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Trek Review: “The Conscience of the King”

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Shakespeare is the beast that speaks to a lot of people’s souls.  The Bard’s writings are often quoted in a lot of Star Trek series and movies over the last 50 years.  This episode, “The Conscience of the King” is unique in that the participants are actually doing Shakespeare out in space.

They are a touring company, led by Anton Karidian and his daughter Lenore, as they put it in the script:

another in a series of living plays presented in space, dedicated to the tradition of classic theater.

But there is a hitch, Anton might actually be Kodos the Executioner, a figure who declared martial law on a planet where the food supplies had run out some time ago.  And if that wasn’t bad enough, the people who could identify him (his body was never found) are dying left and right and the actors happen to be nearby.  Captain Kirk was one of them.

Now you may ask yourself at this point, “Is this Star Trek? Is this a story that fits into the narrative of this show?”  Well, yes and no.  Trek would deviate more from the norm as later series unfolded.  The list is too long to go into in this post, but you get the idea.

The story is a good premise, but where I find it lacking is the fact that in a futuristic society such as the 23rd century… how could the Karidians get away with it for so long?  Are the authorities who investigate things just so inept with more advanced tools than was available in 1966, and surely in 2016, to not be able to detect where Kodos was this whole time?  Or for that matter that Lenore was committing the murders of seven of the eyewitnesses before the events on the Enterprise unfolded?  I find that very hard to believe.  One has to suspend their disbelief to the extreme in order to swallow the implications of that point.

Once the action gets on board the ship, a couple of questionable things happen.  The attempt on Kirk’s life is made by a phaser set to overload and put in his quarters in the flashing red alert light above his cabin door.  Now how in the world did Lenore get it in there without being discovered?  Where did she get a phaser?  As we find out later on, Riley (the other eyewitness who hasn’t been liquidated at this point) broke into a weapons locker and stole a phaser himself.  They sure don’t secure the weapons very well on this ship, do they?

Oh, and one more thing… in terms of the production order, this is Grace Lee Whitney’s last appearance on the series as Yeoman Janice Rand.  However, she doesn’t go out without a loose parting shot. Just check out this nasty look she gives Lenore Karidian:

If looks could kill…

Next week: another venerable alien race makes it’s Trek debut.

A Look Back at a Jack Benny Special

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December 1st, 1966.  If you were to sit down that night in front of your TV set all warmed up at 8:30pm Eastern time, you might have thought you would see Star Trek on NBC.  At that moment, you would be in for a shock.  Watch…

If you’re a little kid, that announcement at the beginning will probably make you say, “Noooo!” or “Gee whiz!“.   Me, the 1966 TV viewer at the ripe age of 37, would keep watching.   You can’t go wrong with a comedy legend like Jack Benny.  All of the sketches made me laugh.  What’s interesting in this special is the Smothers Brothers.  According to IMDB, their CBS variety show debuted on February 5, 1967.  What I’m guessing is that someone saw them on this special, or something prior to that, and thought that they should have their own show.  They were always hilarious.

The most memorable bit here is by far the Tijuana Strings with Mel Blanc doing the famous “Sy Si Sue Sew” bit that dates back to Benny’s earlier days.

A very hilarious hour indeed.

But wait, there more!

In Knoxville, what happened to this special?  If you’ll remember in this article, Star Trek was not seen on WATE.  So, with this special airing in that slot, there was only one solution.  Tape delay!

It was tape delayed to the following Sunday, December 4th, at 4:00pm.  And it might not have even played at that time because right before it on NBC was an AFL football game between the Boston Patriots and Buffalo Bills.  (Boston won 14-3, in case you’re curious.)   If I had to guess that game probably didn’t run over it’s 3 hour time slot, given for the fact that there were a *lot* less commercials during sports broadcasts in 1966 than there are today.  That’s another examination for another day, however.

The real thing to point out, however, is that if you look at the grid of what was on other stations, you will notice that on WRCB (Chattanooga’s NBC station) and WCYB (Bristol’s NBC station), you will see Meet the Press.  Wait, what?  That means WATE was preempting one network program with a tape delay of another network program that was preempted by a locally ran program.  That sounds totally bizarre, doesn’t it?

That’s why I like looking at old TV listings!

Trek Review: “The Menagerie” Part 2

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Part Two of “The Menagerie” is mainly dominated by the bulk of the first Star Trek pilot, “The Cage.”  As is standard practice here, I am going to assume that you, the reader, are already familiar with the show and have seen it.

The frame story here is not meant to be thrilling at all, but maybe rather just compelling.  Sure, Spock is on trial for his life (I could go off on a whole side rant about why the death penalty still exists in the 23rd Century…), but I guess we’re just intrinsically supposed to worry that Spock might get obliterated before the hour is over.

In hindsight, the whole experience of this two-part episode is really good.  I enjoyed it the first time I saw it, and I continue to enjoy it to this day.  The 1966 version of me would no doubt have felt the same way.

Next Thursday, Star Trek was preempted on NBC for a Jack Benny special.  So, in my attempt to restore the original look of the previews that aired each time, in this case, “The Conscience of the King,” I think it might have looked like this:

By the way, I will be writing a blog post next Thursday (at least.)  Stay tuned…

Trek Review: “The Menagerie” Part 1

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It wasn’t cheap to make Star Trek, even by 1960’s TV budget standards.  Fairly early on, the show was running into not only a money crunch, but was also coming dangerously close to not meeting their airdates.  It got to a point to where they probably would have to consider doing the show live, or even worse, in a gestational phase that is beyond description.

(That last sentence is not meant to be taken seriously.)

I have always thought that while Star Trek had its ups and downs in its first season on the air, it wasn’t as big of a struggle as it was to just get NBC to buy the show altogether.  As you probably well know, the first pilot, “The Cage“ was rejected for not being the series pilot they had hoped for.  That pilot cost over $600,000 to make and yet it was sitting around, collecting dust.  So, Gene Roddenberry devised an ingenious idea, to write a new frame story around the existing footage, and thus, you end up with a dynamic, excellent two-part episode.  Essentially, two episodes for the price of a lot less than one.

So, fast forward to November 10th.  The broadcast of “The Corbomite Maneuver” is on NBC, and at the end, the preview of next week’s show goes out on the air at approximately 9:28pm Eastern time.  The 1966 version of me, along with a lot of other people in the audience upon seeing the clips of the first pilot at the end of this preview, would have more than certainly been saying, “Who were those characters!?” 

I, the 1966 viewer, after seeing that promo most assuredly would have been locked in on this:  The frame story as written is a thing of beauty, giving a great added layer to the already great drama that was inherent in “The Cage”.  What you see of the first pilot (in this case having never seen it before) makes you want to see it again so you can see all of the nuances of the show that were different at this stage of the game.  My drive for information about what this pilot actually was would have been at the forefront.  Keep in mind however that the internet obviously wasn’t around then, so the best way I probably could have determined what that first pilot actually was and the story behind it would have been to take a trip to the local library and possibly look up Variety or Daily Variety.  However, a local library in Knoxville, TN probably wouldn’t have been getting that publication.

So, onward to Part 2, and take note here of some obvious differences between some things you hear in this Next Week preview and what you will hear in the show. More on that next week!

 

Trek Review: “The Corbomite Maneuver”

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We have arrived at the first Star Trek episode to be filmed after it was sold to NBC. This episode (and to a lesser degree, “Mudd’s Women”, the next episode filmed after this one) stands out as different from the episodes that followed in very subtle, and some not-so-subtle ways.

The story takes place almost entirely on the Enterprise, and involves Kirk having to outsmart and outguess a would-be enemy known as Balok of the First Federation ship, the Fesarius. What ends up happening is a test of Kirk’s intuition and resiliency. Thankfully for everyone involved, he passes with flying colors.

Now about those differences. First up:

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Check out that huge collar on Spock’s uniform.  Leonard Nimoy’s costume had to be in two halves so it could be taken off without damaging his time consuming makeup job.

Next:

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Uhura’s gold uniform.  She also wore this in “Mudd’s Women” before she changed to her red uniform with her appearance in “The Man Trap” (the 4th episode filmed in season one.)  I don’t know why they changed the color.  The best reason I can think of is that the red complemented her beauty more than the gold did.  Or at least that’s what I think.

Finally, from the “Before They Were Stars” department:

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Yes, that’s Ron Howard’s brother Clint as Balok.  I guess it pays to know people at Desilu.  After all, they did film “The Andy Griffith Show” at Desilu in Culver City.

The 1966 viewer in me would find this whole episode riveting and very fascinating.  It’s a great “ship in a bottle” bottle show.  It’s more emotionally intriguing in many aspects, albeit Kirk, McCoy, Spock and guest star Anthony Call as the navigator, Bailey.

Next week, we come upon an episode, which at least from the preview, made a lot of people probably say, “What the heck is that footage of those characters I don’t recognize!?!?”

Trek Review: “Dagger of the Mind”

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When I first saw this episode, it scared the living heck out of me.  There wasn’t necessarily anything scary on the screen, it was the story and the possibilities that were being discussed that scared me.  How very astute of a 12-year-old boy to think that such high concepts would scare him.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, just watch the preview of this episode and you’ll see what I mean.

In just that one minute preview, you realize the terror that a machine like the Neural Neutralizer can cause.

For my money, Morgan Woodward’s guest performance as Dr. Simon Van Gelder is arguably one of the best in the entire first season.  To just think of the depths of one’s talent you have to go to to play a tortured scientist who has been forced against his will to hide pertinent information, lest be subjected to great pain.  For someone to have to act that out is very, very tough for any actor.  I have read that Woodward had to take four days off after the filming of this episode because he probably was very drained from this.  Those were well deserved days off!

I, the 1966 TV viewer, would have been very mesmerized and impressed by what I would have seen.  This episode is a classic, at least as far as my standards are.  Top notch television.

One other thing:  during the script development for this story, Dr. Helen Noel wasn’t the one going to the planet, but one Yeoman Janice Rand was.  Even your more modest fans could see that that was a bad idea.  As has been noted by others, why in the world would you have a Yeoman go down to a rehabilitative colony?  The production staff wisely changed it to a specialist instead.  It made more sense for the overall plot.

That’s all for this week, next week, we go back to the very first episode filmed after the pilots:

Trek Review: “Miri”

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Life is a funny thing. Human bodies are constantly deteriorating, and one day, our mortality catches up with us and we perish. On a distant planet, one which for some reason is an exact duplicate of our planet Earth, some crackpot scientists tried to prolong the inevitable… only to create a biological disaster instead.

This is a very good story with some very interesting questions to ask about mankind and the constant search for the so called “Fountain of Youth.” We are a culture, as much today as in the 1960s, of trying to look, act, feel and preserve being as young as we can. Some people get caught up in pursuit of vanity that, while it’s not the worst thing in the world about mankind, sometimes some people can go a little too far.

Kim Darby plays Miri, just another girl on this planet that befriends the landing party, particularly Captain Kirk. She takes a liking to him of course. She handles the role with great sensitivity. Darby would, or course, go on to play a more famous film role in the John Wayne movie “True Grit” in 1969. Michael J. Pollard plays Jahn, a rather old looking pubescent teenager. His later claim to fame was in the Warren Beatty classic “Bonnie and Clyde.”

But, there is always one baffling thing for me in this episode. It’s the shot of the duplicate Earth:

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Look at that. Not a cloud or any sign of weather at all on this planet.  That… is very odd.  Now, granted, the special effects are a bit primitive and were the best they could do at the time, but come on, don’t you think they could have figured out a way to get some clouds on the planet?  Now, for comparison sake, here is what they did in the “revised visual effects version” of this episode:

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This is probably a rare thing in that revisionist history version of Star Trek that I think is an improvement.  I however have to stick to my laurels as a purist and live with it.

Now, there is one more thing to mention.  Me, the 1966 TV watcher, would have a tough time on this one.  Yes, it’s a good story with potential.  But, the first 30 minutes I would more than likely have been watching a special over on CBS (in place of the regular program My Three Sons)…

When I talked this programming decision quandary over with my husband Greg the other day, he said that he would watch the Peanuts special and hope for a repeat of Miri in the summer. I reminded him that that’s a risky chance as not all series episodes will get a summer repeat. In hindsight, luckily he was right, as Miri was indeed repeated on June 29, 1967.

The Great Pumpkin notwithstanding, this was a very memorable Trek, if not for the diseased adults, but certainly for the inane and annoying children saying BONK! BONK! BONK! repeatedly.

Next week, we delve into the mind and chew the scenery in one of the great guest starring performances in the whole series:

Trek Review: “What Are Little Girls Made Of?”

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This episode has always been kind of a hit-and-miss for me personally. It really shouldn’t be, given that it’s written by a great science fiction novelist in his own right, Robert Bloch.

How it comes across for me is that it’s a story that’s 80% there, but just missing a couple of things that could make it an all-out classic episode.

What always bothered me is having Christine Chapel in this story. She just happens to have signed onto a starship and this mission just happens to come up? Talk about convenient! If you were to go back and read some of the ideas suggested by Bloch in the earlier drafts of the story, you might find a potentially better tale, but the story is still a little problematic.

What shines in this episode is the guest starts, Michael Strong as Dr. Roger Korby and Ted Cassidy (whom you may remember as Lurch on “The Addams Family”) as Ruk, the android who doesn’t remember how old he is.
Their performances are quite stellar in this episode.

A cute moment I’ve always liked is the real Kirk planting the insult of Mr. Spock in his android duplicate’s mind…

“Mind your own business, Mr. Spock. I’m sick of your half-breed interference, do you hear?”

I’m not sure if that was suggested by Bloch or if that came in later script rewrites that Gene Roddenberry did on this episode, but nonetheless, it’s ingenious Kirk logic to set the wheels in motion to get out of the peril at hand.

If I were around in 1966, I would have felt the same as I do now after seeing this episode for the umpteenth time. It’s 80% good, but there’s still room for the story to be a little more solid.

That’s all for this week, next week… BONK BONK! BONK BONK!

Trek Review: “The Man Trap”

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Thursday night, September 8th, 1966 from 8:30pm-9:30pm on NBC is a sacred, historic time in television history.  It’s the debut of Star Trek.  Viewers were treated to the saga of the Enterprise visiting Planet M-113 and crossing paths with a monster that has come to be affectionately known as the “Salt Vampire.”

I can’t help but think after watching this show that the audience, unless they absolutely knew what they were watching, would be left bespectacled, but a tad confused.  Nobody had ever seen a show like this on television before.

To be quite honest, I probably would have felt the same way.  But, knowing my penchant for unusual ideas, I would have been fascinated to tune in again.  Just to see what they were cooking up next.

I always have a false impression that you always should be introducing characters in a series premiere.  One has to remember however, that Star Trek was never like that at all.  Even in the two pilots, there are little morsels here and there revealing character traits, but the background of all characters is something that was gradually added to over time.  As to whether or not this episode needed more introductory material, not really.  The plot is the point of this episode, any expository stuff is merely here to pad out the episode.

Speaking of opportunities for exposition, I call attention to a scene in the middle of the episode.  It’s when Yeoman Rand visits Sulu in the Botanical section.  I call your attention to the plant, named “Beauregard” (or “Gertrude” according to Sulu) in the center of the room.

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I don’t need to tell you that it is obviously someone’s hand.  Remember the show has a limited budget, folks.  It adds to the charm.

So, in summary.  From an average TV viewer’s perspective, what is my impression?  I would be encouraged by what I seen.  I would have probably hoped for a more spectacular story then a melodramatic monster-fest that this episode was to open the show.  But, not knowing the production challenges going on behind the scenes at the time to even get the show on the air by its airdates.

Next Week: “Charlie X”.