Welcome back to Star Trekking, my regular blog berth for my Star Trek fandom.
This week I am concluding my look back at season 1 of the original Star Trek. I'm not posting about every episode but just certain shows that have resonated with me over time.
This week, I'm starting with "This Side of Paradise" which first aired on NBC March 2, 1967. The Enterprise has arrived at Omicron Ceti Three where human life can't possible exist.
I'll let Capt Kirk and Mr. Spock explain.
KIRK: Mister Spock, there were one hundred and fifty men, women, and children in that colony. What are the chances of survivors?
SPOCK: Absolutely none, Captain. Berthold rays are such a recent discovery. We do not yet have full knowledge of their nature. It is known, however, that living animal tissue disintegrates under exposure. Sandoval's group could not have survived after three years.
KIRK: Are you saying that those people built a future in a place knowing they might not survive?
SPOCK: I am saying they knew there was a risk.
KIRK: And what about us? Can we afford to send people to the planet's surface?
SPOCK: The breakdown of tissue does not develop immediately. We can risk a limited exposure.
Everybody got that? I do so love a Star Trek plot exposition.
Kirk leads a party down to the colony which looks like a standard issue farm so that saves money on building an alien planet set.
Expecting the colonists to be dead, the party is surprised to be greeted by Elias Sandoval, the leader of the colony mission.
MCCOY: On pure speculation, just an educated guess, I'd say that man is alive.
Boy, Bones didn't go to medical school for nothing, did he?
So the colonists are alive and well.
Including Leila.
Who is Leila?
She's an attractive blonde woman who knew Spock way back when. Let's listen in to Elias and Leila have a chat about that.
ELIAS: You've known the Vulcanian?
LEILA: On Earth, six years ago.
ELIAS: Did you love him?
LEILA: If I did, it was important only to myself.
ELIAS: How did he feel?
LEILA: Mister Spock's feelings were never expressed to me. It is said he has none to give.
ELIAS: Would you like him to stay with us now, to be as one of us?
LEILA: There is no choice, Elias. He will stay.
Uh oh! The colonists are up to shit.
Meanwhile the Enterprise crew realizes there are no animals, no cows, chickens, pigs or even dogs.
And what are these weird alien plants that...
PFFT!
Shoot out spores in your face and...
And...
Life is kinda groovy, ain't it?
An opinion shared by none other than Spock when Leila gets him alone for some unrequited canoodling when...
PFFT!!
The canoodling is very much requited.
We've seen Spock's much vaunted logic and self control take a beating earlier in the season in "The Naked Time" but here, it's all gone.
Spock is smiling?
Yes. Spock is smiling.
Please make it stop!
So the alien plant spores protect humans from Berthold rays but leaves humans as blissed out hippies.
Dang hippies!
Slowly the Enterprise crew on the planet and on the ship in orbit are overcome by the spores. The ship is abandoned except for one last man.
Of course Capt. Kirk is the final hold out from the alien spores but one of the plants on the Enterprise bridge....
PFFT!!!
It's all groovy, man!
But Kirk's dedication to his duty, to his ship is too strong. As he gets ready to beam down...
KIRK: No. No! I can't leave! (he's very relieved) Emotions. Violent emotions. Needs. Anger. Captain's log, supplemental. I think I've discovered the answer, but to carry out my plan entails considerable risk. Mister Spock is much stronger than the ordinary human being. Aroused, his great physical strength could kill. But it's a risk I'll have to take.
So Kirk cons Spock into leaving Leila for a minute and beam back to the ship where Kirk starts insulting Spock, striking him.
And Spock loses his shit and starts beating the crap out of Kirk.
Until...
Spock shakes off the influence of the spores.
Together, Kirk and Spock technobabble a subsonic signal designed to irritate the crap out of people.
Tempers flare and slugfests ensue but eventually all the people on Omicron Ceti Three are shaken out of their zombie stupor.
But not without a price.
Leila beams up to the Enterprise where Spock awaits.
LEILA: You're no longer with us, are you? I felt something was wrong.
SPOCK: It was necessary.
LEILA: Come back to the planet with me. You can belong again. Come back with me, please.
SPOCK: I can't.
LEILA: I love you. I said that six years ago, and I can't seem to stop repeating myself. On Earth, you couldn't give anything of yourself. You couldn't even put your arms around me. We couldn't have anything together there. We couldn't have anything together anyplace else. We're happy here. (crying) I can't lose you now, Mister Spock. I can't.
SPOCK: I have a responsibility to this ship, to that man on the Bridge. I am what I am, Leila, and if there are self-made purgatories, then we all have to live in them. Mine can be no worse than someone else's.
LEILA: I have lost you, haven't I? And not only you, I've lost all of it. The spores. I've lost them, too.
KIRK: The Captain discovered that strong emotions and needs destroy the spore influence.
LEILA: And this is for my good? Do you mind if I say I still love you? You never told me if you had another name, Mister Spock.
SPOCK: (wiping away her tears) You couldn't pronounce it.
OK, you Kirk/Spock shippers caught that?
"I have a responsibility to this ship, to that man on the Bridge."
Go on and write your gay fan fiction.
One last thing to say.
MCCOY: Well, that's the second time man's been thrown out of paradise.
KIRK: No, no, Bones. This time we walked out on our own. Maybe we weren't meant for paradise. Maybe we were meant to fight our way through. Struggle, claw our way up, scratch for every inch of the way. Maybe we can't stroll to the music of the lute. We must march to the sound of drums.
This does seem to be a recurring theme in Star Trek. Positing a future of advance technology in a world of progressive values and peace, it's important to remember even with all of that, human acheivement is something to be worked for, strived for.
Covering "This Side of Paradise" took me longer than I expected and I have three more episodes to cover.
"The Devil in the Dark" brings the Enterprise to Janus Six where a mining operation has ground to a halt. Why?
Because of all the murder.
An alien critter is attacking the miners,buring them to a crisp.
So let's see if we got this.
- Problem: Humans miners - killed!
- Cause: Alien critter - kills!
- Solution: Alien critter needs to be killed.
Well, that seems simple.
But Kirk has questions.
- Why is the alien critter killing miners now?
- What's with all these metallic spheres all over the place?
Kirk susses out what's going on and with a mind meld from Spock, he gets the deets.
- The alien critter is a Horta. a silicon based life form.
- The Horta is a mother.
- The metallic sphere are her eggs.
- The miners had breached into new caverns where the eggs were stored and began destroying them.
- As the Horta is the last of her kind, that is a major problem.
- Also the Horta is mortally injured.
Kirk summons McCoy who is very crumpy.
MCCOY: You can't be serious. That thing is virtually made out of stone!
KIRK: Help it. Treat it.
MCCOY: I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer.
KIRK: You're a healer. There's a patient. That's an order.
Gotta love a classic "I'm a doctor, not a ______!"
And dang if good ol' Bones don't go and done did a medical miracle on our alien critter.
MCCOY: By golly, Jim, I'm beginning to think I can cure a rainy day. Well, I had the ship beam down a hundred pounds of that thermoconcrete. You know, the kind we use to build emergency shelters out of. It's mostly silicone. So I just trowelled it into the wound, and it'll act like a bandage until it heals. Take a look. It's as good as new.
Boy, Bones didn't go to medical school for nothing, did he?
Sometimes people will make fun of the alien critter for looking like a crawling carpet.
Those people should be ashamed of themselves.
You hear a lot of trolls who dare call themselves Star Trek fans bitching and whining that modern Trek series are "too woke" or some bullshit like that. And why can't Trek go back to the way it was in the old days?
"Devil in the Dark" decidedly puts to the lie that idea. Consider the situation that greets Kirk when he arrives. Humans killed! Alien is killer! Kill alien!
But Kirk takes time to think about what he sees and actually sees the point of view of our erstwhile antagonist, much as he did with the Gorn in "Arena".
Fuck you, trolls! Star Trek has always been "woke" even when Kirk was in the Captain's chair.
Kirk's prediliction for empathy and mercy are seriously challenged in the aptly named "Errand of Mercy".
Let's get some plot exposition from Kirk and Spock.
KIRK: Negotiations with the Klingon Empire are on the verge of breaking down. Starfleet Command anticipates a surprise attack. We are to proceed to Organia and take whatever steps are necessary to prevent the Klingons from using it as a base.
SPOCK: Strategically sound. Organia is the only Class M planet in the disputed area, ideally located for use by either side.
KIRK: Organia's description, Mister Spock.
SPOCK: Inhabited by humanoids. A very peaceful, friendly people living on a primitive level. Little of intrinsic value. Approximately Class D minus on Richter's scale of cultures.
Once more, did everybody get that? Gotta love Star Trek plot exposition!
So Kirk and Spock beam down to Organia and...
Let me take a minute to rant about something. Because William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy are in the opening credits, then Kirk and Spock need to damn well be seen doing stuff.
Even if it makes NO sense for both the Captain and his second in command to leave the ship during a time of heightened tensions with a powerful and threatening enemy.
And this shit happened all the time in original Star Trek.
End of rant!
So Kirk and Spock beam down to Organia and find a populace that is peaceful, calm, docile and seemingly not bothered that the Klingons are on the way to do bad stuff.
And damn it! The Klingons arrive, barking orders, snarling, being assholes and what not.
And the Organians don't care.
Kirk and Spock are like, what the hell, guys?
Our heroes attempt some guerrilla war tactics against the invading Klingons. Their commander Kor orders whole bunches of Organians to be rounded up and killed.
In space, the Enterprise is facing a Klingon vessel ready for battle.
Well, enough is enough!
On the planet and in space, all the weapons of the Enterprise crew and the Klingons become too hot to touch.
Kor thinks this is some form of trickery as he, Kirk and Spock confront the Organians. But....
AYELBORNE: It is no trick, Commander. We have simply put an end to your war. All your military forces, wherever they are, are now completely paralysed.
CLAYMARE: We find interference in other people's affairs most disgusting, but you gentlemen have given us no choice.
KIRK: You should be the first to be on our side. Two hundred hostages killed.
AYELBORNE: No one has been killed, Captain.
CLAYMARE: No one has died here in uncounted thousands of years.
KOR: You are liars. You are meddling in things that are none of your business.
KIRK: Even if you have some power that we don't understand, you have no right to dictate to our Federation...
KOR: Or our Empire!
KIRK: How to handle their interstellar relations! We have the right...
AYELBORNE: To wage war, Captain? To kill millions of innocent people? To destroy life on a planetary scale? Is that what you're defending?
KIRK: Well, no one wants war. But there are proper channels. People have a right to handle their own affairs. Eventually, we will have...
AYELBORNE: Oh, eventually you will have peace, but only after millions of people have died.
Then the Organians began to glow, their physical forms morphing into pure light.
SPOCK: Fascinating. Pure energy. Pure thought. Totally incorporeal. Not life as we know it at all.
KOR: But is all of this possible?
SPOCK: We have seen it with our own eyes. I should say the Organians are as far above us on the evolutionary scale as we are above the amoeba.
KIRK: Well, Commander, I guess that takes care of the war. Obviously, the Organians aren't going to let us fight.
KOR: A shame, Captain. It would have been glorious.
Props to John Colicos who did such an outstanding job as Kor. Colicos would reprise the role for an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Back on the Enterprise, Kirk confides in Spock.
KIRK: I'm embarrassed. I was furious with the Organians for stopping a war I didn't want. We think of ourselves as the most powerful beings in the universe. It's unsettling to discover that we're wrong.
Whatever some people have made of Kirk being a cocky swaggering adventurer, it's important to remember these moments where Kirk understands the limits of humankind's abilities, even in an age of technological advancement.
Wrapping up this overlong post is perhaps Star Trek's most famous, most well regarded episode, "The City On the Edge of Forever". There really isn't much I can add about this classic episode written by sci-fi legend Harlan Ellison that hasn't been written about hundreds of times before.
I think even people with only a cursory knowledge of Star Trek know about this episode.
Kirk and Spock go back in time to Depression era New York to stop McCoy from mucking about with history, causing a technologically advanced space faring planet Earth to no longer exist in the 23rd century.
Some really big stakes going on and it hinges on the life of one person, a woman who must die in order to protect the future.
Damn it! Kirk has fallen in love with her!
Often Kirk gets mocked for his perceived propensity for getting busy with the space babe of the week. And yeah, it does happen a lot. But the development of the relationship between Jim Kirk and Edith Keeler has a genuine, heartfelt progression that feels more real than Kirk's other dalliances. Time is taken to show Jim and Edith growing incrementally closer to each other.
When Kirk has to stop McCoy from saving her, we know the price Kirk pays. We can feel it.
I'm not going into a lot of detail here in this post but "The City On the Edge of Forever" does earn and deserve the plaudits it has received over the years.
KIRK: Let's get the hell out of here.
OK, that finishes my once-over of the first season of Star Trek
Thanks again to Chrissie's Transcripts Site for the script exerpts.
Coming up on future installments of Star Trekking:
It's all go-go boots and mini-skirts for a Star Trek fashion show.
A brief return to looking back at Star Trek: The Next Generation.
And July marks the return of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds for season 4.
Live long and prosper, y'all.
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