Castiglione Discusses Star Trek: The Conscience of the King

This article was first posted on September 8, 2010. It is presented in its entirety with some minor changes.

More police procedural than science fiction, The Conscience of the King also presents another side to the brash Captain Kirk, a side which was explored (albeit under extraordinary conditions) in The Enemy Within. Here, we're presented with Captain Kirk as Hamlet, indecisive and hesitant, when confronted with the fact that a mass-murderer from his past is not dead as was thought but alive and on the Enterprise. Maybe the fact that he has developed feelings for the mass-murderer's pretty, young daughter, Lenore, has something to do with his reluctance to act on the evidence that he has gathered? Or maybe the captain realizes that human memory is fallible and if one is to accuse a man of having ordered the executions of over 4,000 men, women and children, one had better be certain that he has the right man.

Eugenics-inspired mass-murderer? Or itinerant stage actor? Or both? After 20 years, it's difficult to be certain...

The Conscience of the King is one of the better of the early episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series, due in no small part to the development of Captain Kirk's character as well as the relationship between Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy. Also of particular interest in this episode are:

1. Mr. Spock's concern for Lt. Kevin Riley's emotional well-being when the latter is "demoted" back to engineering and
2. The 33-year old Captain Kirk's obviously carnal interest in the 19-year old Lenore.

The 33-year old James. T. Kirk tongue fences with the 19-year old Lenore

The first point is interesting since the logical Vulcan in Mr. Spock shouldn't even have considered the possibility of Lt. Riley being upset at his transfer as being significant; I guess his human half isn't quite as suppressed as Mr.Spock would like to believe. The second point is interesting because of how it illustrates a point I've brought up before: Science fiction tends to reflect the mores of the era in which it was written. Now, I wasn't alive back in the 60's but I'm guessing a man in his 30's pursuing a 19-year old girl as aggressively as Kirk was pursuing Lenore wasn't considered inappropriate back then; if this episode were written nowadays, I would speculate that the screen-writers would opt to age Lenore a few years in order to minimize the ick factor or have Kirk limit his interactions with her to the occasional avuncular pat on the head followed by a lollipop or an ice-cream cone.

Star Trek: The Menagerie

This article was first posted on September 7, 2010. It is presented in its entirety with some minor changes.

The Menagerie gives us a tantalizing glimpse of what Star Trek might have been, had the first pilot, The Cage, been accepted by NBC; instead of the brash James T. Kirk, the Enterprise is commanded by an intense, almost grim (and definitely humorless) Christopher Pike, the first officer is a woman, Mr. Spock is still the science officer but is embarrassingly (by Vulcan standards) emotional and the ship's doctor is one half country doctor a la Leonard McCoy and one half Mentat. Had The Cage been given the green-light, Star Trek, as we know it, would have been quite different.

Christopher Pike displaying a very un-Kirk-like mien

As a means of showcasing the story of Captain Pike and his crew, The Menagerie adequately performs the task at hand. As an episode of Star Trek: The Original Series in its own right, it doesn't quite gel; most of the dialogue is exposition leading up to yet another segment of the story of Captain Pike's encounter with the Talosians and too much of the story jury-rigged around The Cage doesn't make any sense: Why were the Talosians willing to help Christopher Pike given the outcome of their first encounter with the captain? Why did Mr. Spock have to do what he did when the Talosians, who were evidently able to project their illusions as far as Starbase 11, could have, by their own machinations, brought Christopher Pike to Talos IV? Why did Christopher Pike keep signaling "No" in response to Spock's actions but then reverse himself when the Enterprise finally settled into orbit around Talos IV? All these problems in The Menagerie betray its origins as nothing more than a vehicle for presenting the footage filmed for The Cage.

Who watches the watchers? The crew of the USS Enterprise from The Menagerie watches the crew of the USS Enterprise from The Cage. Meanwhile, the Talosians (off-screen) are watching everyone. And we, the audience, are watching them all

On a positive note, The Menagerie further develops Mr. Spock's character as well as his relationship with Dr. McCoy; we are treated to Mr. Spock braving the death penalty so that his former commander can live out his days unfettered by his broken body and it is Dr. McCoy who vigorously defends Mr. Spock when Captain Kirk voices doubts about his honesty concerning recent events.

Star Trek: The Carbomite Maneuver

This article was first posted on September 3, 2010. It is presented in its entirety with some minor changes.

The Enterprise's crew encounters the flagship of the "First Federation" that is crewed by an alien being, Balok, who falls prey to possibly the worst bluff in the history of bad bluffs. To escape certain death, Captain Kirk claims that the Enteprise has incorporated into it something called Carbomite, which he describes as being both a material and a device which guarantees mutually assured destruction should anyone attack them.

Huh?

Just what is this supposed to mean?

And just how did this bluff work on anyone possessing more than two neurons to rub together?

It's a good thing that Harry Mudd wasn't along for this voyage of the USS Enterprise, otherwise, he probably would have introduced the people of the "FirstFederation" to poker and cleaned those suckers out and touched off an interstellar incident.

The Carbomite Maneuver is noteworthy for something else besides Captain Kirk saving the day through the use of a bluff so unbelievably that it might as well be classified as a deus ex machina. For one thing, it's one of the few episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series where the Enterprise's crew actually venture off to where no man has gone before.

It also posits that an alien civilization that is advanced enough to be capable of space-flight must also be capable of understanding and appreciating the Enterprise's mission of peace.

In light of the Enterprise crew's later run-ins with the Romulans and Klingons, not to mention the Gorn, this seems like a pretty naive position to take.

Star Trek: Dagger of the Mind

This article was first posted on September 1, 2010. It is presented in its entirety with some minor changes.

I have a problem with this episode. Just what motive did Dr. Adams have for doing what he did? Was it megalomania? Was he trying to make a better world (or universe, in this case)? Was it hubris? Was he convinced that he had arrived at the method of rehabilitating criminal minds? Was he just bat-shit crazy? We, the viewers, aren't given an inkling of what motivated him to build the neural neutralizer and begin turning it on whoever happened to draw his ire.

Dr. Adams, villain of the week. What's his motivation for the evil acts he perpetrates in this episode? Did his parents not buy him a puppy to love and to hold when he was a boy? Is he just bat-shit crazy? Inquiring minds want to know!

This is probably one of the weaker of the early Star Trek: The Original Series episodes. The villain is nothing more than a two-dimensional caricature, doing evil simply for the sake of being evil. Its one saving grace is Marianna Hill, who plays the ridiculously beautiful Dr. Helen Noel, whom Dr. McCoy mischievously assigns as Kirk's assistant, knowing the two had "met" at a Christmas party. Even the stoic Mr. Spock seems to check her out when he and Kirk meet up with her in the Enterprise's transporterroom.

Dr. Helen Noel, eye candy of the week

I can't say that I blame him.

Alien: The Director's Cut

This article was first posted on August 30, 2010. It is presented in its entirety with some minor changes.

I have mixed feelings about Alien: TheDirector's Cut. On one hand, the insertion of never before seen footage provides us with a perspective on the life cycle of the Alien different from the Alien as social insect analogue used in Aliens. On the other hand, the insertion of the footage interferes with the taut pacing of the original, especially when one considers when in the sequence of events leading up to the film's climax Ripley discovers the Alien's nest in the Nostromo; the atmosphere is one of urgency after Ripley finds Parker's and Lambert's mutilated bodies and subsequently initiates the Nostromo's self-destruct sequence and it is during her almost frenzied rush to the Nostromo's lifeboat/shuttle that she discovers the nest and spends valuable minutes that she can ill afford to lose (given the self-destruct mechanism's ten minute timer) exploring the nest and euthanizing, for lack of a better word, Dallas and Brett, who she finds cocooned and slowly metamorphosing into Alien eggs. Had she found the nest prior to initiating the Nostromo's self-destruct sequence, the inclusion of this scene may have worked. In its present place, it detracts from the urgency of Ripley's plight.

Be that as it may, details of the Alien life cycle presented in this scene give us a tantalizing glimpse of what may have been had this footage not been excised in the original theatrical release. The first sequel, Aliens, would have certainly been different, since there wouldn't have been an Alien queen to act as Ripley's foil. Speaking of Aliens, the more I've watched Alien (either the original theatrical release or the director's cut), the more dissatisfied I've grown with its sequel. My primary gripe is on differences in the way the Alien was portrayed in the two films; in the first film, the Alien is an ambush predator that establishes a perch from which it slowly and stealthily approaches its victims before seizing them and dragging them to its lair where they can be cocooned; in the second film, the ambush predator is no more and we are treated to the Alien as a target amongst many in a shooting gallery, which, to be fair, is probably consistent with the vision of the Alien as social insect presented in the film.

Frankly, I prefer the vision of the Alien presented in the original film. To quote the android, Ash: [The Alien is a] perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility. [It is] a survivor... unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality.

This vision of the Alien didn't survive the transition from the original film to the sequel and, frankly, I think it's a pity.

Where I Discuss Serenity

This article was first posted on August 29, 2010. It is presented in its entirety with some minor changes.

I wasn't a big fan of Serenity when I first saw it, and I'm afraid I'm still not a fan. Watching Serenity (the Firefly pilot) and Serenity (the Firefly movie) back to back merely served to highlight all the gripes I had about Serenity (the Firefly movie). The television pilot (and series) featured an ensemble cast and while the movie started off that way, it eventually turned into Buffy the Vampire Slayer (or, in this case, River the Reaver Slayer) and a bunch of people who she magnanimously puts up with. It didn't help that Malcolm Reynolds, the only other strong character in the movie, seemed to have undergone a complete personality shift somewhere in between Objectsin Space (the last episode in the series) and Serenity (the Firefly movie). In fact, I found Mal's personality shift so jarring that I almost felt I wasn't watching the original Firefly cast but their Mirror Universe counterparts.

I could have forgiven the inconsistencies in Mal's characterization in the movie as opposed to the series (after all, a bit of time was supposed to have passed and people do change) but I really found the resolution of River's story arc to be really difficult to stomach. I may be in the minority here but I find the concept of omnipotent and omniscient heroes to be, well, boring. During the series, while it was obvious that River had some unique and powerful abilities, the fact that she was off in la-la land half the time prevented her from being too obtrusive. Once she was "cured" of her psychological ailments, she became...boring. And obtrusive. And speaking of how she was "cured", it was simply too neat and tidy: River sees a holographic recording of Ms. Exposition describe how an entire planetful of people just decided to lay down and die, how the Reavers came to be and after witnessing the bloody climax of the recording (Ms. Exposition getting raped and eaten alive by a Reaver), River purges her demons by vomiting against a nearby wall after which she declares: "I'm alright...I'm alright". Huh? What? This was most unsatisfying considering everything that she and Simon went through during the course of Firefly's fourteen episodes.

Yeah, we get it. She's cured. And a total badass now

Personally, I think the movie would have been much more satisfying had River died; if she had simply closed the blast doors, tossed Simon's medical kit through the doors before they closed and then gotten killed by the Reavers, the movie would have been much better. We would have been spared the rather difficult to swallow scenes of her wading through the Reavers and piling their corpses up like cordwood and River sacrificing herself to save her brother and the others would have been very poignant, on par with Spock sacrificing himself to save the Enterprise and her crew in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Her dying to save her brother would also have lent thematic symmetry to their story arc. And more important of all, we would have been spared the exchange between River and Mal at the film's end where we realize that she can essentially do everything that everyone on the crew can (and probably do a better job of it) which leaves us with the question of what purpose they serve now.

Spock saves the Enterprise and its crew in a selfless act of heroism

Of course, having River die in Serenity probably would not have sat well with many Firefly fans, especially since almost a third of the original cast ended up getting killed off in the film. River dying probably would have resulted in grief-stricken Firefly fans converging upon JossWhedon's home with torches and pitchforks in hand and bloody vengeance in their hearts. However, I find nothing wrong with the idea of the hero dying in a story. I thought the Star Trek moviefranchise would have been much better had Spock stayed dead in the aftermath of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (if anything, it could have opened up some interesting story-lines about how Kirk and the rest of the crew dealt with their grief and eventually got on with their lives) and I thought Lethal Weapon 2 would have been a much better movie had Riggs died in Murtaugh's arms. There's nothing wrong with the hero dying, either in the act of saving the lives of others or avenging a loved one.

If anything, it's heroic.

Star Trek: Miri

This article was first posted on August 24, 2010. It is presented in its entirety with some minor changes.

If science fiction captures the concerns and fears prevalent in the era in which it was written, I can only come to the conclusion that people in the mid-60's were scared shitless of children.

In Miri, they are everywhere. And these aren't just normal children.

Think children raised by wolves are bad? Think again. Children raised by children are even scarier. At least, I assume that's how people felt in the 60's. Or at least that's what the writers felt. I can only assume that they were parents.

Frankly, if children were anything like how they were portrayed in Miri, I'd be scared of children, too. The children in Miri are not just obnoxiously disobedient, they even have a penchant for violence and murder.

What's that?

The children didn't kill anyone in this episode?

Apparently, denial isn't just a riverin Egypt. You can't tell me that they learned that bonking someone on the head with an object with some heft to it (like, say, a hammer) is an efficacious means of depriving them of life just by reading it in a book. For one thing, I doubt those little savages could read. No, rest assured, they learned all that through experience.

300 years of murderous experience.

Bonk bonk on the head! Bonk bonk! Bonk bonk! The head being bonked is Kirk's

Besides the interesting views on children that must have been held by this episode's writers, Miri is notable for being the first of the "another Earth" episodes. However, this angle isn't used to its full potential and it really wouldn't make any difference to the story if it were expunged. Also of interest is the continuing evolution of the Kirk-Spock-McCoy triumvirate; Spock and McCoy go at it like an old married couple but I'm not sure if their catty exchanges really count since McCoy was going mad due to the effects of an alien plague. Spock continues to display emotion and a dry sense of humor. And Janice Rand reveals to Kirk that she's been trying to get him to check out her gams for quite some time. I bet she's embarrassed she let that slip out. I guess the take-home lesson of all this is, if you're going to contract a killer virus that makes you go mad and causes you to reveal your embarrassing secret longings, avoid hanging around people about whom you have those embarrassing secret longings.

Yeoman Rand finally gets Kirk to notice her, although not under the best of circumstances