The Lights Of Zetar

The last hundred survivors of the dead planet Zetar survive through sheer force of will in a non-corporeal form. They have travelled through space for over a thousand years looking for a body which they can take over and live out the remainder of their lives. In the course of their search they killed everyone on Memory Alpha; a planetoid set up by the Federation as a central library containing the total cultural history and scientific knowledge of all Federation members. The lens through which writers Jeremy Tarcher and Shari Lewis focus this story is a romance between Scotty and Lieutenant Mira Romaine a Starfleet specialist supervising the transfer of equipment to Memory Alpha.

A Scotty love story! Has no one learned anything from Who Mourns For Adonais? The answer is yes. A little. This time Scotty is at least involved in a relationship which seems mutual. Unlike the loveless relationship in Who Mourns For Adonais? where Scotty was willing to sacrifice his life for a woman who barely seemed to recognise that he existed; the height of her passion was a reluctant, "all right," when he invited her for coffee.

Apart from that there's very much the sense that The Lights Of Zetar could be Who Mourns For Adonais? with the Apollo plot taken out and the Zetar survivors plot slotted into its place. In both stories Scotty acts utterly obsessed to the extent of disobeying direct orders from Kirk. In both stories there is also the sense that someone on the production team simply looked down a list of episodes and saw there had already been a recent Kirk love story, a Spock love story, a McCoy love story, and a Chekov love story; the only two regular cast not to get a love story are Uhura and Sulu who are both rarely asked to do anything interesting. It's the generic nature of the love plot which really grates; Scotty could be Sulu or Chekov or Lieutenant Kyle. It's like the joke at the end of The Simpsons episode Das Bus where the children are marooned on an island and the narrator says “... eventually they were rescued by, oh, let's say... Moe.”

Star Trek is great at telling unique emotional stories for Kirk and Spock. The City On The Edge Of Forever couldn't be about another character falling for Edith Keeler, and there's something endearing about Kirk's reluctance to talk about Ruth in Shore Leave; as if he is embarrassed by the unexpected reappearance of this ghost from his past. Unfortunately when it comes to other characters the scripting suddenly becomes utterly interchangable. "McCoy falls in love...Chekov falls in love...Scotty falls in love." Anyone could have caught a terminal disease and fallen in love in For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky. Still this might simply be a reflection of how television worked at the time; maybe carefully worked out character stories were strictly for the lead actors. For all I know on Gunsmoke Chester Goode, Festus Haggen, and Doc Adams were all having interchangeable romances on a weekly basis. At the end of the episode Scotty gazes moon-eyed at Lieutenant Romaine and says, "now we have all the time in the world". We never hear about Lieutenant Romaine again.

It's frustrating that Jeremy Tarcher and Shari Lewis have foregrounded the Scotty love story. The other concepts are really interesting. There's a spiritual element to the Zetarians who drift around the universe as disembodied minds, possessing people, forcing them to speak in tongues, and giving Lieutenant Romaine the power of second sight. Their psychedelic colours and appearance in extreme close-ups of Lieutenant Romaine's eye probably springs more from Dave Bowman's trip beyond the infinite in 2001: A Space Odyssey which premièred in Los Angeles on 4th April 1968.

Memory Alpha is the Library of Alexandria for the Federation. It is destroyed because, "when the library complex was assembled, shielding was considered inappropriate to its totally academic purpose. Since the information on the Memory planet is available to everyone, special protection was deemed unnecessary. " The line is probably a quick story fix; like M-5's unexpected and never again mentioned ability to generate a force field in The Ultimate Computer. During story development someone probably wondered why everyone on the Enterprise survived their encounter with the Zetarians unlike the people on Memory Alpha. It makes the Federation seem sweetly naive, as if they never expected anyone to attack a library. The line implies that Memory Alpha has no shielding whatsoever, not even against natural radiation which is strange considering cosmic radiation was a known hazard of space travel by 1968. Apparently anyone using Memory Alpha will be sterilized whenever a nearby star coughs. There's also an odd line from Spock about the loss of Memory Alpha being "a disaster for the galaxy," and "irretrievable," because the memory core is burned out. The script seems to be suggesting that Memory Alpha holds its information in an electronic format which is not backed up. It's easy to watch The Lights Of Zetar today and assume Memory Alpha is like the internet but it's not. It's a genuine space library and Spock's line is a relic of days when information was harder to duplicate.

Enterprise crew deaths: None.

Running total: 53

Top Ten

Twenty episodes into the first series. Here's how my ranking of the top ten episodes has changed since I got to episode ten.

The Corbomite Manouver
Arena

Balance Of Terror
The Naked Time
The Galileo Seven

The Squire Of Gothos
Charlie X

Tomorrow Is Yesterday

Shore Leave

The Enemy Within

The last time I did this, the top four were The Corbomite Manouver, The Naked Time, Charlie X, and The Enemy Within. Everything else has been pushed out from that first top ten . Still languishing at the very bottom of the list is What Are Little Girls Made Of?

Court Martial

Isaac Asimov had a book published in 1968 called Asimov's Mysteries. A collection of science fiction stories which worked according to the rules of the mystery genre. Asimov wrote in his introduction to the book,

“I was told that 'by its very nature' science fiction would not play fair with the reader. In a science fiction story, the detective could say, 'But as you know, Watson, ever since 2175, when all Spaniards learned to speak French, Spanish has been a dead language. How came Juan Lopez, then, to speak those significant words in Spanish'. Or else, he could have his detective whip out an odd device and say, 'as you know, Watson, my pocket-frannistan is perfectly capable of detecting the hidden jewel in a trice.'
You don't spring new devices on the reader and solve the mystery with them. You don't take

advantage of future history to introduce ad hoc phenomena. In fact, you carefully explain all facets of the future background well in advance so the reader may have a decent chance to see the solution. The fictional detective can make use only of facts known to the reader in the present or of 'facts' of the fictional future, which will be carefully explained beforehand.”

Asimov became firm friends with Roddenberry, and a supporter of Star Trek. Would he have approved of Court Martial? The story certainly fits the criteria Asimov gives in the above quote.

Inside the trial format is a straightforward mystery. Is Kirk lying, or is the infallible computer wrong? Kirk says he followed procedure during an ion storm and went to red alert before jettisoning a research pod which was endangering the ship. Kirk admits he killed the pod's occupant Ben Finney, but he says Finney was too slow in leaving the pod after Kirk went to red alert. The computer says Kirk jettisoned the pod before going to red alert, and is therefore either lying or incompetent. The script doesn't cheat by relying on made-up devices like Asimov's fantastically named pocket-frannistan. Instead Spock makes a logical deduction from the available evidence. He programmed the computer, and now he can beat it at chess whereas previously the best he could hope for was a draw. Therefore someone has tampered with the computer to change the records it holds.

The closest the episode gets to gimmickry is the ending where the trial moves to the Enterprise bridge after the ship has been evacuated. The Enterprise's internal microphones are massively amplified allowing the people involved in the trial to hear the heartbeats of everyone on board. One by one, McCoy uses a noise cancelling microphone on the trial personnel to remove their heartbeats until only one can still be heard; Finney's. The man Kirk supposedly killed is still alive. He faked his own death, and the evidence against Kirk, and is still hiding on the Enterprise. Even here the story plays fair. Finney's presence on the Enterprise could have been presented by showing an inch by inch bow to stern search of the Enterprise, or by using the ship's sensors. The whole sequence with the microphone is simply a more visually, and audibly, interesting solution.

The major cast all put in good performances. In one short scene William Shatner is brilliant when Kirk is asked to explain in his own words what happened. Shatner plays the scene quietly with very little movement, or expression, and his voice stays clipped and level. Kirk starts out subdued and you can visibly see his confidence grow as he begins to hope he might turn this situation round. It's a performance helped by the directors decision to shoot the scene as a slow zoom into a close-up of Shatner's face, and the editor's decision to play the scene with a minimum of cutting to reaction shots. For a second it's possible to believe Kirk has won the court round by sheer force of personality before the inevitable crushing blow as Areel Shaw shows Finney's faked visual extract from the Enterprise logs.

Unfortunately the story comes with a massive side order of melodrama. Heightened emotions and situations are the order of the day. The tone is set when Finney's daughter bursts into Commodore Stone's office and hysterically accuses Kirk of killing her father. Then we get Cogley the computer hating lawyer. Kirk's old flame Areel Shaw being forced to prosecute him (“Because, Jim Kirk, my dear old love, I am the prosecution, and I have to do my very best to have you slapped down hard. Broken out of the service, in disgrace.”). Lots of courtroom action with people shouting “objection” and “sustained”. And finally poor old Ben Finney.

In the review of The Corbomite Maneuver I talked about television's need to compress maximum information into the minimum time. There we had Navigator Bailey the world's worst bridge officer. Here we have rambling Ben Finney. Cacking, paranoid, bug-eyed, unshaven Ben Finney who, talks about himself in the third person; the ultimate sign of TV madness. “Except for Finney, and his one mistake a long time ago, but they don't forget.” Finney's one mistake was to leave a circuit open to the atomic pile on the USS Republic. Ensign Kirk found and logged the mistake which could have destroyed the ship, and Finney went to the bottom of the promotion pile where he nursed a grudge against Kirk which turned into hate.

It's not that Finney's revenge plan against Kirk lacks sense, it's that Finney as he appears on screen doesn't seem to be the person to carry it out. If this was a spur of the moment idea he comes across as someone who no longer possesses the skills for the fast but detailed work we must assume is required to reprogramme a computer before records are accessed, and leave no obvious traces. Alternatively, if this is a plan which has been maturing for some time it seems unlikely no one has noticed just how mad Finney has become while he waits for the exact combination of circumstances necessary for his plan. It's ironic that in the episode where we first see the Enterprise personnel officer we also see Finney, her greatest failure. 

Bubbling away in the background of Court Martial are a couple of odd moments regarding the planet Vulcan. During the courtroom scenes Spock is referred to, and describes himself, as Vulcanian. Nothing odd about that, although it sounds a little clumsy. Except, in the opening moments of act one Kirk goes to the M11 Starbase club where he greets one of his ex-Academy classmates with the line, “I haven't seen you since the Vulcanian expedition.” Expedition in this case sounds like it is being used in the military sense of the word, which is strange, but also reminded me of this exchange from The Conscience Of The King.

SPOCK: My father's race was spared the dubious benefits of alcohol.

MCCOY: Now I know why they were conquered.

The Conscience Of The King was filmed 12^th, Court Martial 14^th, and in the middle was The Galileo Seven where the stranded crew display hostility to Spock which is out of keeping with their status as Starfleet Officers, if not completely inappropriate. Could these be remnants of unused backstory for Spock or the planet Vulcan? Was someone on the production team toying with the idea, or under the impression, that Vulcan had been at war with, and conquered by, Earth? These are still early days for the series. New ideas are always being tried out, and sometimes rejected. Having set up a model for time travel in The Naked Time a different one was used in Tomorrow Is Yesterday. Or look at the way Sulu is shuffled from  astrosciences to helmsman. Even concepts like the Federation, or photon torpedoes, which today are core parts of Star Trek, didn't appear until Arena. 

Kirk also gets a couple of moments which shine an odd light on his backstory. None of the old classmates Kirk meets in the M11 Starbase club seem happy to see him again. One, Timothy, all but accuses Kirk of murdering Finney, and appears to speak for the others when he says, “Ben was a friend of ours.” This scene has a very real story purpose to get the episode off to a good dramatic start, and to contrast Kirk's casual attitude with the very real danger to his career. However it seems odd in the light of Kirk's service record. Think of all the things we've seen him do. It's easy to understand why Commodore Stone starts the investigation into Kirk's actions. He has no choice. It's harder to understand the response of the other Captains but it ties in with information from earlier episodes. In Where No Man Has Gone Before, Mitchell talks about Kirk at the Academy, “A stack of books with legs. The first thing I ever heard from upperclassmen was, Watch out for Lieutenant Kirk. In his class, you either think or sink.” Then in Shore Leave Kirk describes himself as, “absolutely grim.” Their dislike here makes it easy to imagine Kirk as a bookish little prig who was hated by his fellow students. The incident on the USS Republic probably confirmed their bad opinion of Kirk as a nasty little cheeser who wouldn't even give his friend a break.

Crew deaths: None, although if Kirk really is that disliked in Starfleet, it's funny to imagine all the other dead crewmen have faked their own deaths and are also hiding on the Enterprise hoping to get Kirk charged with murder.
Running total: 25

Arena

Does it matter if the Gorn looks silly now? It probably didn't look any more convincing in 1967. Prop and creature designer Wah Chang's creation is as good as can be expected given Star Trek's budget, the amount of time Chang probably had to make the costume, and what other series were doing at the time (have a look at Gundemar from the previous week's episode of Lost In Space, The Questing Beast).

Harping on about the Gorn may be unfair but it's one of those moments when circumstances combine to create something which nearly damages the episode. This is not a blink and you'll miss it appearance like Shore Leave's white rabbit, or Chang's earlier salt vampire from The Man Trap. The Gorn is onscreen for around 20 minutes of the episode. It occupies the story space normally taken by a guest star. While the design is good the realisation disappoints. A textured but largely immobile mask (the multifaceted crystal eyes are a nice touch), and a rubbery body with unfleshlike creases appearing as the actor inside moves. The legs are the best part of the suit and have muscles sculpted on to them, but this comes at the expense of movement which may be why it wasn't attempted on the arms; Doctor Who fans will take delight in the familiar sight of an actor with restricted vision and movement picking his way gingerly across an uneven surface.

Directorial and editing decisions compound the problem. The Gorn's first appearance is also the big climax to act two; a turn to camera and then a slow pull-back giving the audience a chance to get an eyeful of the beast. This is followed by what can only be described as the slowest fight in history. The script needs to establish Kirk has speed but the Gorn has strength and power. This is done by having Kirk dodge the Gorn's slow punches but this doesn't allow for fast editing so the result is ponderous. To be fair once the initial rock throwing is over things improve but the footage still tends to overexpose the costume, showing it full length or in medium close-up. Anyway, worse than the Gorn is the appearance of the Metron, the mysterious alien race who object to Kirk and the Gorn fighting in their space. When it appears at the end it manages to look like a parody of Star Trek's preference for toga wearing demi-gods. Actually it's the first sighting of this series staple.

Arena is another all location production and as good, and iconic, as the footage is maybe it would have been better to stage the Kirk/Gorn fight in studio. Miri and Shore Leave both used location filming for environments which could not be created indoors. A city street for Miri, and a large natural glade for Shore Leave. The Kirk/Gorn battle doesn't do anything different to the sword fight in The Squire Of Gothos and that looked okay; in as much as any of Star Trek's planet exteriors look obviously studio-bound. Away from the harsh, flat illumination of the California sun it would have been possible to control the lighting, and allow the Gorn to lurk more in shadow. There may also have been more time to shoot cutaways and protect the costume with close-ups of an eye or claw to break up the endless series of long and mid shots.

The main driving force behind filming on location was probably economic. Star Trek seems to operate with a budget that allows three different types of production. First, all studio interiors, including the construction of new planet sets (The Squire Of Gothos, or The Galileo Seven). Second, location filming on a backlot plus the construction of cheaper studio sets (like Miri with location exteriors and studio interiors). And third all location filming, with the exception of already paid for standing sets like the Enterprise bridge (Shore Leave and Arena). Once the decision was made to shoot the opening Cestus III battle on location -a sequence which does benefit from the additional scale of filming outdoors- I think it became inevitable the Kirk/Gorn fight would be filmed the same way. There probably wouldn't have been the money to also build a Taurus II style network of rocky canyons.

And Joseph Pevney the director does make use of the location. Arena is a justly remembered episode by non fans and it's not for the Cestus III sequence; good as it is. The location footage around Vasquez Rocks looks amazing. Pevney chooses some beautiful shots including one right at the start of act three where Kirk and the Gorn face each other in profile with the rocks towering over the pair. Later a sequence of Kirk scrambling up one of the angled rocks is shot from below and looks genuinely perilous. The film editor Fabian Tordjmann, and production team assemble this footage into an episode which is pacy and exciting; with the exception of the slowest fight in history. Small opportunities are taken to ring changes, this is the first episode not to show the title over a shot of the Enterprise, the Captains' log does not come straight in at the top of act one instead pace is maintained by having the crew react to events and then using the log to fill in background details a minute later, and there's an unusual cross fade between the Enterprise warping through space and a close-up shot of Sulu.

Gene Coon provides a script which manages to be thoughtful and action packed. Understandably Kirk gets the meat of the action but it's also a textbook example of how to give moments to the rest of the crew. Scotty gets to demonstrate he's as smart as Spock when it comes to the engines (while trying to break the Metron's grip on the Enterprise James Doohan has a nice smug expression when Spock suggests things Scotty has already tried), Sulu takes command in a space battle, Uhura summarises information from the rest of the ship for the bridge crew, McCoy is the voice of emotion, and Spock the voice of conscience. The script also neatly works through the implications of events. For example, once trapped in the duel Kirk needs to talk to someone. The last half of the story would be interminable if we had nothing to listen to except the Gorn gurgling. It would look silly for Kirk to start talking to himself so Coon has the Metrons give Kirk what they call “a recording-translating device” to make a record of events. Kirk uses this to record Captain's log style pieces but the Metrons have also given one of these to the Gorn, and Kirk doesn't know the device also acts as a transmitter. The Gorn hears Kirk talking but, initially at least, doesn't reply, instead listening to what Kirk says to gain tactical advantage. Suddenly, the Gorn is cunning, and what started out as a plot device to give Kirk some dialogue ends up adding depth to his opponent. In a nice touch, the line as the Gorn realises it can listen to Kirk's plans is Kirk assessing his enemy. “Fortunately, though strong, he is not agile. The agility and, I hope, the cleverness, is mine.”

Coon's script is layered enough to allow the audience to add their own interpretations to events. When Kirk rolls the boulder down on the Gorn you can mock it as a roadrunner-esque set piece. Alternatively you can notice the boulder is missing in earlier shots. Someone placed the boulder up on the peak. Was it the Gorn? It's fun to imagine it sets a complex trap. Knowing it can't catch Kirk in a flat out chase it contrives a situation where it lures Kirk in with a temptingly placed rock, which the Gorn knows is not heavy enough to do it any real damage. Once Kirk rolls the boulder the Gorn pretends to be pinned, and when Kirk approaches starts moving which panics Kirk into running into the Gorn's rock and boulder trap. It nearly works as well. No wonder the Gorn keeps sniggering as it stands waiting under the boulder pretending to carve a dagger.

Crew deaths: Two. Ensign O'Herlihy, and Lieutenant Commander Lang during the fight on Cestus III

Running total: 25

The Squire Of Gothos

Travelling through a void, or star desert, 900 light years from Earth, the Enterprise encounters unexpected danger. Weirdly The Squire Of Gothos has the setup of a slasher movie; a group of people, on a journey, a long way from home, too far to call for help, and nowhere to run. The key difference being the lack of psychopaths. Instead the Enterprise crew meets Trelane. Squire, or so he says, of the planet Gothos.

It's next to impossible to review The Squire Of Gothos without first talking about the ending where it's revealed Trelane is a child; an alien child with god-like powers. Like the reveal of the fake Balok in The Corbomite Maneuver it changes the audience's understanding of the story. All through the episode there has been a mismatch between what Trelane can do, and the way he behaves; then Trelane's parents show up, and that mismatch is resolved. Suddenly the audience understands how a being who can create planets can also throw temper tantrums. Paul Schneider's script is a clever one, and manages the difficult trick of setting up the surprise ending in advance. Too much set-up and Trelane wouldn't have just acted in a childish way, it would have been obvious he was a child. Likewise, not enough set-up and the ending would have worked but it would have felt bolted on rather than the moment when everything snaps into focus.

The ending is also the point which most clearly separates The Squire Of Gothos from Charlie X. Both stories feature people with powers that allow them to do anything they want, and have protagonists who act childishly and want to fit in; Charlie wants to fit in socially, Trelane wants to be as bloodthirsty as he imagines humans are. Both stories have scripts which define the conflict as a one-on-one struggle with Captain Kirk, backing Kirk into a corner until he has no choice but to confront the protagonist. And, both stories end with the protagonist's parents (for want of a better word in the case of Charlie) talking them home. There are differences. Charlie X takes place on the Enterprise, we're expected to sympathise with Charlie's plight, and the end is pitched as tragedy. The Squire Of Gothos is mainly planet based, Trelane is presented as an arrogant irritant, and the tone at the end is comedic. But both scripts do often hit the same themes.

Until the ending. When the Thasians show up in Charlie X it's because Charlie has become too powerful for the crew of the Enterprise. They can't kill Charlie, or use Kirk's hastily thought out plan to drug Charlie and take him to Colony Five. What would they do there? Keep Charlie tranquillised forever, or lobotomise him? The only dramatically satisfying resolution which allows the Enterprise crew to keep their heroic status is for someone to come along and take the problem off their hands. The Thasians become an off switch for the plot. If Charlie X was a two part story, or if the Thasian's turned up at the end of the teaser the result would have been the same. The conflict between Charlie and Kirk is unresolved and Kirk becomes a spectator, he watches someone else sort out the problem for him.

In The Squire Of Gothos Kirk unambiguously wins. Kirk's victory comes shortly before Trelane's parents turn up when he refuses to acknowledge he's been beaten, and he snaps Trelane's sword. Ironically Trelane's right, Kirk cheats. He wins by not admitting he's lost. At that point you could spin the story off in any direction; Trelane could disappear in a huff; he could kill Kirk and the Enterprise crew (instinctively I feel this ending could have been difficult for the series); he could vow to come back in 100 years and torment any passing Enterprise Captain he meets. It doesn't matter what he does because Trelane is always reacting to being beaten. When his parents turn up it caps the episode, rather than finishing it.

Another difference between Charlie X and The Squire Of Gothos is the presentation of the antagonist. We're shown Trelane's power. He snatches Kirk and Sulu from the Enterprise, and then casually appears on the bridge himself during Spock's abortive first escape attempt; the first time we see an external threat invade the sanctity of the Enterprise bridge. But it's never used, as you might expect, to ransom the crew against the Captain's good behaviour. In Charlie X, Charlie constantly threatens the crew. He tells Kirk he will make people, “go away.” It's used as a sign of Charlie's insecurity. He's puffing himself up, to remind himself he is powerful. Similarly, when Gary Mitchell was upgraded by the radiation barrier at the edge of the galaxy, in Where No Man Has Gone Before, he talked of crushing people like insects, of using worlds, and finally demanded Kirk pray to him. Trelane makes no such threats. Even in the courtroom when Kirk drives Trelane into a fury the danger is to the captain, not the crew. As it also is when Trelane casually drops the Captain into the real atmosphere of Gothos. The first time the crew is placed in danger is the end of the hunt when Trelane decides he's having so much fun he says, “I must fetch all the others back to play”. This fits with Trelane's child nature. Presumably from his perspective attempting to control Kirk's behaviour by threatening the Enterprise would be like telling an uncooperative ant you will destroy the nest. A side effect is The Squire Of Gothos has a slightly lower key feel than other episodes. The audience is left to draw their own conclusions about Trelane's threat rather than having melodramatic reminders about his ability to kill everyone without lifting a finger.

With such a rounded part to work with it's no surprise William Campbell runs with the character of Trelane and plays him with malicious glee. It's one of those occasions where an actor appears to be having a whale of a time, and their enjoyment enhances the performance. It's an obvious gag but the ending where Trelane drops the English aristocrat accent and turns into whinning, wheedling child is very nicely done.

It feels almost compulsory to discuses whether Trelane could be Q, or another member of the Q continuum. Probably not. Star Trek has no shortage of god-like beings with amazing powers, we've already seen at least three different types in the 17 weeks the series has been on air; Gary Mitchell and Doctor Elizabeth Dehner in Where No Man Has Gone Before, Charlie and the Thasians in Charlie X, and now Trelane. That's before you get onto the second division races like the Talosians, The Menagerie, and the what-ever-they-ares from Shore Leave, both of whom are capable of some pretty remarkable feats. 

Is this story perfect? No. For the 18^th episode made it's slightly alarming how many elements it seems to draw from earlier stories. And, on a more minor note, the comedy ker-donk noises when Trelains mirror is smashed seem out of place. It's also, perhaps, the first time a script doesn't explore any of the characters. Instead they are dropped into a surreal situation and left to react along established lines. That said when Spock talks to Trelane he gets the magnificent line, “I object to you. I object to intellect without discipline. I object to power without constructive purpose.” But like Shore Leave, this is a story which gets by on charm. It's good fun.

Crew deaths: None. Trelane may talk about killing but it's not something he does.

Running total: 23

The Galileo Seven

It's easy to forget the the production order of Star Trek differs from the broadcast order; Charlie X, for example, was the seventh episode made but shown second. It gives the production team flexibility. A run of budget saving cheap episodes can be slotted in around more expensive stories, technically demanding stories can be pushed back, and simpler stories brought forwards. Of course this is not unique to Star Trek. The Prisoner fans have spent decades debating the correct order to watch the programme; production order, broadcast order, or some as yet undiscovered third order where everything makes sense. Shifting the episode order can create anomalies. Balance Of Terror (filmed 8^th) and Shore Leave (filmed 17^th) are shown back-to-back. Minor character Angela Martine is in both episodes so the week after her fiancé dies in a Romulan attack, on their wedding day, she is getting friendly with Lieutenant Rodriguez.

The Menagerie was made as the 15^th and 16^th episodes, out of 29, and it was shown as episodes 11 and 12. It also seems to be the first story totally written and filmed since Star Trek began broadcasting on NBC; so it's also the first story to be influenced by public reaction. This makes it a good midpoint for the series. Star Trek before The Menagerie is an unknown quantity, nobody quite knows what stories this series will do best, or how the characters work. Star Trek after The Menagerie is the series with “the guy with the ears”. It's the point where Spock completes the transition from character to hero. Spock has always been the one who uses logic to find, and voice, the hard but correct options. In Where No Man Has Gone Before, he's the first person to recommend killing Gary Mitchell. In Balance Of Terror he surprises everyone in the briefing room by agreeing with Stiles and recommending the Romulan ship be destroyed. However The Menagerie is the first time he's given a proper heroic storyline when he kidnaps Captain Pike. At first the audience is left to guess at Spock's motives, even his friends doubt him, but Spock is correct. Talos IV is the best place for Pike, and the means of getting him there are justified by the ends. It's essentially the same storyline given to Kirk in The Conscience Of The King; presented with a problem, and unwilling to involve his friends, Kirk is challenged, but proved correct in the end.

All this is to try and explain why exactly The Galileo Seven feels so out of step with the series at this point. In The Galileo Seven Spock is wrong. He makes poor decisions, is unable to take the reactions of his human colleagues into account, misunderstands the responses of the inhabitants of Taurus II, and gives an order which directly kills one of the men under his command; if not ordered to remain on guard away from the shuttle Gaetano would not have died. Finally Spock is given a scene where he openly questions his own decision making.

SPOCK: Strange. Step by step, I have made the correct and logical decisions. And yet two men have died.

MCCOY: And you've brought our furry friends down on us.

SPOCK: I do seem to have miscalculated regarding them, and inculcated resentment on your parts. The sum of the parts cannot be greater than the whole.

MCCOY A little less analysis and more action. That's what we need, Mister Spock.

Spock only saves the day when he stops relying completely on logic and, in the words of Captain Kirk, reasons it is time for an emotional outburst. Spock's decision making process is not just questioned, as Kirk's is in The Conscience Of The King, it's actually tested and found wanting. If this was a war film Spock would be the cocky Lieutenant who realises he has a lot to learn and is not yet ready for command. 

The Galileo Seven was made 13^th, a couple of episodes before The Menagerie, and held back until episode 16. One of the reasons it feels out of place is because Balance Of Terror another significant Spock focused episode aired in the meantime. Balance Of Terror, also made pre-Menagerie, fits much better because Spock is given the heroic 'man who is wronged 'storyline; character A dislikes character B because someone like B was responsible for a terrible event in A's past, when A's life is saved by B, A realises B is okay and learns it is wrong to judge people as a group. Moving Balance Of Terror means the run of episodes goes like this; The Menagerie, Spock as hero; The Conscience Of The King, Spock light story; Balance Of Terror, Spock as hero (he wins over the bigoted Lieutenant Stiles and saves the day by firing the vital phaser shot); Shore Leave, Spock light story; The Galileo Seven, Spock makes bad decisions and gets one man killed. You can see why the story jars. 

The other element of The Galileo Seven which feels off is the attitude of the crashed shuttle crew to Spock. Granted they're in a stressful situation. And, granted even before discovering the planet is inhabited by 12 foot "huge, furry creatures" which want them all dead, the seven crew know three people may have to be left behind to allow the shuttle to achieve orbit. If they're going to be abandoned along with non-essential equipment to make the shuttle light enough to take off they want some reassurance their life is more valued than the Galileo's candy floss machine, and Spock is never going to be the commander to give that assurance, but they start whining and sniping very quickly. McCoy in particular seems to be put out simply because Spock treads on one of his jokes:

MCCOY: Partial pressure of oxygen, seventy millimetres of mercury. Nitrogen one forty. Breathable, if you're not running in competition.
SPOCK: Just the facts, Doctor.
MCCOY: Traces of argon, neon, krypton, all in acceptable quantities. However, I wouldn't recommend this place as a summer resort. 

There's something very passive aggressive about that summer resort comment. McCoy gets in a dig because Spock only wants facts. Now McCoy might simply be trying to raise people's spirits with a little humour if it wasn't for the next scene being one where McCoy follows Spock outside and needles him about his approach to command being based on logic. Then the very next scene, after Spock says his decision on who stays behind will be based on logic, not drawing lots as Lieutenant Boma suggests, contains this exchange: 

SPOCK: ... Now gentlemen, I suggest we move outside to make a further examination of the hull in the event we've overlooked any minor damage.
BOMA: If any minor damage was overlooked, it was when they put his head together.

MCCOY: Not his head, Mister Boma, his heart. His heart.

In the space of three scenes McCoy moves from taking digs at Spock to openly criticising him in front of junior crew-members. And, unsurprisingly, the crew become increasingly hostile and aggressive, with Lieutenant Boma in particular being almost irrationally determined to make shows of compassion in front of Spock as he insists on burials for both dead crewmen. It all comes to a head after one of the creatures is driven off after attacking the shuttle.

SPOCK: The moment they discover they're not seriously hurt, they'll be back. Meanwhile, please check the aft compartment. See if there's anything you can unload to lighten the ship.

BOMA: Mister Gaetano's body's back there.

SPOCK: It will of course have to be left behind.

BOMA: Not without a burial.

SPOCK: I wouldn't recommend it. The creatures won't be far away.

BOMA: Not without a burial, Mister Spock.

SPOCK: It would expose members of this crew to unnecessary peril.

BOMA: I'll take that chance. You see, Mister Spock, I would insist upon a decent burial even if your body was back there.

MCCOY: Mister Boma.

BOMA: I'm sick and tired of this machine!

SCOTT: That's enough!

It's rather hypocritical of McCoy to utter that shocked, “Mister Boma” as if he hasn't spent all their time on the planet second guessing Spock's decisions, and criticising him. If he can't set a good example he shouldn't be surprised when other people think insubordination is okay. It's worth noting it's Scotty who tells Boma “that's enough”. Mr. Scott is one of the stars of this episode. He gets on with his work with quiet competence. He doesn't join in the communal whinging. And he comes up with the solution to their fuel problem. In short, he plays the sensible second in command role normally taken by Spock. Back on the Enterprise, Uhura is also given a good character moment when she suggests a way to narrow the search because Taurus Two is the only planet in Murasaki 312 capable of supporting life. It would have been easy to give this line to Kirk, or make him look smarter by seeing the solution before everyone else. It's also good writing because it almost unnoticeably solves the problem of how the Enterprise can get to the right planet in an area described as comprising at least four complete solar systems.

Robert Gist, the director, gives us claustrophobic planet scenes as well as the human tension on the shuttlecraft. He mostly keeps the camera low, even when people are climbing on rocks, and this, plus lots of dry ice, and lots of twisting rock canyons makes Taurus Two feel like an easy place to get lost. One weaknesses of Star Trek's sound stage planets is their attempt to create the illusion of space in a confined area. The rocks of Taurus Two don't look any more realistic than usual -one of the alien spears grazes a rock and causes a shower of polystyrene- but not seeing a horizon really helps, and the constant weird scraping sound, wood rubbing on leather according to Spock as the natives prepare their weapons, gives a more threatening feel than the usual ambient planet noise. The director, or editor, also makes the wise decision not to give us a close-up look at the inhabitants of Taurus Two. Although impressively bulky, they look a bit silly and the trick of having them holding regular sized spears and shields, but replacing them with giant versions in shots with the shuttle crew never really convinces; it also leads to a whopping great continuity error when a regular sized shield is dropped near Spock, Boma and Gaetano which changes to a giant version in the next shot. 

The Galileo Seven is a unique episode. The unusual personal conflict and claustrophobia makes it feels doom laden. Once the Galileo has taken off the shuttle scenes have a sombre feel; even though the audience knows the Enterprise is still in the area the crew don't. Nimoy plays Spock musing on his first command very well, you can see the disappointment behind the emotionless mask. When he is questioned on jettisoning the fuel he sits completely still, his hands locked and only his thumbs twist and twitch at the bottom of the frame to betray his interior turmoil. This is a self-doubting Spock we have never seen before, and one we wouldn't have seen at all if this episode had been made any later.

Crew deaths: Three. Lieutenants Latimer and Gaetano, on the shuttle. And Ensign O'Neill an Enterprise search party member.

Running total: 23.

Misc:

The tag scene at the end of the episode is bizarre. It's the standard crew laughs at something Spock says scene but the reaction is bizarrely over the top. Uhura, Yeoman Mears, and a blond haired crew-woman are so tickled by Spock's line they rock backwards and forwards against the communication console. Kirk laughs so hard he barely makes it back to his chair without falling over. McCoy stands next to the Captains chair and almost doubles over at one point. Sulu keeps looking back from the helm and guffawing so much you worry he's going to steer the Enterprise into a star. And Scotty has to walk across the set and lean against a wall to support himself in his hilarity, before wiping the tears from his eyes. Maybe this was the last shot of a long day, or the twenty third attempt at the same scene. The whole thing is so OTT it's difficult not to wonder if the cast is being sarcastic.

Shore Leave

On the surface Shore Leave and The Naked Time don't seem to have much in common. The Naked Time is a largely ship based episode with only a few scenes set planetside while one of the strengths of Shore Leave is its' extensive location filming. The plots are not similar either. In The Naked Time the Enterprise crew succumb to space drunkenness while in Shore Leave they are baffled by a planet where dreams become real.

What unites the two episodes is that The Naked Time and Shore Leave are both concepts in search of characters. You could unplug Kirk, and Spock, and Sulu from the story of The Naked Time and slot in characters from Babylon 5, or Blake's 7. Normally this would be pretty poor writing (why are you writing a Star Trek episode if what you've written is not uniquely Star Trek?) but The Naked Time works because the emphasis is always on the characters; what they do, how they react, and what we learn about them. Shore Leave is the same, instead of Doctor McCoy seeing the white rabbit it could be Babylon 5's Doctor Franklin, and Commander Sheridan who meets an old flame and fights, “my own personal devil” from years before.

Shore Leave is great fun but it's a lesser episode than The Naked Time. The logistics of location filming mean for the most part it only features six of the Enterprise crew; Kirk, Spock, and McCoy plus three guest characters Yeoman Barrows, Angela Martine, and Lieutenant Rodriguez. The Naked Time has a larger scale. The crew and the operation of the Enterprise are all threatened. Everybody is given something to do. Kirk has to deal with losing control of the Enterprise. McCoy is searching for a cure. Scotty is trying to cut his way into Engineering to restart the engines. Spock is assisting all three, and he gets infected, as does Sulu, and Nurse Chapel, and several guest cast members.

In Shore Leave the landing party spends most of the time running from one threat to another. Off screen the Enterprise's power is drained and until this is resolved the landing party are trapped. Instead of taking charge, as would normally happen, the cast are left reacting to events. Not that the script gives them anything else to do. It is very oddly paced. In the teaser McCoy talks about the planet being like, “something out of Alice in Wonderland,” sees the White Rabbit and Alice, and reacts. In act one Kirk talks about, “...the Academy. An upper classman there...” sees Finnegan, and reacts. In act two McCoy talks about how, “A princess shouldn't be afraid, not with a brave knight to protect her,” and the Black Knight appears, and so on. The various manifestations put the plot into a holding pattern for 43 minutes until the Caretaker walks out from behind a bush and explains what's happening.

Danger is added by killing first McCoy and then Martine. Unfortunately the audience knows, whether consciously or not, this is not the way a series kills off a main character. Obviously, in The Naked Time the audience also knows the Enterprise is not in any real danger, but that script can create tension by showing the characters attempting to prevent destruction, and then showing how those attempts are frustrated by the spread of the infection. In Shore Leave there's nothing the characters can do to stop McCoy dying, or bring him back, they, and the audience, just have to wait until the story restores him. Actually, one of the few directing failures of Shore Leave is the death of Martine. It looks more as if she runs into a tree and knocks herself out while taking cover from a strafing aeroplane. Rodriguez's reaction to her death can be read as concern over her being injured rather than grief. What actually happened is only made clear at the end when she reappears with McCoy.

We also learn less about the characters in Shore Leave than in The Naked Time. Spock doesn't have fantasies so the planet doesn't recognise his presence. McCoy is killed 30 minutes in. Before that all we find out is he's read Alice In Wonderland, and possibly Le Morte d'Arthur, and that he fancies Yeoman Barrows. Martine, Rodriguez, and Barrows are just there to generate other threats; Don Juan, a tiger, and a fighter plane. Which leaves Sulu and Kirk. We learn Sulu is a gun nut, which ties in nicely with his sword obsession in The Naked Time. There's a great moment when Sulu hands the gun he's found over to Kirk and is so enthusiastic he launches into an unprompted explanation of how handguns fire. More disappointingly Sulu's imagination also conjures up a Samuri. There's nothing really wrong with this and it would pass unnoticed if not for one of the best scenes in The Naked Time being Sulu's insane swordfighting. There by not giving Sulu an oriental weapon the production team took extra care to step away from the obvious and they established him as a person with interests beyond his ethnic background. In this context the Samuri scene in Shore Leave just feels obvious, and disappointing. Sulu describes the gun he found as an, "old time Police special" maybe he could have been attacked by a gangster.

The treatment of Kirk is more interesting. He gets to meet Ruth, an old flame, who obviously means a lot to him, and Kirk's school bully (for want of a better word) Finnegan from Starfleet Academy. This leads on to an epic six minute chase/fight scene which takes up the end of act three and the start of act four. As Kirk starts whaling on Finnegan there's not only the sense of a personal devil being exorcised but also that Kirk, as a thirty five year old, wants to know he's got what it takes to beat up his twenty year old nemesis. He doesn't just want a fair fight, he wants a fight slanted in the favour of his opponent. And he wants to win. There is also something very endearing about Kirk's reluctance to talk to Spock, or anyone else, about the two people he's met. He's either embarrassed about having his past come to life in such an obvious way, or feels it's not good for his image as Captain. 

Three things make Shore Leave a success. A script which is frequently funny, the location filming, and a director who makes the most of both. A nice moment comes during the first Captain's log when Kirk momentarily forgets the stardate. Plus there is Kirk and Spock's final frantic dash back to the glade when they encounter a tiger, are strafed by the fighter plane, and meet the Samurai in quick succession. There's a good moment of physical comedy as the Samurai leaps out for an attack and is body checked by Kirk in a very un-Bushido way. Obviously he doesn't always have the time or inclination for a fair fight. 

The location filming is lovely to look at. It may only be sun-parched California but everything is opened up and there's a real sense of space. Several times the director uses long tracking shots to show the characters running; something which would just not be possible in studio. It's fair to say Shore Leave wouldn't work if it had been filmed on a soundstage. Imagine the Kirk/Finnegan chase done on a planet set. It would probably have been unbearable. Equally, if location filming had been more common on Star Trek then Shore Leave wouldn't have looked so unique. 

The director uses some unusual production techniques, not just the tracking shots, but also a voice-over for Mr Spock. This shouldn't seem unusual, three or four times an episode we get a Captain's log voice-over from Kirk but these recap the story for viewers. Here a voice-over is used as part of the story telling to set up the mystery of the planet. “Scouts have detected no animals, artefacts, or force fields of any kind. Only peace, sunshine, and good air. You'll have no problems.” Mr Spock tells the Captain over a shot of the lake, followed by a zoom in to show a rock lifting up revealing the gun Sulu will find later.

It's tempting to say Shore Leave's trip out of the studio is as much a break for the cast and production team as it is for the characters. Actually the episode is full of shots which suggest the crew must have been pressed for time. In addition to the confusion over Martine's death we have; obvious continuity errors, Kirk is thrown by Finnegan and his shirt is undamaged, then torn in close-up; sound faults, when Kirk walks over to Sulu and finds McCoy's body has gone we hear footsteps on wood which appear to be caused by the cameraman stepping on boards laid down for the camera; and other glitches, a boom microphone shadow on the ground as Finnegan taunts Kirk and shouts "here I am. Run!", plus, as Kirk, Spock, and Sulu spread out after hearing the tiger roar, blue smoke puffs into the bottom left-hand side of the frame, as if someone off-camera is having a cigarette but not realising where the smoke is drifting. Mixed quality shots suggesting filming went on late into the day. After the Finnegan fight the shot of Spock asking “did you enjoy it, Captain?” is very grainy, as if the light was becoming too low to film properly. Several scenes are filmed late in the day where people have long shadows. And there are also some close-ups of Spock with a very dark blue sky in the background, which cause more continuity problems with the light levels in surrounding shots. All of which would normally be corrected in a less rushed production. It's all the more remarkable that for all the apparent strain to get this episode made the end result is something so easy going and relaxed.

Enterprise crew deaths: None. McCoy and Martine are both killed and restored by the technology of the theme park planet.

Running total: 20