STAR TREK: "TURNABOUT INTRUDER" (1969)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological*


"Turnabout Intruder," Roddenberry's last contribution to the series, was probably inspired in part by Thorne Smith's 1931 novel TURNABOUT, in which a man and woman switch bodies. Given that this episode was the final one of the original series, it provides a rather poor "final act" for the show, much the way "Operation Annihilate"proved a bad closing moment for the first season. Still, though "Intruder" is certainly not a good episode, the commendable absurdity of its premise makes it more noteworthy than merely mediocre episodes like "Spectre of the Gun" and "Whom Gods Destroy." And in this case the absurdity has less to do with any far-fetched SF-premise than the psychological quirk of the story's villain: Janice Lester, who seems the very embodiment of Freudian "penis envy."

The Enterprise responds to a distress call from Camus II, whose long-dead alien culture is being investigated by Federation archaeologists. An apparent outbreak of radiation sickness has killed almost the entire expedition, except for two: the expedition's doctor Coleman, and Janice Lester, who seems to be suffering from the disease. Kirk, who is among the landing-party, is visibly affected by her pain, for long ago he and Lester had a very combative romantic relationship. Indeed, they broke up, according to Kirk, because she coveted the position of a starship captain, and "punished" Kirk for the sexism of Starfleet.

However, once Lester is alone in the room with Kirk, she reveals that she was shamming, and activates a device left behind by the dead aliens. Kirk is caught upon the device, which then transfers his soul into Lester's body and hers into the body of the captain. Once Lester is in Kirk's body, she exults that "it's better to be dead than to live alone in the body of a woman," and she comes close to making Kirk-Lester dead by strangulation. However, the other members of the landing party return, so that Lester-Kirk is forced to take Kirk-Lester aboard the ship, ostensibly to give "her"  better medical treatment elsewhere. However, because Lester-Kirk is actually planning to kill Kirk-Lester via neglect or happenstance, "she" and her co-conspirator Coleman give orders to take the ailing doctor to a colony with poor medical facilities. McCoy gets his back up, particularly after Lester-Kirk gives Coleman medical authority over the patient, despite Coleman's history of incompetence. This decision breeds mutiny as the regular members of the crew-- McCoy, Spock, Scott, Sulu and Chekhov-- become aware that their captain is no longer acting rationally.

Just as "evil Kirk" and his savage companions could not act like civilized people in "Mirror, Mirror," a woman just can't "be more like a man," and the more Lester-Kirk feels her authority thwarted, the more she expresses her anxiety in a form McCoy calls "hysteria." (The expression is not chosen lightly, given that the term "hysteria" was coined in response to the archaic Greek idea that women were subject to emotional upsets because of their "wandering wombs.") Furthermore, though none of the crewmen initially know how Kirk's malady has come about, they present a united male front against the intrusion of a woman into their sacrosanct grounds. And that defiance causes Lester-Kirk to lose control of her body-switch, so that things go back to normal, in what may be the series' weakest climaxes (no pun intended).

William Shatner and Sandra Smith, tasked with playing one another's characters and genders, perform tolerably enough, though I certainly disagree with critics who claim the story has anything to do with the current passion for "gender fluidity."  Gene Roddenberry seems to have been something of a masculinist, and it may be that he covertly agreed that women should not be starship captains. though he never has any male character endorse Starfleet's sexism. It should be noted that a few episodes depict women in relative positions of competence, if not high authority, such as the lady lawyer in "Court Martial" or the "Federation Commissioner" of "Metamorphosis," and feminine leaders appear throughout other episodes, albeit in other cultures. Overall, though Roddenberry certainly had his own viewpoint on the relative natures of the two sexes, it seems unlikely that "Intruder" is a direct attack on contemporary feminism, though it could well be the writer's "roman a clef" assault on some former paramour.

It should be noted that Doctor Coleman mirrors, through his failings in medical ability, Lester's failings. During her usurpation of Kirk's body, she shows no sign that she actually possesses the ability to perform her office, despite her conviction that she can do so sans any of the requisite training. Though she does encounter real sexism, she allows this opposition to poison both her early relationship with Kirk and her whole concept of the "indignity" of being female. Certainly Lester is no feminist icon. She wants what she wants for herself alone, and, had she succeeded, it's hard to imagine her doing anything to lift up the position of women in Starfleet.

STAR TREK: "ALL OUR YESTERDAYS" (1969)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological*


In response to a sun very close to going nova, the Usual Gang of Three beam down to the planet Sarpeidon (named, for no reason I can see, after a Greek king best known for his imposture of the god Zeus). Federation records show that the planet should have a booming population, but scanners can only locate one life-form on the planet, in its library. Kirk, Spock and McCoy meet an old man, Mister Atoz (as in "A-to-Z"), who mistakes them for natives. Impervious to the crewmen's questions, Atoz insists that because the sun is going nova, they must quickly make use of a library-device called "the atavachron."

"Yesterdays" is a clever time-travel concept, positing that the entire population of a doomed planet chooses to go back to their earlier historical time-frames, so that they can live out normal lives rather than being killed outright. In addition, the story coheres with a trope occasionally seen in other TREK episodes: the fear of atavism, that the inhabitants of a contemporary society may regress to the customs or attitudes of an earlier era.

Kirk is responsible for mucking things up this time: he hears a woman scream just past a door in the atavachron, and he blunders through it. Transported to a Renaissance-like time-frame, he saves a woman who happens to be a petty thief, but by so doing gets locked up, accused of being a devil-worshiping witch. Spock and McCoy are just as reckless, following the captain but ending up in another world, dominated by unceasing snow and ice.

Kirk does get some aid when he fortuitously encounters one of the modern-day Sarpeidonians, now masquerading as a man of an earlier time. Spock and McCoy are succored by a lone woman, Zarabeth, who was exiled to the ice-time by political opponents, and who exists in lonely exile. Though she helps Spock save McCoy from frostbite, she soon covets the Vulcan romantically. For his part, Spock begins to regress in a physical sense-- unlike Kirk and McCoy-- as he begins to respond the way a savage Vulcan would have in the same time-frame. Though the science doesn't make much sense, the scenes of Spock's near-seduction by Zarabeth speak both to the fear of cultural regression and the threat of the feminine.

Naturally, Kirk's progress back to the real world doesn't have nearly as much dramatic heft as the return of Spock and McCoy, to say nothing of the tragedy of Zarabeth, Spock's final love in the original series-- who is, from the perspective of his own time, "long dead," though obviously alive in his Vulcan heart.

STAR TREK: "THE SAVAGE CURTAIN" (1969)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological*


Though Gene Roddenberry was no longer the showrunner for the series' third season, he made his presence felt through his scripts, particularly this one and the last broadcast episode "Turnabout Intruder." "Savage Curtain" has much of the feel of a second-season episode, in which the "stars" of the Enterprise, Kirk and Spock, must defend the goodness of their civilization against the spectres of evil from both inside and outside that civilization. (I have no idea what the title references, though it's been stated that Roddenberry was loosely satirizing serial TV's propensity for simple good/evil battles, and so the "curtain" of the title may be related to the custom of using a curtain to conceal the workings of actors on a stage.)

For once the Enterprise isn't looking for some medical cure; they're just making a scientific examination of a volcanic planet, Excalbia. (If that's a reference of Arthur's sword Excalibur, it seems a singularly muddled one.) The inhabitants of the planet somehow scan the ship without influencing any of the ship's sensors, and then begin an experiment to test the Federation visitors. In addition to clearing an area on the planet so that it will permit human existence, the aliens send Abraham Lincoln, or a facsimile thereof, to visit the ship. Since Lincoln is a great hero in the mind of Kirk, the captain consents to respond to an invitation to visit the planet's surface, along with Spock and the Lincoln-copy (who apparently believes that he is the real thing). On the planet Spock then meets one of his heroes, the Vulcan philosopher Surak, whose moral reforms overthrew the savage histories of the Vulcan people. Surak also believes that he is the real deal, but moments later one of the Excalbians appears-- a volcanic rock-monster-- who admits outright that the copies are Excalbians who have taken the form of long-dead heroes in order to participate in the "spectacle" of a good vs. evil battle.

Four more Excalbians appear: one a real-life Asian, Genghis Khan, and the other a metaphorical one, Kahless, the culture hero of the nasty Klingons. Filling out the quartet is Colonel Green, a mendacious Hitler-type who may have been related to the series' "eugenics wars," and Zoia, a criminal scientist who may be another of Roddenberry's "Lady Macbeth" figures. Though none of these famous villains are real, they like Lincoln and Surak act as if they were the real thing, and soon the battle of good and evil is drawn. After various contests which show the heroes at their best and the villains at their worst, Lincoln, Surak and Green are slain and the other evildoers flee. The rock-man re-appears and asks for more definition of the distinctions of good and evil. He accepts Kirk's explanation of basic altruism, and the Enterprise is allowed to go its merry way.

Though I'm sure modern viewers would be impatient with Roddenberry's occasional tendency to demonize Asians, it should be remembered that he was surely not advocating racism as such, but taking the then-common view of Asian culture as overly static and thus opposed to the advancement of representative democracy. If the episode was really meant to satirize the simplicity of TV programming, it's spectacularly unsuccessful.

STAR TREK: "THE CLOUD MINDERS" (1969)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological*


After due consideration, I've decided that "The Cloud Minders" deserves the honor of "Worst Classic Trek Episode." It's a preachy tale about the conflict of "the haves" and "the have nots," possibly loosely derived from Lang's METROPOLIS, and it treats both Kirk and Spock more moronically than any comparable episodes, such as "Whom Gods Destroy."

For the second and last time in this series, I'll reference remarks of David Gerrold from his book THE WORLD OF STAR TREK. At one point, he comments on the major changes in the story he co-wrote with Oliver Crawford once a third writer, Margaret Armen, produced the final filmed script.

in the telecast version, the whole problem was caused by Zenite gas in the mines, and "if we can just get them troglytes to all wear gas masks, then they'll be happy little darkies and they'll pick all the cotton we need..."

Somehow, I think it lost something in the translation.

The "cloud minders" of the title-- who are also the "haves" of the story-- are implicitly the inhabitants of the aerial city Stratos on the planet Ardana. The planet is rich in a mineral called "zenite" which happens to be of great use for one of the Enterprise's many medical missions. (It may not be coincidence that the name of the mineral resembles the Greek word for "stranger," best known for its contribution to the familiar word "xenophilia.") Kirk and Spock beam down to Ardana to pick up a consignment of xenite, but they don't seem to have any advance intelligence on the planet's political situation. Not only are both crewmen surprised to find out that the surface of the planet is dominated by a subset of Ardanans called "Troglytes," they're also astonished when a dissident group attacks them after hijacking the needed minerals. There doesn't seem to be any real reason for the dissidents to attack soldiers of the Federation, aside to provide a big fight at the episode's opening. Later, the group's female leader Vanna attacks Kirk in his Stratos bedchamber, apparently wishing to kill rather than capture him, for reasons that make no more sense than the earlier assault.

In any case, after Kirk and Spock quell the dissident force, Plasus, leader of Stratos, shows up with his guards and takes Vanna into custody. The newcomers are promised that their zenite will eventually be located, and in the meantime they get a tour of Stratos, a repository of high art and philosophical meditation. Spock is particularly charmed by Droxine, the lovely daughter of Plasus, and though their flirtation is relatively restrained, Spock's willingness to discuss his people's mating-urges flies in the face of his established character. Soon both heroes learn that the Troglytes are kept under the thumb of Plasus's corrupt authority, and so Kirk determines that the best way to assure the Federation's supply of zenite is to overthrow that authority by forcing the "haves" to dicker with the "have nots."

Kirk's methods of so doing are a good deal more high-handed than most of his other empire-building activities, but he's under the influence of an invisible gas from the zenite minerals. As noted in the quote above, this was not one of Gerrold's ideas, and it's admittedly not a particularly good one. However, I dispute Gerrold's conclusion. I believe the zenite is a stand-in for all of the environmental factors that plagued marginalized people in the real world, since it's made clear that once Vanna has been removed from the surface with its debilitating effects, her intellect is the equal of any Stratos citizen. It may be that Armen wanted some such contrivance to explain how the societal bifurcation came about, given that most of the Troglytes and the Stratos-citizens are Caucasians (aside from one Stratos guard, who just happens to be played by Fred Williamson, later famous for a series of B-action films).

But even without my agreeing with Gerrold's "happy darkies" interpretation, "Cloud Minders" is dismally preachy, with tedious action-sequences (particularly Kirk fighting a robed, middle-aged man at the climax) and all those ghastly, grating flirtation-scenes between Spock and Droxine, which don't even serve any real purpose in the plot.

STAR TREK: "THE WAY TO EDEN" (1969)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *cosmological, sociological*


"The Way to Eden" gets as much of an unjustified bad reputation as does "Spock's Brain," and for comparable reasons: the phrase "space hippies" ineluctably carries the same intimations of absurdity found in "brain thieves from an Amazon planet."

I've always sympathized with "Eden," however, in that its writers made an attempt, however muddled, to confront the sociological issues suggested by the hippie movement in the sixties. Most of STAR TREK's contemporaries, such as IRONSIDE and even THE MOD SQUAD, showed not a scintilla of insight about what the movement might signify in a larger sense. TREK's sci-fi universe allowed its writers to take a more "cosmic" perspective.

"Eden" is another of the "Enterprise gets hijacked" episodes, the hijack-ees being a band of futuristic youngsters who don't dig the rigidity of Federation life. Their one concession to the over-thirty crowd is their leader Doctor Sevrin, a scientist loosely patterned after the real-life guru Timothy Leary. However, Sevrin doesn't want his acolytes to "turn on" or "tune in" to LSD, but rather to "drop out" of Federation culture entirely, by finding a mythical planet called "Eden." There's no attempt to strictly correlate this planet with the sacred garden of the Bible, though it's no coincidence that one of the more prominent hippies is named 'Adam." However, Kirk, having picked up the juvenile delinquents following their theft of a space cruiser, has no interest in their quest. Spock, the eternal outsider, proves somewhat more sympathetic to the ideals of these disaffected youths, and gives them a certain amount of aid and comfort. It's a testament to both the script and Nimoy's acting that this investment doesn't seem to conflict with Spock's vaunted preference for logic over emotion.

Aside from Sevrin-- whom Spock discerns to be insane-- and Adam, the only other prominent member of the hippie-troupe is Irina, a former girlfriend of Ensign Chekhov. In the first version of the script, her character was going to be the estranged daughter of Doctor McCoy. In THE WORLD OF STAR TREK David Gerrold laments the change, but I consider it a horribly derivative concept, the sort of thing MOD SQUAD did to death. I seem to remember that Walter Koenig also expressed dissatisfaction with the change, possibly because it made his character the rule-bound "heavy" who was trying to bring the cheery hippie chick down. However, given Chekhov's status as a Starfleet officer, one might expect him to be less than liberal toward anyone professing anti-Federation sentiments. Indeed, Koenig's tense romantic scenes with actress Mary-Lynn Raypele provide Koening with his best scenes in the series.

Though the space hippies temporarily lull the "straights'" suspicions with music and good cheer, Sevrin eventually launches his plan to take over the ship, fly to the world of Eden (whose location Spock provided), and kill the entire crew in order to cover their tracks. The freaks (all of whom are not aware of Sevrin's fatal plot) descend to Eden. Though none of the Enterprise crew would seem to have any defense against Sevrin's death-device, Kirk manages to destroy the machine just by dint of his being the main hero. When Kirk, Spock and Chekhov give pursuit, the hippies have suffered a rude awakening: their attempt to "go back to nature" shows them that nature is literally "red in tooth and claw." Sevrin and Adam perish for their presumptousness, but contrary to David Gerrold, the message doesn't get dumbed down to "there ain't no free rides." Indeed, in the final scene Spock provides an encomium on the ideals of the hippies as he says farewell to Irina:

Miss Galliulin. It is my sincere wish that you do not give up your search for Eden. I have no doubt but that you will find it, or make it yourselves.

STAR TREK: "REQUIEM FOR METHUSELAH" (1969)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological, sociological*


Jerome Bixby's script "Requiem for Methuselah" is a strikingly ingenious twist on both its immediate influence, the 1956 film FORBIDDEN PLANET and its influence, Shakespeare's play THE TEMPEST.

In the play, the magician Prospero has been exiled to a lonely isle, in the company of a savage named Caliban, the spirit Ariel, and his daughter Miranda, who grows to womanhood on the island. As Miranda reaches the crux of maturation, Prospero perceives a ship nearing the isle and uses his magic to strand several passengers on the isle. This action results in the romance of a young man, Ferdinand, with Miranda, and this seems to be Prospero's main project, prompted, perhaps, by an incident wherein Miranda was sexually menaced by Caliban. Thus one interpretation is that the magician wants his daughter to have a strong male protector, though at least one academic critic argued that Prospero really wants to protect Miranda from his own buried lusts-- and around this roughly Freudian idea the film FORBIDDEN PLANET was based.

"Requiem" starts with another medical emergency, though this time it's the actual crew of the Enterprise who have been infected by "Rigellian fever." Kirk, Spock and McCoy (none of whom have the disease, apparently) beam down to an obscure planet known to have deposits of a curative mineral, ryetalin. The trio are surprised to meet a solitary individual named Flint, who claims to own the planet and has a floating robot (the story's "Ariel") to enforce his wishes. Though initially inhospitable, Flint relents when he identifies with the horror of plague, and even offers to use his resources to collect and refine the needed mineral.

Flint is not quite alone on his world, for a young woman, Rayna Kopec. lives with him as his ward. He does not intend her to encounter the crewmen at all, but she pleads to meet the outsiders, who are the first men she's ever seen aside from Flint. For reasons of his own, Flint allows her to interact with the trio. While Spock is more fascinated with the mystery of Flint's art collection, which has a number of uncatalogued ancient masterpieces, Kirk becomes enthralled by Rayna.

SPOILERS, obviously...

Bixby's ingenious twist puts his "Prospero" in the situation of a hunter using a stalking-horse for an ulterior motive. Rayna is not a human being, but an ageless android, whom Flint, also an immortal, has designed to be his companion for eternity. His problem, intimated in Rayna's first scene, is that the android is largely passive and without emotion, except when intrigued by the newcomers. Whereas it seems that Prospero really intends to bind together Ferdinand and Miranda, Flint hopes that Rayna will become emotionally "charged" by falling in love with Kirk, after which he Flint will simply "take over."

In FORBIDDEN PLANET, though Morbius never evinces visible lust for his own daughter, he's patently jealous when he loses his offspring's regard to a youthful paramour. This causes Morbius to unleash a figurative "demon," loosely modeled upon TEMPEST's Caliban. Flint is more of a planner like Prospero, though his game is much longer. That said, some of his moves are short-sighted, in particular by failing to reveal to Rayna her own artificial nature. The end-scene, in which Flint tells Kirk and Co "the facts of unlife," accidentally bestows this knowledge on Rayna, who apparently overhears the entire exchange (though the direction does not emphasize this fact). Kirk and Flint both make impassioned demands upon Rayna's burgeoning feelings. and then fight over her, bringing about a tragic conclusion.  (This outcome also has the bonus effect of leaving Kirk free and clear, though in point of fact Kirk's romance with Rayna is his last one for the Classic series.)

Freudian psychologizing aside, "Requiem" is the equal of any other season's meditations on the significance of human emotions and passions, which, as the episode ends, even allows for a sort of expression of "love" in Vulcan terms.

STAR TREK: "THAT WHICH SURVIVES," "THE LIGHTS OF ZETAR" (1969)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: (1) *fair,* (2) *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *cosmological*


These two TREK episodes are very woman-centric, leading me to wonder if this was a conscious change of course on the part of the third season's showrunner Fred Frieberger. That said, neither of the female characters featured here are any sort of match for either Miranda Jones or Elaan of Troyius.

"That Which Survives" is basically another "white-knuckle" thriller, in which the peril is entirely external in nature. Kirk, McCoy, Sulu and a disposable redshirt beam down to an uncharted planet to explore it. They unknowingly trigger a programmed defense-routine, which begins with a strange woman (Lee Meriwether) appearing aboard the Enterprise, killing the transport-officer just as the quartet beams down. This peculiar action is followed by a more extreme defensive action, as a mysterious force from the planet propels the ship millions of light-years away.

Spock, commanding the Enterprise, attempts to return to their origin-point, but the strange woman, whose name is eventually revealed as Losira, appears once more aboard ship and sabotages the antimatter drive, so that the ship is in danger of blowing up. Yet Losira also appears on the planet with the four castaways, and kills the redshirt (whom she calls by name) with a touch and the enigmatic phrase, "I am for you."

Losira disappears, appears again and almost kills Sulu, at which point Kirk and McCoy discover that she can only kill the person she's programmed to kill. Thus the narrative follows two parallel courses: Spock and the dour Mister Scott laboring to undo the ship's damage, and the three castaways seeking to avoid death long enough to uncover the planet's secret. Turns out that "Losira" is a simulacrum of a woman long dead from plague, who set up the defense system to protect the world, until her people returned to it. The two plots come together when Spock comes to the rescue and foils the computer-system.

Since all of the copies of Losira are artificial, there's not a lot of dramatic potential in them, though she does serve as a conduit for the tragedy of her people's demise. That said, there's not much logic in the computer making the simulacrum attack individual people on the ship, or sabotage the ship either. If the computer has power enough to fling a starship away, why wouldn't it just destroy the Enterprise outright? (I know, because that would've ended the history.) The scenes on the planet, though, redeem the episode, and the actors do a good job coping with the mystery.

"The Lights of Zetar" refers to a coterie of energy-aliens who pursue and continually attack the Enterprise, though the script never clarifies the aliens' reason for so doing. But the story is far more interested in its "A" story, that of Engineer Scott falling in love with a new officer on the ship, Lieutenant Mira Romaine (Jan Shutan). Indeed, a voiceover by Captain Kirk meditates on the profound consequences of the engineer shifting his devotion to the Enterprise to a human-type woman. However, the only real consequence is that when the Zetar-Lights target Romaine for what seems like a sci-fi version of an old-fashioned demonic possession.

Romaine, unfortunately, is such a terribly underwritten character that it's impossible to tell if the actress could've done better with a good character. The first thing the audience learns about her, thanks to an exchange between Chekhov and Sulu, is that she's supposed to be "the brainy type," but sexy enough that Mister Scott probably "hasn't noticed that she has a brain." However, Romaine never says or does anything particularly brainy, and the most she can do, once the Zetar-Lights target her, is to act peevish. Scott, for his part, has only one response: frenetic protectiveness toward Romaine, though nothing he does or says materially advances the plot. (There is one moment when the possessed Romaine zaps him and he survives, which he interprets as the real lieutenant holding back.)

After a lot of dancing around, Kirk and Co somehow deduce that they can kill off the energy-aliens by subjecting their possessee to a pressure chamber-- which sounds quite a bit like exorcist-practices for driving out demons. The Lights die out, Scotty's happy, and Romaine recovers but is never seen again.