Captain's Blog pt. 45: The Original Series

David Gerrold's The World of Star Trek is arguably the greatest written analysis of the Trek phenomenon, all the more remarkable in that it was published when only The Original Series and The Animated Series and a handful of non-canon books existed. (And when its author was in his early 20s!) It's tough to parse for quotes, since so much of it is spot-on and worthwhile, but for our purposes here (i.e. launching this conclusion of the Captain Blog's series, focused exclusively on TOS) I'll only focus on his comments re: format, formula, and "Green Priestesses of the Cosmic Computer."

"FORMAT is the flight plan for a series (...) and just like any other flight plan, the slightest error will magnify itself over a period of time if it isn't corrected or compensated for (...) Something that seems quite workable in the first 2 or 3 stories may turn out to be a very rigorous trap by the 13th or 14th iteration."

"The FORMULA story is the pat story, the easy story, the one that gets written by the book. It's a compilation of all the tried and true tricks. It's six devices in search of a plot. In Star Trek it might work something like this:

"The Enterprise approaches a planet (...) Kirk, Spock, and McCoy get captured by 6-ft green women in steel brassieres."

"They take away the spacemen's communicators because they offend the computer-god these women worship."

"Meanwhile, Scotty discovers that he's having trouble with the doubletalk generator, and he can't fix it. The Enterprise will shrivel into a prune in 2 hours unless something is done immediately. But Scotty can't get in touch with the Captain."

"Of course he can't. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy have been brought before the high priest of the cosmic computer, who decides that they are unfit to live. All except the Vulcan, who has such interesting ears. She puts Spock in a mind-zapping machine which leaves him quoting 17-syllable Japanese haiku for the next 2 acts. 

"McCoy can't do a damn thing for him. "I'm a doctor, not a critic!" he grumbles. Kirk seduces the cute priestess."

"On the ship, sparks fly from Chekov's control panel, and everyone falls out of their chairs. Uhura tries opening the hailing frequencies, and when she can't, she admits to being frightened... Scotty figures there's only 15 minutes left. Already the crew members are wrinkling as the starship begins to prune."

"Down on the planet, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are being held in a dungeon."

"Why is it always a dungeon?"

"The girl Kirk's seduced decides that she has never had it so good in her life and discards all of her years-long training and lifetime-held beliefs to rescue him, conveniently remembering to bring him his communicator and phaser. Abruptly, Spock reveals how hard he has been working to hide his emotions and then snaps back to normal. Thinking logically, he and Kirk then drive the computer crazy with illogic."

"Naturally, it can't cope, its designers not having been as smart as our Earthmen. (...) It shorts out all its fuses and releases the Enterprise just in time for the last commercial. For a tag, the seduced priestess promises Kirk that she will work to build a new civilization on her planet - just for Kirk - one where steel brassieres are illegal."

"GREEN PRIESTESSES OF THE COSMIC COMPUTER has no internal conflict; it's all formula. Kirk doesn't have a decision to make (...) It's a compendium of all the bad plot devices that wore out their welcome on too many Star Trek episodes. It's all excitement, very little story. (...) FORMULA occurs when FORMAT starts to repeat itself. Or when writers are giving less than their best. (...) Flashy devices can conceal the lack for awhile, but ultimately, the lack of any real meat in the story will leave the viewers hungry and unsatisfied."

Let me break in here - I can't argue with Gerrold's storytelling logic, here, and maybe it says more about me and having internalized a taste for bad TV trope junk food over the years, but I get an equal kick out of the trashier Trek episodes than the more refined. I agree that the more worthwhile stories eschew these conventions and challenge the audience (and the writers,) but it's an eternal question for me with regards to my own preferences. It's undeniably fun to watch a Trek story unfold in the manner described even as I fully recognize the validity of what he's saying.

Part of it, too, is that I take the long view when it comes to storytelling. The small dramas we debate from the last 50 years have been playing out more or less the same way for thousands of years. Humans like tropes and repetitive arcs. Then, we like to deconstruct those, defy them and improvise. But we always come round again to the same old, same old, then round to the deconstruction again. (This is expressed more eloquently in things like Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces among other places.)

This doesn't mean I see something like "Spock's Brain" as an equal storytelling achievement to "City on the Edge of Forever," only that I don't quite see the logic in getting too big a head about recognizing how one is superior to the other. Well-spotted, but I still know which one I want to watch when I want to have some beers and yell at the tv, and who's to say which is the "superior" approach?

I'd argue both activate the same synapses in the brain or provide equal capacity for degree of "cosmic revelations." (As would Chuck Klosterman or Doug Coupland. Not bad company to keep.) There's plenty of room for both Tarkovsky and Sharknado.

Gerrold continues:

"There are 2 ways in which Format turns into Formula. One is a hardening of the arteries; the other is erosion. Hardening of the arteries is the process by which a TV show limits itself by setting up conditions which will affect all episodes that come after. The Kirk/ Spock relationship is a good example. As the leads, it made sense for them to get all of the away missions (but) the focusing of attention on 2 characters who should not logically be placing themselves in physical danger but must do so regularly (minimizes the rest of the cast.)

Reaching perhaps its crescendo in this ridiculous business from The Motion Picture, where the Captain feels the need to put on a space-suit and personally go and fetch Mr. Spock.

"They were a good team, but the overuse of Mr. Spock enlarged him out of all proportion to everything else on the Enterprise. (...) This is the real pity of hardened arteries - the show ends up telling and retelling only variations of the same story because it has so limited itself it can't tell any other story."

John Byrne writes of this "Super-Spock Phenomenon" and how it played out on TOS:

"'Where No Man Has Gone Before' - a mysterious force at the edge of the galaxy causes strange change in people with ESP - but Spock is unaffected."

"'Dagger of the Mind' - Spock's first mind meld, but we're cautioned that it is extremely dangerous, requiring as it does that changes be made to the subject's nerves and blood vessels. Simon Van Gelder, when he submits voluntarily to it, is taking a huge risk."

"'Court Martial' - there is no mind meld in this one, but I find myself wondering why if the mind meld exists, courts still function in a manner so similar to our own time."

(Not to mention the psycho-tricorder, internal sensors, or any other aspect of twenty-third century culture we've seen.)

"In 'A Taste of Armageddon,' physical contact is no longer required, as Spock does a mind-meld through a wall and a door."

(This is referenced again in "By Any Other Name.")

"In 'The Changeling,' Spock is now able to use the mind-meld on a machine. By this point, it has become pure telepathy, no longer even requiring the subject to having a living brain."

"In 'The Omega Glory,' now Spock is actually able to do it without any physical contact, from across the room."

"In 'Spectre of the Gun,' for the first time Spock uses the mind meld to actually alter the thoughts of his subjects."

"And in 'Requiem for Methusaleh,' in an extraordinary invasion of Kirk's privacy, Spock, without Kirk's consent, uses the mind-meld to compel his Captain to forget a robot he's been humping."

And so on. 

Lastly, Gerrold's thoughts re: the 2nd example of format hardening to formula, erosion:

"The Enterprise becomes a cosmic meddler. Her attitudes were those of 20th century America - and so her mission was (seemingly) to spread truth, justice, and the American way. Star Trek missed the opportunity to question this attitude. While Kirk was occasionally in error, never was there a script in which the missions or goals were questioned. Of the surface, most of these intervention stories were intended to make very dramatic points.

"Individually, any episode was designed to make a specific point. Slavery is wrong. Exploitation is wrong. Racism is wrong, etc. Cumulatively (...) each situation had been constructed for Kirk to make that point (...) a set of straw men - or straw cultures, actually - for Kirk to knock down (...) If the local culture is tested and found wanting in the eyes of a starship Captain, he may make such changes as he feels necessary."

"Everytime Kirk knocked down a straw-man culture, he was re-enforcing the message: In the name of my morality, this is the proper action."

I wonder how he feels about MSNBC and Fox News? Or every State of the Union address going back several generations, for that matter...

There's a lot of value in all of the above insights. These are the things casual watchers don't really get about Trek , while Trekkies and Trekkers never stop discussing them. And while I'm certainly in the latter category, I'm on the more-forgiving side of it. Any story we tell ourselves is going to be of our own era/ on some level only meta-commentary on ourselves. Whether or not the story in question embraces this inevitability or goes to great pains to disguise it isn't as relevant to me as to whether or not it says something of value about said culture.

(Conversely, I enjoy the Ragnarok story not because it drives home perhaps the only essential truth we can all relate to - that we all pass away and life moves on without us - but because Thor fights a huge serpent with a hammer, the sky is filled with Valkyries, and a giant wolf eats Asgard. Sometimes the details don't even need to have "value," in other words; they just need to kick a little ass.)

And I'd argue that TOS is if not loaded with than certainly generous with opportunities for the viewer to question whether or not Starfleet/ Kirk's course of action is morally sound. Gerrold is correct to point out that we never really hear much internal debate, i.e. Spock and Kirk don't voice this debate in the dialogue. But many episodes ("A Private Little War," "Who Mourns for Adonis?" "This Side of Paradise," "Return of the Archons," just to name a few) pose questions that (at least for this viewer) provoked the discussion Gerrold charges TOS as failing to elicit. I prefer it being left to the viewer, actually, rather than just putting the words in the Captain's mouth.

"You'd make an excellent fascist, Captain."

At other times, I get the impression the Genes (or whomever) are telling me they actually do think Kirk is right to knock over whatever culture he's knocking over, and I enjoy that aspect of it, too, as then I can say "Wait, what?" This isn't 24, after all, (or the real world) where the government's right to torture you in the name of nebulous national security is the holy communion of every episode; actual ambiguity and debate is part and parcel of the Trek experience, even when you disagree with the outcome. (And even when every civilization in the vastness of the universe is predicated on the unchallenged superiority of humanoid life.)

All of which is stuff I wanted to take into account when approaching this project. I knew when I started the Captain's Blog that I'd save TOS for last and do a top 50 of some kind. But I kept changing my mind on how to determine what 50 episodes. Eventually, after much trial and error and many nights of heroic screencapping, I came upon a grading system I liked and began sorting it out. Which is where we'll pick up next time.