This episode originally aired on March 2, 1967, sandwiched between Daniel Boone and Dragnet. Engelbert Humperdinck was riding high in the charts with "Release Me;" Operation Junction City raged on in South Vietnam.
The Enterprise is dispatched to Omicron Ceti III, and its crew are surprised to discover colonists they believed to be destroyed by recently discovered Berthold rays alive and well.
Better than alive and well. McCoy's medical exams reveal them all to not just be in perfect health but in possession of appendices previously removed and other discrepancies.
Among the colonists is Leila, a lady from Spock's past who had urges he could not reciprocate.
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| "Emotions are alien to me." |
She leads him to some flora that she claims are the reason for the colony's health.
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| Once spored-out, they waste little time. |
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| He ditches his uniform for the colony jumpsuit. |
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| After a pleasant lollygag, Spock and Leila set about turning on the rest of the crew. |
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Kirk is the lone buzzcrush hold-out. |
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| He returns to the ship and broods. Until the spores - noticeably absent from in front of the navigation console in this wide shot - get him, as well. |
Higher than an
Elaysian sky lantern, Kirk prepares to join the Amish rave planetside. He is unable to rid himself of a nagging anger at himself for even considering the possibility and finally discovers that violent emotion negates the spores' influence.
"Ang-rrrrr...."
He tricks Spock to come aboard whereupon he delivers the craziest harangue in television history.
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| The ensuing confrontation takes advantage of several objects never seen in the transporter room before or since. |
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| Once free of the spores, Spock joins the Captain in flooding the colony below with bad vibes. |
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| Everyone goes back to normal. The colony leader immediately agrees that the colony is a total mega failure. |
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| Captain Kirk delivers perhaps the 2nd craziest speech in television history. |
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| Spock has little to say. Except that for the first time in his life, he was happy. |
Story/ script: 10/10 (of 10/10) pts. A script that supports multiple reads simultaneously is a rare gem. I call it "holding up under questioning." This episode can be read in so many
different ways, perhaps even more than "Archons," and no one read seems any less correct than any other. Marxist critique of American values/ western culture? Check. Capitalist critique of collectivization? Check. Critique of hippies/ defiant and chemically-distracted youth? Check. Even the Kirk and Spock slash fanfic? Check.
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| "Aroused, his great strength could kill..." |
Kirk's ending speech would be classic over-compensation/ rationalization / self-hypnosis along any of these lines. And many more.
And of course it works on its own terms perfectly well. The colonists are protected from the otherwise-destructive Berthold rays by the spores, but they prevent the colonists from making independent decisions. Then again, the spores are (presumably) the indigenous species of the planet, and they're doing the human invaders a favor by keeping them alive/ sharing the planet. What's the real tradeoff? A little lack of ambition? A little hive-minding? Unlike the people-eating mushrooms in the
X-Files episode "
Field Trip" they don't seem to have any
nefarious ulterior motives.
This flexibility (besides the performances and character moments and flow of the story) is the episode's greatest strength. What exactly is the message, here? That man is meant for paradise only if he sacrifices free will? Is the dog-eat-dog status quo Kirk quotes truly a better way? Is the sacrifice of Spock's happiness justified? Are "self-made purgatories" and "violent emotions" all we have to look forward to?
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| "It's like a jigsaw puzzle all one color."
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Bottom line: TOS went to the "expulsion from Paradise" well more than once but nowhere as masterfully and ambiguously as it does here.
Before we leave this category, I always think of Bertolt Brecht when I hear "Berthold Rays." Consider Brecht's
Verfremdungseffekt: (commonly mistranslated as "theater of alienation.")
"Brecht thought that the experience of a climactic catharsis
of emotion left an audience complacent. Instead, he wanted his
audiences to adopt a critical perspective in order to recognize social
injustice and exploitation and to be moved to go forth from the theater
and effect change in the world outside. For this purpose, Brecht
employed the use of techniques that remind the spectator that the play
is a representation of reality
and not reality itself. By highlighting the constructed nature of the
theatrical event, Brecht hoped to communicate that the audience's
reality was equally constructed and, as such, was changeable."
DC Fontana (whose script fix of this episode so alienated its original writer, Jerry Sohl, that he asked they substitute his name with "Nathan Butler," his pseudonym) presumably would have mentioned it between 1967 and now had she had Brecht in mind. (The rays were more likely named after
Berthold Technologies, a German company that pioneered sensor equipment for radiation and X-rays.) Nevertheless, it's an intriguing lens through which to view everything we see in "Paradise."
Title: Like the Fitzgerald novel, it's is taken from the closing lines of "
Tiare Tahiti," a poem by Rupert Brooke. Fits like a glove.
3 of 3 pts.
Visual Design: 2.5 of 3 pts.
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| In this shot, Kirk reaches offscreen to turn on his own spotlight. I love that. |
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| The bridge shot from this episode was what was used for the green screen projection in TNG's "Relics." |
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| Kirk and Spock stunt doubles. |
Internal Logistics:
3 out of 3 pts. About as air-and-water-tight as
TOS gets. Although this does crack me up:
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| Apparently, Samsonite still exists in the 23rd century. Or Kirk's just one of those guys who collects antique suitcases. |
I suppose I could deduct half a point for McCoy's somewhat inconsistent Georgia drawl, but he stays pretty loaded once going over to the spores. So, there's covering fire.
Kirk and the Gang: 45 pts. Spock deservedly gets the attention, but everyone does great work anytime they're on screen.
I alluded to this a little last time, but no top-tier
TOS episodes is without something like this:
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| "No... |
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| "I... |
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| "can't... |
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| "LEAVE!" |
He does a great job in this episode all around. It can't be said enough: the Shatner you see in season one of
TOS is different than any Shatner elsewhere. I'll probably get into this more as we go along. He definitely feels a little freer to warp out to quadrants unknown at little provocation in seasons two and three. (And bless him for it.)
I love the bit in his quarters when he looks at his space medals and feels a pang of unease, then irritatedly snaps the case closed.
Guest:
4 of 3 pts.
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| Sandoval looks a little like Jay McInerney here, doesn't he? |
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| dooooo doo de dooo doo de dooo... |
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| Apparently, Charles Bronson (Ireland's husband) was present during most of her scenes and glared at Nimoy the whole time. |
Memorability: To me personally? 20 out of 5. To that portion of the world that lives in the matrix of American pop culture? 3 out of 5. Which averages out and rounds up to
12 of 5 pts. But let's just make that
12,000.
Total Points Awarded: A whole lot. (But probably around
89.5)
Here's the last of the Trek-related Boat Chips, gone from the charts but not from our hearts, "Spock's on the Crapper:"
please enjoy responsibly. It's more of a filler-tune between other tracks on the album rather than a full-blown song. But hey. Good times.
