“The Paradise Syndrome”
Air Date: October 4, 1968
Mom Title: “Kirk Marries an Indian”
Why
do all the expanded universe musings list Edith Keeler as Kirk’s lost, one true
love? Jim dated her once or twice over a
long weekend. He was MARRIED to Miramanee for a couple of months, and expecting
a child.
Granted,
Sabrina Scharf is not Joan Collins…or a real American Indian, but never mind
that now. The point is she should be more than a footnote.
It
looks like the Andromedans have set up another colony of humans and programmed
them to base a religion on a high end computer that encourages passivity. They’re definitely trying to pave the way for
an easy take over.
By
this point, the crew has seen enough “exactly like Earth” planets that it no
longer surprises them or requires referencing parallel development theories.
The
Big Three beam down to a Prime Directive covered planet in full
uniform…again. Considering how willing
Bones and Spock are to violate it to save the Captain at the climax of the
story, it may have been easier to use the “double capacity” capability of the
Enterprise (demonstrated in “Journey to Babel”) to beam the whole tribe on
board and take them to a less moon-sized-asteroid collision prone planet.
The
First Officer pushes the Enterprise the same way he does himself. Yes,
the ship is hitting Warp 9 again. Luckily, the confrontation over the Romulan
cloaking device happened first, allowing it to retain its awesomeness before
crazy speeds become common place this season.
It
still doesn’t make Scotty any happier as he runs around tweaking everything to
no avail until the engines fry and he calls them, “"My bairns. My poor
bairns."
Notice
every other crew member who has been sucked into peaceful and happy societies
ended up fitting in well and enjoying their time.
Captain Kirk makes himself a god, and incites
a lynch mob. Old habits die hard I
guess. Perhaps this was because he had a highly selective form of amnesia.
After all, he forgot his name, but still remembered his lifeguard training.
Poor
Miramanee …
Rocks however, are beyond their abilities to cope with.
Looks like the Federation has something in common with the Galactic Empire.
Just ask those few Stormtroopers who survived the Battle of Endor.
“And the Children Shall Lead”
Air Date: October 11, 1968
Mom Title: “Melvin Belli the Friendly
Angel”
This
one walks a tightrope between stupid and terrifying.
The
overall idea is goofy, Melvin Belli is ridiculous and bluffing a non-corporeal
monster with blowing yourself up doesn’t make much sense.
There’s
talk of an “ancient race” some faux religion used to control humans, and
children being augmented with illusion generating and mind control powers. Looks like the Angel is another rogue Andromedan
passing through.
There
are some character moments between the weirdness. Seeing what each fears provides
insights. However, I’m confused about
Uhura. Was the mirror itself an
illusion? It isn’t there in other episodes, but she doesn’t seem surprised to
see it. Maybe it’s a flip out.
The
Captain is worried about the children most of the way through.
Until
one sits in his chair.
Yeah…don’t
do that.
The
technology holds up to its usual schizoid levels of inconstancy.
Since
the kids’ powers are illusion and mind based and not actually altering the
machinery, shouldn’t there be some safeguard preventing beaming crewmen into
open space?
The
most bizarre is the food synthesizer.
First
of all, don’t these kids live in the future?
Why
are they surprised by a computer that makes ice cream?
There
are individual “flavor cards” for each selection.
OK,
I’ll buy that, I guess. Maybe all the
buttons are for fine tuning, or toppings or something.
However,
when one boy orders “chocolate-pistachio-peach” Nurse Chapel looks through the
small selection in her hands and quickly gives the kid a single card!
Is
she psychic?
Is
that flavor combo the Neapolitan of the twenty third century?
Is
Chapel just screwing with the kids and the machines are voice activated like
everything else on the ship?
We
may never know.
Between
all the weird chants and half obscene arm gestures Star Trek shows it can still squeeze in the occasional Topic
Sentence worthy life lesson.
“Without
followers, evil cannot spread.”
“Is There in Truth No Beauty”
Air Date: October 18, 1968
Mom Title: “Intelligent Kaleidoscope
in the Box”
A
woman who looks remarkably like the mystery officer who convinced the Captain
to switch bodies with non-corporeal, sphere contained individuals shows up with
an energy being in a box…
Hmmmmm.
I
believe we have some evidence of Extra Galactic Invaders without physical form messing
with the crew’s minds to further their agenda.
Behold:
With
all the energy creatures the Enterprise has met, they’ve never considered
contacting the Medusans for advice, or even mentioning there are Federation
members who are energy beings.
Why
does an energy being need to travel in a ship?
Why
is a box of sentient crazy left in an unguarded room?
It
might appear that Kirk was hitting on her, but she led him on as a distraction
to allow Marvik to get to the Kollos, and then to the engines. Afterwards he conveniently “dies from
insanity.” Um…or maybe he and his knowledge had passed their usefulness to
Kollos and Miranda.
There’s
an entire planet of telepaths with emotional control in the Federation, are
none of them blind? (Then again, due to that Vulcan, nifty, extra eyelid, maybe
not.)
If
Miranda trained on Vulcan would she really be that paranoid, egotistical and
vindictive? Those are much closer to how
we’ve seen the bodiless aliens act…unless she trained under T’pring.
No,
I’m sorry, but once again this is the beings without form trying to perfect
techniques of taking over bodies, breaking through the galactic barrier, and
achieving excessive speeds. (Warp 9.5 this time, those poor bairns.)
When
merged with Kollos, Spock spouts Byron to an appreciative Uhura. There are
several subtle reactions in this one showing they still hold a special place
for each other. Since I’m mentioning this, there’s also some more growth is his
mentoring of Chekov. The show’s
character relationship strengths manages to hold on as budgets and creativity
start to dwindle.
And
how does Kirk convince Miranda to help Spock?
Here’s
the key proof from the scene where they toast each other–
Antarean
Brandy and Romulan Ale may be strong, and Diana Muldaur may be pretty,
But
Kirk says this:
“At
the risk of sounding prejudiced, gentlemen, here's to beauty.
To Miranda Jones, the loveliest human ever to
grace a starship.”
Bones
and Scotty stand and agree instead of stating the obvious after serving with a
crew seemingly handpicked to look fantastic in mini dresses and go-go boots:
While
quieter, Spock is not immune.
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