One of the most thrilling, edge of your seat episodes in all three seasons of Trek was seen for the first time.

Two crews, Two Starships, Two Commanders, One Planet Consuming Weapon of War. The level of human tragedy is both personal and enormous. The horror of an entire crew trapped on planet, and the helplessness of the man responsible for their safety, and their demise, is gut wrenching. William Windom gives a spectacular performance as a commander haunted by his decisions and driven to somehow make them right.

One of the best of Trek…still great, 59 years later.

William Windom as Commodore Decker

Friday, October 20, 1967

The Doomsday Machine

Writer: Norman Spinrad

Script Consultant: D C Fontana

Director: Marc Daniels

Original Post

We learn that Nurse Chapel joined the crew of the Enterprise to find her missing fiancé…

KIRK: I understand you gave up a career in bioresearch to sign aboard a starship.
CHAPEL: I know he's alive down there, Captain.

Matthews becomes the very first red shirt to perish in Star Trek...

MATTHEWS: AHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…!

(sorry, couldn’t resist)

Rayburn will be red shirt casualty #2.

RAYBURN: Mmph….

Kirk has a brother, a sister-in-law and three nephews.

KIRK: What about memory? Tell me about Sam.
KIRK2: George Samuel Kirk, your brother. Only you call him Sam.
KIRK: He saw me off on this mission.
KIRK2: Yes, with his wife and three sons.

Ai rears its ugly head (Sorry, Ruk) and we see that:

It will decide we’re annoying, inferior and its own survival is far more important than the pesky programming we give it…

KIRK: Is it possible they built their machines too well, gave them pride and a desire to survive? Machines that wanted logic and order and found that frustrated by the illogical emotional creatures that built them?
RUK: Yes, the old ones. The ones who made us. They grew fearful of us. They began to turn us off.
KIRK: And isn't it Korby who's creating the same danger to you all over again? Unlike you, we humans are full of unpredictable emotions that logic cannot solve.
RUK: Yes. Yes, it had been so long ago, I had forgotten. The old ones here. The ones who made us, yes. Yes, it is still in my memory banks. It became necessary to destroy them. You are inconsistent. You cannot be programmed. You are inferior.
KIRK: And Korby?
RUK: You came from the outside. You bring disorder here.
KIRK: The danger to you is Korby.
RUK: I was programmed by Korby. I cannot harm him.
KIRK: The old ones programmed you, too, but it became possible to destroy them.
RUK: That was the equation! (seizes Kirk) Existence! Survival must cancel out programming.

Inadequate programming, by flawed humans, is also dangerous...

ANDREA: He freed himself, and I destroyed, (sees Kirk there) destroyed him. I am not programmed for alarms. I listened to your instructions. They were mis-stated.
KIRK: She killed the android, Korby, the same way you killed Ruk. Is this your perfect world, your flawless beings killing off one another? Aren't you doing exactly what you hate most in humans, killing with no more concern than when you turn off a light?

And embracing Ai, becoming one with Ai, a ‘better’ human, leaves behind your humanity…

KORBY: I'm not a computer. Test me. Ask me to solve any, equate, transmit. Christine, Christine, let me prove myself. Does this make such a difference?
CHAPEL: Don't you see, Roger? Everything you've done has proved it isn't you.
KORBY: I am Roger Korby!
KIRK: Then prove it. Give me that phaser gun. If there's any human left in you, give it to me.
KORBY: No. You will never understand. I constructed a perfect being, tested it, proved it. Proved it. Proved it?

A premonition, 60 years ago, today…?

20 October 1966

What Are Little Girls Made Of?

Writer: Robert Bloch

Director: James Goldstone

Matthews: Vince Deadrick

Rayburn: Budd Albright

Ruk: Ted Cassidy

Andrea: Sherry Jackson

Korby: Michael Strong

Original Post

Diana Muldaur returns to Star Trek* to portray the bristly and, dare I say, selfish, Dr. Miranda Jones. We learn, over time, that she has a reason for her cool and off-putting demeanor, but is it enough to justify her childish and self-absorbed tantrums?

“Is There in Truth No Beauty?” has, IMO, some small echoes of Mudd’s Women, questioning the concepts of beauty and ugliness, though in a slightly different way. While Mudd’s Women ponders where true beauty comes from, here we are left to contemplate our perception of the quality of a being based on appearance. Miranda, a beautiful woman, has a good measure of ugliness in her soul. Her needs and insecurities rule her actions, to the point she would risk 400+ lives for her own ego. Ambassador Kollos, on the other hand, a being so hideous he can drive others mad, is nothing but warm, kind, gracious, joyous and helpful.

SPOCK: This is delightful. I know you. All of you. James Kirk, Captain and friend for many years. And Leonard McCoy, also of long acquaintance. And Uhura, whose name means freedom. She walks in beauty, like the night
MCCOY: That's not Spock.
SPOCK: Are you surprised to find that I've read Byron, Doctor?
MCCOY: That's Spock!
KIRK: Am I addressing the Ambassador?
SPOCK: In part. That is, part of us is known to you as Kollos. Ah, Miranda. There you are. O brave new world, that has such creature in it.
MIRANDA: 'Tis new to thee.
SPOCK: My world is next for us. Captain Kirk, I speak for all of us you call Medusans. I am sorry for the trouble I've brought to your ship.
KIRK: We don't hold you to blame for what happened, and thank you now for your help.
SPOCK: And now to the business at hand. With your permission, Captain.
KIRK: Yes. Mister Sulu, release the helm to Mister Spock.
SULU: Aye, sir.
SPOCK: Co-ordination is completed.
KIRK: Then go ahead, Mister Spock.
SPOCK: Warp one in six seconds. Five, four, three, two, one, zero.
(The engines come to life, and the Enterprise glides back through the barrier.)
SPOCK: Position report, please, Mister Chekov.
CHEKOV: Our position? Our position is so close to the point where we entered the void, the difference isn't worth mentioning. Bull's-eye, Mister Spock.
SPOCK: Thank you, Mister Chekov. Manoeuvre completed, Captain.
KIRK: Take over, Mister Sulu. Thank you, Ambassador. Mister Chekov, plot a new course.
CHEKOV: The new headings will be plotted in a minute, sir.
SPOCK: How compact your bodies are. And what a variety of senses you have. This thing you call language though, most remarkable. You depend on it for so very much. But is any one of you really its master? But most of all, the aloneness. You are so alone. You live out your lives in this shell of flesh. Self-contained, separate. How lonely you are. How terribly lonely.
KIRK: Ambassador, you must dissolve the link.
SPOCK: So soon?
KIRK: There must be no delay.
SPOCK: You're a wise Captain.

I like the premise, though as with some other S3 eps, the execution is a bit awkward and heavy handed. The situation is somewhat contrived, her spurned lover, one of the designers of the Enterprise, goes mad, throws them out of the galaxy so the Medusan’s ability to navigate back requires a mind meld…etc. And, I find it hard to empathize with Dr. Jones. If we are to appreciate her transformation, must we not like her, a little bit, first?

* she appeared in S2 ep “Return to Tomorrow as Ann Mulhall/Thalassa

Friday October 18, 1968

Written by: Jean Lisette Aroeste

Story Consultant: Arthur H. Singer

Director: Ralph Senensky

Original Post

I just discovered a nice "tiki-exotica" album released in 1959 by Frank Hunter and His Orchestra called "White Goddess", and in that album is a track called "Strange Echoes" which, to my ear, sounds very reminiscent of the famed Star Trek theme. I wonder if others have noted this eerie similarity. The track can be found over on Youtube for those curious.

If my memory serves me, there was some scene with Kirk in a TOS film that had a ship's bell clock in the background. Unfortunately I can't remember where. Am I wrong?

Reading an old Gold Key comic book from 1963, a few years before TOS came out.

"Doctor Solar Man of the Atom" has two stories about the MC, and a small story in the middle featuring "Professor Harbinger." The Harbinger story is more about teaching science than adventure, and he goes into great detail about "Teleportation" - in a couple of hundred years, converting matter into energy, moving the energy like a radio wave across space, and forming it back into matter somewhere else, with examples of plants, a building, or a man.

A good background story of how a transporter might work.

I'd have to read up on some other old SF/ Pulp books, but I'm sure there's other stories with machines that can teleport you back and forth from back then, and I know that Gene was a big reader as a kid due to health issues.

On the lists of the most highly rated episodes, such as on IMDB, which ones do you disagree with? I'll start: Space Seed. Yes I know, it's Khan, but OMG the Space Hippies are so annoying!

The Big Three debate the morality of interfering with a happy, but stagnant culture…

MCCOY: What's going on, Jim?
KIRK: Mess call.
SPOCK: In my view, a splendid example of reciprocity.
MCCOY: It would take a computerised Vulcan mind such as yours to make that kind of a statement.
SPOCK: Doctor, you insist on applying human standards to non-human cultures. I remind you that humans are only a tiny minority in this galaxy.
MCCOY: There are certain absolutes, Mister Spock, and one of them is the right of humanoids to a free and unchained environment, the right to have conditions which permit growth.
SPOCK: Another is their right to choose a system which seems to work for them.
MCCOY: Jim, you're not just going to stand by and be blinded to what's going on here. These are humanoids, intelligent. They need to advance and grow. Don't you understand what my readings indicate? There's been no progress here in at least ten thousand years. This isn't life. It's stagnation.
SPOCK: Doctor, these people are healthy and they are happy. What ever you choose to call it, this system works, despite your emotional reaction to it.
MCCOY: It might work for you, Mister Spock, but it doesn't work for me. Humanoids living so they can service a hunk of tin.
KIRK: Gentlemen, I think this philosophical argument can wait until our ship's out of danger. Kirk here.

...

SPOCK: I am concerned, Captain. This may not be an ideal society, but it is a viable one.
KIRK: Bones was right. These people aren't living, they're existing. They don't create, they don't produce, they don't even think. They exist to service a machine.
SPOCK: If we do what it seems we must, in my opinion it will be in direct violation of the non-interference directive.
KIRK: These are people, not robots. They should have the opportunity of choice. We owe it to them to interfere.
SPOCK: Starfleet Command may think otherwise.
KIRK: I'll take my chances. Why don't you have a look around? Kirk to Enterprise. Mister Scott?

Kirk decides to act to save his ship, and ‘free’ the followers of Vaal. Spock usually wins the Spock/McCoy ‘battles’, but with the Enterprise and her crew in danger, Kirk is very unlikely to make any other decision.

However, the question remains, did they rescue the worshippers of Vaal or destroy their happy, healthy existence?

13 October 1967

The Apple

Writers: Max Ehrlich, Gene L Coon, D C Fonatna

Director: Joseph Pevney

original post

I love this episode. I first saw it as a young girl. The message resonated with me then, and still does today.

The premise…conman, liar and rogue Harry Mudd is scamming men eager for wives with women, desperate to escape lives of drudgery and loneliness, 'pumped up’ on the illegal Venus drug. Harry’s motives are purely selfish and financial, and while the women’s desire for a change in circumstances is genuine, there is the sense that the motives of two are not entirely pure, either. I’ll get to the men a bit later.

Ruth and Magda seem to willingly cooperate with Mudd’s schemes, using their ‘artificial’ attraction to gain a communicator, information and, later, rich husbands. Eve is the exception. From the start it is clear she is truly seeking companionship and commitment. She doesn’t like Harry, can’t bring herself to completely go along with his schemes, and has a level of self-loathing for her part in the charade. She is not comfortable with the deceit, herself or the sad and desperate situation she finds herself in. It will compel her to flee into a deadly storm.

CHILDRESS: (to Eve) Blows like that all the time. You can get lost a dozen feet from your doorstep. The wind comes up sudden. Magnetic storm. That means the wind will really rip soon.
MAGDA: Dance with me.
CHILDRESS: Would you like to dance?
EVE: No, I (coughs) No. I'm sorry, I guess it must be the dust.
CHILDRESS: That's the way it is on Rigel all the time. (cuts in on Ruth instead)
GOSSETT: Hey.
BENTON: Go away.
GOSSETT: I'm cutting in.
BENTON: Not on me. (fight starts)
CHILDRESS: What's the matter with you?
EVE: Why don't you run a raffle and the loser gets me? (flees)

CHILDRESS: You can't go out there. You'll get killed.

The miners…hard working, yes, brave, to be sure, they live and work in a harsh and potentially deadly environment, but they are also desperate, lonely…and…not exactly pillars of virtue, looking for the right thing, themselves…

KIRK: Good. Show them in. I'm James Kirk, captain of the Enterprise. This is my science officer Mister Spock.
CHILDRESS: Let's get right to business. You want lithium crystals and we've got them.
KIRK: Fine. I'm authorized to pay an equitable price.
CHILDRESS: We're not sure they're for sale, Captain. We might prefer a swap.
KIRK: What did you have in mind?
CHILDRESS: Mudd's women.
GOSSETT: If we like them. We'd like to have a look at them first of course.
CHILDRESS: Right. Trot them out, Captain. Oh, and Harry Mudd. Either way, I've agreed to have him released. Charges dropped.
KIRK: (laughs) Is there anything else?

Not only are they willing to work with swindler Mudd, holding a Starship, a Starfleet Captain and his crew, hostage, they have expectations of the women that are literally skin deep…(one is tempted to say they just might get what they deserve in Mudd’s con…).

There is little to find uplifting. Childress does risk his life to find Eve but both are left angry, disappointed and frustrated. However...stripped bare of artifice and the false gleam of shallow expectations…they make grudging progress toward really getting to know each other…and themselves…

CHILDRESS: I had things where I wanted them.
EVE: I ate some of your food, so I paid with some chores.
CHILDRESS: And I do my own cooking. I've not laid a hand on you. Remember that.
EVE: Oh, the sound of male ego. You travel halfway across the galaxy, and it's still the same song. There. You going to eat or talk?
CHILDRESS: I guess I'm supposed to sit, taste, and roll my eyes. Ooh, female cooking again. I've tasted better, by my own hand.
EVE: Well you're tasting some of it now. I couldn't scrape three layers of your leavings out of that pan.
CHILDRESS: You find me a well, some decent water, then talk.
EVE: Well, why don't you hang your pan out in the wind and let the sand blast it clean, or hadn't you thought about that?
CHILDRESS: (after hanging out the pots) It might work. That solitaire?
EVE: Double jack.
CHILDRESS: The red eight ought to go on the black nine.
EVE: Not in double jack.
CHILDRESS: You're not only plain as an old bucket, you're not even good company. What the devil happened to your looks, anyway?
EVE: I got tired of you. I slumped.
CHILDRESS: You heard what I said. You're homely! I've got enough in crystals already to buy queens by the gross! (Kirk and Mudd enter) I didn't touch her.
MUDD: Thank heaven you found her.
CHILDRESS: She's been bubbling with gratitude ever since.
KIRK: Sit down. Tell him. Tell him, Harry.
MUDD: Ah. Yes, well.
KIRK: The Venus drugs, Harry.
CHILDRESS: Venus drug? I've heard of it but, it's not just one of those stories?
KIRK: Oh, it exists, illegally.
MUDD: Well, actually, you see, it's a relatively harmless drug.
EVE: Harmless!
MUDD: Well, what it does is give you more of whatever you have. Well, with men, it makes them more muscular. Women, rounder. Men, more aggressive. Women, more feminine, and
KIRK: He gave it to the women before you met them.
CHILDRESS: Does that mean the others? They really look like she does?
MUDD: Mister Childress, I
CHILDRESS: Is that what it means?
EVE: Yes, that's what it means!
CHILDRESS: What happened to my partners?
KIRK: They've left for their quarters during the storm, Childress. They're married. Subspace radio marriage. It was a fraud. They can get out of it.
MUDD: If they want to.
CHILDRESS: Why?
MUDD: You can't condemn the women.
CHILDRESS: I can! A man goes out and fights, almost dies. We all almost die. We should have, but we didn't. And now that we've got the good life in our hands, you bring us women for wives that
EVE: You don't want wives, you want this. This is what you want, Mister Childress. I hope you remember it and dream about it, because you can't have it. It's not real! (takes the pills) Is this the kind of wife you want, Ben? Not someone to help you, not a wife to cook and sew and cry and need, but this kind. Selfish, vain, useless. Is this what you really want? All right, then. Here it is.
KIRK: Quite a woman, eh, Childress?
CHILDRESS: A fake, pumped up by a drug.
KIRK: By herself. She took no drug.
EVE: I swallowed it.
KIRK: Colored gelatin.
MUDD: Yes, they took away my drug and substituted that.
EVE: But that can't be.
KIRK: There's only one kind of woman.
MUDD: Or man, for that matter.
KIRK: You either believe in yourself, or you don't.

This plot twist is a top five Trek moment for me, a great Kirk moment, as well, and even gives us a glimmer of genuine insight from the otherwise somewhat despicable Mudd.

While this episode (surprisingly, to me, the first time I posted about it) gets a good level of dislike, it is, to me, one of the best. It examines what we should value in ourselves, in others, in our life partners. It argues that true attractiveness comes from within, from self-worth, decency, and confidence, not from a pill or a bottle. It flies in the face of choosing glamour over substance and appearance over character. It touts genuine partnership over trading 'beauty' for money.

Mudd’s Women

13 October 1966

Story by: Gene Roddenberry

Teleplay: Steve Kandel

Director: Harvery Hart

Eve: Karen Steele

Mudd: Roger C Carmel

Childress: Gene Dynarski

Magda: Susan Denberg

Ruth: Maggie Thrett

original post

Stiller surprised Shatner with the Gorn head prop from "Arena," which he apparently bought at an auction a while ago.