Star Trek - The City on the Edge of Forever (1967)

The City on the Edge of Forever is perhaps the most admired of all episodes of the original Star Trek series. It was episode 28 of the first season, was directed by Joseph Pevney and written by Harlan Ellison (although several other writers including Gene Roddenberry worked on the script). It first aired in the U.S. in April 1967.

The Enterprise has encountered a mysterious time displacement field and in a moment of confusion on the bridge Dr McCoy injects himself with a massive dose of a drug known to have drastic side-effects. And the side-effects are drastic indeed - he goes completely and homicidally crazy.

McCoy beams himself down onto the surface of a nearby planet. Kirk and Spock follow, and they find the source of the time displacement field - a time portal. MCoy hurls himself through the portal. Kirk and Spock again follow and find themselves on Earth, in the United States, in the midst of the Great Depression.

They need to get themselves some high technology to deal with their situation, which means Spock will have to build a computer from scratch using vacuum tubes and radio components.

They meet a girl. Not just any girl. This one is special. She’s special to Jim Kirk anyway. She is Edith Keeler (played by Joan Collins). Kirk is in love. Edith Keeler seems to have some mysterious connection to the time displacement field. She may in fact be the key to it. Which will live Kirk with a terrible choice to make.

This is such a well-known episode that you probably already know what happens but I’m not going to spoil it.

This is a story that grapples with the inherent problems of time travel such as time paradoxes and the possibility or impossibility of changing history. But there are moral complications, and emotional complications as well. The nature of these complications is revealed early because what matters is the way in which Kirk and Spock will respond to the dilemmas involved. The ideas would not have been startling to readers of science fiction in 1967 but they are more complex than you would generally expect in television science fiction of the era.

The moral and emotional quandaries involving love, death and duty are dealt with reasonably intelligenty. What I really liked is the avoidance of cheap sentimentality. That means that when the emotional punch comes it actually has more impact.

Harlan Ellison wrote the original script but major changes were made. Gene L. Coon and D.C. Fontana worked on it as did Roddenberry. Ellison wasn’t happy but it’s the sort of thing that happens in series television. Ideas that a writer thinks are great (and they may really be great ideas) are not necessarily going to work in the context of the series as a whole. Coon and Fontana were very good writers and they understood the Star Trek universe and they understood the characters. They retained Ellison’s core ideas but produced a script that worked as a Star Trek episode. The really surprising thing is that the end result is so very coherent and tightly structured.

One of the reasons it works is Joan Collins. Apart from being stunning she gives a nuanced performance. Edith is a likeable sympathetic character but she’s not perfect. She’s not quite a starry-eyed idealist but she makes decisions emotionally. Kirk is inclined to be driven by emotion as well but in his case it’s combined with a high sense of duty and an acceptance (albeit sometimes an unwilling acceptance) of reality.

Joan Collins and William Shatner make a wonderful romantic pairing. You know they’re made for each other.

For a casual Star Trek viewer the big surprise will be Shatner’s performance - it’s so controlled. Shatner is notorious for his overacting but when Shatner overacted he did so because he wanted to and he felt that the script called for it. When he felt that subtlety was required, as it is here, he would give a subtle performance.

This is a powerful moving story with some cool ideas. Is The City on the Edge of Forever really the best ever Star Trek episode? If it isn’t, it has to be damned close.

Some minor nitpicks. It’s supposed to be 1930. McCoy tells Edith he’s senior medical officer on the USS Enterprise. She naturally thinks he means the aircraft carrier. But the aircraft carrier Enterprise was not launched until 1936. Kirk is supposed to take Edith to see a Clark Gable movie, but in 1930 Clark Gable was a complete unknown.

The City on the Edge of Forever really is a must-see. If you've only ever seen the occasional Star Trek episode and you've never understood why it has such a cult following this episode just might convert you to the faith.

Star Trek Operation - Annihilate! (1967)

Operation - Annihilate! is the last of the twenty-nine episodes of the original Star Trek series. It was originally broadcast in April 1967. It was written by Steven W. Carabatsos.

I watched the whole of the first season a while back but for some unaccountable reason I overlooked this episode, an oversight which I am now correcting.

Mass insanity has been wiping out Federation colonies, spreading from one star system to another over the course of many years. Now it appears that it has reached the planet Deneva.

Captain Kirk has a personal stake in this - he has family on Deneva.

A team from the Enterprise beams to the planet’s surface where they are attacked by the obviously insane inhabitants. They do discover the cause of the problem - a plague of strange single-celled organisms, like dinner plate-sized amoeba. What they don’t know is how to destroy the creatures. If they cannot destroy these creatures then the mass insanity will spread to other planets, which means KIrk may have to take very drastic steps indeed to ensure that the organisms never leave the planet. Drastic steps, like nuking the entire planet and its one million inhabitants.

To make matters worse Spock has been infected. The good news is, they now know how it works. The infestation of this alien life form causes unbearable pain which results in madness. The bad news is, they have no idea how to treat the infestation without killing the patient. Being a Vulcan Spock can endure the pain, for a while at least. How long can Kirk wait before resorting to the nuclear option, which will mean Spock will have to be killed as well. And there’s a complication arising from that personal stake mentioned earlier.

This is obviously a paranoia episode, with the threat being more frightening because it’s mindless and irrational. Paranoia had been a major ingredient of much of American pop culture in the 50s but it was mostly anti-communist paranoia. This episode represents a much more 1960s type of paranoia - the fear of the whole of society being driven mad by inexplicable forces. This actually makes Operation - Annihilate! more in tune with modern sensibilities, with people responding in fear to things that cannot be seen (such as viruses).

The feel of the Deneva colony is interesting - bright airy with ultra-modernist buildings but rather sterile. And, with all the inhabitants cowering inside and the public space deserted, it’s spooky but in a subtle sort of way. The episode makes good use of the modernist architecture which can look friendly and cheerful with plenty of people around but with no people at all it looks a bit stark and inhuman. A bit like the universe perhaps, which doesn’t seem too terrifying if we imagine it teeming with life but seems absolutely horrifying if we imagine it as devoid of life.

The basic plot was already old by 1967. It’s reasonably well executed but it works mostly because of the acting by the three leads. Leonard Nimoy does a fine job of convincing us that he’s just barely managing to hold agonising pain at bay. William Shatner does just as well, conveying Kirk’s horror at the decisions he may have to make and his exasperation at his powerlessness to find a way out with commendable subtlety. Yes, William Shatner could be subtle when he wanted to be. DeForest Kelley is good as well, portraying Dr McCoy’s appalled horror when he makes what could be a very very costly error.

There are some overly contrived elements, including the old chestnut of the ludicrously simple solution to an apparently insoluble problem.

Star Trek has often been mocked for its aliens that look just like humans with funny eyebrows but in this episode it offers us a creepily alien alien - a life form so alien that any kind of mutual comprehension is impossible. This is an alien that just destroys because it’s in its nature to destroy. Aliens that have some agenda don’t seem as scary as aliens that will destroy us without even being aware of it (again, a bit like viruses).

The fact that the aliens remain enigmatic is both a strength and a weakness of this story, but on the whole it’s a strength. Trying to explain the motivations of aliens inevitably makes them seem less alien because the motivations usually end up sounding human - the desire for empire, greed, the struggle for survival as a species, political domination, etc. In the case of the aliens in Operation - Annihilate! it’s not even certain that these aliens are capable of wanting anything. It’s hinted that they’re all part of a single organism but does that organism possess intelligence? Or consciousness? That question is left nicely ambiguous. What is certain is that these aliens cannot be reasoned with or negotiated with. As with viruses it’s not even possible to say for sure that they are alive in a sense that we can comprehend. They may be more like biological machines. 

Perhaps they’re a kind of virus, but a virus that infects societies rather than individual creatures.

One thing this episode does do effectively is to convey the sense that the universe is likely to be a very strange place, and a hostile place - but hostile in ways that we may never understand. So a hackneyed idea is made more interesting and disturbing than we might expect.

The special effects may seem a bit crude but I don’t know how else the aliens could have been rendered. The only other option would have been not showing the aliens at all - having them be invisible like viruses. The disadvantage of that would have been to make them seem like a disease which would have made them a more familiar threat, and thus less effectively weird. On the whole I think the choices that were made in terms of showing the aliens were probably the correct ones.

The major weakness is that the personal element in the story, involving Kirk’s family on Deneva, is not developed at all and ends up being an unnecessary distraction. There are also one or two plot holes concerning the method by which the aliens travel from planet to planet.

I’m always inclined to prefer stories with genuinely weird aliens. This is an underrated episode which plays to the strengths of the series by focusing on the responses to the threat by the three main characters. Overall this one is pretty good, and an effective season finale. 

a third season Star Trek miscellany

Star Trek is far from being my favourite 1960s science fiction TV series. It had its great moments but it had some excruciating moments as well. For me the problem was never the occasional campiness. That doesn’t bother me. My problem was with the heavy-handed messaging in so many of the scripts. At times it was even more heavy-handed than The Twilight Zone which is saying something. There was also often a bit too much obviousness in the scripts. In season three the great moments were becoming progressively rarer.

That Which Survives

That Which Survives is a late season three episode which is a mixture of good and bad. The best news is that it’s entirely free of social messages. The bad news is that the story is not exactly dazzlingly original.

The Enterprise arrives at a planet which is very puzzling indeed. It appears to be only a few thousand years old but there is life on the surface. Complex life could not possibly have evolved in such a short time but there it is. As Kirk and three others are about to be transported to the planet surface a strange woman appears in the transporter room. She touches one of the technicians and he dies instantly.

Then things get really worrying. The Enterprise disappears, having been instantly propelled to a point a thousand light years away. Kirk and the landing party think the ship has been destroyed while on the Enterprise similarly grave fears are held for the safety of the landing party. Both sets of fears are well-founded. The members of the landing party are being stalked by that strange woman while the Enterprise has been sabotaged and may blow up at any moment.

The explanation when it comes might not be very original but there is one interesting twist regarding the woman’s motivations.

Lee Meriwether plays the murderous woman, Losira, and does a decent enough job. Her makeup is rather startling.

William Shatner gets to do some overacting, which is always good. Spock is particularly Spock-like in this episode while engineering officer Mr Scott (James Doohan) is ever more Scottish than usual.

That Which Survives works pretty well. It’s entertaining and it has none of the irritating ingredients that mar so many episodes. I recommend this one.

All Our Yesterdays

All Our Yesterdays was the second last episode of Star Trek, and it proves that even at this very late stage the series could still come up with a truly excellent story. It’s a time travel story with some nice twists. What’s particularly satisfying is that the twists are emotional twists as well as science fictional ones.

The Enterprise arrives just in time to rescue the inhabitants of a planet. Their sun is about to go supernova. Kirk, Spock and McCoy beam down and find to their surprise that everyone has gone, except for the ageing librarian. He is however more than a librarian.

Where have the planet’s inhabitants gone? It ties out that they’ve escaped into the past. Not in their imaginations but in reality. The librarian, Atoz, has invented a machine that can send them back to any period in the planet’s history. There is one little catch, which I’m not going to reveal.

The machine accidentally sends Kirk back to a time roughly similar to Europe in the 17th century. The fact that it looks more like a period in Earth’s history than in an alien planet’s history doesn’t affect the story. Kirk finds himself accused of witchcraft and finds out about the catch I mentioned earlier. Spock and McCoy are accidentally sent back to the Ice Age where they encounter the beautiful Zarabeth (Mariette Hartley). Amusingly, when she takes them back to her cave and removes her furs she’s wearing an incredibly skimpy costume underneath. This doesn’t make much sense except that hey, she’s really hot and she looks good wearing very little clothing and that can’t hurt the ratings.

Spock reacts very strangely to all this. It’s not just that he seems to be falling in love with Zarabeth, which is startling enough, but his behaviour is odd in other ways. What’s really neat is that the plot gives us a plausible and entirely satisfying explanation for his behaviour, an explanation I’m also not going to reveal.

There’s also a race against time element (that sun is going to blow at any minute) which adds some suspense.

Leonard Nimoy gets a chance to do some real acting as well and he’s able to make Spock’s personality aberration seem convincing.

This is a script (by Jean Lisette Aroeste) that ties all its threads, scientific and emotional, together very neatly and very cleverly. OK, by the halfway point you can see how it’s going to end but that’s not a flaw since it increases the emotional impact.

The time travel stuff is naturally pure technobabble but what matters is that at least it sounds like it makes sense (which is more than can be said for a lot of TV sci-fi) and all the implications have been clearly thought out.

All Our Yesterdays manages to be an original and surprisingly coherent time travel story, a story with some emotional depth and fine entertainment. This is the kind of episode that almost persuades me to forgive Star Trek for the disappointments of so many other episodes. It has a very effective ending too. This one is highly recommended.

The Cloud Minders

An episode of Star Trek with a political subtext is no surprise. There are countless such episodes. But The Cloud Minders is something different. The social message here is not a liberal one. This one is pure Marxist class struggle stuff.

The Enterprise has to pick up some ore from the planet Ardana. The ore is desperately needed to fight a botanical plague on another planet. Ardana is a rigidly divided society. On the planet surface (or rather below the surface since their main function is to mine the ore) are the Troglytes. They’re the oppressed workers. The members of the ruling class live in Stratos City, a city that floats in the clouds. They devote their lives to art and intellectual pursuits. They do no actual work. Their idyllic lifestyle is made possible by the labours of the Troglytes. And now the Troglytes are rebelling against their appalling working conditions.

What’s really interesting is that the ruling class are not an old-fashioned aristocracy nor are they quite a capitalist class. They are an intellectual/artistic class. They live lives devoted to art and philosophy. Those lives are of course based on exploitation.

The Stratos City dwellers pride themselves on the fact that Stratos City is entirely free from violence, while the Troglytes are violent and dangerous. In fact Kirk, Spock and McCoy (who have beamed down to Stratos City) will soon discover that the city dwellers are quite happy to use torture on Troglytes.

Kirk is naturally determined to end this injustice even if it means violating his orders and interfering with the government of Ardana.

The story develops in a somewhat contrived manner. This is not exactly a subtle story, but Star Trek was never renowned for its subtlety. It’s still a reasonably OK episode.

three Star Trek episodes from 1968

Three season three Star Trek episodes from 1968.

I have to be a bit careful in talking about The Enterprise Incident. Giving any plot details could give away spoilers so I’m going to be incredibly vague about the actual story.

We get first Kirk and then Spock behaving very uncharacteristically, and then we get an explanation of their behaviour that makes sense and is more than just a convenient plot device. It’s the heart of the episode, which is all about deception. It also offers some insight into their actual characters. They behave very dishonourably but they believe (rightly or wrongly) that they are justified in doing so. It does however tend to make nonsense of the whole idea of the Vulcans as a remarkably honest and honourable race. It is a little worrying that they seem quite unconcerned about their conduct. I’d have thought that these were both men who would dislike having to behave dishonourably, even if they felt that duty compelled them to do so.

In fact the episode makes nonsense of the whole idea of the Federation as the peace-loving virtuous high-minded entity that we’ve been sold on throughout the series. In this story the Federation is clearly in the wrong. Unfortunately D.C. Fontana’s script makes no attempt to explore any of these potentially fascinating aspects in any depth. The assumption seems to be that the Federation are the good guys so therefore whatever they do must be right. This is a missed opportunity but in 1968 the network was probably not going to allow the show to explore those aspects even had the writer wished to do so. And I suspect that Gene Roddenberry would not have been pleased at the idea of the Federation being exposed as hypocrites.

We also get an intriguing view of the Romulans. The Romulan commander (played by Joanne Linville) is also prepared to practise a certain amount of deception although she still comes across as being less immoral than the Federation.

There’s also an angle to this story that you could never get away with today - the Romulan commander is undone by her own female vanity. In fact we see a female commander who, unlike most such characters in later science fiction movies and TV, does not behave at all like a man. It would be enough to get a writer burned at the stake today.

All in all it’s quite an interesting episode even if it pulls its punches a bit.

There’s also a reasonable amount of action and excitement.

Had this story been done in one of the later Star Trek series I suspect it would have been handled much less successfully.

The Paradise Syndrome by contrast is a bit of a disaster even though there are a couple of good ideas. The Enterprise has to deflect an asteroid that is about to destroy an Earth-like planet. Before that can happen Captain Kirk manages to get himself lost on the planet surface and in the process he loses his memory.

It is a very Earth-like planet indeed. Inhabited by people who are not just humanoid but very obviously human. In fact they’re American Indians. They’re not just similar to American Indians, they’re identical to American Indians. Of course in Star Trek we get lots of Earth-like planets populated  by humanoids who really seem pretty human. What’s interesting here is that The Paradise Syndrome tries to explain that curious fact and does so in a reasonably convincing manner, and a manner that offers potential for future story ideas. That’s the most satisfactory thing about this episode.

We also get Captain Kirk falling in love. OK, it’s not the first time that has happened, but this time things go much much further than in any previous episodes. Unfortunately the love story plays out rather predictably.

The supporting characters are totally two-dimensional and behave in utterly predictable ways.

The pacing is leaden and although the story should have plenty of suspense and excitement with its race-against-time element if all falls a bit flat.

The episode’s best assets are the performances of Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley. Spock and McCoy spar, as usual, but the sparring has some emotional depth to it. Spock has to make some very tough decisions, he’s under real pressure and feeling the pressure, and McCoy is making a real effort to see Spock’s point of view and understand the reasons for those decisions.

The Paradise Syndrome is an exasperating and not very well-executed mixture of good and bad.

And the Children Shall Lead has the reputation of being one of the worst, if not the worst, Star Trek episodes ever. And how well it deserves its reputation.

The Enterprise arrives at the planet Triacus to find that all the members of the scientific team there have killed themselves. I have to say that after watching this episode you’ll probably want to kill yourself as well. Actually it’s only the adults who committed suicide. Their children are still alive and seem extremely happy. In fact they seem pretty pleased that their parents are dead.

Dr McCoy thinks the children are suffering from traumatic shock but it soon becomes evident that they’re possessed by some kind of evil. They try to take over the Enterprise. They do this by paralysing the crew members with their worst secret fears. OK, that’s a reasonably OK idea but it’s very clumsily executed. The fears conjured up are just silly and totally unconvincing. Kirk and Spock have the strength of character to resist and they realise that if they can’t free the children of the evil they’ll have to kill them.

The children are being controlled by an evil alien named Gorgan. He’s perhaps the least scary villain in television history.

The special effects are truly awful. They’re poorly conceived and badly executed.

The acting is dismal. The children, except for the blonde girl, aren’t convincingly evil. The regular cast members don’t distinguish themselves. That is perhaps more the fault of Edward J. Lakso's script than of the actors. Kirk, Spock and Dr McCoy are all put in situations with the potential for interesting explorations of their characters but the script fails to exploit the opportunities and the actors are left floundering.

The script has a couple of almost interesting ideas that aren’t developed. The pacing is leaden and the ending is feeble.

This is about as bad as television science fiction could ever get.

So three episodes, one very good and extremely interesting, one not so good and one terrible. Which sadly tells the story of the third season of Star Trek.

Star Trek: TOS Spock’s Brain (1968)

I’ve been slowly (very slowly) making my way through the original Star Trek series on Blu-Ray. I’ve approached the third season with some trepidation. It doesn’t have the best of reputations, and the season opener, Spock’s Brain, is widely regarded as one of the worst, if not the worst, Star Trek episode ever.

It originally went to air in the US in September 1968.

We get straight into the action in this one. A beautiful mysterious humanoid female, who looks human enough, transports herself onto the bridge of the Enterprise. The bridge crew are temporarily disabled. After a short interval the woman disappears. No damage appears to have been done, until Dr McCoy gives Captain Kirk the horrible news. Spock’s brain has been stolen!

The mystery female is obviously the brain thief but no-one on board the Enterprise has the slightest idea who she is, where she came from, where she’s gone, or why she wanted Spock’s brain. Kirk however is undaunted. He is going to get Spock’s brain back!

With surprisingly little trouble they find the planet to which Spock’s brain has been taken, and discover that the inhabitants have found a very good use for it. In fact the people of this planet need Spock’s brain as much as Spock does. Restoring the brain poses some real moral dilemmas which are, disappointingly, simply glossed over.

Those who enjoy mocking Star Trek will have a field day with this episode. It has everything that makes mocking Star Trek so much fun.

It also has all the weaknesses we associate with this series (although these very weaknesses are what make the series oddly appealing). We have a highly advanced planet with a monoculture and that seems to have a total population of a few dozen people. We have clichés like a helmet that can impart the sum total of technological knowledge to anyone who wears it. We have remote control devices that can be used to inflict pain. We have a civilisation entirely dependent on a kind of super-computer, although the super-computer is an actual brain. We have a civilisation that was immensely advanced but has degenerated to primitive levels. All pretty standard sci-fi tropes used many times in Star Trek and Lee Cronin’s script really doesn’t do anything interesting with any of them.

On the other hand it isn’t boring. The dialogue is excruciating but wonderfully entertaining. William Shatner and DeForest Kelley get lots of opportunities for outrageous over-acting, which they grab with both hands. Spock gets to be incredibly Spock-like. The aliens are pretty young women in short skirts.

Admirers of this episode (and it has quite a few) see it as a kind of homage to 1950s sci-fi B-movies and there is something to that. It doesn’t take itself at all seriously but it doesn’t make the mistake of trying to be too jokey. It has a certain innocence and even exuberance.

The Star Trek episodes that I have problems with tend to be the ones that take themselves too seriously and that try to beat a message into us with a sledge hammer. Spock’s Brain cannot be accused of those faults. It’s very very silly but it’s fun and I found it impossible to dislike it. It’s certainly not a good episode but it’s enjoyable.

Star Trek - Assignment Earth (1968)

There are a number of Star Trek episodes (I’m naturally talking about the original series here) in which Captain Kirk and his crew find themselves not only back on Earth, but on Earth in the 20th century. The methods by which this happens vary. The odd thing is that these episodes usually turn out to be quite entertaining, and often quite clever. The final episode of the second season, Assignment Earth, is a good example. It first went to air on 29th March 1968.

Art Wallace’s screenplay (the story is credited to Wallace and to Gene Roddenberry) has some playful moments and some high suspense. In fact it’s a sort of spy thriller.

It all starts when Gary Seven (Robert Lansing), in the process of being beamed by transporter beam over an unimaginable distance, gets caught in the Enterprise’s transporter beam. Gary Seven appears to be a perfectly ordinary twentieth century human, but if that’s what he is how could he have been transported across a distance of thousands of light years? He claims to be what he appears to be but explains that he’s been living for some time on a much more advanced planet, a planet the existence of which is totally unknown to the Federation. He also claims to be on a vital mission to Earth, The fate of civilisation might well hang in the balance.

His story, however outlandish, might be true. Or he might be some kind of alien in human form. Kirk has no way of knowing but he must decide whether he should be helping Gary Seven or stopping from doing whatever he plans to do.

Robert Lansing’s performance works very well. It’s very low-key but he conveys a strange kind of detachment which could indicate that his story is true and that he is a kind of interstellar secret agent engaged on a mission to save the Earth, or it could indicate that he’s totally non-human in which case his motives are anyone’s guess, or it could indicate that he’s just some poor paranoid deluded slob.

There’s some nice interplay between Gary Seven and his super-computer and there are nicely amusing exchanges with secretary Roberta Lincoln (Teri Garr) who has apparently been working for two of Gary Seven’s agents without having the slightest idea that she was working for secret agents from another planet. 

There is a bit of a political sub-text but it’s not too intrusive and the main focus is on Kirk’s dilemma. Should he trust Gary Seven or not? If Kirk makes the wrong choice the consequences will be unthinkably horrific. The loneliness of command and the pressures of having to make decisions that could mean life or death for thousands or even in this case millions are recurring themes in Star Trek and these themes propel some of the very best episodes.

This episode works so well because the audience is kept as much in the dark as Kirk - we really don’t know which way he should jump.

There’s a nice mix of humour, mystery and suspense. It all adds up to a very good episode.