The Tholian Web

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky

This is just bland. It's a story which exists purely to fill its scheduled 48 minutes of airtime. Star Trek has done worse episodes, and sillier episodes, and more misconceived episodes, but it's difficult to think of a story which shows less ambition.

This is an episode full of generic moments which happen simply because they always happen in an action adventure series. The most original element of the story is Yonada a closed world sealed inside an asteroid while the descendants of a doomed race travel to a new planet. Original is of course a relative term. This is original for Star Trek but generation ships are something of a hoary cliché in science fiction and, as always, the residents of Yonada don't know they are in a generation ship. In 1966 David Gerrold submitted a two part outline called Tomorrow Was Yesterday about a generation ship on a collision course with a star, again the inhabitants of the ship thought it was a world; this is mentioned not to suggest anyone plagiarised David Gerrold's idea but to show how it was simply one of those ideas which floated around.

Beyond that everything is Star Trek by numbers. Yonada is run by a computer called the Oracle who uses instruments of obedience to monitor what the inhabitants say and think. The Oracle is the worst kind of mixed messages ruler doing 180 degree mood changes when required by the script. When Kirk, Spock, and McCoy first arrive it punishes the landing party, “learn what it means to be our enemy before you learn what it means to be our friend,” then welcomes them, “it is the will of the Oracle that you now be treated as honoured guests.” Later when Kirk and Spock go back into the Oracle room it sentences them to death. Despite this exchange earlier.

KIRK: Thank you, Mister Spock. To our good friends of Yonada.

SPOCK: We are very interested in your world.

NATIRA: That pleases us.

KIRK: Good. Then you wouldn't mind if we looked around?

NATIRA: Not at all. The people know of you now. [to McCoy] Are you well enough to go about?

MCCOY: Perhaps not.

NATIRA: Then why not remain here? Rest. We will talk.

MCCOY: You are very kind.

NATIRA: You are free to go about and meet our people.

Would it have hurt Natira to add that the Oracle room was off limits? It's never clear if the computer is malfunctioning. Spock makes a throwaway reference to “a weakness in one of the eight tubes,” but this is in the context of correcting Yonada's navigational error so could just refer to a problem with the engines. The Oracle appears to be functioning normally. It seems the Fabrini just wanted their descendants to be bossed around by a computer with the nature of a fickle two year old. It doesn't really matter. The Oracle is switched off towards the end of the story and plays no further part in the proceedings.

Worshiping the Oracle is Natira, high priestess of the people. Doctor McCoy falls in love with her. When D. C. Fontana wrote Friday's Child she used the situation on Capella to examine McCoy's character, his compassion and his determination to help people even at the cost of his own life. Here McCoy falls in love simply because one of the characters needs to stay on Yonada and learn its secrets. The choice of McCoy makes no difference to the character or the story. It is utterly arbitrary, apparently made simply on the basis that this season Kirk and Spock have already have had love stories. It doesn't matter. The person wandering around Yonada called Doctor McCoy doesn't bear any relation to the character of the same name who appears in other Star Trek episodes. This Doctor McCoy discovers a world whose inhabitants are kept in deliberate ignorance of their true place in the universe. This Doctor McCoy witnesses a man killed for talking about something he did in his childhood. This Doctor McCoy discovers the ruling planetary computer monitors the thoughts and speech of the woman he loves, and can inflict pain on her should she say or think something forbidden. Does he rail against the system of Yonada and try to bring it down? No. He chooses to join this world and has the instrument of obedience implanted in his head, and seems to take seriously Natira's offer, “you can share that world with me, rule it by my side.” That fatal disease he's caught must really be messing with his brain.

Because that's the other big idea of the episode. Doctor McCoy is dying of space-plague. Except he isn't. At the end of the story Spock finds the Fabrini have a cure, so McCoy's incurable fatal disease goes away with no long term effects on his character.

Those are the big problems with the story, but there are plenty of little ones. The Enterprise finds Yonada because the Oracle (presumably) fires missiles at the ship. So, this secret closed world disguised as an asteroid is flying through space and drawing attention by launching attacks at anyone who comes near? And it's not only McCoy who is acting out of character. After McCoy tells Kirk about his illness he says, “I'll be most effective on the job in the time left, if you'll keep this to yourself.” Kirk's first line after the opening titles is, “Captain's log, stardate 5476.3. I have just had the sad duty of informing Starfleet about Doctor McCoy's condition and have requested an immediate replacement.” It takes Kirk the length of the Star Trek theme to decide not to keep McCoy in his job, and tell everyone at Starfleet about McCoy's illness. No wonder McCoy is so keen to leave the Enterprise if that's how Kirk is behaving. And, while we're nitpicking, it sure is lucky that when Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Natira are trapped in the Oracle room looking for the Book of the People the Oracle decides to slowly cook them instead of using the electric shock which proved so effective on the other two occasions it was used.

Cross out some names and this is Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea. The Seaview encounters a strange floating island containing survivors from Atlantis who are drifting across the ocean to a new home. Richard Basehart, David Hedison, and this week's guest star, travel to neo-Atlantis where this week's guest star (who is dying from a disease which is incurable but not distressing to any watching viewer) falls in love with a priestess of the God of Atlantis. Neo-Atlantis is in danger of being washed into a giant whirlpool, and this week's guest star works out how to steer the island to safety. Out of gratitude the priestess of the God of Atlantis uses her arcane knowledge to cure the disease which is incurable but not distressing to any watching viewer, and neo-Atlantis resumes its journey across the ocean while this week's guest star returns to the Seaview.

Oddly, in the middle of all this is one of Star Trek's few sensible debates about the Prime Directive.

SPOCK: Captain, informing these people they're on a ship may be in violation of the Prime Directive of Starfleet Command.

KIRK: No. The people of Yonada may be changed by the knowledge, but it's better than exterminating them.

SPOCK: Logical, Captain.

KIRK: And the three billion on Daran Five.

SPOCK: Also logical, Captain.

One of the worst aspects of the Prime Directive was the way later Star Trek series treated it as a force of galactic natural selection. As if the highest expression of Federation morality was to stand around watching less advanced races suffer or die. Here it takes Kirk and Spock five lines to cut through that nonsense.

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

Day Of The Dove

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spectre Of The Gun

CHEKOV: Where are we now, Captain?

KIRK: Spock, evaluation?

SPOCK: Obviously this represents the Melkotian's concept of an American frontier town, circa 1880.

MCCOY: It's just bits and pieces. It's incomplete.

SPOCK: Perhaps the Melkotians have insufficient data about this era.

KIRK: Or perhaps this is all they require to complete the pattern of our death.

The set design is what elevates Spectre Of The Gun. Gene L. Coon's script is fun but run of the mill by his own standards. It's a mash-up of Arena (powerful aliens force Kirk into a fight to the death to punish him for trespassing on their territory, at the end Kirk's refusal to kill convinces them to give him a second chance) and A Taste Of Armageddon. Spectre Of The Gun and A Taste Of Armageddon both use the same mechanism to get the Enterprise crew into the story; the Enterprise trespasses into a sector of space against the express wishes of the inhabitants. In both cases Kirk is under express orders to make contact but his attitude couldn't be more different. In A Taste Of Armageddon Kirk displays clear contempt for Ambassador Fox and his orders, all part of making sure the audience find Fox as unsympathetic as possible, but here his attitude is pragmatic and Kirk displays a lot less concern for the welfare of his crew even though the Melkotian warning is more explicit than the Federation code sent from Eminiar VII. Surprisingly when Star Trek: The Next Generation wanted to spoof the then current vogue for Robin Hood films they ended up writing an episode very much like Spectre Of The Gun; a powerful alien creates a self-sustaining world and drops in our heroes.

The weakest element of Gene L. Coon's script is his use of Chekov who manages to fall deeply in love during his short stay in fake-Tombstone despite knowing he is scheduled to die at 5pm. At the end of the episode he has this exchange with Kirk.

CHEKOV: What happened? Where have I been?

KIRK: Right here, it seems.

CHEKOV: But that girl. She was so beautiful. So real.

KIRK: Do you remember anything else?

CHEKOV: No.

KIRK: Good. Perhaps that explains why he's here. Nothing was real to him except the girl.

“That girl,” was so real to Chekov he can't even remember her name. There's always been a brash juvenile streak to Chekov's character, look at the opening scenes of TheTrouble With Tribbles and Chekov's attempts to impress Kirk, but here he spills over into outright immaturity and it's a mystery why Kirk displays such tolerance for the romance.

The stars of the episode are the sets. Faced with a workable script which called for either location filming or the construction of a Western town set, both unaffordable on Star Trek's third season budget, someone -probably Robert Justman or Matt Jefferies- came up with the idea of the half-constructed town. Director Vincent McEveety carefully uses the resulting sets to make Tombstone feel like a real place with its own dreamlike logic and rules.

Despite the half-constructed sets, no one leaps over any of the waist high walls or has a conversation with someone within a building. Everything is treated as if it were solid. Even the characters seem to appear and disappear when no one is looking. Watch the moment when the Sheriff first appears; on his line, “Ike,” he's already outside the closed door of the Sheriff’s office and walking towards the landing party as if he just popped into existence. Likewise, at the end of his first scene the Sheriff walks off the left-hand side of the frame and it's as if he disappears. A similar trick is pulled when the landing party enter the Tombstone bar. From the street the bar is clearly empty, but as the landing party walk through the doors it is suddenly full of people; including some sitting where they should have been visible from outside. It's a simple directing trick but it makes Tombstone feels strange and disorientating. What makes the moment more effective is that none of the landing party react to the sudden appearance of all these people. The disorientation is only there for the viewer. The set for the OK Corral at the end of the episode is suddenly much more solid and realistic. Possibly this was done to stop the climax from looking too fantastical, there is already the very theatrical effect of lightning casting shadows on the sky and the brilliant visual of bullet holes appearing in wood as the Clanton's fire at the unaffected landing party.

Enterprise crew deaths: None this week.
Running total: 48.

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.

And The Children Shall Lead

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Paradise Syndrome

Location filming is always guaranteed to make an episode look lavish, and that's certainly the case with The Paradise Syndrome. The opening 30 second pan across a lake, with tree covered hills in the background and Gerald Fried's specially composed score, could come straight from a nature documentary. With that said, it's surprising the immediate opening shot looks so terrible; a blank white washed out sky and murky contrast making the trees nearly indistinguishable. This must have been a tricky shot to capture because the light levels need to be correct for the end of the pan when the landing party beam in, but the opening picture quality is so ropey it looks more like badly shot stock footage and dilutes the immediate impact.

The story itself has the same problem as A Private Little War. There are lots of intriguing ideas in play around the fringes of the episode but the core story for Kirk is dull; we've seen him have romances which end tragically before. The point of the story is to grant Kirk's wish for a simple life, as is clearly set out in the teaser. 

MCCOY: What's the matter, Jim?
KIRK: What? Oh, nothing. It's just so peaceful, uncomplicated. No problems, no command decisions. Just living.
MCCOY: Typical human reaction to an idyllic natural setting. Back in the twentieth century, we referred to it as the Tahiti Syndrome. It's particularly common to over-pressured leader types, like starship captains.

Unfortunately as soon as Kirk gets inside the mysterious obelisk his mind is wiped, so the person we see running around, living free of complications and command decisions, and falling in love isn't really Kirk. The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode The Inner Light hits similar story beats to The Paradise Syndrome but deals more effectively with an Enterprise captain being assimilated into a different culture without using amnesia as a crude plot device. Using amnesia to drive the plot also carries the disadvantage that the audience knows Kirk's memory must be restored at some point. The episode becomes about waiting to see how Kirk's memory comes back and, when it does, what additional plot device will be used to break up the relationship with his Native American wife Miramanee.

Much more interesting is the B story. The Enterprise came to this planet to deflect an asteroid which is due to hit in 59 days. With Kirk missing Spock takes command of the Enterprise and pushes the ship beyond its limits, burning out the star drive. Now running on impulse power the Enterprise spends the next 59 days limping back to the planet, with the asteroid only four hours behind. At this point the two stories come together because Spock believes the alien obelisk holds the key to deflecting the giant rock, and Kirk in his new position as village medicine chief is expected to, “go inside the temple and make the blue flame come out.” 

There's any number of things Margaret Armen's script gets right. It's well paced. The crisis point comes at the end of act three which leaves the whole of act four to wrap up the plot; reuniting Kirk Spock and McCoy, restoring Kirk's memory, getting inside the obelisk, deflecting the asteroid, and mourning the death of Kirk's pregnant wife. The episode takes place over nearly two months giving enough time for Kirk's relationship with Miramanee to develop credibly. The passage of time is also handled very stylishly. Just after Spock has burned out the Enterprise engines McCoy angrily confronts him in Spock's quarters. When McCoy leaves we cut to the events around Kirk's wedding to Miramanee, before returning to the Enterprise. Only three minutes of screen time have passed and when McCoy walks back into Spock's cabin it looks as if he wants to continue the earlier argument, but then it quickly becomes clear 58 days have passed in the space of a single cut. There's also an excellent attempt to explain the number of humanoid aliens and parallel Earth civilisations the Enterprise has encountered. The obelisk is the product of an alien race called The Preservers.

MCCOY: Were you able to make sense our of the symbols? 
SPOCK: Yes. The obelisk is a marker, just as I thought. It was left by a super-race known as the Preservers. They passed through the galaxy rescuing primitive cultures which were in danger of extinction and seeding them, so to speak, where they could live and grow.
MCCOY: I've always wondered why there were so many humanoids scattered through the galaxy.
SPOCK: So have I. Apparently the Preservers account for a number of them.

For everything Margaret Armen's script gets right the problem remains that the B story on the Enterprise is more interesting than the Kirk in love A story. It's a shame because this is one of those episodes where everyone is putting in a lot of effort. The alien obelisk looks fantastic. It's huge. One of the biggest set elements the series has built, even the stone plinth appears to be specially constructed, and on location it looks solid and part of its world. There's also an attempt to do something new with the transporter effect. Standard practice is to cross fade from a freeze frame of the location without the landing party, to a freeze frame of the location with the characters in place and start running the film normally once the transporter effect has finished. This can be seen when the landing party arrive at the start of the episode. Watch one of the trees in the background, the branches are blowing in the wind and then freeze, and then fade to a slightly different position before starting to move again. This almost unnoticeable when the motion of the background is very slight, but at the end of the episode when tree branches are thrashing around it would be really obvious. It's not clear how the effect is achieved but at the end of the episode as Spock and McCoy, and later Nurse Chapel, beam into the storm the background stays in motion. In both cases the scene carefully cuts away from the materialisation effect before it is complete, so there's obviously some editing slight of hand taking place.

It's odd to realise how the asteroid impact/deflection story is way ahead of its time. It's taken for granted now that Earth is the subject of regular impacts but Luis and Walter Alvarez's mass extinction theory which really brought this idea into the public domain was not proposed until 1980. The Paradise Syndrome pre-dates all the best known fiction on the subject; the Sean Connery film Meteor was released in 1980; Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven's novel Lucifer's Hammer, 1977; Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous With Rama, 1972. Some idea of how unfamiliar this idea must have been for the contemporary audience can be seen in this exchange.

SPOCK: Doctor, that asteroid is almost as large as your Earth's moon. Far enough away, the angle necessary to divert it enough to avoid destruction is minute, but as the asteroid approaches this planet, the angle becomes so great that even the power of a starship 
MCCOY: The devil with an asteroid! It won't get here for two months, Spock!

SPOCK: If we arrive at the deflection point in time, it may not get here at all.
MCCOY: In the meantime, what about Jim?
SPOCK: Once the asteroid has been diverted, we'll return here and resume the search.
MCCOY: That may be hours from now. He may be injured or dying.
SPOCK: [picks up two stones] Doctor, assume this is the planet we're on. This is the approaching asteroid. If we don't get to that deflection point in time, it will become physically impossible to divert this asteroid. In that case, everyone on this planet will die, including the captain.

MCCOY: Can a few more minutes matter, Spock?
SPOCK: In the time it's taken me to explain the problem, the asteroid has moved from here to here. The longer we delay, the less the likelihood of being able to divert it. Beam us up, Mister Scott.

How often has Star Trek stopped to explain how tractor beams work? Or time travel; or warp drive; or phasers; or artificial gravity? These are all science fiction concepts familiar to the audience through films or other television programmes. But in 1968 something as simple as the mechanics of diverting an asteroid is new enough to require an explanation for the audience.

Margaret Armen's inspiration for the asteroid impact plot may have come from a 1967 Time Magazine article Systems Engineering: Avoiding an Asteroid. The article was based on a student project set by MIT Professor Paul Sandorff. His systems engineering students were asked to devise a plan to destroy the asteroid Icarus; assuming the asteroid was on a collision course with Earth. Alternatively Margaret Armen may have watched a repeat of The Wandering Asteroid, an episode of 1963 British puppet series Space Patrol. This series was definitely shown in some American television markets; Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski has said it was his favourite series growing up in New Jersey. 

Enterprise crew deaths: None again.

Running total: 46