Captain's Blog pt. 49: Return to Tomorrow

When "Return to Tomorrow" first aired on February 9th, 1968, its timeslot competition was an episode of Gomer Pyle, USMC where someone sends Gomer a baby carriage by mistake. Compelling stuff. Over on NBC, this gem of an episode explored themes of possession, eternity, love, betrayal, and galactic progeny.

Let's start with the title. 1.5 pts.

Kind of a Back to the Future thing, I can dig that. Nothing too fancy or poetic, more or less just a description of events.

Where this episode excels is in its Script and Theme (out of a possible 10 pts.): 7.5 / 8 pts. It's really a great slice of sci-fi with no "plot coupons," as Torie Atkinson calls them over at Tor. Every line and scene makes sense and moves the story along without contriving any circumstance.

Despite Sargon and the gang's considerable powers and evolution, they are recognizably motivated by the same things Kirk and the gang are: science, compassion, intelligence, love, and - as we see with Henoch - not above a little murder, abuse of power, and deception to achieve those ends. Even Thalassa is briefly tempted to use her superiority to take what she wants rather than respect the lives and sovereignty of the crew.

The body-swap trope was by no means an innovation in 1968, but it's handled with sophistication and sensitivity here. (Compare, for example, to "Turnabout Intruder," only a year later.)

"Since exploration and contact with alien intelligences is our primary mission, I've decided to risk the potential dangers and resume contact."

Visual Design: I'll go with 2 out of 3 points here. There's some wonderful surrealism going on here.

 

Like wax figures in some future museum, depicting its past imagining itself. Return to Tomorrow, indeed.

Not much going on with costumes this episode, but the traditional Trek color palette plays well against the lighting composition. I've really come to admire the light and shadow choices of TOS through screencapping these eps, and it's delightful to discover there are aspects of these episodes that can still pleasantly surprise me after all these years. "Return to Tomorrow" features a return to the mostly green and purple backlighting, something much more prevalent in the early episodes than they were by this point in season 2.

And then there's this, of course:

Internal Logic and Consistency: 2.25 out of 3 pts. Not bad at all. If two of Sargon's ancestors were the models for Adam and Eve, as he claims, and if said civilization ended their galactic colonization 600,000 years ago, that would put their appearance on Earth somewhere around the advent of Homo heidelbergensis, an early ancestor Humans share with the Neanderthals.

"Your probes have touched me, Mister Spock."

But it makes a certain amount of sense with Vulcan, as Spock notes, given the whole katra thing and its energy-transference analog. 

It's a bit unclear why they didn't just build the androids for themselves, before they made the switch to "pure energy/ matter without form."

Given everything else of which they're capable, seems like they probably could have mastered something like this well before they went the whole spheres and eternal tomb route.

And I know no one on the Enterprise ever brings up anything that happened on any other mission/ episode, but Sargon might have appreciated a heads-up about the work of Roger Korby or the androids on "I, Mudd."

Kirk and the Gang: 20 out of a possible 10 pts. Everyone does a great job here. The economy of the script helps, but Nimoy clearly enjoys being able to smile, leer, and cackle.

Majel Barrett gets only a handful of chances to really do much of anything on TOS, but she gets a nice character arc here, and her surprise turning of the tables at the end is a nice touch.

Of course, we learn Sargon hid Spock's consciousness in her, so her "agency" is somewhat compromised from a certain point of view. Nevertheless, Barrett does a good job. And of course, this is the episode where Shatner delivers his famous and often-parodied "Risk is our business" speech, combined here with Eric McCormack's spot-on take on it from Free Enterprise. (Link disabled, alas.)

(This also accounts for the episode's Memorability, I'd wager, which I value at 3 out of 5 pts.)

Beyond that, Shatner embraces the opportunity to wrest as much physicality from the being-possessed business as possible:

Nimoy and Muldaur don't seem to react quite the same way, do they?

Speaking of Diana Muldaur, she is the guest star of note:

She does a good job as Astrobiologist Mulhall, who presumably avoids the Captain and Spock as much as possible for the rest of her tenure aboard the Enterprise.

I had to go back and find out who this was when I saw the name I didn't recognize during the end credits:

It appears from Ms. Lou's imdb page that "Return to Tomorrow" was her high water mark as a working actress. I'll just assume no script ever seemed worthwhile after having cut her teeth on this one. 3 out of 3 pts. (3.5 if you count Doohan's voice as Sargon.)

Total Points Awarded: 47.75

"Kirk out."

Captain's Blog pt. 48: Return of the Archons

"Return of the Archons" aired for the first time on February 9th, 1967. Its time-slot competition was Bewitched, My Three Sons, and Love on a Rooftop. US troops in Vietnam numbered 485,000 and counting; Che Guevara was still alive.

SCRIPT / THEME (out of a possible 10 pts. apiece): 20 / 20. "Archons" is a pitch-perfect representation of certain aspects of Trek: thinly-veiled social critique (in this case, religious conformity, the danger of programmed morality, America coming out of the 1950s stuff) and well-written sci-fi adventure with compelling characters.

"Mister Sulu has returned in a highly agitated state" is perhaps my favorite of Roddenberry's many swipes at organized religion.

 

"Archons" is also the prototype for the Kirk topples the computer-god/government by talking it into destroying itself.

 

"If I were you, I'd start looking for another job."

Someone needs to edit this scene and slow it way down with "Nobody Does It Better" from The Spy Who Loved Me playing over it.

Every discussion, suggestion, and conversation in this episode works on a traditional narrative level and a deconstructive one. Whenever you think you've cornered the moral statement being made, another aspect or question manifests itself, up to and including the last line. Its closest parallel would be "This Side of Paradise," where the viewer's left a bit unsettled when the end credits roll, despite everything being set "back to normal." We've seen a side to our heroes and their five year mission that doesn't sit so comfortably with the mission statements associated with it.

The IDW "reboot" of this story adds some interesting elements:

"In 2167, the USS Archon was sent to Beta III to set up a colony for the United Federation of Planets. Cornelius Landru, the head of Starfleet's Advanced Research Division, had invented a new artificial intelligence for a sinister purpose: population control. When the plot was discovered, the Archon was destroyed. The amnesiac survivors invented a religion based on Landru and the Archon. Landru lives on as a computer. (Kirk and the gang discover the cover-up and destroy Landru, freeing the people.) Back on Earth, Starfleet threatens to hold Admiral Pike personally responsible if Kirk makes another blunder like exposing the Landru Experiment."

It's not a bad 2-parter. The ongoing IDW series has its moments. It's too bad the coordinated multimedia alternate timeline mega-story didn't materialize the way Abrams originally imagined it. Back to the episode.

Barry Sobelman is given a story co-credit on this one. He wrote for a few other shows in the 60s but doesn't look like he did much beyond that decade. Well, except die, in 1971. RIP.

MEMORABILITY (out of a possible 5 pts.): For myself? 422. Among most Trekkers, a 4, maybe even a 5. Among the general population, probably a 1 or a 2. Sadly. If it does raise a blip on the cultural radar, it's likely due to the Red Hour, i.e. the Landru-approved orgy of defenestration and madness.

FESTIVAL! FESTIVAL!

You obviously couldn't show mass fornication in the streets on primetime TV, at least not in the 1960s, but you could simulate it with clever use of shadows.

The patriarchy of it all really jumps out, watching it in 2013. Particularly the scene in the aftermath of the Red Hour (which is kind of oddly named, since it clearly lasts all night) where the daughter returns home, screaming and upset and violated, and, surrounded by men, is shuffled off to one corner to be sedated. Then it's back to business, gentlemen.

KIRK AND THE GANG (out of a possible 10 pts.): 15. This category is sort of a wink-wink at how comprehensively Shatner nudged people out of frame (or outright pilfers their lines, as is evident here in many of his conversations with Spock, something Nimoy grumbles about good-naturedly in I Am Spock and elsewhere) but I'll also use this space to comment on cast performances in general. And in "Archons," everyone hits their marks squarely. You've got a lively interaction with a variety of guest stars and some great stuff from just about everyone.

Some of the Shatner wackiness bleeds through. His insistent pronouncing of "Landru" so the land rhymes with wand has been cracking me up without fail, for years. And there's this bit with Dr. McCoy:

You do remember!

Incidentally, the bit where a bug-eyed McCoy freaks out on them and starts screaming for the lawgivers has that wonderfully uncomfortable bit where Kirk is pleading with the Doctor to relax so he doesn't have to hurt him. (Before knocking him out, of course.)

But mainly, Shatner's subdued performance serves the story well. He's so sure of himself and that his course of action is the correct one. ("Start acting like men." etc.) It adds the appropriate note of "unreliable narrator," however unintentionally. I felt invited to read it as American Psycho this past time around, which made me chuckle at several points. Is this all in Kirk's head? Anyway: it's rare that I'll get to say this in this series, but Shatner is masterfully subtle here.

VISUAL DESIGN (out of a possible 3 pts.): 2.5 The sets aren't particularly spectacular (and the ever-popular Paramount back lot is re-dressed for the street scenes) but they're effective.

 

The costumes have that "Maybe they were meant for Maverick or Wild, Wild West" look to them, but they're also quite snazzy.

As for the TITLE:

it fascinates me. I don't think it gets anywhere near enough credit for the sense of mystery and weirdness it evokes in relation to the story that we actually see. So much of the backstory is only alluded to, but this sense of "Are you... Archons?" (and Kirk's evasive answer to that) informs everything that we do see happen. The return of the Archons is one part prophecy, one part poetry, and one part ominous: the end of everything. It's such a stylish frame to put around the episode. 5 out of a possible 3 pts.

INTERNAL LOGIC/ CONSISTENCY (out of a possible 3 pts.): 2.5 I mentioned the Red Hour discrepancy above, but that's not a deal-breaker. Maybe it's just the term used for the first hour of Festival. It probably is actually. This next one's not a deal breaker either, but hey, while we're here: the Lawgivers can "turn" people simply by pointing their tubes at them and Zap, you're Of The Body. But when Landru renders everyone unconscious with his hyper-sonic after the bit with the light panel, Lawgivers presumably take them to the Absorption Chamber? Why not just send in the lawgivers and zap 'em all while they're sleeping? Or zap them in the dungeon they put them in. Tsk. Stupid Landru.

GUEST (out of a possible 3 pts.): 2.5 Everyone does a fine job. Landru's ethereal calmness is especially effective.

We'll see Jon Lormer again down the road, in "Wolf in the Fold."

Let's not forget this creepy dude.

TOTAL POINTS AWARDED: 50-ish? I lost track. Let's just call it 50,000, or the one to beat. "Archons" has it all. Many Trek tropes originate in this episode (Kirk tricks the computer, the imperfect Eden, society's "master programming" on stifling autopilot, Scotty complaining about how the ship's only got a few hours left before it's destroyed, etc) and by and large are never done better.