Star Trek -- Season 2 Episode 18 (The Immunity Syndrome)

Thinking of movies and television of today, I’m sure there are certain things future generations will look back on and will think were strange.  People fly back when being hit by a bullet.  Explosions in space are still somehow fireballs.  But looking back at some of the original Star Trek episodes, I’m forced to wonder who, exactly, was approving the scripts.

Suppose I told you that one episode was about the Enterprise encountering a miles-long amoeba in space.  Oh, and it’s in this area of void space that they can’t see past or get out of right away.  Plus, something about the amoeba and/or the space is draining the ship’s systems and causing the ship to work in reverse.  (Forward thrust makes the ship go backwards, for instance.)  To make matters more confusing, the episode is called The Immunity Syndrome.  I’m not sure where it comes from or what it means, either, but that describes the entire episode for me.

There does seem to be more of a fantasy angle in many of the episodes of The Original Series.  I’m not sure if that was intended or if that’s just what audiences expected.  The entire plot seems to be one where it puts the ship in a dangerous situation.  What makes it suspenseful is that much of it is new and unknown.  Everything is backwards and not as it should be, requiring the crew to think outside the box.

It’s difficult to imagine the crew being in any real danger.  Spock, who goes out in a shuttlecraft, might have to make a sacrifice.  It’s conceivable that one crewmember would be lost.  However, the crew is being affected, as well.  The show can’t maintain the situation forever.

What gets me, mostly, is that The Giant Space Amoeba is dividing.  This means that there are probably more of them out there.  It’s not clear if any more are ever encountered.  If they’re not, it would mean that they might one day fill up the galaxy.  (It’s not clear how long the reproductive cycle is.  They could divide once every few millennia, for all I know.)  Still, I would think that someone, somewhere, would have seen one and gotten away.

To an extent, I could almost see space being the exact opposite of what I’d expect.  There’s no reason to think that space would be within the realm of what I (or anyone else) could imagine.  I’m sure there are all sorts of wild and crazy things out there that no one would be able to explain.

The amoeba is simple and threatening.  It’s fairly clear what has to be done.  It’s a biological invasion on a galactic scale.  The amoeba is big, so you’d think it would be difficult to miss.  It’s possible that the amoebas have eaten every ship it came in contact with.  To that end, you’d think there would be some mention in one of the subsequent series.

Many of the episodes in the original series were one off, meaning you could watch them out of order or skip them entirely.  I’m kind of in the middle on this one.  It is one of the odder episodes from the franchise.  It might be interesting for newcomers to watch just to see how odd it is.  Then again, I wouldn’t recommend making this the first episode you watch.  It might prove too much for a first-time viewer.

 

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Star Trek -- Season 2 Episode 14 (Wolf in the Fold)

There were times that Star Trek could be progressive.  It dealt with issues such as race and war.  It even had a woman of color as a bridge officer.  Unfortunately, she never got to command a ship during the show’s three-year run.  There were times that the show didn’t go as far as it could have.

Then, there were times that they dropped the ball entirely.  I understand that the times were different, but some things make me tilt my head and ask what I just watched.

Kirk, McCoy and Scotty seem to be having a good time on shore leave.  They’re watching women do some sort of belly dance.  Scotty leaves with Kara, one of the dancers.  While Kirk and McCoy are walking around the town, they hear a scream.  Scotty is found standing over hear dead body, weapon in hand.

We’ve all seen enough Matlock and Murder She Wrote to know Scotty didn’t do it.  The authorities detain him anyway.  So, it’s up to Kirk and McCoy to prove him innocent, which is no easy task.  They even have someone beam down to run a test on Scotty.  Of course, Scotty is sent to a room with her where she can mysteriously wind up dead.

So, another young lady is brought in to interrogate Scotty.  You might think that she would wind up sequestered in a room with Scotty and wind up dead.  You’d be wrong.  This time, the lights go out, but there are other people in the room when she dies.

This is where it goes off the rails.  It wasn’t Scotty, after all.  It was some sort of malevolent force that was once known on Earth as Jack the Ripper.  This force has been inhabiting men for the purpose of killing women.  And all this time Kirk and McCoy thought Scotty had a problem with women.

I wish I was kidding on that one.  I’m not.  Apparently, a female engineer gave Scotty a bump on the head.  Now, he’s a full-blown misogynist.  It kind of makes you wonder what passed for progress back then.

While we’re on the subject, why leave Scotty alone with women?  If they’ve noticed the pattern, wouldn’t it make sense to assign a security guard to Scotty?  Even if he didn’t do it, it’s an awful coincidence.  (I know that it would ruin the surprise to have a security guard report back, but given the show’s track record with security officers, they have an easy out.)

On top of all this, the episode ends with the murder of an individual.  To get rid of the entity, they beam the person, with the entity inside, out into space.  No mention is made of the fact that they had to kill an innocent person.  There’s no debate or remorse or anything.  They just do it.

It’s really hard to think of this as a good episode.  It’s not particularly scary or tense by today’s standards.  I think that it would have been a totally different episode had it been written for one of the modern series.  Come to think of it, I don’t think any of the spin-offs ever reused the plot.  This is saying something, given that there were quite a number of recycled plots.  If you’re looking to watch all of the Star Trek episodes, this is one you’re just going to have to sit through.

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Star Trek -- Season 2 Episode 6 (The Doomsday Machine)

There were certain things about Star Trek that didn’t always make sense.  For instance, there were omnipotent or near-omnipotent beings that could have crushed the Enterprise, yet were eventually defeated.  There was also a planet that acted as a giant recreation area, yet came with no warning of how powerful the technology was.  Now, we get a gigantic planet-eating vessel of unknown origin built for some unimaginable mission.  It’s already killed the crew of the USS Constellation and left the ship itself in ruins and now threatens to do the same to The Enterprise.

When Kirk finds The Constellation, only it’s commander, Commodore Decker, is alive.  He’s not very responsive to questions, making it difficult to ascertain what happened.  From what Decker tells Kirk, he beamed his crew down to the surface of the third planet before the transporters gave out.  Kirk is quick to point out that there are only two planets.  It’s not until the giant Planet-Eater shows up that he fully understands what Decker’s talking about.

The thing is a long, huge cone with energy beams in the large end.  The opening is large enough to allow the machine to eat planets whole.  There’s no indication of where it came from or why it was deployed.  All anyone knows is that it will consume all of the planets in a system for energy before moving on to the next system.

Kirk and Scotty are trapped on the Constellation, leaving Decker to take command of the Enterprise.  Decker is intent on destroying the Planet-Eater at all costs.  Eventually, Scotty gets off, leaving Kirk to hopefully destroy the Planet-Eater.  All is saved at the last minute and the crew are off to their next adventure.

I have several questions about this episode.  The most obvious is why one would build such a large machine in the first place.  Kirk compares it to the nuclear weapons of our time.  Why would we have something that could render a large part of our planet uninhabitable?  Neither scenario makes much sense.

But why would you build a machine large enough to consume planets and set it off on a course that might come in contact with inhabited worlds?  In fact, part of the tension in the episode comes from the fact that the next system will be the most densely populated in Federation territory.  If you were out to kill an enemy, why not build the weapon there and make sure it stays there?  It seems like an awfully inefficient way to destroy your enemy.

Of course, I’m assuming that it was meant for that purpose, but I can think of no reason why you’d need a large machine that seems to exist only to eat planets.  But that’s another problem.  We have no indication of exactly what necessitated the machine.  It has no regard for life.  It has no clear purpose other than to consume planets.  It exists to give The Enterprise something to fight.  Kirk compares the machine to nuclear weapons, but a better analogy might be war in general.  War takes life and would seem to have no purpose other than to destroy.

The episode was followed up in a book called Vendetta.  I remember reading it decades ago and recall that it was designed to be a weapon against the Borg, which would make sense.  It’s still a little unsettling that it was just wandering the galaxy like that.  There are still easier, more efficient ways to destroy the Borg.

I will admit that there is a certain simplicity to the episode.  It doesn’t go off on too many tangents and doesn’t have a lot of characters.  This is likely due to budget constraints, though.   The Constellation is the same type of ship as The Enterprise, allowing the studio to avoid building new sets.  I’ve often wondered what Star Trek would have looked like had it been given a larger budget.

It’s a shame that the story was never got an in-series explanation.  It would have been perfect for an episode for one of the spin-off series.  Maybe the crew of Voyager would find another or the race that built it.  Even Deep Space Nine had access to a different part of the galaxy.  Maybe it was something designed by The Dominion.  There are so many possibilities with this episode.

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Star Trek -- Season 2 Episode 5 (The Apple)

The Enterprise went through a lot of security officers during it’s run.  I’ve often wondered if Starfleet ever asked why.  After all, new officers were being assigned to the ship and a death would certainly generate a report.  This was the second episode in recent memory to feature four security officers being killed.  I imagine some poor recruit getting his first assignment only to cry uncontrollably at the fact that it’s The Enterprise.  (“All this effort to get into Starfleet and this is what I get?  I’m too young to die!”)  To be fair, the crew did encounter a dangerous planet and Captain Kirk does wrestle with the loss of crewmembers.  However, there were a lot of deaths on the show.

In this episode, the crew comes upon a planet with a small tribe of people who are ruled by a computer named Vaal.  The people feed Vaal and, in return, Vaal makes the rain come down and the fruit grow.  Kirk and McCoy immediately realize that this is a stagnant society.  They don’t grow or learn or build.  All the people do is feed Vaal.  Spock, being the voice of reason, points out that it works.  It’s not humanity’s ideal society, but the people are happy and want for nothing.  Who are they to interfere with that?

Well, leave it to the writers to force the issue.  The ship is being dragged down towards the planet surface.  If Kirk doesn’t destroy Vaal, the crew will die.  It’s been said that the crew accepts this if it’s in service of The Prime Directive.  You don’t interfere with the natural development of a culture, even if it means your life.  But is it really interfering with a culture if there is no real culture to speak of?  Maybe, but the death of the crew would lead to a really short second season.  And I don’t imagine Kirk wants to be stranded on a planet where light rocks could explode under your feet.

It’s not clear how a small group of child-like immortals developed in such a way that they came under the care of a computer beyond their capacity to build.  It’s possible that they were left there by a more-advanced civilization.  Maybe it was a sort of daycare that was abandoned.  I suppose of all the possible questions, it’s not the worst to have.  It would, at least, make for an interesting novel or fan movie.

I’m also not sure why Vaal has it in for the crew of the Enterprise.  I’m assuming that the ship falling towards the planet was unintentional.  Vaal could just as easily have shot down the ship or sent the ship away.  It would appear that whoever wrote the episode was concerned more with the issues and immanent danger.  (I know.  This describes most of the Star Trek episodes.)  I suppose it at least makes for an interesting moral debate.

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Star Trek -- Season 2 Episode 4 (Mirror, Mirror)

The idea of an alternate history is nothing new.  Several novels were published in the 19th century.  The Man in the High Castle had been published in 1962.  Mirror, Mirror isn’t even Star Trek’s first take on the concept.  City on the Edge of Forever and The Alternate Factor both used alternate timelines in their plot.

Here, a transporter accident sends Kirk, Scotty, McCoy and Uhura into a universe where The Federation, or at least Earth, is overtly imperialistic.  The Empire takes by force what The Federation would negotiate for.  In fact, Kirk had been negotiating with the Halkans for dilithium crystals when an ion storm hit. 

Kirk’s alternate was instructed to destroy Halkan cities if they don’t cooperate, which puts Kirk in a difficult position.  He doesn’t want to level cities, but can’t avoid it without raising suspicion.  The four crewmembers are able to get back at the last minute with some help from the alternate Spock, who agrees to try to change the Terran Empire.

Part of the reason the episode works is that it does what it sets out to do.  There’s very little filler or exposition.  The only real exposition would be at the end, where Kirk has to drag it out when they have only minutes to spare.  It shows what an alternate to The Federation might be.  As Spock points out at the end, the alternate isn’t really that different.  Kirk is able to refrain from many of his baser instincts whereas the other Kirk has no real incentive to do so.

It would have been interesting to explore that universe a little more during The Original Series.  It’s not clear if all of The Enterprise’s missions were the same.  I would like to see how Khan or Harry Mudd fit into that universe.  Fortunately, Deep Space Nine and Enterprise did visit The Mirror Universe, so we do get to see what happened because of Spock’s decision.

Only two things really bothered me about the episode.  First, how is it that all of the same characters exist in both universes?  I suppose, given an infinite number of timelines, that there would be one that’s at least similar to ours.  There’s probably one with an Enterprise that has an entirely different crew.  There may be one where Vulcans or Andorians weren‘t space-faring.

The other thing was that Kirk and the others beamed into their alternates’ clothing.  Not only that, they beamed back into their own clothing when they got back to their own universe.  It’s a concession necessary to help them blend in to The Mirror Universe, I know.  It’s still a little odd.

Overall, it’s a pretty good episode.  I’m glad that the plot was at least used in several of the spin-off series.  The Original Series wasn’t particularly good with continuity, so anything is welcome.

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Star Trek -- Season 2 Episode 2 (Who Mourns for Adonais?)

Space is vastly empty.  Consider that it takes light four years to get to from our star to the next closest one and there’s nothing in between.  It seems odd that a spaceship would be able to find interesting planets every week.  Granted, there are a lot of stars out there, but there’s no promise that any of them would have inhabited planets.  They could all be barren wastelands.  Not only that, but the Enterprise has a propensity for finding god-like creatures.

In this case, it would appear that they’ve actually found the Greek god Apollo.  He reaches out with a hand-like projection and holds the ship in place, demanding that the bridge crew come down to the planet.  Once there, the landing party is informed that they will stay and worship Apollo as humans once did thousands of years prior.  Likewise, the humans will tend sheep and do other things humans have long since given up.

It would seem that the Enterprise is trapped, but Apollo has some sort of assistance.  He also conveniently gets tired very easily.  This, of course, presents an opportunity.  Once the details are worked out, it’s just a matter of removing that assistance and the crew is off to the next planet.

This would make for a better episode if it didn’t seem so similar to The Squire of Gothos.  You have what appears to be an all-powerful being intent on keeping the Enterprise crew captive for its own ends.  It needs assistance which, once destroyed, incapacitates the being and allows the crew to leave.

What makes this different is the ancient-astronaut theory, in which several aliens came to Earth and set themselves up as deities.  (A few even had kids with the locals.)  It’s not clear why Apollo has a thing for humans or what he did for 5,000 years.  He states that worshipers give him some sort of power, but it’s not clear if other races would have the same effect.  Even if Apollo headed straight back to his home planet, he and the others of his kind had to explore the galaxy to find Earth.  They might have found another planet that would have been close enough.

The episode is just a little too uninspired for me.  It might have been more interesting to explore what Greek gods had done on Earth.  (I’m sure Apollo would have a few tales to tell.)  Instead, Apollo is intent on regaining his former glory.  All of the other members of the Greek pantheon knew the game was up and moved on.  It basically takes the Enterprise destroying his source of power for Apollo to take the hint.

I definitely think there was a lot of wasted potential here.  I get that it was a product of a different era.  The network may have assumed that the audience wanted more of an action show.  The episode might have been able to do more with the philosophical element had it not been for this.  The show even seems to have a 60s-era attitude towards women, even.  Take, for instance, that Scotty is interested in a female lieutenant.  It’s assumed that if she marries someone, she’ll leave the service.  I’m assuming that this attitude was adjusted by the time The Next Generation came around, as Starfleet had no problem with married couples serving on different ships.   You‘d think that we would have moved on in the next 300 years.

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