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.

Captain's Blog pt. 44: The Storybook Records

Today we are joined by Jeff B, Der Kommissar of Into the Dark Dimension and fellow collector of Fin de siècle Americana, for a discussion of the Star Trek Story and Record sets from the 1970s.

Rather than give you all the technical details, let me link to this most excellent site, which should answer any questions/ provide any further info for the curious. (That site is maintained by Curt Danhauser, a virtual one-man-army of the interwebs; many hours of enjoyment to be found there for the Trek consumer. Chapeau, Curt!)

Inside cover

Jeff and I listened to (and read, where there was an accompanying storybook) all of these things just to be prepared to meet with you today; don't ya feel special? Let's dive right in. (For convenience, a plot summary is provided directly after each title, followed by our remarks.)

In Vino Veritas  

While at a diplomatic conference with the Klingons and Romulans, Kirk and Spock must deal with the presence of an infamous galactic troublemaker whose unwitting actions threaten the talks.

BKM: This one is really bizarre. I'm confused why anyone would think this would be a great story for kids. Not that it's PG-13 or anything, but who said "Let's have a story where everyone gets drunk and insults one another and let's misidentify everything associated with Romulans along the way?" It really feels like a story written for something else that was transposed, crudely, on Trek. The surreal-ness is the most interesting part, though, and I don't know if i'd like it to be in any smoother shape. I kind of enjoy it mainly for its fractured-mirror approximation of Trek.

The names in this one are particularly weird: Coriolanus Quince? (The intergalactic troublemaker)  Jack Sprat? (His assumed name) The Pomplancians?

JB: I was thinking exactly the same thing - this is a kid's story? I mean, yeah, it is, but the whole motif of drunks speaking their minds seems an odd thing to hang a kid's tale on. And Kirk tops it off with a bit of pontificating about how the world's gears are greased with white lies. I suppose somewhere along the way everyone needs to learn that, but on a Star Trek Power record? That said, it does get fun when everyone starts insulting each other...and am I right that Spock is the first one to show the effects? It's kind of fun to hear our favorite half-Vulcan blurting out comments during a diplomatic mission with two of the most prickly alien species Star Trek has to offer.

BKM: Spock was first, yeah. That definitely cracked me up.

JB: The names caught my notice, too. Coriolanus Quince immediately made me think of Cyrano Jones by name alone, and Harry Mudd just by his back-assward plan for universal truth in the galaxy. I also dig that he just sort of shows up and hangs out during delicate negotiations between three mutually-hostile galactic powers. Where was security?

Passage to Mouav 

The crew of the Enterprise must contend with the escape aboard ship of a small but ferocious alien animal that telepathically projects its terror into the minds of anyone who ventures near.

These were all re-released and/or expanded upon release of The Motion Picture, hence the different covers.

BKM: Also has some weirdness (i.e. the color-swapping for Uhura and Sulu, the different visual design of M'Ress, the general plot insanity of "there's a craa-aaa-azy pet on the loose!") but this one's pretty fun.

This is actually from The Crier in Emptiness, but since I mentioned the Uhura/ Sulu color-swap thing.

The different design for M'Ress.

The cra-aa-azy pet.

BKM: I can see the Trek-for-kids concept in play. I swear I have seen this exact pose of Uhura's white doppelganger in an old Playboy... Not that this is a first for comics or even Trek comics, but I wish I could do a side by side with the photograph that served as the (alleged - after all, I could be misremembering) model.

JB: I'll bet you're thinking of Will Elder's Little Annie Fanny.

I do believe he's right! - BKM

JB: What stood out to me in this episode were two things: the Enterprise being used for pet transport, and the attitude of the planetary official who owned the cat-creature: "Oh, it's causing your crew to lose their minds? Huh. Sounds like a personal problem to me. And oh, yeah, we don't know how to handle them, either. Buh-bye." That attitude caused me to laugh out loud, the distracted and blase way he just blew off Kirk.

Back cover

The Crier in Emptiness  

The Enterprise encounters a being of pure sound whose attempts at communication threaten to deafen them and possibly rattle the ship apart.

BKM: I quite enjoyed this one. Kind of a no-brainer for a radio version of Trek - an alien of pure sound, a space pipe organ (the Edoan Elisiar,) and a Dracula accent.

JB: My notes has this one as the Enterprise being attacked by living tinnitus. I actually have tinnitus, so the alien's sounds set my teeth on edge from recognition.

JB: Besides that, this one amused me in so many ways. Connors - and I kid you not, I wrote in my notes that he has a Dracula accent (though after thinking about it, I'm wondering if it was supposed to be Irish) - a crewman we've only just met, randomly drags in a keyboard that looks like he must play in a prog rock band in his off hours. It looks like it was cobbled together with a Moog synthesizer and a Mobius-strip xylophone-looking thing. The communication attempt presages Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which really made me go "hmm." I know you liked the music, but the note I made was that it was so bad (not the word I used in my notes), it was rejected from infomercials. Connors then becomes exhausted after a couple of minutes of noodling around on the piano, which further amused me.

JB: Then it gets even more frantic sounding in a "Sid and Mart Krofft on Quaaludes" way. The music creature then just sorta goes away, Kirk delivers an oddly heartfelt monologue on the loneliness of a violin solo, then gives a figurative shrug and gets everyone back to work.

BKM: These parting remarks from Kirk really puts this into truly-top-tier-weird-Kirk-Bullshit levels, up there with the end of "Who Mourns for Adonais" and other such moments. 

JB: Yeah, even mainline Kirk was often bizarre in his analysis and wrapping-up comments and actions. There is that moment when he rattles off the preamble to the Constitution and essentially salutes the American flag in "The Omega Glory" which always raised more questions in my mind than answers. So weird. The writing was often strange and inconsistent, but Shatner's performance could somehow pull it all together and make it seem natural to Kirk to be all over the place ideologically.

BKM: It's good to know Kirk's still a lunatic in the Power Records trekverse. 

JB:  So this critter that can come and go at will, and cause massive damage, bears no further investigation. It's all so off-the-wall that it's hard not to like it. And Neal Adams?!?!

BKM: (Addresses the home audience) Neal "Comics Legend" Adams' studio, Continuity, provided the artwork for the Power Records story books.

Time Stealer  

After venturing near a phenomenon that slows down time, the Enterprise encounters the inhabitants of a ship that is powered by magic.

BKM: The Enterprise vs. Conan and Merlin! Spock beats Conan! This one is shrouded in a haze of 70s weed, methinks. It's kind of enjoyable in the same way In Vino Veritas is, of just... what the hell were they thinking with this? It's not a bad production or anything, just damn odd. Spock's projecting the "mind energy of millions of Vulcans" amuses me. That's got to come in handy.

JB: I was amused how they kept referring to Klee as Konrac's consort. I know the word has a few nuances in its definition, but given its common usage, this lends a whole different dimension to the story.

It strikes me that the writer (Cary Bates) wanted to write a swords and sorcery...in spaaaace story, and Neal Adams did a decent enough job of rendering a Buscema-like Conan character. It's too bad it's a bit tedious, especially with the slowed-down-time opening. Hope is raised that something truly crazy is going to happen when Konrac charges onboard, swinging a battleaxe, but the story soon devolves down into a fairly standard Trek tale.

JB: What is it with voice actors of the '70s and '80s making with the high-pitched, screechy voice for bad guys and wizards? Klee is afflicted with such a voice, and he's given a rather douchey, supercilious attitude, to boot.

BKM: That's something that's always jumped out at me, too, this cartoon-villain voice you describe.

JB: So Atlantis, the magic-infused one, not the probably-inspired-by-some-ancient-catastrophe-but-not-a-supercivilization one, has acquired a toehold in the Trek universe. We're left with the assurance that Konrac and Klee's home will now advance normally, which raises the question about what that will mean for a magic-wielding civilization acquiring Federation-level tech, if they choose to ask for membership. Trouble is, I ended up so underwhelmed by the story that I kinda don't care.

The Human Factor  

The Enterprise crew must mount a rescue when visiting ambassadors abduct Lieutenant Uhura after learning that she has the computer skills needed to tend to their electronic god.

BKM: This is another one that feels to me like it might have come from a drawer of unused Gold Key stories. Some interesting ideas in the mix here, though kind of leftovers from TOS explorations. The title is interesting considering the theme, i.e. the human factor in transmission of deity/ godhead to society, how the pure is distilled/ corrupted through it. Or something - I'm not suggesting it's an altogether compelling take on such a theme.

JB: This one was a big bait-and-switch story, what with the faux-human-sacrifice contrivance. The gratingly over-polite aliens kidnap a Starfleet officer rather than just ask for help? That seemed oddly counter-intuitive to me, especially when Kirk flat-out wonders why they didn't just ask for assistance. The theme, which you ably encapsulate, is surprisingly complex and thoughtful once you boil it down, which is a plus in its favor. 

BKM: That "Why didn't you just accept our help to begin with?" thing reminded me of the Kelvins from "By Any Other Name." And at the end, Starfleet computer experts are on their way? They would have been helpful in a number of TOS scenarios; Kirk seemed less willing to deploy them in Archons, Apple, etc.

JB: Yeah, I can imagine those "computer experts" running around playing clean-up crew for Kirk. They must have finally sent a memo telling Kirk to lay off destroying every super-computer he runs across.

I got a kick out of Spock tut-tutting Chekhov and Sulu for displaying emotion. He does that a lot on these records. Maybe it's payback for all those times someone has implored him to embrace his own feelings, and he now stays on the backs of any nearby ensigns.

Robot Masters 

As hundreds of sophisticated robots disappear throughout Federation space, the Enterprise sets a trap for the culprits only to discover that the Romulans are hoarding the robots in a plot to use them as soldiers in a massive attack on a Federation starbase.

BKM: Definitely a fun story for kids and has that Gold Key/ not-quite-Trek but resembling Trek in some weird twisted-mirror fashion. The green wizard Romulan character is hilarious to me. I crack up just looking at this guy.

JB: The Romulan wizard was a hoot. I loved his freaky half-mitre. I may have to make a Halloween costume of the guy. And the Romulans in general being green was a bit of a double-take-maker. 

BKM: The robot-for-Spock at the end is cute. (Oh, this merry band...)

JB: Yeah, that denouement was delightfully weird. Spock expressing admiration for the emotionless robots, then being given a "hi sailor!" by Mastero the robot leader, was such an amazingly awkward moment. It keeps making me laugh just thinking about it.

BKM: And Scotty makes such a point of saying how "lifelike" Mastero is. Uhh... Scotty? (Also: I think the Romulans live in this galaxy, but no two facts about the Romulans are the same thing twice in these things...)

JB: The entire Romulan plan seems so Flash Gordon in style to me: they rustle robots to be in their army. What could go wrong?!? Plus, it's interesting that the Federation makes robots that resemble those from Earth vs the Flying Saucers. On top of that, but did you wonder, like me, whether the robots Scotty was waiting on were new to the Enterprise, or just replacements for ones he'd presumably worn out changing warp coil emitters? And if they were already standard equipment on Fed ships, I suppose they must hang out in Jefferies tubes when the cameras roll.

BKM: As a production, it's pretty shoddy. Chekov refers to the Romulans as Klingons once,

JB: Kirk lets loose with a "WHH-AAA-AAAT???" about a minute-thirty in that had me howling with laughter. I'd use it as a ringtone.

Captain Kirk is apparently played by Quagmire from Family Guy, here.

JB: If the Romulans had a Flash Gordon plan, Kirk's plan is even more pulp-magazine in style - "let's pretend we're pirates! What could go wrong?!?" Fun stuff. I do wonder how long he planned on playing pirate. I really loved that his pirate name was "Jimkirk" and that he made no pretense of a disguise.

BKM: Forgot to mention that, but that's probably my favorite such detail since the Gold Key story where he went down to the planet "in disguise" by wearing a fake afro

JB: I wonder why Kirk didn't just slow down and let Scotty reprogram the robots before gallivanting off into hostile space? I mean, didn't his whole plan hinge on that? Were the pirates on that tight a schedule? They're pirates, for God's sake! How punctual were they expected to be?

The Man Who Trained Meteors 

After the Enterprise crew witnesses a vast meteor swarm devastate a Federation city renowned for its beauty, they undertake to follow clues that indicate that the meteors were being controlled by artificial means.

BKM: What a waste of a truly great title. Actually, I shouldn't say it's a waste. These were after all aimed at children, and like Robot Masters, it succeeds as entertainment for children pretty well. Meaning only that it seems like the sort of thing that would activate a child's imagination in a compelling way. Something I can in no way prove without expensive scientific equipment and research funding.

JB: This one is definitely lackluster. It doesn't help that the antagonist has the classic "Superfriends supervillain" high-pitched voice that is about as endearing as the sound of rending metal. Spock spends a good bit of time, once again, admonishing people for their displays of emotion. Give it a rest, Spock!

BKM: I love the idea of the "Vulcan mind lock." One of those let's give Spock a power to move this story along ideas, sure, but I kind of wish they'd revisit it. (Along with Giant Spock from TAS and the telepathic dinosaurs from Dinosaur Planet. As mentioned elsewhere, if they made a new-Sulu-and-new-Chekov one-off movie or tv special where they just channel-flipped through all these alternate-Trekverses / non-canon-Treks, that'd be a lot of fun.)

JB: Overall, this one seemed thin to me. The villain has psychic powers that drive him insane, and he decides to go about committing mass murder. This will sound odd given how huge the level of destruction is, but it seems like there needs to be more to the story. This particular episode seems unusually grim: a wiped-out city;  Scotty mind-controlled to destroy the Enterprise; and Spock grappling with the villain in a painful psychic combat. It's all rather dark for a kid's story.

A Mirror For Futility 

The Enterprise crew encounters two vastly powerful and ancient starships that are locked in eternal combat, and struggles to convince them both that they are not enemies of either side.

BKM: I love how the voice of one of the aliens is as traditional/ TOS as you can get, and then the other one sounds like a rock concert frontman.

The panel design is so damn crowded in this one, but it's well-written enough. Kind of an unexciting story/ plot, but it gets across the morality-play of Trek well enough. I think if I was a kid hearing this, I might suspect someone was trying to get me to learn something and roll my eyes. Which, as an adult, makes me chuckle at the title.

JB: Alan Dean Foster writing this one caught my attention. It's simple yet clearly plotted, though a bit too on-the-nose as a morality tale. Still, it sets things up in an interesting way: two battle-scarred, gargantuan ships pounding away at each other. As a fan of the "exploding starship" sub-genre of military scifi, I was hooked. It ended up as rather predictable, from which blandness derived. Probably a decent enough story for kids, but thinking back, I don't know how excited I'd be by it. I think the details are intriguing, and I can imagine my kid self enjoying the notion of these aliens fighting for 150,000 years. That kind of thing automatically triggered a sense of wonder in me as a kid, and still does. It's too bad it's such a self-contained, static story that didn't really have a resolution. On the other hand, had it been a tad more intriguing, with the "aliens" written to be more sympathetic, I can see liking the idea of them wandering empty space, heedless of anything but their mutual vendetta.

To Starve a Fleaver 

The laugh-inducing microscopic parasites that benignly live on the body of a visiting ambassador begin to infest the ship's crew.

Feed a cold, starve a...

BKM: Another one with silly names, designed, I suppose, to appeal to children's nonsense names. (The meegees, the Marpapluans. They're kind of fun to say.) I love how the decision is essentially to exterminate this part of the Marpapluan ecosystem that is mildly-distasteful to humans. Way to go, Federation.

JB: The names do seem rather like someone trying to evoke a bit of a Dr. Seuss feel. This is one story I was trying to suss out exactly what the subtext was. The Marpapluans are forced to be pleasant, then Kirk and Co. arrive and set them free from their veneer of civility. It almost seems like the opposite of the "lesson" Kirk paid lip-service to in In Vino Veritas. So feigning pleasantness is OK, unless you're forced to be so? But isn't it society that forces that upon us, not much differently than the meegees, except less physically direct? Oh Kirk, how mercurial your ways!

The Logistics of Stampede  

The problem-solving abilities of Mr. Spock are put to the test when a periodically occurring mass stampede threatens all crops on a Federation planet.

BKM: More than most of the others, this reminded me of the sort of radio production I'd hear on AudioNoir or Old-Time-Radio.com or something. Not the most exciting story, but it has all those kinds of elements: broad accents, simple but effective sound fx (replete with hoofs pounding the ground, ticker-tape sort of accompaniment for tension, brakes-locking-sounds, etc.), dialogue that moves the action (little of it that there is) along, and an easily-imagined scenario.

And then Spock gives a big ecological lesson at the end. Take that, kids! Don't kill the buffalo. (Guess he took Kirk's somber reflection on that species at the end of "The Man Trap" to heart.)

JB: OK, this is the episode I found most compelling. Even I find that hard to believe. The story is straightforward, yet a bit complex, and tosses in some ecological lessons, to boot. Plus, it's essentially a Western, which is something I found to be an interesting change of pace for Trek. I think I especially liked the glimpse into frontier planet life in the Trek universe. It was also a big plus for me that it was a smaller story, in the sense that it presented a problem that seemed real, but not threatening on a cosmic scale.

Spock's solution to the problem immediately conjured to mind Zane Grey's Riders of the Purple Sage. In that classic Western book, there is what is presented as an old, very dangerous cowboy trick for stopping a stampede. The front of the stampede is herded or goaded into a spiraling turn towards the other end of the herd, so that it eventually spends its energy in a hurricane-cloud of cattle. It's pretty cool to see the Enterprise crew pulling cattle drive maneuvers, though I wonder why they didn't just use shuttles to keep above the herd. Ah well, it was more exciting this way.

It does seem a little weird, though, that the deaths of literally millions of alien cattle is treated almost whimsically.

Dinosaur Planet 

While investigating a rocky, earthquake and volcano-wracked world, the Enterprise's sensors detect intelligent life-forms on the impossibly inhospitable planet's surface. After a landing party beams down to rescue these beings from the earthquakes and lava, they are menaced by huge dinosaurs.

BKM: Why we have never seen a credible telepathic/ intelligent-dinosaurs-in-space movie or ongoing series is beyond me. We have Sharknado, but no Ray Gun Space T-Rex? Glad they got admitted to the Federation.

JB: This is it. Welcome to Rock Bottom. Below here is only slash fiction and Tijuana Bibles when it comes to nutty interpretations of a well-known franchise.

BKM: Here's another one that strikes me as a discarded-Gold Key story, from the odd insistence on material wealth (gems) that you find there, to the actual dinosaur planet, etc. And man, Frank Tanka (a helmsman... or something) is all over these things.

JB: The good: Much more energy than many of the Power Records stories. The narration has a lot of nifty purple prose. Kirk sounds like he was recorded in a toilet. Sulu is Asian at last. Bones is made to look even more like a buffoon or stooge than in other entries. Spock ‘s barbs are generally dickish, vindictive, and mean-spirited. Voice actors all sound like announcers. The crew didn't know which creatures were intelligent because they didn't think to check. The crew rides dinosaurs to escape a collapsing cavern. This one has it all.

JB: The bad: It's all bad, so densely bad that it collapses in on itself to create a singularity of coolness.

I have to note that Starfleet has some shoddy vetting in the Power Records universe. Wodsworth, a crew member apparently here to move the plot (such as it is) along, apparently comes from the Mirror Universe or a timeline where exploitation of native peoples is still encouraged in the 23^rd century, because he’s totally open about stealing wealth from alien planets while killing the natives to get it. He even is willing to blast them with a phaser while being bear-hugged by his captain, all the while screaming about how the natives of the planet aren’t entitled to the wealth of their own planet. Amazingly, there is no outside reason for Wodsworth’s actions; he’s just a dick. I suppose this could be a theme in this episode, about how even the near-idyllic Federation, manifesting in Starfleet as the cream of the crop, can still produce exploitation-minded guys like Wodsworth, but man, does it seem random to me.

One awesome bit that stands alone - technobabble: “No! You will disequalize the organic interior of the cavern.” Jaysus.

Back cover

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BKM: And there we have it. Given the relative obscurity of the subject matter, I doubt we'll see "Jeff and Bryan Discuss the Power Records" trending, but this was fun. Screw the hash-tags.

JB: I've talked about it a bit in the past, but there is something about doing something so obscure that makes me happy. It reminds me of sitting around late at night circa 1980-82, bullshitting with one or two buddies in an ice-cold basement, bouncing ideas and dreams off each other, rifling through old comics and skin mags and pondering the bizarre ads, and realizing just how fantastically isolated we were, yet somehow still connecting about little-known or long-forgotten things.

In a way, I feel like this - and, really, both our blogs in general - is the kind of project that I find most satisfying due to how few people are likely to connect with it. It gives me an odd sort of anticipatory pride that some person who remembers with fondness these records from their childhood will run across this discussion and at the least know someone else out there is talking about them, that these records aren't just some discarded bit of '70s merchandising.

BKM: Hear, hear. And if you are one of these readers, stumbling across these words...

Thanks to Jeff B for the palaver!