Captain's Blog pt. 87: The Devil in the Dark

March 9th, 1967

Title: (2) It could be a reference to something specific, I'm not sure. It works pretty well for a fear of the unknown/ we-have-met-the-enemy-and-it-is-us story.

Script: (8.5) Great story all around, good message, thoughtfully and intelligently executed. The exchange between Spock and Kirk at episode's end is amusing enough, though it sometimes boggles the mind how much everyone makes (and how often) of Spock's ears. Still, it serves a point here: what we see is alien is always in the eye of the beholder.

Theme: (8.5) I'm not sure if "humanizing" the monster is quite as groundbreaking as some of the reviews I've been reading indicate. I agree that it's a well-developed theme, but wasn't it fairly common to sci-fi by 1967? Definitely in print but even in tv and film. Doesn't take anything away from "Devil in the Dark," of course; this is more of a comment on the reviews and re-watches and memoirs.

"This is not a zoological expedition."

Roddenberry objected strongly to Kirk killing the Ceti eel once it dripped from Chekov's ear in Wrath of Khan and cited the Horta as a precedent. Which is very confused; I mean, the Horta doesn't occupy and then consume the brains of its host. It fights for its survival; it is not exploited as a weapon. No thematic inconsistency; sounds like Roddenberry was just pissed off.

It is a little odd to discover this Pergium business. You'd figure the matter/antimatter equation would solve a lot of energy problems. But the "this planet has the one element the entire Federation inexplicably needs to survive" artery hadn't hardened yet, so this episode gets a pass. (By the time you get to "The Cloud Minders" and "Requiem for Methusaleh," it's much more of a liability.)

Visual Design: (3) One word:

The story of how the alien's appearance came into being is repeated everywhere this episode is mentioned, so I'll skip it.

Trek conventions haven't changed much.

Kirk and the Gang: (30) First, great performance from Nimoy.

Spock's "I am quickening my pace" line always makes me laugh. But I'd wager that when people think of Spock and this episode they think of:

From the AV Club: "(The mind-meld) should be ridiculous. Spock's basically groping a puppet and treating it like a massive spiritual and moral struggle. But it works. (...) It's not memorable because it's campy, either. Nimoy's acting sells it because he never allows for a moment that what he's doing is absurd."

"He commits, as my old acting teacher would say, and the sequence becomes this whole tragic, horrifying tribute both to his skills as a performer and the writer behind the episode." Hear hear.

Shatner, too, deserves a tip of the brim.

His father died during shooting of this episode, but the show must goes on. RIP, Shatner, Sr.

First use of the "I'm a doctor, not a..." McCoyism.

Guest: (1.5) a veteran character actor.

This guy at the beginning dies memorably. "Sure is daaahk down here..."
"Like the others... burned to a crisp..."

Internal Logistics: (.5) Mr. Myers from Tor: "For some reason, this time around a lot of flaws in the episode stood out, nearly eclipsing the good moments like McCoy’s bricklaying and Spock’s comments on the Horta liking his ears. Why did the Horta steal the pump instead of melting it, and more importantly, how did she carry it off? How could the Horta etch a message so meticulously in the rock? What kind of alien biology requires all but one member of a species to die out every 50,000 years?"

Reasonable questions. Nothing (above or below) is in danger of eclipsing the episode's good points, for me - (I think the fact that the Horta does burn a message/ carry off the piece of equipment is evidence enough that it can do so; how we don't really need to know) - but I was amused enough to keep a list of some of them.

- McCoy's "I'm beginning to think I can cure a rainy day" line was a little odd. Haven't they learned to control the weather already? Other episodes give this impression.

Isn't Pergium even mentioned as essential to atmospheric modification/ weather control in the script itself? I could be confusing this with some Un-obtainium from another episode.

- I realize the message we're supposed to take from the end of the episode is that mutual cooperation between alien cultures is beneficial for all, but I couldn't help but wonder what exactly the Horta will get out of the arrangement. The right to exist, on its own planet? In exchange for dramatically increasing the mining operations and personally enriching the miners? Not to mention taking on a sizable work load for them? I can only hope some of that wealth is re-invested in the Horta's way of life. (Whatever that is. Good thing personal computers seem to have moved beyond silicon in the 23rd century.)

Or perhaps the credits are put into a trust that the Federation then administers. Let's hope not.

- Is it consistent with the 23rd century we've seen that one can get rich from mining the natural resources of an alien world for sale/ profit? I suppose it is - not with Trek altogether, but with TOS at this point in the series. I only mention it because TOS does great work when it brings such things up if only to provoke further discussion (as in "This Side of Paradise" or "Archons") and a line or two questioning (or acknowledging) the somewhat one-sided arrangement the Horta strike with the miners would have been cool.

Memorability: (3)  Walk carefully in the vault of tomorrow.

Total Points Awarded: 56.5

Captain's Blog pt. 86: Bread and Circuses

On March 15, 1968, a day before My Lai and wedged between Tarzan and Hollywood Squares, NBC aired

Title: (2) From the wiki: "Its name is a reference to the phrase "bread and circuses" taken from the Satire X written by Juvenal. In modern usage, the phrase implies a populace that no longer values civic virtues, the public life, and military (manly) service; instead, the people need only food and entertainment."

Which is all well and good, but is it the greatest fit for this particular story? It describes the Magna Roman society, sure, and maybe it's a commentary on 1960s America. Let's just see how it all shakes out.

Given their similarity of theme and plot, it was either this one or "Patterns of Force" for my Desert Island Top 50. I chose this one over "Patterns" partly for the reason given elsewhere - I think I'd get more of a kick out of being reunited with Nazi Planet Trek Episode once rescued from said scenario than I would out of Roman Planet Trek Episode - but also because "Bread and Circuses" is more visually unique. I can think of at least a dozen (probably a hundred) non-WW2 shows where there are Third Reich uniforms; how many Romans with sub-machine guns episodes can you name?

Let's let the screencaps take us out of spacedock.

In a world...

Script and Theme: (5 / 5) I always remember this one a bit more fondly than it deserves. A re-watch quickly confirms, every time, that both the set-up and its execution are kind of shoddy. And as initially cool as Romans on TV with sub-machine guns seems, it's fatally undermined by the Children of the Sun business. I think the script needs something like the Children of the Sun; I'm just not sure the metaphor and how it all fits together is really all that good. I'll save most of that for Internal Logistics, though.

How is the script? It's okay. The cast deals with a silly situation more or less credibly. Everyone gets some fun character moments.

It all follows a predictable enough throughline.

Everything about the Magna Romans * is fairly ridiculous. I'm always amused when some remote point in history is chosen as a system restore point and then, when life is imagined as it would be "now" in such a world, it of course resembles the remote point from which it's drawn. One can't be expected to plot out two thousand years of anthropology and cultural background everytime you want to tell a story about 1960s people in space (in 51 minutes) of course. I'm just saying: the center around which the story revolves does not hold. It's like these "What if the Confederacy won the War Between the States?" imaginings which have the United States practicing the same sort of race-based slavery in 2013 that was already anachronistic in the mid-19th century.

But it's a fun send-up of television and its relation to conquest and fascism at least.

"Empire TV" is fantastic.

* That's what they're called in Treklopedias after-the-fact at any rate. They're not given a name in-episode, except that the planet is 892-IV. So, I guess I should them the 892-IV-ians, but... you can't make me.

Some people cite the Bones/ Spock stuff while imprisoned as one of the episode's strengths. But McCoy's launching into Spock the way he does never really makes sense. It's so obviously contrived to contrast the two. Even if you allow for McCoy as the emotional foil for Spock's stoicism, what point is he even pursuing here?

He's just being a dick.

Spock is unimpressed.

(Incidentally, I don't think what Kirk is doing, above, would result in anything but all three of them getting riddled with ricochet fire.)

At any rate, it's revealed that McCoy's just riding Spock because he's worried about the Captain's fate. The explanation doesn't quite match the intensity of his inappropriateness, but hey, Bones has gotta be Bones. As for what the Captain's doing:

"They threw me a few curves."

"At the first sign of pain, you will tell me."

Visual Design: (3) Luckily, it's one of the more visually memorable episodes. A lot is done with just a little.

Kirk and the Gang: (20) Sure, it looks like the main cast is auditioning for Sid Caesar in Grease,

(a detail which makes me chuckle, given Sid's last name) and the swords and shields look a little flimsy. But who cares? The artificiality of the Roman landscape is deliberate after all. Points are being made about the artificiality of television; this episode looks ahead rather embarrassingly to our age of Reality TV. Not so much in content (though gladiatorial celebrity fights would not only fit snugly in contemporary programming but also might do society some good; thin the herd a bit, and let us watch please) but in using artificial imagery to control the masses. Bread and circuses indeed.

Kirk gets to indulge his "Taste of Armageddon" persona with Claudius.

Internal Logistics: (-5) Okay, so leaving aside the wrinkles in the planet's history, the "parallel development" business and the intense Prime Directive confusion,  there's the whole "the rebels don't worship the Sun; they worship the Son (of God)" idea.

Run that by me again, Lieutenant?

Oh... I did hear you correctly.

It'd have been nice for Spock to at least have raised a "OMG, these humans" eyebrow, but instead Kirk gives some kind of "God bless us, everyone" wrap-up. It's just ill-considered. Maybe if it was "A Very Trek Christmas" episode, but it isn't. No. No no no. A thousand times no. I'll accept Comms and Yangs and the same calligraphy on the parchment of an alien Constitution before I accept this.

(Hey, I just realized this episode aired on the Ides of March; that's kind of cool.)

Still, something I never noticed before (somehow:) nice use of lens flare (pre-Easy Rider; Dennis Hopper always claimed he was the first person to ever use lens flare deliberately, but this episode is one of many examples that put that already-dubious-considering-the-source claim to rest) to call attention to the sun in this shot, which lasts for a good ten seconds or so, as everyone walks under it.

Nice foreshadowing, even if I don't care for what's being foreshadowed.

I suppose there's something to be said for "If you're going to go for Parallel Development, go all the way." In that case, I'm sure if the Enterprise had investigated a different part of the planet, they'd have been knee deep in the Han Dynasty or the Mayans or the Satavahana Empire. Strange that the Genes (who were hardly churchgoing men or who believed in the manifest destiny of Christianity) ended things on this note. But perhaps it was the sort of covering fire they thought they needed to employ to make their points about Empire TV. If so, they might have given a little more thought to this, as it buggers the imagination that a world that sustained the Roman emperors for two thousand years would also sustain an underground cult opposed to it for the same period of time.

Guest: (2.5)

Claudius is played by Logan Ramsey. Everytime I saw him this last re-watch I thought of Ortho from Beetlejuice:

He has a memorable role in the Monkees acid classic Head.

Captain Merrick - the most incompetent Starfleet Captain this side of John Harriman - is, of course, someone Kirk knew back at the Academy. He's played by William Smithers.

"You're a very able man, Mr. Atoz!"

With a name like Rhodes Reason, it's a shame he never took over the world. Sounds like he should be a Wide Receiver in the NFL, actually.

Memorability: (3) Definitely one of those episodes that my critical mind takes apart while watching, then I self-erase this process so I can watch it all over again the next time it comes around. Ya pointy-eared hobgoblin.

Total Points Awarded: 35.5