit the viewers are reminded of the lack of a solution to the mystery.

Worse, not attempting even to suggest a solution, makes the Enterprise crew look like idiots with no intellectual curiosity. At the start of Miri everyone is amazed by this cosmic coincidence. By the end, because the writer doesn't want to draw attention to his lack of an explanation, no one mentions it. So apparently the Enterprise crew have forgotten about the duplicate Earth even if the audience hasn't. Kirk makes a weak joke about not dating older women, and the Enterprise warps out of orbit. Kirk says he's contacted, “Space Central,” who will send teachers and advisers to Miri's world, but not scientists. No one suggests sticking around and investigating. Why are these people even in space?

The same problem affects The Omega Glory. Once Kirk has taught Cloud William the true meaning of the Preamble to the Constitution the episode is over. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy were amazed when the Yang soldier walked in carrying Old Glory, but they're over that now and they leave. The anthology nature of Star Trek means the events on Omega IV are forgotten. On Omega IV the Kohms (and presumably the Yangs) live for at least 1000 years. For Cloud William to mangle the preamble as he does (he says, “ee'dplebnista norkohn forkohn perfectunun” in place of “we, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union”) it must have been passed down through generations, so Omega IV had the flag, and the pledge, and the Constitution of the United States even before the United States existed on Earth. You can understand why no one thought any of this was worth investigating.

Another reason why act four totally overshadows the previous three acts is because the end of act three ad break is like a fault line running across the episode. Before that the story is about dealing with Captain Ron Tracey, afterwards it's about the correct way to treat the Yang's holy artefacts. The whole story is suddenly distorted. The appearance of the flag of the United States of Omega IV isn't a plot twist it's the moment the story wrenches out of shape. By Any Other Name is about the conflict between the Enterprise crew and the Kelvans. The location of the story shifts from planet, to Enterprise, to intergalactic space but the story is always about that conflict. The climax of the episode is the resolution of the conflict between the two sides. The Doomsday Machine is about Commodore Decker's obsessive need to destroy the planet killer, when Decker sacrifices himself his death provides Kirk with the information needed to destroy the planet killer at the climax of the story. The climax of The Omega Glory is Kirk reading aloud the Preamble to the United States Constitution and telling the Yangs they must also apply its principles to the Kohms, but the Yang's holy artefacts were only revealed ten minutes ago; literally in this case, since the last act of The Omega Glory appears to play out in real time.

Gene Roddenberry wants to tell a story about symbols and what happens when the symbols are valued but the philosophy and meaning behind them is misunderstood, or forgotten. That's a good starting point for a story, and tying that story on to the cultural artefacts of America is a bold move. The result is a story which warns Americans that saluting the flag, and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance is pointless without also allowing the principles they represent to apply to everyone. 

Unfortunately a story like that doesn't really fit the Star Trek format. It might work for The Twilight Zone where the story could be set in a post-apocalypse America but Star Trek never goes to Earth so immediately the story has to be set on an alien world. Then you have the problem of getting the Enterprise crew involved, and then somehow you have to get Kirk to remain and stay close to the heart of the action so he can be there for the denouement. Gradually the story starts to accrete round the original idea and becomes more and more cumbersome. Which is why The Omega Glory consists of so many different plot strands. Plus for the story to work as television it must be exciting and interesting on a visual level. It would make for a more sensible episode if the Yangs had their own flag and constitution. Kirk could explain how they've forgotten the true meaning of their artefacts, and the values of their ancestors, and draw the comparison with the United States. Then once the episode is done the landing party can beam back to the Enterprise and say, “Yangs and Kohms, I wonder,” and everyone can scratch their chins and look thoughtful. However having someone say, “that flag.... why it's an allegory for the United States flag,” is no match for the visual impact of actually having an alien walk in carrying the Stars and Stripes. Which is of course where we came in. 

Enterprise crew deaths: Lieutenant Galloway, vaporised by Captain Tracey.
Running total: 45

By Any Other Name

When talking about Star Trek it's easy to get hung up on big name stories like The Trouble With Tribbles. While these episodes have come to define the series the real joy often comes from discovering (or rediscovering) the stories which don't persistently hang around in top ten lists. By Any Other Name is one of those episodes and it turns out to be a little gem. 

By Any Other Name has a script which constantly wrong foots the viewer about exactly what kind of story they should expect. The episode starts out looking as if it will be I, Mudd with aliens. The teaser, and act one, focus on the Kelvans plot to take over the Enterprise. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and two other Enterprise crew, are kept hostage to ensure the good behaviour of everyone else while the Enterprise is converted for the 300 year journey back to the Kelvan's home in the Andromeda galaxy. This episode being another addition to the list of stories suggesting the universe outside our galaxy is full of hideous monsters. Spock describes the Kelvans in their native form as, “immense beings [with] a hundred limbs which resemble tentacles."

The Kelvan's main weapon is a nifty little belt device which neutralises nerve impulses to the voluntary muscles leaving the target paralysed. All the elements are in place for this to be a generic Star Trek episode. The conversion of the Enterprise for its intergalactic voyage looks as if is there to add an arbitrary deadline to the story; forcing Kirk to save the day before the Enterprise departs. The aliens main advantage is technological, the belt paralyser, and when head alien Rojan mentions the neural field radiates from a central projector the episode looks set to turn into a game of hunt the power source; like Catspaw. It's easy to imagine how the next three acts will play out. A sequence of captures and escapes as Kirk tries to get hold of a paralysis projector, locate the central unit, and then turn the tables on the aliens by paralysing them until they have learned their lesson.

Still, even at this early stage it's clear the story is more interesting than average. There's an unusual amount of continuity. Spock's prison break technique from A Taste Of Armageddon (using the Vulcan mind meld to trick a guard into believing the Enterprise crew had escaped) is mentioned along with the energy barrier around the galaxy from Where No Man Has Gone Before. We also get to see the Kelvans take over the Enterprise, something which happened entirely off screen in I, Mudd. The takeover is a brisk little 60 second sequence of Kelvans appearing in key sections of the ship and paralysing the crew. It nicely demonstrates the Kelvan's technical superiority and ruthless efficiency. Plus, someone has found some money to give the Kelvans a signature effect. A blue twinkling visual when people are paralysed. This effect is completely unnecessary from a storytelling perspective. It's obvious when the the belt paralyser is used. There's a sound effect and everyone freezes (usually in some exaggerated “oh I can't move” pose, I particularly like Deforest Kelly's finger pointing, opened mouthed, position when McCoy is frozen while turning to say something to Spock). Still it's great that someone found the cash for the effect. It really adds visual interest to the scenes where it features, and its use is positively lavish considering Star Trek's normal frugal use of effects. Where you might see phasers fired once or twice in an episode, the Kelvan's belt paralyser is used twice in the teaser, and then another five times in act one.

The first real indication that events are not going to run as expected comes after the first escape attempt when Rojan tells Kirk, “this cannot go unpunished.” It turns out the Kelvans can reduce humans to small three dimensional objects, “the flesh and brain and what you call the personality, distilled down into these compact shapes.” People distilled down can be restored, but if the shape is crushed the person dies. Rojan demonstrates this on Lieutenant Shea and Yeoman Thompson, crushing Yeoman Thompson's distilled essence and killing her.

Yeoman Thompson's death may be the most disturbing seen on Star Trek. All we see on screen is a three dimensional shape being crushed to powder but somehow it's a weirdly graphic moment. What makes this killing so gruesome? It's hard to describe exactly but it's a combination of causes. There's the demonstration of Rojan's ruthlessness in forcing Kirk to watch a crew member being killed, and his killing of Thompson is literally more hands on than if he had shot her with a phaser, or zapped her with a bolt of lightning. There's the demonstration of Kirk's powerlessness, he cannot do anything except stand and watch. There's also an illogical attachment between Yeoman Thompson and the crushed shape. We've seen Thompson reduced, and we've been told the shape represents her very essence, so it feels as if we are watching Rojan's hand squeezing not just her body but somehow her brain and thoughts as well. On a more physical level crushing the object is not easy. Rojan squeezes once, twice, three times. Each time breaking the object into smaller chunks. Thompson's death would not seem nearly so prolonged or brutal if the shape had immediately exploded into a puff of power, or if Rojan just squeezed it once before dropping the remains on the floor. Lastly it's all too easy to start trying to imagine what the ruin of Thompson's body would look like. Rojan says Thompson cannot be restored to life, but presumably her body could be reconverted back into flesh and blood.

Yeoman Thompson's death is one of those moments which grips the imagination. As the story heads into act two it surprises again when the Enterprise warps out of orbit, and what had looked as if it would be a largely planet based story instead transfers completely to the Enterprise. It rapidly becomes clear that talk of the energy barrier around the galaxy wasn't just to set up the plot. We will actually see the ship attempt to do what it could not in Where No Man Has Gone Before, breach the barrier and head out into intergalactic space. At the same time Spock and Scotty have come up with a suicide plan. The barrier is composed of negative energy. On Kirk's order Scotty will flood the matter-anti-matter nacelles with positive energy and the ship will be destroyed. The result is a tense sequence as Kirk agonises over his decision. It's well edited by film editor James D. Ballas, and made more exciting by simple but effective use of the standard Enterprise control panel beeping noise as Scotty waits for Kirk's order, and by reusing part of Sol Kaplan's score for The Doomsday Machine. The whole sequence is capped cleverly by splitting Chekov's line, “we... made it,” around a shot of the Enterprise zooming towards Andromeda.

Obviously in the end Kirk decides not to blow up the ship, and it's a matter of personal taste as to whether you think his decision was correct or not for the character. As Kirk says in Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan, “I don't believe in the no-win scenario.” Sacrificing the crew and ship would feel like Kirk was admitting there are no other possibilities. It solves the short term problem of what to do with this Kelvan scouting party, but for all Kirk knows there could be others. Or the failure of Rojan's group to report in could prompt the Kelvans to send another scouting party which the Federation don't know about, or worse a full scale invasion fleet. Plus at this point Kirk still has a full compliment of crew, he doesn't know Rojan plans to reduce them, so the humans outnumber the Kelvans, and the odds are in his favour. 

The scope of the story narrows in the later part of act three, and act four. With only four Enterprise crew remaining, Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Scotty, the solution to the problem of defeating the Kelvans turns out to be tempting them with the pleasures of the flesh. Scotty gets Tomar drunk, Kirk seduces Kelinda, Spock expertly plays on Rojan's jealousy of Kirk and Kelinda, and McCoy starts injecting Hanar with stimulants while pretending to give vitamins to the alien. Amusingly no one seems to remember there's a fifth Kelvan on the bridge, Drea. While Tomar gets drunk, Kelinda gets snogged, Rojan gets furious, and McCoy gets Hanar hepped up on goofballs, Drea sits on the bridge patiently steering the ship on its 300 year journey towards Andromeda. She must be baffled to receive Rojan's order to reverse course. These scenes allow for some very good comedy, especially Scotty's drinking contest with Tomar, but there's something disappointing about By Any Other Name ending up as another story in which clever humans outwit superior beings. It's also not helped by repeating similar themes from Return To Tomorrow, although By Any Other Name was made first and is the superior episode of the two.

If the solution to beating the Kelvans is disappointing By Any Other Name does deserve praise for ultimately being resolved by diplomacy and an offer of assistance; admittedly after a fist fight in one of the recreation rooms. A lesser story might have ended with Kirk hoisting the Kelvans on their own petard, maybe paralysing them, or reducing them to cubes and leaving the problem for the future to deal with. One genuinely nice touch about the ending is that the much sought after neural paralysers end up being a Macguffin, and irrelevant to the resolution, to the extent that Scotty passes out just after getting hold of one. Which is probably just as well. The Enterprise corridors are littered with the shapes of the reduced crew. Imagine Scotty trying to deliver the projector while drunk. Kicking a shape here, tripping on one there, knocking off a corner, cracking another, and then probably falling over and crushing a whole load of them at once. 

Enterprise crew deaths: Just one, poor Yeoman Thompson. 
Running total: 44

Misc: More messing around with the closing credits. This time we have a still not from an episode, or a makeup test but a blooper. As William Blackburn peels the Return To Tomorrow android makeup from his head someone, possibly makeup artist Fred Phillips, says, "well, son, you wanted show business. Goddammit, you got it!" and then walks into shot and helps Blackburn pull off some of the latex."

Patterns Of Force

Patterns Of Force was made between 29th November and 6th December 1967, and broadcast on 16th February 1968. A Piece Of The Action was made between 2nd November and 9th November 1967, and broadcast on 12th January 1968. As Patterns Of Force is broadly A Piece Of The Action with Nazis it's easy to assume Patterns Of Force is an attempt to repeat the formula of A Piece Of The Action, but the genealogy of both stories is more complicated.

The concept for A Piece Of The Action first crops up as a suggested outline in Gene Roddenberry's original pitch document Star Trek Is...There a three line description reads, “PRESIDENT CAPONE. A parallel world, Chicago ten years after Al Capone won and imposed gangland statutes upon the nation.” Based on this George Clayton Johnson wrote an outline for an episode called The Syndicate which was refined into a treatment called Chicago II before being put to one side and forgotten while The Man Trap was developed. Separately writer Paul Schneider submitted an early outline for Patterns Of Force in December 1966 which was developed into a teleplay in early 1967. For some reason John Meredyth Lucas then wrote a new outline in June which was further developed through June and July 1967.

In the wake of The Trouble With Tribbles Gene L. Coon rediscovered George Clayton Johnson's treatment and decided it would make a good premise for another comedy episode. It's quite possible another factor in Gene L. Coon's decision to resurrect Chicago II was that the then in development script for Patterns Of Force, and Bread And Circuses, demonstrated stories about planets based on Earth history were practical. Then, for whatever reason Bread And Circuses was made and held back, Patterns Of Force slipped back in the production order, and A Piece Of The Action was broadcast first and looks like the story which originated the idea of doing planets based on historical periods.

So, it's time to raid the Desilu Studios' costume store again. There's no more depth to the use of Nazis in Patterns Of Force, than there is gangsters in A Piece Of The Action. They are just there to allow their costumes and iconography to act as an eye catching visual and grab the attention of any viewer flicking between channels. It works, Patterns Of Force looks great. It has visual appeal and freshness because it looks completely unlike any other Star Trek episode except A Piece Of The Action. The plot of both episodes is a simple adventure tale of capture and escape. There is no depth to the story, no analogy, or moral; beyond possibly the blindingly obvious one that totalitarian governments are bad, and peace is better than war. The subplot involving Federation observer John Gill and his daft plan to unite the anarchic planet of Ekos under a benign Nazi system, because it is “efficient” is as spurious a justification for the costumes as A Piece Of The Action's backstory involving the book Chicago Mobs Of The Twenties. Both are just there to force Kirk's hand in taking action. The situation on Ekos/Sigma Iotia II is the Federation's fault, so Kirk must attempt a repair.

The similarities between Patterns Of Force and A Piece Of The Action are strong enough that it's even possible to imagine a Nazi version of A Piece Of The Action in which the careless crew of the starship Horizon leave behind a book about the Nazi Party. Sigma Iotia II would have been broken up into a territories run by mini-Fhurers with each competing to be top dog. Comedy Gestapo officers would run around shouting at each other and the unnamed women who complain about Oxmyx and the “crummy street lights around here,” and lack of laundry pickup would have instead grumbled about the trains not running on time. The only question is whether NBC would have accepted a comedy Nazi episode? It's unlikely but not impossible. Hogan's Heroes had been running on CBS since 1965, but having said that Mel Brooks' The Producers was released to widespread accusations of bad taste roughly a month after Patterns Of Force aired. By 1968 comedy German soldiers were okay, but comedy Nazis were still a step too far.

In fact humour is the main difference between A Piece Of The Action and Patterns Of Force. A Piece Of The Action is unique because it was commissioned with the specific intention of making a deliberately funny story, whereas the humour in The Trouble With Tribbles appears to have evolved naturally as the script was developed. By contrast the tone of Patterns Of Force is all over the place. There are jokes in there, and some of them are good jokes. As might be expected Spock gets all the best moments. His, “you should make a very convincing Nazi,” to Kirk, and his perfectly timed raised eyebrow when deputy Melakon describes Spock's, “low forehead, denoting stupidity”. These moments sit awkwardly alongside attempts to emphasise the evil of the Ekotian regime.

ABROM: Isak, Uletta is dead. Shot down in the streets.

ISAK: She would've been my wife.

ABROM: She lived for five hours while they walked past her and spat on her. Our own people were unable to help her. Now you ask me to help strangers.

ISAK: If we adopt the ways of the Nazis, we're as bad as the Nazis.

Notice the names Abrom/Abraham Isak/Isaac, and the name of the twin planet Zeon/Zion. In the broadcast version there is no need for these disguised names. They add no depth to the story because what's on screen is literally about the Nazis and their treatment of the Jews. If the Nazi uniforms, symbols, and terminology were stripped out to leave a story about Kirk struggling to avert war between twin planets, then the disguised Hebrew names would add a little depth and point to an analogy. As it is their presence is just gilding the lily. It would be like making the planet killer from The Doomsday Machine, an analogy for nuclear weapons, look exactly the same as a Minuteman ICBM.

It's the realisation that all the Nazi imagery could be stripped from Patterns Of Force, and still leave a workable story which points to the biggest weakness of the episode. The element which makes Patterns Of Force so distinctive, the uniforms and symbols, is also the story's most redundant feature.

Enterprise crew deaths: None again. Seven whole weeks without anyone dying.

Running total: 43

Misc:
More distinctive than the episode itself is the Next Voyage trailer broadcast at the end of Return To Tomorrow. Next Time trailers normally open with a Captain's log voiceover and a shot of the Enterprise. Patterns Of Force begins stylishly with the Enterprise but the soundtrack is Isak's, “hide! They're right behind me. Hide! Hide!” The next image is the reveal of the Ekotians wearing SS Brownshirt uniforms from the episode teaser. Through the entire trailer there is no indication Patterns Of Force takes place on another planet. With the exception of a line from Kirk, “she captured a Zeon spy that was attempting to assassinate the Fuhrer,” the trailer is carefully edited to suggest Kirk and Spock are somehow fighting real Nazis. It would be really interesting to know what viewers at the time made of this. Did they think they were going to get another time travel episode?